Zumerian [boyxboy]

BEFORE - Scene 1

Joaga stood confidently, legs parted in a sloppy fighting stance, fists clenched by his waist. It was all he could manage at the moment as every muscle in his aching body was screaming at him to collapse. He was pulsating, spasming, shaking with weariness and all he dreamt of doing was sinking to the soft, bloodied grass beneath his feet and letting sleep overtake him for several hours. He felt himself tremble on the verge of unconsciousness but he steadied himself in a flash - he wouldn't miss this for the world, even if all four of his limbs were torn off and he was bleeding out, he would still prop himself up on the hilt of a nearby spear and let his eyes wander like newborn children exploring the world for the very first time. He managed to hold himself tall through his weariness, exposing the strange, exotic beauty contained in his bloodied silhouette and the determination in his character. He swayed against the strong wind which tugged at his coat, pulling the damp cloth tight around his body like a protective cocoon and outlined his muscular, lithe frame which he had developed over a thousand years of parring. A pair of dark, skinny jeans torn at the ankles and tinged purple from the sickly, sweet vampire blood he had wrung numerous times out of the material hung low on his hips and housed an assortment of small daggers and throwing knives which were threaded through the belt loops and pockets. In his left hand, the decorative hilt of a saber rested, but the curved, etched lines were now grimmy and filled with sticky, purple blood which clung to the underside of his nails and dripped from the weapon like glue. The double edged blade extended in a slight curve and the pointed, sharp end almost touched the ground as light reflected off both sides of the smooth metal.

He was a warrior in his element and the strands of his inky hair that had slipped from the strip of material he had fastened around his head flowed freely in the strong winds, like the leaves of a willow tree, as he gazed at the turmoil beneath him. His eyes were still closed however and he observed with his nose first. His freckled nostrils were flared and he inhaled in one sharp burst of movement that made him lean forward. HIis shoulders raised in satisfaction as he breathed in the distinct smell of chaos and smoke. He laughed then and the soft, rumble of sound carried in the wind and echoed against the steep rock face behind him making it sound more eerie and hollow than it already was. Then, slowly, his long lashes fluttered, like the feathered wings of a dove, stirring the long shadows they cast along his tan cheeks, before they spread, revealing the deep orbs of pale blue. His eyes were delicate and beautiful, a pair of ocean craters, they were sharp and focused like the pointed edge of a melting glacier, they were two drops of celeste and his gaze was every bit as cold and steely as the colour of his irises as he observed, both amused yet indifferent. A gust of wind blew towards him and once more, his eyes closed, lids shielding him from the stray particles of glass and wood that blew around him - all remnants and reminders of the fight. The wind did many things. At first it had warned him of their presence and he felt the way the group of fiends disturbed the air as they walked. He felt their footsteps melt snow, displacing the simple particles and the way their sickly stench clung to the trees and air like a cloud of perfume that was strong enough to water the eyes of those that walked too close, as they attempted to ambush what they thought was a lone human. But now, the wind served a totally different purpose. Now the wind blowed westward - towards the citadel of the vampire town. Now the wind served as a warning, it was an emergency call that was too late for no one could escape the storm now - he was already closing in. He would slaughter them all - soon. Now he was too exhausted. He would recover from his injuries, let the strands of his hot skin knit back together and watch as the blood seeped into the white of the snow, tainting it's pureness like a bucket of salt in a clear river, laughing as the fish choked.

He had to see this. He had to admire truthfulness of his deed. It was what he got off on. It was his single talent, a hobby even and he loved every moment of it. He loved smearing his thick red paint upon the canvas that was the land. He loved watching the anguish and the suffering he inflicted. He was a virus, unstoppable and fatal. Death was the only cure. There were no symptoms, it was over that fast. One flick of his wrist and they were gone, every last one of them, like a group of tall poppies cut down with one swish of an axe. The droop of their arms was like pale, blooming flowers, the sputtered gasp of their final breath was the ring of the last note in a harp's sweet melody, the froth of the blood from their lips was as delicate as the touch of a woman's lips. It was heavenly - torture. It was the very feeling he got off on. And it was the very feeling he was letting rip over him now. It was a wave with no shore, it would continue on forever, dissipating slowly until it hit the end of the world. And then, the next wave would follow in it's path, making the feeling infinite and unstoppable. It was one of the most simple movements in nature and it was the hardest to stop. Who could stop a wave? The very thought was ridiculous, and he sighed in ecstasy as the feeling grew within him. Like a weed stealing nutrients from the plants around it, the feeling took over all the emotions he was capable of feeling, until they died out, one by one - the weakest first; happiness, contempt, longing, sentiment and then the most persistent of them all, love. But nevertheless, it was nothing compared to what he was feeling now and the dull ache seeped away from him like water draining from cupped hands. The feeling had spread around him so that it was no longer concentrated in a single part of his chest and it blossomed like a tree, it's branches crawling into all the crevices and nooks in his body but it was still just as powerful as before and it attacked all his nerve endings in one sharp jerk.

