Reborn in Blood: Stories of Transformation

Reborn in Blood: Chapter Four

Reborn in Blood:  Chapter Four

Movement was impossible.  She struggled to sit up, only to find herself bound.  Her arms and legs were secured by leather straps to each of the corners of the bed.  Panic set in as she thought she was back where she started, in the utter emptiness.  The room slowly began to take shape though, and a cold realization set in:  This is my room.  The posters, the stuffed animals that had been carelessly tossed aside, and the pictures…the pictures that should hold meaning, but were now completely devoid of it.

To her right she heard the doorknob turn, and the door squeak open on un-oiled hinges.  Trying to glimpse the intruder, she stifled a gasp:  It was the man from the field.  He walked to her bedside, and reached out to stroke her cheek; she tried to turn away from his cold and rough hand.  “She’s awake,” he called out in a deep familiar voice.

She could hear the stairs creaked under the weight of footsteps.  Four people entered the room; all of them were indistinguishable due to the blood red robes they wore, and the hoods that covered their shadowed faces.  They surrounded the bed, two on either side of her, with the man taking his place at the foot of the bed.  “Is she ready?” a man to her right asked.

“Ready or not, it is time.  This is the final ritual.”  The voice was distinctly feminine, it was a voice she knew well—Mother….

The man at the foot of the bed spoke up, “Let me say my goodbyes to my mortal bride.”  Bride?  I do not remember marriage, each nightmare seems to expose more lies—This cannot be my life.

“You have three minutes, we have no time to waste,” her mother said.  “Do not be idle child.”  With that, the hooded conclave exited the room leaving them alone.

“You do not know what you are part of do you?” he asked looking at her, “If you fully understand you would be more accepting.”  He ran his hands through her hair.  “These past thirty-nine days have been hell I know, but for your suffering you will gain eternity, and power that we never imagined.  Your mother has taken many risks to get this chance for you.  If the coven ever found out….  We can worry about those things later.”  He leaned closer to her then placed his lips to hers, forcing his tongue into her mouth.

She wanted to scream, but instead she bit down.  Her teeth nearly severed the muscle; she could taste his blood filling her mouth as he tried to pull away.  The robed members quickly flooded into the room hearing the struggle, they had to use all of their self-restraint not to laugh at the man as he whimpered in a corner wiping the blood away from his mouth.

“I told you, you could not break her,” her mother said coldly.

“Then how will you control her?” a female on her left asked.

“She’s my daughter.”  The woman let the hood drop to her shoulders revealing an older Asiatic woman with graying hair and crows feet.  “Come it is almost….”

The door burst open, the entire room looked to see the interloper who had dared interrupt them—it was the man who she had called daddy.  His skin held a pallor that was beyond death, and he shook incessantly.  He took several unsteady steps forward; it was at that point she saw the blade he clutched in his pale hands.  She saw the madness in his eyes as he approached, he fell forward the knife plunging downward with him—she did not even have time to scream as darkness descended.