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(No worries!) The young man’s breath caught again, his hand tightening around the dagger as though it were the only anchor left in the shifting chaos. But there was no certainty now—no bravado. The shadows pressed in, cold and suffocating. The dagger in his hand felt heavier with each passing second, its weight not just of steel but of something far more insidious, something that was beginning to drown him. “What do you mean?” His voice cracked, hoarse with desperation. “What do you want from me?” The figure’s form flickered and reformed, a dark, shifting nightmare that seemed to speak directly into his mind. “You seek eternity, yet you do not understand its cost. Eternity is not time—it is a void. A *hunger* that devours what you are, piece by piece. You will never age, never fade, but you will *lose* everything that made you human.” A cold wind howled, tugging at his clothes and hair, as though the very room was alive with malicious intent. The young man’s chest tightened, his stomach a gnawing pit of uncertainty. *What was he really asking for?* He had wanted to escape the constraints of mortality, to transcend the fleeting nature of life—but now, faced with the cold, grinding reality of what that would mean, he couldn’t breathe. “You will lose your warmth, your joy, your love," the voice continued, its tone growing darker. "You will become something *other*, something more ancient, more distant. A creature of shadow and time. And what’s left of you... will be *hunger*.” His heart hammered in his chest, each beat like a drum echoing his rising panic. He felt the dagger in his hand, its blade gleaming with a sinister promise. *Is this the price? Is this what he must give?* But no—the price wasn’t just blood, wasn’t just sacrifice of the body. It was a sacrifice of the soul. “What will you be without your humanity?” the figure asked, its voice dripping with disdain, yet it carried the force of inevitability. “Can you even fathom the emptiness?” The young man looked at the dagger, the cold steel now seeming to pulse with an unholy rhythm, as though it had its own heartbeat. His breath quickened, and his fingers tightened around it as a terrible clarity began to wash over him. He had imagined immortality as a grand, endless journey—one of eternal triumph and power. But this... this was not a gift. It was a curse. His thoughts scrambled, but in the end, there was only one truth that rang clear: *He could not go back. He had already stepped too far.* “I’ll take it,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the growing storm of energy around him. “I’ll give it all. Everything.” The figure’s form dissolved into a twisted spiral of darkness, only the eyes remaining—two pinpricks of white light that bore into him with a knowing, calculating gaze. “Then it is done,” it whispered, its voice fading into the shadows. And in the next breath, the room exploded with a blinding light, so bright and consuming that he could not see, could not breathe. The dagger, still clenched in his hand, seemed to burn with unbearable heat as though it were fusing with his very soul. Pain shot through his chest, through his mind, and he screamed—but the sound was swallowed up by the void. The world tilted once more, and the darkness fell away, leaving only silence. When the light finally ebbed and his vision cleared, he was no longer in the room with Selene, nor was he standing on solid ground. He floated, suspended in a place beyond time, a void where nothing existed except for the echo of his own breath. His body felt strange, as though he were both weightless and hollow, a mere fragment of his former self. And then the voice returned, cold and knowing. “You have chosen eternity, but remember, there is no coming back from this. You will never know rest. You will never know peace.” The young man wanted to scream, but the sound was lost in the abyss. He reached out, his arms trembling, but there was nothing—nothing to touch, nothing to hold. He had become *nothing*. And in the far distance, a memory flickered—of his past self, of the man he had been before he asked for immortality, before he became a shadow. But it was already fading, like all things do. Like he would. |
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He had run himself to near exhaustion, his limbs trembling and his breathing catching in the cold air. Breathing soft huffs of smoke into the pale blue of the evening, he walked himself into a clearing, the little spot illuminated by only the moon. He shook the length of his body as the tension seeped out of him, embracing the soft grass under his paws he slowly lowered himself to the floor. At sunrise he would leave for New Orleans, he would risk everything his father had built, his people and their way of life. He groaned as he began to shift back, his body contorting and writhing through the transformation. He flopped onto his back, with gritted teeth he waited for the last few changes to subside, and released the breath he didnt realise he had been holding. Blinking his eyes into concentration he studied the world above him, the emptiness and the space. Drawing from an ancient magic within him, he reached out with his mind and senses, grounding himself, connecting himself to the worlds around him. He heard the short snorts of deer nearby, startled by his presence. The chittering of mice, the flap of wings, he spent time on each, acknowledging all the lives around him. Each connected, each so very individual. His ability to harness and use this magick had been passed down his bloodline, through his mother and her ancestors. A very powerful