Joaga gasped loudly. The sound was familiar to him now and his face struggled to hold it's usual mask of indifference as his toes curled in excitement. He hadn't felt this awake in days and his body hummed with new found energy until he no longer required to sweat and shake to hold himself upright. The ends of his fingers tingled as he felt the wind blow softly on them. He felt the air around him, he felt it slipping through the undone buttons of his flannel like a lover sliding her hand down his chest, he felt it through the rips on his knees as the frayed threads of denim tickled his sensitive, bare skin. He felt everything now, down to the weak sting on his cheek as sweat glided over a shallow graze. Next was his vision, it tinted slightly before the sights before him sharpened. The leaves of the poised, winter oaks in the near distance no longer resembled a mass of green and white, for he could make up each individual stroke of a leaf and the veins of lighter green that spread out along it's surface. Colours were brighter too and the blood that caked his boots grew more and more vivid until it shone on the back of his eyelids when he closed his eyes.

This was what he loved most. It beat any girl or any place or what little family he had left. It was this very feeling he had fought so hard for. It was the feeling he woke up for. It was the reason he still existed. It was how he knew he was different and he still remembered the first time he had felt it, even after all those centuries. Joaga remembered the way his clammy fingers fumbled over the ground in his clumsy attempt to find a decent sized rock. He felt the way he slid the pebble into the slingshot and over the leather strips. Then, the way he bit his lip in concentration as he pulled back on the piece and aimed it at the bird. It was a small bird and the stretch of its torso was only as long as his hand, but it had been his first kill and he was proud as he carried the carcass back to his father. At first he had thought it was normal. The young Joaga had passed over the feeling as usual as he stood over the dying bird. Sure, he had acknowledged the way his movements sharpened and how his store of energy increased, but the bird was only small. It hadn't caused a major difference in his behaviour and feeling. His kills eventually became more rash as impulsive, in his attempt to uncover the feeling again; leading on from bird to deer then eventually the leap to an occasional human, then to werewolf, that one took more effort and he remembered with amusement the struggle it had took to kill his first werewolf - now it was as easy as raising his hand and the finally to this. This was huge, it was the steep drop of a cliff and even unconscious, Joaga was sure he would notice the change.

He felt alive as he absorbed the energy of the fallen. And hell did vampires have energy in them. The store of a newborn, sick infant was still double that of a human and before him lay a whole coven of adults in their prime - at their strongest. These were the soldiers, the assassins, the most powerful of the entire community and he had slayed them all. The energy he absorbed was like nothing he had every felt before, it was enough to last him months. Yet he still wasn't contempt. He wanted more and his need for the feeling only increased as it filled him up. Joaga wanted more bloodshed, more tears, more power and boy, would he get it.

The battle itself wasn't long and the entire fight had taken place over the course of a few minutes. But that was plenty of time for him. To Joaga, time was just a single element in a fight and when you had mastered the rest, it no longer mattered. Brawn beat stealth and stealth beat brain, so technically he had it all. It was given to him at the moment of birth, like a baby being washed in holy water, only he had been washed in blood - the blood of fallen angels. It was in his DNA and all he had to do was work to master his abilities. The whole concept of his race was a mystery to his parents and they failed to understand him, passing his talk off as just that, talk. At first they had laughed and his father had slapped him upon the back and teased him over his first kill but when Joaga had begun talking - begun explaining the feeling that he had encountered in the aftermath of the deed, they had passed him over, like gamblers turning over a used card, and deemed it all a show of his cockiness getting to his head. Sure, they could label it as vanity, but to Joaga it was an opening, a tiny rip in the surface of the world that gave him sanctuary and escape from the miseries of this world, and from there the rip had enlarged, until it was a giant scab across his mind.

Until he became the monster he was now.

Until he became Zumerian.