Change is sweeping through the world, as humanity fights for autonomy, discord tears apart the foundations of the vampire order, and dhampirs return to the world after centuries of war between two powerful peoples. Dhampirs, creatures known to heral...
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The dim light from the window finally faded, and Ghost opened his eyes to the shadows. It was impossible for him to sleep endlessly, though he certainly tried. His vampire body didn't require sleep so it only slumbered for as long as the sun forced him from consciousness. Ghost also wished he could say he never dreamed, but he did. It was the same every night. Darkness. For eight hours every night give or take, he stared out into nothingness. On occasion, he would hear a whisper but the foreign voices never had meaning.
Every night in his dreams he reached for Stone. In the state between wakefulness and the eternity of death, he screamed for his other half until the sun ripped his eyelids open and he was forced to face the truth. The void had severed their connection. Stone was more than his brother, he was a part of him. Since the moment Stone had failed to change into a vampire and Ghost had fused his soul to his brother's to save him, they had been one.
They were one.
So each day he rose to the world, crippled. If he was a normal person, it was as if someone had ripped out one of his eyes, deafened an ear, and singed the tips off one of his hands. Half was not normal, it was debilitating. That is what Stone had wished for, for Ghost to have his life back like that was something he'd ever desired.
Since their joining, the whisper of individuality that Stone retained had constantly apologized for taking Ghost's life from him, but Ghost had never felt that way. They were one, and Ghost had constantly quelled the last living doubt Stone held with the joy he experienced for his brother's presence. They existence was uncanny to most, confusing to others, but Ghost loved Stone as his brother did him. They were complete together, as one, and they were never more comfortable then lying next to one other with their bodies entwined. It was as they'd come into this world, in one womb, as copies of the same man. Vice, a name he'd left when he'd lost Stone, the name that encompassed the being that was the combined souls of Ghost and Stone.
The door to his room opened, and Ghost picked himself up to shade his eyes from the hall light. If left alone, he would reminisce about Stone until he slept once more, about everything they'd done, time they'd shared, words they'd said, but it changed nothing. Ghost settled into a seated position expecting Silvia Arc, but silver glided through the air and he took a more respectful pose, bowing his head as Neil Arc entered the room with his mate.
Ghost had met Neil as a young human boy, innocent to the world of vampires but already knowing of loss and pain. It had been decades since that young boy had cowered under his father's hand and struggled through becoming one of vampire kind. A man stood tall in that boy's place, adorned in the black dress ware of the Arcs, wisps of blue embroidery depicting the wind that he wielded do fondly. It drew out the sheen in his silver hair where it hung ahead of his shoulders down to his waist, making the Arc leader absolutely regal.
"Neil," Ghost bowed his head in a wasted formality that no one ever wanted from him.
It wasn't that he respected Neil more than Silvia, just that he saw the man less and didn't want him to think he was ungrateful for the place they'd given him to stay. Neil grimaced as Ghost raised his eyes. No matter how many times Neil asked him to stop bowing, he never did. Talamayas would straight up grab him by the skull and set him into a standing position if he ever thought to bow to him, but Neil was kinder. Even so, Ghost preferred Talamayas to anyone.