magic indeed, one connected to the very beginning of the earth itself, and yet he felt like a child playing with fire. He had barely scratched at its surface and on his own he gained very little of it, more than once he had discovered an ability through pure luck. Without real instruction and guidance, he felt at a loss. The grass under his palms vibrated and hummed, the cool air around him swirled and twisted with a gentle breeze. He drew from deeper, unsure of what direction to go in he latched onto the strongest pull, and followed it. The ground began to tremble and shake, the trees strained against the gusting wind now swirling around the clearing, he was slipping. Falling without a ledge to hold, alone in a void, in a dream so deep he might never wake. Letting go of the pull he found himself seated upright, his eyes snapped open and the wind that had once swarmed, dissolved into a breeze, the earth regained its stoic composure. Was that my work? Where did it come from? Running his fingers through the cold grass, he sat with the questions. He tilted his head back, watching as the clouds floated over the moon, he didn't know if he had been in control then, or if this magic could even be controlled. He would need to find a way to control it, he needed every advantage to stand against Lucian. He sank back down, closing his eyes. That would be tomorrows worry, he would drink in the peace of the evening while he still had it. Slipping into slumber, he dreamed. Of his father, his mother. He dreamed of a power so damning, so grotesque he could taste it. He dreamed of a woman. |
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Her heart twisted, but she made no move to stop him. She couldn’t. She had seen this all before. The desperate yearning for immortality, the hunger for eternal power, for a life that stretched beyond the limitations of time. She had been there, once. Had felt that same longing, before she came to understand the true cost of eternity. But it was too late now. His decision had been made. The moment he spoke those words, the room seemed to pulse with dark energy, a sickening, suffocating force that surged outward, swallowing the light. His body jerked, his face contorting in agony as the transformation began. The dagger, still clenched in his hand, seemed to sing with an ancient hunger, and Selene knew the price had been paid. He was bound to it now, just as she had been. There was no undoing it. As the light flared, brighter than she had ever seen it, Selene had to look away. She could feel the surge of power, the eruption of energy that could shatter worlds—and yet, there was something hauntingly familiar about it. Her own past flickered in her mind, unbidden: the same pain, the same fire coursing through her veins when she had chosen eternity. The same emptiness that had followed, creeping in the dark spaces of her soul. She had once believed it would be different. That she could wield eternity as a weapon, as a gift. But no—there was only the hunger. The insatiable, unrelenting hunger that stole everything, even your sense of self. The light began to fade, and Selene’s breath caught in her chest as she saw him. Or rather, saw nothing. He was gone. Not dead, not fully alive. He was… suspended, a fragment of a man caught in a place where time no longer had meaning. The void, endless and cold, stretched around him, and his eyes—those bright, panicked eyes—seemed lost, searching for something that no longer existed. Her heart hurt, a deep, old ache that never truly went away. She stepped forward, as though drawn by an invisible thread, though she knew it was futile. There was nothing she could say now, nothing that could change the course of what had been set into motion. The young man drifted in that void, his form indistinct, like smoke. His face, his body—everything he had been—was slipping away, devoured by the very choice he had made. He tried to speak, but his voice was lost in the abyss. She could hear the echo of it in her mind, the same words that had echoed in her own head when she had first fallen into this endless trap: What have I done? And yet, there was no sympathy in her heart for him. There could be none. She had walked this path alone, and she would not—could not—be his savior. "You have chosen eternity," she whispered, her voice a soft breath against the crushing silence. "But eternity is not a gift, not a reward. It is a burden, a chain that pulls you deeper into the darkness. There is no peace here. Only hunger." The voice of the void returned, like an old friend, its whispers curling around her mind. She could feel it—the cold hunger that lived in this place, that lived in her, that gnawed at the edges of everything she had been. The same hunger that would now consume him. She watched him, helpless as he drifted further into the abyss. There was nothing to hold onto here, nothing to ground him to the world he had left behind. He would fade, just as she had faded. His humanity would slip away like a dream, and what was left of him would be nothing but a shadow, a hollow echo of the man he had once been. She turned away, knowing there was nothing more to be done. She had tried to warn him. Tried to show him the truth before it was too late. But there was no saving those who had already made the choice. Eternity, after all, was a long time to regret. |
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The rain drummed down onto his windshield, his wipers battling the downpour. Three hours into his drive, he had finished his car trip snacks and water. He would have preferred to have run the distance, but the risk of being spotted or noticed was too high.
