[IC] MONSTORY

[Dead Cruiser]

"Suicide," came Cerasus' answer at first, as simple and vague as she had expected it to be. "After only a few short years as a vampire, he threw himself into the sun, where I dared not follow." He elaborated, after a moment.

Looking melancholy, Cerasus sat back down heavily. He dangled his legs over the edge of the roof, resting his head in his hands and his elbows on his knees. "Nine out of ten vampires die by their own hand. The remaining percentage are killed by vampire hunters. Any other causes of death are infrequent enough to be rounded off." He looked back to Izzy, smiling bitterly. "So now you know."

[Riven Wight]

As vague as his answer was, shock crossed Izzy’s face at the single word. “I’m... I’m sorry.”
Her gaze followed Cerasus as he returned to sit at the roof’s edge, a seed of pity for the vampire’s tribulations sprouting in her. When he looked to her, she did not immediately look away. Unsure what to say as he finished, she turned her attention to the rooftop and sat, pulling her knees to her chest and draping her arms over them.
She stared out at the fields and trees beyond the tangled mass of weeds of the schoolyard for a couple moments, then took a deep breath.
“Thank you, Cerasus,” she began quietly. “For sparing me. And rescuing me that first day.”

[Dead Cruiser]

"Think nothing of it," Cerasus said, nearly reflexively. "I was merely saving my own life by proxy. If you had died, I would be as good as dead, myself." He tried to pass off his saving of her life as self-serving, but Izzy could tell that he did not mean what he said. His answer was too quick, as though it had been rehearsed. For all of his power, he was a rather bad liar. She thought back to what Riley had said before, that Cerasus could not bring himself to kill her. If she asked him, Riley would probably have predicted that Cerasus would lie about it as well.

"Boredom kills most vampires more than anything else. Endless life can be a very dull thing. I know all too well. It alarmed me that he would kill himself so quickly, after such a short time. I created no thralls after that. Until you, of course." He looked back over the dark of night, and a calmness entered his voice. "You did not bore me, my servant. Nearly every one of your actions were completely absurd. You even called me 'Cerasus' from the very beginning."

[Riven Wight]

“Uh huh,” Izzy drawled dubiously at his too-quick response. She cast him a sideways look, her head tilting slightly toward her knees. “For an ancient, all-powerful vampire, you could really do with working on your lying skills.” Her lips tugged upward in an amused half-smile.
She shifted her gaze once more out to the scene beyond the rooftop as Cerasus spoke.
“Dull? But, the world’s always changing. There’s always something new to see, and so much of it out there. See something one year, and it might be completely different the next. Well, other than here, anyway.”
Izzy groaned at being called 'my servant.'
“Would you please stop calling me that!” she moaned toward the sky, the request emboldened by his current amicableness. “Call me ‘Helga’ for all I care. Just not... that.” She exhaled through her nose, then sighed. She cast him a curious glance as his last statement registered. “Well. 'The Hot-Blooded, Cold-Blooded, Iron-Blooded Vampire' is just a little too long,” she finished lightly.

[Dead Cruiser]

At Izzy's insistence for Cerasus to no longer refer to her as "servant," he sat straight up, and looked to her with a sort of dignified expression. "I have no intention of referring to you as anything else. You are my precious servant, and as such you will be known by me." His expression softened, if only slightly, as he carried on. "Now, I did not come up here to brood and to banter. I want to hear about your life. You have lived for sixteen? Seventeen years? It shouldn't take long. Come, regale me."

[Riven Wight]

Izzy’s attention turned fully to Cerasus when his posture shifted. She shied away slightly when he looked to her, unsure what kind of response to expect from him. Though irritation at his first statement crossed her eyes, she dared not argue, silencing the retort at the back of her tongue. Her brows twitched ever so slightly in surprise at his use of “precious.” Then they rose, silently questioning, “What’d we come up here for, then?”
When Cerasus finished, she inhaled, hesitating.
“Seventeen,” she began slowly, uncertainly. “I’ll be a senior in high school.” She shifted her grip around her knees. “There’s really not much to tell. Like I said, lived here my entire life, like my parents and grandparents. Don’t know why, but they love the place. It’s a dull, small town that keeps getting smaller. And impossibly duller. My brothers like to stir up trouble, though. Those two could probably drive Gandhi to an enraged insanity.” She smirked at the thought, but the expression faltered. She had avoided mentioning her family thus far for fear of them getting hurt, that they could be used against her, as Trevor had been. It felt almost wrong to talk of them now.
“Other than that,” she continued a bit quieter, “spent a lot of time outdoors with my granddad until he died." She gave a small smile at the memory. Talk of the dead felt safe enough. “Still do, though. I’d take the open air over staying inside any time, day or night.” In emphasis, she leaned back on her hands, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath of the cool night’s air, relishing the lingering crisp scent of rain. “There isn’t much better than the warmth of the sun on your face, and having a dirt trail beneath your feet, if you ask me.”

