Vein

Chapter 3

I am awakened by smell of fire, as I sit up I fall right back down disoriented and seeing stars. I start to rub my eyes but stop when I see my hands, they're bloody. Now all my grogginess is gone and I'm wide awake checking myself, my clothes are soaked and even my hair. But there's not a scratch on me, who's blood is this? As I look around the fire I spot Alexander trying really hard not to laugh at me, he's with a much larger middle eastern looking man that seems to radiate strength. The man is just staring at the fire paying no attention to Alexander.
"What the hell's so funny?!" I yell at Alexander causing him to double over with laughter. The man rises and is easily a foot taller than me and at least 4 feet wide, he strides over to me and holds out his hand looking at me expectantly. I go to shake hands but he reaches past my hand to clasp my forearm, a bizarre method I've never seen before but I do the same and then he looks pleased.
"I'm Ahmet, you're cole I presume?" He has a deep voice and a dialect I can't place
"Yeah I'm cole, um when did we get here? Better yet, who's blood is this?"
"That would be that fools doing" he pointed at Alexander, who in return grabbed at his heart, leaned back, and gave an over dramatic face.
"You call an elder a fool? Is there truly no hope in the youths these days" at that he appeared next to me with his arm around me.
"But cole here shows great promise in obeying elders, is that not right my boy?" He smiled warmly at me
"No the last thing you told me to do was go to sleep"
"And you did a magnificent job at that!" He released me and went to stand by Ahmet
"Now Ahmet, how about you inform our young one about our ways and customs so he may join us on his journey?" Ahmet nodded, looking satisfied Alexander went to poke at the fire.
"What all do you know about us?" He asked as he took a seat motioning for me to do the same
"I know that for sure that you aren't human, but that's about it"
"So you know next to nothing, that at least gives me a place to start. Well it would be easier to show first" Ahmet then proceeded to take off his shirt, I noticed what was weird immediately after it got over his chest. There was a baseball sized hole all the way through where his heart should be, I got closer to look better as I looked through Alexander popped up on the other side.
"BOO" he yelled
"AHHHHH" I screamed rolling backwards, by the time I got rebalanced he was already on the ground cackling like a demon yelling
"IT NEVER GETS OLD"
Ahmet sighed as he turned around to him.
"Could you please let me teach him, without anymore interruptions" he acted very polite to Alexander which was weird because he looked like he could destroy Alexander if he felt like it.
"I'm sorry, will not happen again honest" he said wiping a tear from his eye, Ahmet turned back to me and sighed again.
"Now as you can see I have no heart, and are most likely wondering how I live. In short it is a complicated process that every person must go through in order to join us. The veins and arteries connected to the heart connect to keep our blood inside but blood rushes rapidly through our veins contrary to having no heart.
Now any questions about that?"
"Why remove it?"
"It is very closely tied to our culture and history, back to the beginning in Alexander's time. People would remove hearts from persons who would openly break their laws or not abide by the religious customs set. Those who survived did so in secrecy and shared their blood with others with same ideas, thus forming our clan of doves."
"Birds again? Alexander called something earlier the crows, who are they?"
"They are our kin that have left our ideas and ways, those who directly oppose us now and who we just escaped from." He rubbed his face like he hadn't slept right in years.
"What ideas are those?"
"We as doves have always sworn to stay out of am kinds way and keep to our own. With our lack of heart and irregular bone structure we lack the ability to create blood of our own so we feed on humans bones"
"Irregular bones?"
"Indeed, during the transformation your bones harden to iron but in the process lose their ability to produce red and white blood cells. So when we eat humans bone we absorb those cells for a time, usually we can go about a month before we need consume more."
"You eat people! Why would I ever want to join you!?" I roared outraged that they could ever do such a gruesome and twisted act
He got an icy stare and straightened his back giving and imposing height even seated.
"No we don't "eat" people, well at least not the whole person and never anyone who would be missed or ever noticed. We feed from people like suicide victims, funeral homes before cremation, and death row inmates. But the crows however eat the whole person viciously and without prejudice, slaughtering families and eating all even the children. They even treat them as a delicacy, making a big event when they catch a lot of them then holding feasts for the whole clan." Alexander at that point ran out of patience and walked over to where Ahmet and I were sitting. He grabbed Ahmet by the top of his head and pushed him aside so he was directly in front of me leaning down to me with a very dark expression, all previous joy had left his eyes.
"Now are you going to join us or the child eaters?" He said the question so surprisingly and easily he scared me more.
"Join you?"
"Yes those are you only choices, us or them? And they are much less compassionate than us, if you chose them you pr choice will be made for you"
"If those are my only choices then you guys sound worlds better" his smile returned and the dark ambiance broke.
"How do we do this then? I asked hoping that it wouldn't be too bad
"It's easy! Don't worry just watch" he grinned which distracted me for a bit until I saw a familiar flash, I looked down and my eyes widened to see his arm buried to the elbow in my chest. He smiled childishly when I looked back up.
"See?"