AntiToast

The End of My Dreams
Chapter 4 (part two)

The End of My Dreams
Chapter 4

The End of My Dreams

Chapter 3 (part three)

I pushed the vampire roughly away. 
"No!" I screamed and backed away, "Don’t come near me!"

How dare he touch me like that?

• click to see this quote •

The End of My Dreams
Chapter 3

I thought of Laurence, how that one time, we almost made love together before his best friend Derrick interrupted us. His fingers felt like hot fire on my oversensitive skin as he move it gently under my thin summer shirt. 
"You are so lovely," he whispered, kissing my earlobe, then biting it gently. 
I felt electric shocks running through my body. I felt my own body curving around his involuntarily. 
He groaned softly, and rolled my over so that his face was directly above mine, and his body directly on top of mine. I swear that my heart was going to jump out of my chest at that moment. I was so ready. He was pulling my shirt over my head…
I suddenly felt a touch at my arms. I was dragged cruelly out of my dream and this time, not by Derrick’s annoying knocks on the door but by a vampire looking at me steadily.
His eyes were strangely beautiful. It was dark blue with a tinge of violet in them. There was also a ring of gold tinted around his dark pupils. He was very tall with broad shoulders. He was wearing a black button up shirt that made him look lean and fit. He was by far, the most beautiful vampire in the crowd, a dove amid a flock of raven. He seems to emit a glow of his own. 
I shuddered at his cold fingers and withdrew my hands quickly. But I couldn’t help but noticing that this vampire was different from the others around him. His demeanor demonstrated authority. He held his head high. His movements were especially graceful. When he walked by them, others lowered their heads. 
"Come," his voice was smooth. He did not smell like blood. He smelt like rain, fresh and clean. It was kind of nice. I immediately reached over and grabbed his long and pale fingers. I didn’t shudder this time. I let him lead me up the stairs; it was like a dream. His touch was strangely gentle for a vampire. 
"My lord Asmodeus," the vampire standing on the stage bowed low to the ground. Lord Asmodeus nodded and he left the platform. 
I looked into the crowd, into a crowd of starving animals. Their beautiful eyes are all on my face, my body, and most of all, on my neck. I felt my hands traveling to my neck involuntarily. 
I felt a breath on my face. 
"It will not hurt, I promise," I felt the cold tip of his perfectly straight nose on my neck. My heart jumped out of my chest. I sensed my head nodding. I felt his hands touching my neck, very gently. 
"Don’t struggle," he sang in my head, "you will only feel pain if you struggle."
He slowly sank his extracted fangs into my neck like a loving caress. I smelt the metallic scent of my own blood, but his fragrance was over powering. I can almost taste the freshness of the rain on my lips. I felt my limbs going limp. 
Then I felt it. It was if I was in ecstasy. His hands strangely felt like Laurence’s traveling around my bare shoulders. My whole body was on fire, in a good way. All I know at that moment is that I want more. I want all of him. Then he let go. 
But as soon as he was done, I felt as if my whole body was burning up in the depth of hell. I opened my mouth to scream, but I couldn’t do it. I had no energy left in me. 
"Laurence!" I whispered. I lay there nearly half-naked on the floor, in full view of hundreds of rapacious vampires, with their canines fully extracted; all of them ready to lunge at me. 
When I came to, I was no longer in that beautiful room. Emma was with me. She looked so pale and worried. 
"You are finally awake," she rushed over and patted my face with her hand. 
I reached to touch my aching neck. 
"Does it still hurt?" She asked. 
"I think I’ll live," I whispered. 
She nodded, looking slightly relieved. She knew that I was in no mood to talk, so she decided to leave me alone. 
"I’ll be next door if you need me," she whispered and shut the door behind me. 
My neck was in so much pain that I half wanted to detach my head from it this instant, but I thought of Laurence. I have to spare him from this. It’s enough that one of us suffer from it. But the pain was fresh in my mind. It was nothing I could ever imagine. Was it just an illusion that at first I felt completely blissful?
I looked around me. The room I was in was small and shabby. It had none of the grandeur of that beautiful room where the grotesque slave ritual was held. It contained the small single bed I slept in, a washbasin in the corner, a small cabinet for my nonexistent belongings, and a dresser with a cracked mirror. I stood up and walked toward it. I gasped. The woman staring back at me no longer looked like me. 
I was more beautiful than ever, frighteningly beautiful. Everything about me seemed to have been emphasized. My ebony hair seemed shinier and darker, the blackest black. My pale skin glowed like ivory, my nose straighter, my teeth whiter, and my eyes…there was a foreign glow in them, like a liquid gold ring around my emerald green eyes. That gold…it was just like Lord Asmodeus’ eyes!
I backed up to the wall and sent the washbasin crashing onto the floor. The beautiful creature frightened me. I couldn’t breath. It couldn’t be me! It just can’t! I look almost like…like…like one of them!