[Dead Cruiser]

Cerasus seemed to listen to Izzy passively, looking out over the darkness of night as she spoke. It seemed as though he was more listening to the sound of her voice than the words she was saying, but he nodded attentively at the correct opportunities. He sat in silence for a while, after she finished speaking, but eventually spoke so suddenly that it gave Izzy a start.

"I remember... a joke. I may have heard it once. I forget where. Eh, it goes... A man says, 'I am so fortunate to have such a loving wife. She only ever strikes me with the soft end of the broom.'" He finished, looking expectantly up at Izzy for her appraisal of his joke.

[Riven Wight]

When silence fell between them, Izzy opened her eyes and looked to Cerasus. She wondered what was running through his head, why he had taken any sort of interest in hearing about her life.
In the quiet that settled, she returned her hands to her bent knees and rested her chin on her arms. She jumped and sat up straight when Cerasus’ voice shattered the silence.
She gave an amused smile when he finished, more at the randomness of his statement, especially coming from him, of all people, than the joke itself.
“That’s... cute,” she offered when he looked to her. Her expression faded, changing to one of curiosity, her head cocking slightly. “How long has it been since you last had a conversation--an actual, friendly conversation--with someone?”

[Dead Cruiser]

"Too long." He answered, in his usual, laconic way. "For nearly as long as I have been alive, I have been alone. Whenever I met another, it was to battle them. Until him. Until you." He shook his head, sending his blond curls bouncing about his shoulders. "Regardless, I compel you to tell me a joke, now. I have not heard one since before the invention of electricity."

[Riven Wight]

Though Izzy had put up a wall between herself and everyone she knew, she could not imagine what it would be like for someone's only interaction with others consisting of battles.
Any sympathy she had drained from her face at his command. Though not given unkindly, she inhaled and looked ahead of her, the pressure in her chest telling her that, even if she had not wanted to, she would comply.
“A man was walking by a mental institution with a tall privacy fence,” she began with the first joke she thought of, her voice as stiff and irate as her expression, and tongue sluggish. “From the other side, he heard a bunch of people chanting, ‘Thirteen! Thirteen!’ Curious, he peeked through a hole in the fence, and someone poked him in the eye. From the other side, the group cheered, then started chanting, ‘Fourteen! Fourteen!’”
Not bothering to look to Cerasus to see his reaction, she hugged her legs toward her chest, her gaze dark. “Maybe if you said ‘please’ instead of ordering one out of people, you won’t have to wait another two-hundred years to hear your next one,” she snapped.

[Dead Cruiser]

Hearing Izzy's joke, Cerasus pursed his lips and took on a ponderous expression. He seemed to consider her words very carefully, his eyes wandering in deep consideration. With all of the careful deliberation of a sommelier sampling fine wine, he eventually nodded in what was likely supposed to be a sage manner.

"Yes, that was interesting. A usual sort of joke, I suppose." He said, in a completely dry and humorless tone. "Let us have another. Eh, please."

[Riven Wight]

When a moment passed without hearing anything from him, Izzy looked to Cerasus, who seemed to be taking the joke amusingly seriously for, well, a joke.
She made a gentle, “huh” sound when he requested another. Though tacked on, he at least made that extra effort of politeness. She took a deep breath, releasing it slowly.
“Alright. But only because you said ‘please.’” She looked away and thought for a short moment, before looking back to him. “How can you tell you have a really bad case of acne?” She paused appropriately, not expecting Cerasus to guess, but giving him the opportunity. “When the blind try to read your face.”
She paused again and cocked her head. “You know, I think I have a joke book collecting dust around my house. Most of them are cheesy, but no one would miss it if you’d like it, Mr. Joke-Connoisseur.”