With his music on, and the constant fall of rain in the background, he thought of Lucian. His intel had let him know that Lucian had eyes everywhere, a vast majority of the city worked for him, both human and vampire. A young lady of the night had told Kane about a night club where Lucian might frequent, and although Percy had insisted such a woman was not to be trusted, Kane defended her credibility. He would look into it, he thought, when he felt confident it was a worthy opportunity. Pulling the car into the driveway, he took note of the area he was in. Sparse green trees lined the road, they paled in comparison to his towering forests, but he reminded himself that this was only temporary. The parking lot was underground, something that would take getting used to. While seeming mundane enough, he knew better than to be complacent, he extended his mind to the world around him. There were no woodland creatures, no scuffing and scuttling. In a shock he realised he couldn't hear the ants, or birds. So instead he noted the footsteps, shuffling about, and the voices coming from the floors above and below him. He settled himself into his new apartment, it wasn't home, but it would do. The quaint apartment had small features he found he did like, the window facing the street with a reading nook, the big open living area, and the shower big enough for a small family. He decided to cast a protection spell around the apartment, and enchanted the door way with a spell Orion had taught him. A light, durable spell, it wouldn't blast an enemy away, but they would have a hard enough time trying to get in. The magic had taken a bit out of him, leaving him with what he felt to be the start of a headache. Spells and witchcraft, why did I let Orion convince me I needed this. |
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Selene’s steps were heavy, as though the weight of her own past had suddenly grown unbearable, pressing down on her chest. The room felt colder now, emptier, like a tomb. She could still feel the echoes of his pain reverberating through the air—an energy so familiar that it turned her stomach. It was the sound of a soul breaking, of a life being swallowed whole by something far larger than it could ever comprehend. But she knew, even as the remnants of him faded into the nothingness, that he would never truly be gone. Not in the way one might hope. Immortality wasn’t a clean end—it was a slow, gnawing process of becoming less and less of what you once were. His face, his name, the person he had been would be buried under layers of darkness, forgotten in time, but the hunger would remain. It always did. And with it, the torment. She had heard the stories—other immortals who had fallen, who had lost themselves in the endless corridors of eternity. She had seen them too, lurking in the dark spaces of the world, their eyes hollow, their minds fractured. Some tried to keep a semblance of their humanity, clinging to memories and emotions that no longer had any meaning. Others, like her, had embraced the emptiness. It was easier that way. The less you felt, the less you could be consumed by it. Her fingers brushed the cold, smooth surface of the altar in the center of the room, the same altar where her own transformation had begun. A cruel reminder. She hadn’t wanted to come back here. But now, standing in the silence of it all, she couldn’t look away. The air hummed with the residue of what had just happened, the reverberations of his choice still rippling outward, like a stone dropped into a pond. She felt it deep in her bones, the same tremor she’d once ignored. "Why?" she whispered under her breath. The word tasted foreign on her lips. Why had she chosen this? Why had she believed, for even a second, that there was something worth saving? The answer was simple: because she hadn’t known better. Because, at one point, she’d believed she could outlast the hunger. She could have the power, the immortality, without the price. She had been a fool. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to deepen, pressing in closer as if to answer her question, but there was no solace to be found in their silence. Only the same weight that had driven her to walk away from everything she once cared about. The same emptiness that filled her chest, every second of every day, pulling her further from the world she had once known. She closed her eyes, letting the void wash over her, familiar and unyielding. It would never let her go. Not fully. And now, neither would he. The young man. His soul was bound here, just as hers had been, drifting between life and death, trapped in a timeless prison of his own making. Her thoughts grew cold, the sharp edge of bitterness cutting through her heart. She had warned him, had tried to show him what he would become. But there was no stopping this. No undoing the choices they made once they were set into motion. In the silence, she finally let herself feel the familiar ache again. The weight of all the lives she had lost. The weight of her own fractured soul. She had hoped—no, *believed*—that she could somehow make it mean something, that there was some way to escape this path. But in the end, all she had found was an endless road that wound deeper into the abyss, without hope of a destination. She took one last, long glance at the space where he had been, knowing it was the last time she would see him. His fate was sealed. He had made his choice. Just as she had once made hers. "Eternity," she muttered softly to herself, her voice bitter, "is a prison with no bars." |
