More Than Monsters

Go To Hell, For Heaven's Sake

Simon stood upright in the center of the room. Due to having just fed, his fangs were bared and his clothes were soaked in mundane blood. He originally faced the floor, but he then looked up to see a man with a disapproving glance shaking his head. It was none other than Simon's father.

"Dad?" he whimpered, his fangs retracting, shocked to see his father, who had passed away when he was young, standing before him alive and breathing.

Simon took a step forward only to have his father flinch, a horrified expression painted across his face. He shook his head.

"You're not my son, you monster!" he spat out with a combination of rage and disgust that the vampire had never seen from him before. "Just look at what you've done."

To this, Simon responded by taking a moment to scan his surroundings. He could not believe his own eyes, even with his enhanced senses, as he was greeted by the worst sight imaginable.

On the ground by his feet were his sister and mother, splayed across the floor, all bloodied with their throats torn out. Both pairs of dead eyes remained open and the pain and fear remained visible on their lifeless faces, bringing Simon to the startling realization that he had brutally murdered his own family.

For a moment, Simon was motionless and breathless, accentuating the fact that he was dead. He was entirely stunned, until reality hit him like a truck, causing tears to well up in his eyes before he collapsed unto the ground. He buried his head in his blood stained hands as he shook his head.

"I️ didn't mean to! I️ didn't mean to!" Simon cried out, but it was still too late. There was nothing that he could do to bring his mother and sister back.

Among the midst of confusion, grief, anger, guilt, and shame, Simon felt one other thing. Hunger. He gazed back up at his father who remained standing. His expression became almost blank as his eyes zeroed in on the pulse point of the man's neck. His eyes rang with the rapid beating of his heart. He could hear the blood, and smell it, and almost taste it.

"No, no, no! Not again!" Simon shouted in an attempt to snap himself out of his own hunger daze. "I️ can't control it. I don't know what to do!"

Much to the boy's surprise, his father began to walk toward him. He then knelt down to be at eye level with his son. Gently, he placed a hand on Simon's shoulder.

"My boy, you know exactly what to do," he whispered.

He then extended his other arm to hand Simon a sharp wooden stake with a Star of David carved into the side.

The Night Child was stunned. He blinked many times, but otherwise did not move. He felt deep down that it was the right thing to do, but on the other hand, he feared death in a way that he never had before. Despite the Jewish faith he had been raised with, that very moment made him contemplate if perhaps there was a hell or at least a purgatory custom tailored to monsters like him.

He felt as if if there were such a thing as hell, then that was exactly where be belonged, and yet it did not make him feel any less afraid of it.

All he could say was the word "no".

"No!" he cried out, jerking upright in his bed. Even though oxygen was no longer a necessity for the undead creature, he still found himself struggling to catch his breath.

Almost instantaneously, Simon's door burst open. He quickly turned his head to see the Brooklyn clan leader, Raphael Santiago, rushing to his side.

"Simon? Simon? What's the matter with you?" Raphael shouted, shaking the fledging, not out of anger, but out of fear.

Simon then turned to face forward once again. There were tears in his eyes, but his expression was almost completely blank.

Raphael's eyes widened in fear at the lack of response from the younger vampire.

"They're d-dead. I️-I️ k-killed them. It's all m-my f-fault," Simon stuttered, beginning to hyperventilate.

Raphael stared at the boy and shook his head. He placed a hand on his shoulder, much harder than he had intended to, practically smacking him.

"You're not making any sense. Dios, Simon, you're scaring me!" Raphael said, his voice cracking slightly, showing a kind of vulnerability that hardly anyone had ever seen from him in his long immortal life.

Simon still remained silent aside from his loud rapid breaths. Not knowing what else to do, the older vampire simply wrapped his arms around Simon, burying the younger one's head into his chest.

At that point, Simon began to cry into Raphael.

"Shh, shh. Está bien. It's okay," Raphael whispered, trying to be reassuring.

The next few minutes that it took for Simon to finally calm down felt like hours for both of the two. He then glanced up at Raphael.

"I'm sorry, Raph. I️ must've just had a bad dream," Simon said, trying to sound calmer than he was.

Raphael let out a sigh of relief. He released the fledging from his arms, just leaving a hand on his shoulder.

"Sounded like more than to me. You scared me to half to death!" he said.

"Well, technically, you're already dead," Simon replied.

The older vampire simply rolled his eyes. He then scowled at Simon.

"My god Simon! This really isn't the time," he said, frustrated but mostly because he was still on edge from what had just happened.

"I'm sorry," Simon offered sheepishly, with genuine guilt in his voice.

Raphael sighed once again. He then moved his hand away from Simon's shoulder in order to brush his hair back. His hand then moved down once again, cupped the fledging's face.

"It's okay. Are you feeling okay?" Raphael inquired, still concerned for the other's wellbeing.

Simon swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I️ just feel kinda sick now," he replied.

Without hesitation, Raphael rushed out of the room. In a matter of seconds, he was back beside Simon, this time with a bag of O Negative in his hand.

"Here," he said, extending it to the fledging, "drink this and go back to sleep, okay?"

Simon simply nodded and took the bag from Raphael. The two said goodnight to one another and Raphael gently shut the door behind him.

Letting out a sigh, Simon began to open the blood bag that the other had given him. However, that was when he once again heard his father's voice once again shouting "monster!"

Simon then stared intently at the blood before throwing it across the room, causing it to burst open, spattering blood along the wall and floor.

The voice stopped for a moment, only to return again until Simon finally collapsed onto his pillow and drowned out the sound with that of his own tears.