[Dead Cruiser]

The routine of Izzy telling a corny joke, and Cerasus responding soberly continued for some time, somewhat amusing them both in some strange sense. Eventually Cerasus attempted to formulate a "modern" joke based on what he had been told. The result was so bizarre that Izzy could not help but laugh aloud, and so Cerasus laughed in turn. Not the hideous laugh of the King of Aberrations, but the innocent, joyful laugh of the man that had not known a friend in five-hundred years. The night carried on, and the two devolved into the mood where either laughed at anything the other said.

Perhaps, if Izzy remembered anything about that night, she would remember that she and Cerasus laughed together.

Eventually, though, Cerasus said, "That is enough. I think it is about time to return you to being a human."

While this was great news for Izzy, she had another matter on her mind. Her stomach turned in hunger; just a few hours ago it had been a dull ache, but now it pulled at her quite noticeably. It was distracting to say the least. What if the process required her concentration and she couldn't keep it up? She needed something to tide her over; human blood was out of the question. Perhaps just putting something in her stomach would help? She hadn't eaten in two weeks after all. She needed to try something.

[Riven Wight]

When Izzy heard Cerasus’ laugh alongside her own, she paused, a smile still on her face, and looked to him, her legs dangling over the side of the roof, and heels tapping against the bricks. It made him sound almost... human.
Of all the ways she had thought the night would end, with the tenseness and awkwardness that had existed between them worked out in the bubbles of their laughter echoing through the night was not one of them. A pleasant surprise, indeed.
By the time Cerasus decided to call it enough, Izzy was laying on her back, feet still hanging over the roof at the knees, and a hand draped over her midsection as she looked at the beauty of the stars and the wispy clouds floating lazily over them.
She turned her head toward him with a grin, about to ask if he had ran out of things to say already, when he continued.
She sat up and drew her feet back onto the rooftop, sitting with her legs crossed. Excitement buzzed through her at finally getting what she had worked for. She glanced toward the city, when the hunger that had grown gave her a reminder of its presence now that her laughter had quieted down. The mirth displayed on her face faded as she glanced down to her stomach.
“Cerasus,” she began slowly, thinking about how to phrase her question as she looked to him. “It’s been about two weeks since I’ve eaten anything. And my stomach’s not appreciating that very much right now. Can we... Would normal food help?” she finished hopefully.

[Dead Cruiser]

Cerasus gave Izzy a perplexed look for a moment, and began to say, "I thought you had-" but stopped, and his expression straightened. "If you consider it pressing that you feed yourself, then do so. But be quick about it. Better yet, acquire your rations and return here with them. I myself am quite famished, since returning to my perfect form. I will make preparations in the meantime."

[Riven Wight]

Taking that as a ‘yes’ to her question, Izzy nodded. “See you in a few minutes, then.”
Deciding to take advantage of her vampiric abilities for the short remaining time she would have them, Izzy didn’t bother with the stairs. Though she hesitated at the roof’s edge, she jumped down the side of the building, mimicking Riley’s earlier descent.
The moment her feet hit the ground, she straightened and ran toward the road, wondering what kind of preparations Cerasus had to make, and thinking on where she could get food.
Even in a small town like this, supermarkets were locked and under surveillance. Besides, she did not feel like stealing. The only other place she could think of, was home. But did she dare risk that? Her going there could spell disaster, if anyone was up, especially with the gnawing in her stomach. But, where else could she go?
With a resigned sigh, she hurried into the city, navigating the streets expertly and staying to the shadows, though the streets were deserted at this hour.
Once she reached her home, she checked for any sign that anyone was up, hoping her parents were still on the night shift. The fewer people to worry about waking up, the better. All the lights were out, so she stole inside through the back, using the key they kept hidden, just in case.
Making an effort to breathe as little as possible in case the smell of humans would only wet her hunger, she went as quickly and quietly as she could, avoiding the creaky floorboards. In the kitchen, without turning on any lights, she grabbed a reusable grocery bag, and gathered the needed items for a couple sandwiches. She flinched at every creak or moan of the house, ready to flee if she so much as heard a yawn. She paused only to grab a cinnamon roll from a plate with a couple others in the fridge that her little brothers had somehow not eaten, munching on it as she gathered the other supplies. Before she left, she grabbed a second one for Cerasus, wrapping it in the plastic wrap that had been over the plate.
She was almost at the back door, when she passed the doorway into the living room. She cast a quick glance up the stairs, then rushed to the bookshelves. She scanned the titles, found the joke book she had mentioned earlier, and added it to her bag before heading back out into the night, locking the door behind her.
Izzy returned to the abandoned school as quickly as her legs would carry her.
“Hope you like bologna sandwiches,” she called as she ascended the first flight of stairs, searching for Cerasus.