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The rain patterned against his window, the evening settling in, and him along with it. The rain called to him, it's scent and sound a comfort, grounding him. He had brought an old book of healing magic, one taken from the archives of a sorcerer long dead. Sigrid had begun teaching Percy to control and weave healing spells in his early childhood, but the education was not enough for him. To be able to heal a bruise is one thing, it would do him no good for something severe, and what use would he be then. No. Not good enough indeed. He curled himself up to the window, the reading nook soft and warm. With a firm determination he recited the sigils and words along the pages. A spell for healing bone, one for mending soft tissue, another for skin repair. He absorbed the information as a sponge would, soaking it all up until he just about radiated with the power beaming through him. Many of the spells were out of his reach, if he were to attempt one without the proper care and timing he could over extert himself. He'd be no good then either, if he was dead how could he hope to help others. He closed his eyes, settling his head back against the wall. Thoughts, like snakes, wound their way through him, coursing through his mind with little to stop them. If he had only been strong enough to save his father, it was him who had been there, him who had seen his father fall. Him who had held his father as he died a slow, painful death. Him who was powerless to save his father. The sky outside his window boomed with thunder, the soft rain becoming heavy as his thoughts began to drown him, the grief clawing at him, the wound gaping. He tried to breathe, and choked on it, his eyes glazed over as he fell to his knees. Sitting on the floor, battling his pain, his head swarmed and swirled. Thoughts and what ifs spinning him in circles as his throat tightened, No! Quiet! Silence. He etched the symbol into his mind, and no sooner had he finished the last line, did the swirling come to a halt. His breathing ragged, he stared at the floor between his knees. This grief would consume him if he didn't confront it soon, with time not even the magic will hold it off. And it was time he was running short of. |
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She turned away from the altar, her gaze sweeping over the room one last time before she stepped into the shadows. There was nothing left here for her, no reason to linger in the place where so many of her memories had been twisted into something unrecognizable. The walls, once familiar and almost comforting, now felt like they were closing in, suffocating her with their silence. As she moved through the darkened halls, the echo of his voice lingered in her mind, soft and insistent. She had tried to silence it, to block out the fragments of his pain, but it was impossible. He was already becoming part of her, just as the others had. The hunger was insidious, weaving itself into the very fabric of who she was. It had started as a whisper, a thread of doubt and longing. Now, it was a scream, a constant ache at the edge of her consciousness. There would be no peace. She had lived for centuries, watching empires rise and fall, seeing countless faces come and go. She had outlasted them all, outlived the fleeting moments of joy and passion that had once made her human. Yet, in the end, it was all the same. Time was a cruel illusion, and immortality was the true cage. "To never die," she whispered, her voice barely a breath in the stillness, "is to never live." She stepped through the door at the far end of the corridor, the weight of the outside world pressing in as she emerged into the night. The cool air brushed against her skin, offering nothing in the way of relief, but it was a reminder—one of the few things that hadn’t changed, that still existed in its purity, untouched by the darkness that consumed everything around her. But even that wasn’t enough to save her. She could feel it, the slow unraveling of her spirit. It had started long ago, but the truth had taken years to sink in. Immortality was a curse, a slow-burning fire that could never be extinguished. It wasn’t just the weight of the past that wore her down, it was the future that she could never escape, the endless, empty road that stretched out before her with no end, no resolution. As she walked through the night, she let herself fade into the shadows. There would be more lives to ruin, more souls to consume. She would leave this town, this place of haunting memories, just as she had so many others. She wasn’t sure where she would go next. Perhaps it didn’t matter anymore. She had once believed in the possibility of change, in the hope that there might be a way to find peace. But that was before she truly understood the cost of eternity. And now, it was too late for that. The world would move on, as it always had, and she would remain. An empty shell, a shadow of who she once was. Eternity wasn’t a gift. It was a sentence. |
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A warm glow lit up the room, waking Percy from a deep sleep. With a grumble he stretched himself out, his long body taking up almost the entire bed. Filling his sink with water, he mumbled a scrying spell, and watched the apparation swirl and shudder into the bowl. The scout he had followed was sat in a bustling crowd, Percy recognized the busy street market in New Orleans, just minutes away from his house. The apparation moved as if to follow the scout, and he watched as another young vampire joined the scout. They spoke quietly about arbitrary things, Percy paid no mind to it. He realized the two had a fondness for each other, as they held hands and spoke words of longing. With a wave of his had the apparation disappeared and the sink returned to a bowl of clear water. He washed his face, and dressed in a hooded cloak. If the scout was worth anything, it was high time he made use of him. The scrying spell had taken a chunk of energy out of him, but he decided he didn't want to waste time breaking his fast. He snatched a dried piece of meat out of his satchel and closed the enchanted door behind him. The scout would lead him to Lucian, he was certain of it, his only concern was the other powerful vampires that would be among Lucians foot soldiers. Kane was to ride into New Orleans within the week, until then Percy decided it best to wait and watch from a distance. Gather as much intel as he could, and avoid gathering attention. A busy marketplace would be a perfect opportunity to be a nameless face in the crowd as he watched on from the shadows. A way to stay hidden in plain sight. |