The End of My Dreams
Chapter Two (part three)
 

"Emma!" I whispered. Her lips were pale. I can see her whole body shaking in her lovely dress. She tried to smile at me, but it was a complete failure. Behind her were the hundred or so human who came with me on the cart. They were all neatly groomed, as if going to a midnight ball. If only that were the case!
I stood close to Emma. This time, it was she who grasped my hand so tightly that I had to bit my lips to stop the yell of pain. 
One of the women in charge stood forward. She pushed everyone forward into a line leading to the center of the room. No one resisted anymore. I was the last in line. I made myself as small as possible, as if hiding behind the girl in front of me would make me disappear. 
More death angels have gathered in the room. Their fangs are bared at the smell of fresh, undead blood. Every one of us shivered uncontrollably. Feeling our pain, their grins spread, and their razor sharp fangs glistened. I took a deep breath and steadied myself. This was no time to feel frightened, I told myself. But when I look down, I saw that my hands shook violently, as if I was having an epileptic convulsion. 
Two especially authoritative looking angels stood forth, one female, one male. Once they stood at the exact center of the room, the floor in the center began to rise into a spiral stairway with a platform about fifteen-foot in the air. The man came forth first and took with him the a young girl no more than sixteen up the spiral stairs. There were low hissing sounds resonating throughout the room. I felt the hairs on my arms rising. 
They sound like a bunch of hungry lions, waiting for their turn to feed. 
The girl looked ghastly pale beneath her bronzed skin. She shook from head to toe. She tripped half way through the stairs, but the death angels either did not notice or did not care, for he continued to drag her along the stairs. She whimpered in pain as the sharp edges of the stairs sliced into her delicate skin for she dared not scream out loud in front of this large and silent crowd. I felt sick just watching, but I was nowhere prepared for what happened next. 
One moment, the girl was just standing on top of the platform, the next; her dressed was ripped from her body. She stood stark naked in front of the crowd. She crumbled to the floor on all fours. The vampires grabbed her roughly and held her body tightly against his. She yelled in pain. He sank his teeth her neck. Blood squirted down her neck and over her tanned body. Her blood-curdling scream was forever imprinted in my mind. 
At that moment, all I wanted to do was scream with her. But my mind no longer obeyed me. I ran. I ran headlong into the closed door. I was no longer myself. The panic that was taking over me was no longer human. I was like a mad dog. I had gone completely insane. I do not want to be humiliated and treated like…like an animal! An animal ready for slaughter…
I felt a pair of arms restraining me. It was one of the women from the dressing room. She stuffed my fist into my open mouth and I gagged. I saw stars swimming overhead. 
She gave me a good kick and snarled, "If you don’t behave yourself, you will kill you with this knife."
She left me collapsed on the floor.
Laurence…
I almost told her to just kill me. 
Laurence.
That’s all I thought of. That's what I must think of all the time from now on. I have to compose myself. I can’t die, not yet. There is no way that I would ever let him endure the pain I am enduring now. 
"Laurence…" I murmured softly. The sound of his name comforted me. I did not watch what happened next. I did not want to know. I wish some one would just kill me right now. How did this happen? I couldn’t have been dead for more than a day, but it felt as if I had been here for eternity. 
Somewhere in the distance, I heard someone say, "She is pronounced healthy and now I announce her as a member of the servant of the noble house of Kent."

The End of My Dreams
Chapter Two (part two)
 

