CLIVE

Leading Up to This

I approached him cautiously, the hissing and odor intensified. I was so terrified. I had no idea what he had gotten himself into, and he was only getting worse. "Clive?" My voice sheepishly cracked in horror. I was inches from touching him, when he let out a cry. What was this cry for? Agony? Pain? Satisfaction? I dug through the trench of emotions and fought away the thoughts that were attacking my mind. This was at one point, the love of my life, how did it lead up to this? Why was he so out of control? Did he even know what was happening right now, or is he so blacked out that this will all be forgotten tomorrow?

He was hunched over a pool of blood, his skin as white as the moon that shone above the sky. We were in the vault, our safe place where we rested in complete darkness, only lit by candle light. The shadows of our bodies danced across the stone walls, bouncing left and right then up and down as if they were as shocked as we were in this situation. They imitated me, taunted me, they looked much braver than I did as they made contact with his shadow so easily. I finally touched him. Ice was all I felt, this was not the man I had fallen in love with years ago, this was a complete monster. I knew he was still in there somewhere, but I had let him get to this point and there was nothing I could do in this very moment to stop him from feeding and by the way he was breathing I could tell he wanted more. 

He froze, stopping all movement, the dead silence grew longer and longer. What was seconds felt like minutes. If I could still sweat, my palms would be soaked, my forehead hot, but I was not longer mortal. I still felt like I was though, with the way the thoughts raced through my mind. He quickly turned and struck me, I retaliated by biting him because it was the only reaction I knew to do in this very moment. Maybe it would throw him off guard, I was wrong. His skin being pierced by my slender elongated cuspids resulted in a break in his ice cold dermis, and the same ice cold liquid began to flow into my mouth.

 Disgust hit me, it tasted of rotten cheese, rotten fish, anything rotten under the sun. I spat it out onto the floor. He rushed to the small splatter and began vigorously sopping up the pile with his snake like tongue, I was even more horrified than before. The flavor no longer mattered to him, he was so far gone that as long as it was plasma, he would ingest every last drop. "Clive!" I yelled. "Clive! Clive! Cl...iv..e...." 

The tears were uncontrollable, my human emotions flooded through my tear ducts and down my cheeks. I rushed over him, the fear was over run by sadness. I mustered up the strength to pin him down as he flailed underneath me, 'just enough to knock him unconscious', I thought to myself. How in the hell did we get here? This was the love of my life. We had two beautiful daughters who we both love so much, so how did I not notice him get to this point? I don't want him to hurt us by mistake, that would just add to already tragic experiences I endured in the past, and I would never want my children to feel that way. This is when I got a good look at him. 

The sclera of his eyes were jet black, pupils enlarged, irises were thin but still the piercing blue I learned to love. Everything about him was almost unrecognizable, his eyebrows were more defined, his vessels and capillaries were almost as pale as he, with a light blue tint. These vessels covered his face like layers and layers of spider webs covering its prey, ready to feast on the innocent creatures that entangled within. I grabbed his face between my palms and my tears flooded my vision. I didn't care to see him like this anymore. He suddenly stopped fighting the weight of my body hunched over him and went limp. 

I rushed to wipe my tears from my eyes, but was met with his hands. A gentle finger swept across my cheekbone. I grabbed it off and kept it in my grasp, wiping the rest of my tears away with the sleeve of my wool knit sweater. Once my vision cleared, I was met with a familiar gaze. Clive was staring compassionately into my eyes, all of his features returned to a normal state, something I was comfortable looking at, something that made me feel at home. "June...why does it smell like blood...?" He had forgotten it all. I was so heartbroken that he could create a path of destruction and not remember a single detail about it. "I was...." he coughed a long wet cough, as if something was blocking his airways. I lept off of him, holding the fold of his arm in aid of lifting him up. He sat up, then hunched over the floor. 

After multiple attempts at breath, the object that seemed to be blocking his breathing dislodged itself and flew out of his mouth. A large wet nasty red clot slapped the floor "What happened, June....?" He sounded so terrified. I gasped as my hands covered my mouth, trying to hold in a scream. "I was...having a dream, there was yelling coming from the sky..." He turned himself towards me, I had been blocking the view of his victim while trying to get him to come to. I avoided eye contact with him and slid as to not block the consequences of his actions. My arm shakily lifted as I pointed to the dead body on the floor. "Clive...." I fought tears. "Clive you tore a human being apart, not only that but you slept with this human before ripping her limb from limb. You have absolutely gotten out of control..." My bucket of emotions had overflowed, spilling out onto the floor of my mind. I would be insane not to turn the faucet off, to not let my emotions ever get to this point again. He let out a small villian-like chuckle.

"This is who I am now" He said it as plain as day. "Don't you know with power comes sacrifice..?" He sounded so sane as if this wasn't a horrible act he just committed. The faucet was on full blast, my mind flooding the whole room, filling up to the windowsills, flowing up to the ceiling, filling up the whole house so much that is was about the burst. "I have no words to say right now, but you best leave!" My voice raised so high in volume, the flames lessened among the wicks, almost completely fading to nothing. He got up, soaked in blood, dripping wet as he crossed the room. He was hunched over like some kind of creep watching over his prey, our eyes never leaving each-others' glare, scanning across the room. "You used to love me June, we are supposed to be bound for life, by blood! I made you who you are you never forget that!" 

He wiped the half dried blood from his face, as if he was in a drunken stupor, sliding his feet heavily across the floor as he got closer to the staircase. It was true, he made me who I was. I was mortal before this. My life wasn't exactly perfect before though, I wanted at one point to become immortal....to become a plasma drinker...to become a vampire. "There is a dead naked woman, in several pieces, scattered across this room, and you put her there in this situation. Do you really think I am thinking about any of that right now?" My body filled with rage with every word that escaped my lips. 

Clive rested his forehead in his palm closing his eyes, little pieces of his choppy black hair falling over his fingertips. He rubbed his head a little to relieve the headache that had formed from his forgotten form into an unruly monster, who I didn't even know existed. "I walked in on you hissing trying to put your pants back on. You had to have atleast been conscious enough to realize you were doing something you were not supposed to be doing." I gasped for breath after speaking, I was appalled. He scoffed, "It was just a little taste, you are being so over dramatic." He opened his eyes, and walked closer to his victim. The audacity for him to gaslight me in this situation was so uncalled for. The realization hit him as he got closer, his bare foot hitting something wet. A puddle of thick red viscous blood. His eyes followed the puddle all the way to a limb, her right leg. It laid there so still like it didn't move just hours ago. This was a human life he had taken. How was he going to get out of this mess? If anyone else finds out about this he would be shunned out of existence.