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Selene drifted through the quiet streets, the cobblestones slick with the remnants of a rain that had long since passed. The moonlight gleamed off the narrow alleys, casting fleeting shadows that danced like ghosts. The town was asleep, its heartbeat slowed to a distant murmur. Yet, the marketplace ahead pulsed with a strange, restless energy. It was a place where lives intersected, where the living and the dead collided in ways that made the air feel charged, electric. She paused at the edge of the square, just beyond the reach of the flickering lanterns that lined the streets. The market was empty now, but she could see it as it had been, as it always was—vibrant and full of life, the noise of vendors haggling, the cries of children running through the crowds, the scent of spices and fresh bread mingling in the air. All of it was a fleeting illusion, and she had seen it too many times to be fooled by its charm. The ache in her chest gnawed at her once more, sharper now, as she stepped closer to the stalls that still stood like silent sentinels in the moonlight. The marketplace had been her playground for centuries, a place to feed, to take what she needed from the desperate and the broken. The faces had changed over the years, but the desperation in their eyes never did. It was always the same—a hunger for something more, a need to escape the inevitable truths that came with life. She walked between the empty stalls, her fingers brushing against the wood, worn smooth by the countless hands that had touched it. In the silence, she could almost hear the echoes of their voices, the desperate bargains made, the fleeting hopes that had been crushed in the wake of her passing. The market had been a reflection of her existence—forever in motion, forever offering what could never be fully obtained. Her thoughts drifted back to the altar, to the promises made in another lifetime, to the man who had tried to undo the damage she had done. She had failed him, just as she had failed everyone who had come before. And now, the marketplace—once a place of possibility—felt like nothing more than a reminder of all the lives she had touched and discarded. She turned her gaze to the horizon, where the first light of dawn was beginning to stain the sky with shades of pink and gold. The world was waking up, just as it always did. And she would watch it, as she always had, from the edges of the crowd, forever apart, forever untouched by the fleeting moments of connection that defined the lives of others. But even as the light crept into the world, she could feel the hunger stirring within her once more. It was a part of her now, just as the darkness had become a part of the marketplace itself. The world would continue to turn, but she—she was the constant, the shadow that never fully faded. Eternity was not just a sentence; it was a silence she could never escape. And so, she lingered, a figure lost among the empty stalls, a witness to a world that would continue without her, as it always had. |
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The noise of the market rose and fell with the loud calls of vendors and children. It was a sight Percy had never seen, a wonder. Had he been in town for any other reason, he might have enjoyed the thrill, the smells. Instead he stalked his prey, shadowing and mimicking its movement, his focus keen. The scout walked carelessly, with an air of arrogance and a blatant conceit. Percy stopped at a stall, the old lady sat at it greeted him with a warm smile. She had various trinkets laid out, from steel to beads, she had made small miscellaneous novelties. Easy sellers to those who liked to collect items, and those with children. He picked up a carved wooden wolf, no bigger than his hand but expertly crafted. Shifting and turning the piece over within his hands, he took a second to appreciate the art of it, before putting it down and moving on. As his target moved, Percy followed suit. Staying in the shade, he watched the scout stop to speak to a vendor selling vegetables. The exchange lasted no more than a few minutes, and then he was moving again. Eventually a gentleman joined the scout, the young vampire from before, and the two walked together to a clearing. They sat themselves down in the shade, and seemed to settle into conversation, and so Percy paid for a tankard of wine from a flushed faced vendor, and stepped back into the dark recess of the shadows. Watching. A piper played a somewhat lively tune in the square, as young children danced and skipped around playfully. A few teenagers joined in, the raucous laughter and screams filling the market as they giggled and danced. Their freedom and joy pulled against his inner grief, how he envied their youth and naivety. He had once known that kind of happiness, but it had been a long time ago, and long since forgotten. Shifting his eyes to the conversation in the shade, he refocused his senses. Scrying the scout every time he had need of him would wear him out, he needed a better way to track him. There would be time enough for him to enjoy the market, he had more substantial matters at hand. |
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Light Rain then Clearing Overnight