When I opened my eyes again, the cart had drawn to a stop. There were loud yells outside, but it seemed strangely quiet to me still. It was if everyone was holding his or her breath, waiting for the finale of this massive cruel joke. Involuntarily, I drew myself closer to Emma. She automatically tightened her arms on mine. 
We just sat there and waited. 
The door opened in a flash. Emma and I were so startled by this sudden movement that we both gave a little yelp. And for that, we both received a kick from the guard. I was so numb with pain that the blow did not even sting my already swollen body. 
"Get up," he hissed. 
Emma grabbed me and stood up gingerly. He gave her a rough push toward the ladder and she stumbled. He laughed. She did not seem to mind that at all and held on to me. I smiled gratefully at her. The hours of sitting there had left my legs half paralyzed. It quivered under my body like jelly. 
Once outside, in the sun, I was confronted with an even stronger smell of blood. This time, I can definitely sense the decay. My fingers curled tightly around Emma’s arms. 
"You are holding me too tight," Emma whispered. 
"Sorry," I loosened my grip and quivered on my feet. The smell was so nauseating that I felt like puking again. Is this how it feels like to be going to the death camps in all those history textbooks I read? My heart pounded loudly in my chest. I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I did not notice that we were approaching a large and grand castle. A castle? It seemed so out of place in this aroma of death. The guards ushered us to a side door and we went underground. The light had gone out once more. 
If my heart could pound faster, it did. Torches dimly lighted the dark, musty corridors. There was a sudden gust of wind, and this time, I did puke up bile. It was the smell of rotting corpse, thousands and thousands of them. A sudden terror seized me. Are we going to join them? What is going to happen to us? What have I ever done wrong to deserve going to a place like this?
A line of people was waiting for us as we were ushered into a large but crowded room. Emma and I were separated right away. A tall and severe looking female quickly pulled me over. She began to undress me. I tried to push her away but she was stronger than me. She simply ripped the whole thing off. 
As I stood naked in front of around a hundred women, I tried to cover myself, but what use is that? I suddenly thought. What use is modesty in a situation like this? 
Without warning, the woman reached over routinely and grabbed my chest roughly; I let out a soft scream and tried to shove away her wandering hands. She slapped me several times on the thighs and sniffed my neck. I shuddered. I felt as if I were a piece of meat, being inspected before selling. Finally, after scrutinizing every inch of my skin, she said approvingly, "She is ready for the master."
She forced me into a lovely but much too revealing Victorian dress that I might actually admire if it were not for the circumstances. As if breathing was not hard enough with the suffocating stench of blood, the woman tied the corset so tightly around my chest and my waist that I felt my ribs cracking under the pressure. She yanked up my head and I squealed with pain and she twisted and curled my hair and piled it messily on top of my head.
She clicked her tongue approvingly and thrust a pale white rose into my thick ebony hair. With a final shove, I was out of the room without able to steal even a glance at Emma. 
I was terrified. I had a premonition that something terrible and drastic was going to happen but I didn't know it was so soon. It was if I was dressing up for my funeral procession.Ilaughedmirthlessly that back home, a very different funeral procession must have been taking place. 
I don’t know how long we walked in the wounding passageway, nor do I know where I’m going. All I know is that I have a bad feeling about this. Like I’m about to die all over again. 
Finally I was jerked to a stop. 
The woman standing next to me knocked on the heavily decorated wooden door. It opened automatically. She step aside and pushed me toward it. 
"Go on in, girl."
I did not want to. I’d rather do anything except go through that door. 
She pushed my roughly toward it once again, "and behave yourself, if you don’t want to spend eternity burning in the fire pits that is," she cackled. 
I stepped inside. What greeted me was really not what I had in mind. Instead of a crammed passageways that I was used to, there was a large spacious hall with glittering chandeliers, beautiful Persian Rugs lining the glistening marble floor. The walls were carved and decorated lavishly with intricate patterns and breathtaking paintings. 
All around the room, exquisite furniture and sculptures. In the four corners of the rooms were elaborately made fountains with the sculptures of sea gods, Hades, and other assortment of winged creatures emerging from the fountain of water in its carefully choreographed designs.
Opposite of me was a grand staircase with extravagant carpet leading from the upper balcony and a new wing of the building. 
My breath was caught in my throat. I have neither seen nor dreamed of a room as beautiful as this. It was if I had really arrived in heaven…
Before this thought was even finished, I heard movements all around the room. I smelt blood coming from all direction at me. I shuddered and slowly and involuntarily backed to a wall. The doors lining the four walls opened and a throng of the most beautiful creatures I have ever seen entered the room, each of them escorted by a human. The door behind me opened up. They have the same angular face, the same high cheekbone, bright eyes and pale skin as my captor. 
The vampires! I cringed in fright. I turned to the door and prepared to run, but before I could turn the knob the door opened once again. 