[Dead Cruiser]

Chomp. Gnash. Chew.

Cerasus was already eating when Izzy returned. The smell hit her vampiric senses like a truck. Blood. He crouched in the hall, hunched over something hot and wet. A human corpse, steaming fresh. Split open up the middle, with his insides minced into pieces. Not all of his limbs were still attached to his torso. Cerasus ate greedily from the dead body, blood running down his chin and staining his arms up to the elbows.

Izzy had always known about this, at least in theory. The simple fact that vampires subsisted on human blood. But this was the first time she had witnessed it. Its true carnality. There was nothing elegant or romantic about this. This was predator and prey. A monster clutching a dead human.

The shape of a face caught Izzy's attention. The body's head was just a few feet away, staring at her wide-eyed. Though it was bloodied, half of its flesh torn off, its remaining features were recognizable to her. Especially the metal pieces stuck in it. It was the head of Guillotine Cutter, the human vampire hunter. Though she dared not look back at his mutilated corpse, she knew its clothes looked familiar.

Cerasus took notice of Izzy and looked back at her, as though nothing was amiss. "Ah, you're back earlier than I expected." His eyes gestured to the dead body he knelt over. "He stopped by while you were gone. It seems the barrier cannot disguise me at my full power. In any case, he came by at the perfect time. A handy restorative." Cerasus looked curiously at Izzy's grocery bag. "What is that? Did you not fetch your rations? With the spectacles?"

[Riven Wight]

Izzy immediately recognized the metallic, yet sweet scent that hung heavily in the air. It stopped her in her tracks before she caught sight of its source, not far down the hall from where she stood. She stared at the ghastly scene ahead of her, forgetting how to breathe, to speak. She felt like she was going to be sick, but she had to know who it was, who he had killed, if she knew them or not. Swallowing hard, she dared look to the ripped face of Cerasus’ victim.
She gasped as she recognized Guillotine Cutter, the piercings on the half of his face still intact glistening with blood, what remained of his expression frozen in a state of terror and agony. She thought he would have left like the others, once defeated by her, by someone weaker than the man--the monster--they had hunted.
Though she hated the hunter for what he had done to Trevor, she would not have wished this fate on him. She would not wish such brutality on anyone.
She exhaled shakily, and looked away from the horrifying sight. Her attention snapped to Cerasus when he spoke, keeping her eyes from following his gesture to the gutted corpse. But she could not look at him long, soiled in crimson as he was. Realizing as he finished speaking that the two of them had very different definitions of “normal food,” she swallowed hard, unsure if her voice would work.
“I-I meant... ‘normal food,’ like... like human food,” she managed in a soft squeak. “Not...” She glanced down to the bloody mess. She quickly averted her gaze and took a couple steps away, trying to keep herself steady. She leaned her back against the wall, using it to help keep her on her feet.
This was what he had expected her to do? The type of “rations” he had anticipated her bringing back?
“H-how could you?” she began, her tremulous voice rising from a nearly inaudible whisper to a shout that echoed down the hall as she continued. “You... you didn’t have to kill him! That... that you’re kind of revenge? Ripping him apart like... like a rabid animal? Or would you have done that to anyone unfortunate enough to wander in here tonight? He’s,” she gestured to Cutter’s remains with her empty hand, “a human! Insane as he was, without Riley’s help, he was practically harmless! I defeated the guy in five seconds flat!” She shook her head. “How could you?” she hissed again, then took a couple backward steps down the hall before turning, wanting to place distance between her and the sight and scent of the blood saturating the hallways.

[Dead Cruiser]

Cerasus' mouth twisted at Izzy's protesting. He wiped away the blood from his mouth with the back of his sleeve, and stood to his full height. "Bah, this fool thought himself clever, coming to ambush me while I was alone. Last mistake he ever made. Don't place yourself on a pedestal above me, my servant. I die if I do not feed, and you are no different from me."

