You suppressed a groan as you sat up on your knees, arching your back to find some relief from the stiffness that crept up your spine from bending over on all fours, scrubbing the stone floors of one of the many hallways. You weren’t even sure you’d been down this specific hall before, as they all meshed together it seemed. All equally dark, every few feet a torch on the wall would make the shadows dance with their flickering flame. The hall was quiet, your scrubbing and the occasional echo of footsteps from elsewhere the only thing to break the silence. Odd as it was, you didn’t like the quiet. You’d rather hear something approaching, rather than something sneak up on you, especially alone in a dark hallway. One of the other humans had told you the other night how they’d been cornered by one of The Pillar Men’s “legion” as you all called them. One of many vampires that existed to both “feed” the god like beings as well as serve them when battle may call. Your fellow human had only been spared thanks to Esidisi intervening, oddly enough. From what you could tell, the vampires ranked slightly above humans, and yet humans were off limits to the vampire hoard; only The Pillar Men were allowed to torment and kill the humans.
You leaned back over, scrubbing the floors as you ignore your aches and pains; the sooner this was done, the sooner you could go to bed. You had no idea whether it was night or day at this point, you slept when tired and awoke whenever. The windows had long been boarded up, blocking out both the sun and the moon, and there were no working clocks around that you’d seen. Time didn’t matter much here anyway. The Pillar Men had plenty of time on their hands; immortal against any human perception of time.
Your hand stilled it’s scrubbing as the torch flame behind you began to flicker more, as if something had disturbed the air around it. The shadows casted menacing figures around you, your imagination running wild. You tried to steady your breathing as you calmly pushed yourself off the floor, turning to face whatever may be intruding head on. Your eyes searched in the darkness for anything, but were unable to see much in the blackness between torches. You took a cautious step back, preparing yourself to possibly run should it be one of the vampire soldiers, eyes still darting about wildly.
A chuckle in the darkness crept up your spine as a pair of red eyes caught the flame’s light. Kars. His eyes practically glowed as his body manifested from the darkness. You were slightly relieved that it wasn’t one of the vampires, but on the other had it could very well be an even bigger threat.
“What a perceptive little human you are.” He drawled as he placed his hand upon his chin, stalking closer to you. You held your position, despite your primal instincts telling you to run. You knew he was just toying with you, purposefully making the torch flicker. If he wanted to, he could have easily came up behind you, and ended you before the air even stirred. Instead, he wanted to scare you, which he succeeded at. You looked away, unsure of what to say to the being before you. “Come.” He said simply as be brushed past you. You looked down at your abandoned scrub brush and bucket on the floor, biting your lip.
“M-my Lord, I haven’t- I haven’t finished the floors yet.” He stopped walking and tossed you a look over his shoulder, clearly annoyed by your protest.
“I will not ask again.” He said as he continued. You gave the brush one last look, wishing you could just finish scrubbing and go to bed, before following the tall man down the hall. As he led you, you noticed shadows creeping around you, as if stalking your movements. You moved closer to Kars out of fear, which in reality didn’t make much sense; he was just as frightening, if not more so than whatever went bump in the night. The hallway you entered was familiar at least, being the one you were led down not but a few days prior.
Once again, he led you through his bedroom and into the bathroom. You mentally wondered how you’d managed to become Kars’ personal bath maid, but you supposed there were worse things in this world. As you approached the bath, you noticed that the bottles on the small inset shelf were all different; new scents. You ran the tap and curiously reached out for one with what looked like particles of something in it. Upon closer inspection, it was crushed lavender buds. You couldn’t help but open the bottle, not remembering the last time you’d smelt lavender. You selfishly poured some into the bathwater, swirling it with your hand as the smell of fresh lavender filled the air. You sat against the tub, legs too sore and tired to kneel on your knees. Bitterly, you recalled your own “bath” from this morning, the feeling of the cold water chilling you to the bone as you scrubbed yourself and hair, then curling into your sad excuse for a bed on the floor to try and warm back up.
