ASCENSION

Chapter One - The Killing Fields

“What’s new about this attack, O’Shea?” Justus questioned as we all sat at the dining room table with Captain O’Shea on speakerphone. There was definitely a sense of tension in the air as everyone was getting frustrated that the College Rapist was leaving no evidence, no trail.

Embellished with a smattering of choice words, O’Shea managed to say that the incident occurred in Gramercy, in the stairwell of an apartment building. A twenty-one-year-old student on her way home from a club was attacked with the same MO as the other recent sexual assaults, or attempted assaults, in Manhattan East. Once again, the perpetrator escaped without leaving any evidence and couldn’t be identified by the victim. Listening to the details of the case made my stomach turn. He apparently stalked his victims in bars and clubs frequented by college students then followed them and forced himself upon them. The victims who were left battered and violated could never identify him because he would hold them facedown with their hands bound. How could someone do such a thing to another human being? I had to leave partway through the briefing to clear my mind. I needed to be alone.

Up in my room, I looked at myself in my bathroom mirror wondering how I could do this. The eyes that looked back at me were tortured, my skin translucent. How could I live like this? How could I ever kill? I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t ask to be thrust into this world of violence! This wasn’t me!

So distraught, I took a pair of scissors from the medical supplies that were still in my room and cut deeply into my wrists. It hurt, but not much more than getting scratched by a cat. I watched the blood flow from the wounds, a slow trickle, although I cut deeply. There was no spurting blood, and in no time at all, the blood flow stopped. Frustrated, I took the scissors and plunged it deep into my abdomen, and this too wasn’t any more painful than cramps. I stood by my bed, hopeless, with a body so strong, so vital, and a will to live so weak. I dropped the scissors to the floor as I heard a knock at my door. I already knew it was Tavia by her scent.

“Come in,” I said dully, although I really wanted to be alone.

She looked at me mildly shocked and voiced, “Oh, sweetie, what have you done?” as she saw the blood. She came to me and offered a hug which I accepted reluctantly but needed very badly. I had tried hard to be tough, to take it all in, but I couldn’t anymore. I began to sob as a multitude of thoughts swirled in my head.

Tavia didn’t say anything. She just knew that questions like “Are you all right” were useless because it was obvious that I was not all right. After a long while standing together in an embrace, I asked, “What will happen if I don’t take blood?” Tavia was the right person for this question because she wouldn’t wrap the answer up in judgment or drama; she would tell me the truth.

“Being such a young immortal, you would die,” she began earnestly. I could see that she had to work at keeping her emotions at bay. “The process would take a few weeks and would be excruciating,” she continued as she swallowed hard. I sensed she had witnessed this before. “You would have to endure the gradual death of all your body tissues bit by bit . . . you would suffer a lot.”

“Is there a faster way?” I asked, thinking I already knew the answer.

“Fire is faster,” she noted, giving me the response I had figured, and neither choice sounded ideal for suicide.

“You don’t have to stay with us and live the life we lead,” Tavia suggested. “You don’t have to be involved with our vigilante pursuits. If that’s what’s making you hurt yourself and want to die. I would rather you leave than stay here so unhappy. I could find you somewhere to go with other immortals that live much more simply.”

She held me in silence for a long while and then helped me get out of my bloody clothes. While cleaning up the mess, she told me that I seemed more tortured than most, and she didn’t know how to help me. She said she thought of me as a daughter and was distressed because she didn’t want to push me into the decision to stay with her, if I didn’t really want to. I felt she regretted putting me through this pain. Of course she wanted me to choose her life, a life with this newfound family, but she didn’t want to pressure me.