You are no different from me. The last words Izzy heard from him as she fled the school, unable to bear being in the presence of a body that had been a man merely minutes ago. To think how close she had come to deciding to be a vampire for eternity. That was what she would have to look forward to. What she still had to look forward to; she was not human again just yet.

I die if I do not feed. So simple, as though it were common sense. Izzy supposed it was, in the end. The most obvious thing, which she had managed to overlook. Not truly, she merely ignored it willfully. She had fretted over it before, but this was the decision that she made, and it had stared her in the face with cold, dead eyes. A man was dead because of her decision. More would die. Who was next? Trevor? Her brothers? Her parents.

Izzy realized that she was having a panic attack. She was hyperventilating, though that did nothing to her undead body. The sunrise was not far off. She needed somewhere to hide and collect her thoughts. Though she felt like no matter how much she rummaged in her brain, this nightmare wouldn't suddenly make sense to her.

[Riven Wight]

Outside the school, Izzy leaned against the rough bricks of the wall beside the front door. She tried unsuccessfully to calm herself, to push the gory image of Guillotine Cutter from her mind, to stop the echoing loop of Cerasus’ last words in her head.
She needed to find somewhere for the day, somewhere away from Cerasus, from the madness surrounding her. Away from Guillotine’s lifeless body, and the smell of his blood.
With dawn approaching, Izzy pushed shakily from the wall, swallowing hard against her panicked, rapid breaths, and ran from the school. There were a few old farmhouses, now long abandoned, further out from the town. Even if they were not as well boarded up as the school, she was sure she could find at least a corner untouched by the sun.
In no time, she found one of the abandoned farms. Though the two-story home was choked by overgrown weeds and ivy, its windows boarded up in a hasty mess and covered in graffiti, Izzy picked it out easily.
As the first fiery colors of the sun began to paint the horizon, she squeezed in through a broken window she assumed some vandals had torn the boards from.
The rank smell of mold and mildew greeted her, mingled with the stale scent of cigarette smoke. The floor beneath a threadbare carpet creaked loudly from her weight as she stepped fully into what may have once been a living room. She stopped, listening for signs of anything living. She heard only the creaks her presence had sent through the house, and the faint sound of something dripping on the upper level.
She moved through the house, searching for what she thought would be the darkest place. Finding a basement behind an old, decrepit door, the steps between metal railing nearly all rotted away, she jumped down into the room below, closing the door behind her. Made of concrete, it had only a single window large enough for someone thin to squeeze through, its glass blacked out by boards on the outside.
Izzy ignored the many spider webs and their occupants strewn through the room. A few rows of storage racks took up one end, a few forgotten glass containers resting among yet more webs.
Sure she would be safe from the sun, and not be found in the unlikely event someone came to investigate the old house, Izzy went to the side opposite the racks and sunk heavily to the filthy floor, her grocery sack falling beside her. With a shaky sob, she placed her face in her palms. No matter how hard she tried to push it away, the image of Guillotine Cutter with Cerasus bent over him, covered in crimson, was burned into her brain and flashed in the darkness behind her eyelids. That was the monster she allowed to return to power, all so she could become human again. The monster she feared she would become from not becoming human. If he had not fed on Cutter, it would have been someone else. And there was no telling who would fall to Cerasus’ hunger next time. Perhaps someone she knew, someone she loved.
Even if she had prevented Cerasus’ return, it would have been a lose-lose situation for her.
Her own hunger had only grown, excited by the scent of what it desired. She had known, deep down, the truth of what Cerasus had said, only shoving it as far from her mind as possible. But now, she would have to face it, one way or another. She did not know how long she could go without blood, or what factors influenced it. And she had spilled plenty of her own to save Trevor. She would have to do something to satisfy it, if only long enough for her to become a human again.
She let out a long, slow breath and leaned back against the wall behind her. She glanced over to her grocery bag.
It wouldn’t hurt to try. Slowly, with trembling hands, she started pulling out the bag’s contents, which included a couple paper plates and a butter knife for the mostly empty jar of mayo she had grabbed. Taking her time to hopefully let the normalcy of the actions bring some sort of unstable calm, she made herself a sandwich. Wiping the butter knife off on a second plate, she ate it as slowly as she had made it, hoping beyond hope that it would dilute the hunger, if even only fractionally.