The End of My Dreams
Chapter Two

The tall and handsome creature pushed me forward and I fell flat on my face. I could taste blood in my mouth. I spat it up and pushed myself up. The stench of blood was so overpowering that I leaned forward to puke up whatever that’s left in my stomach. 
He laughed cruelly, "Suck it up, little girl. It gets better from here on."
I gave him a glare, but that only made him laugh harder, "Oh dear, it’s too bad that you are too nice looking for us to let you go" He got up really close to my neck and breathed deeply, as a gardener would do to his prized roses, "No wonder he wants you," his long fangs flashed. I shuddered, "it’s too bad," he whispered. 
There was real regret in his voice. It was as if a child is being denied an exotic toy. 
He pushed me roughly into the dark opening of a trailer and smirked, "I hope you have a nice trip! Sleep well so you can be nice and fresh!"
I shivered involuntarily. 
The box was dark and it was smelt just as it did on the outside, like blood. I heard a rustle. A scream escaped my lips. My heart almost leaped out of my chest. 
"Relax," a soft voice said, "I’m not going to hurt you."
A woman, perhaps in her mid or late twenties peered at me anxiously.
"I’m Emma," she whispered softly.
"Are you alone?" I asked. 
"Yes," she replied.
"Who is he?" I burst out hysterically, "and what does he want? Where am I???"
Emma just looked at me sadly, her gray eyes weary. 
"Did you follow him here, dear?"
"Yes," I whispered. 
"He is one of them, the angels of death, some call them vampires, the guardian of the underworld," she whispered. 
I stared at her in disbelieve. Vampires? They are not supposed to exist! They belong only in horror stories. And why am I here? Have I not been a decent person all my life? Why is this happening?
Emma read my thought. 
"It has nothing to do with your sins, my dear. If you were damned, then you would already be in their fire pits. You and I are different. But our fate, too, is inescapable. The vampires find the souls they like and collect them for their use. That is their reward as guardian of such an unpleasant place. You are here for eternity," she said sadly. 
"For eternity," I whispered back. My mind went totally blank. 
Whatever I was expecting, it was not that. Next thing I know, I was banging my fist on the hard walls of the cart. 
"Let me out!" I yelled, "I want to go back! I don’t want to stay here, not here!"
In a hushed tone, Emma worked her way to me and wrapped her arms around my body, "calm down, dear. You can’t help it. You had to come with him anyways. You have nowhere else to go. You were already dead then. You have to accept your fate. You have been resurrected, so you cannot die so easily again. Your place is here in the underworld. You are and will always be a servant of the vampire lords."
I didn’t care. I just wanted to go back, to get out of here. 
"How do I die again?" I grabbed Emma and shook her violently, my blood pounding madly. I had gone completely mad then. Rather, the world had gone completely mad. Why am I, a person who had never commit a crime of any kind be stuck in the underworld for eternity? Why me?
"There, there," the lady’s voice was quivering now. But then, I didn’t have enough brains at that moment to notice that. 
"What is that racket down there?" Someone yelled above. 
"It’s just a frightened girl," Emma called, her voice quivering.
"You’d better shut her mouth soon or I’ll have to do it for her!" 
Emma pleaded, "Stop doing this dear, please not now…"
I didn’t hear her. At that moment, I honestly did not care. I just didn’t want to live in this nightmare any longer. I want to be safe and back in Laurence’s arms. They are always so reassuring. I just want to at least smell his soapy scent again…
WACK! I felt as if my head was no longer attached to my body, like someone heave a boulder at me and knocked it off my neck. I saw stars swimming in my head. 
I opened my mouth to scream in pain. But before I can take a breath, another blow came down at me. Dark blood trickled down my chin. It hurt. It also drained all of my energy. 
I did not try to scream again. 
"That’s good girl," he smiled smugly at me. I glared at him and spat at him. 
Not a good idea. 
He gave me another bone breaking kick and left. 
The moment he was gone, Emma crawled over to where I was. 
"Are you alright, dear?" Emma asked uncertainly. She looked kind of sheepish and guilty, as if it was her fault that she did not manage to stop me in time. 
"I’m fine," but my voice betrayed me. Emma cradled my head in her lap. I felt like a two-year-old child, but I felt too horrible to be ashamed as I cried and slobbered into her ragged dress. 
"There, there," she said, patting me on the head like her baby, "it’ll be alright. You still have me."
"How do I die, Emma?" I demanded, "How do I do it?" 
"Do you have someone you love, someone you love more than yourself?" she asked. 
I looked at her strangely, and nodded. 
"Then you can’t die," Emma said.
"Why?" 
"You still don’t get it, do you?" Emma sighed sadly, "we are in a position worse than hell, because we can’t just die, Talia. Don’t you think the vampires had enough people coming here who wanted to die? In order for them to keep you from killing yourself and make you obey their rules, they attached your soul to someone you love. When you die here, the soul that’s attached to you will come in your stead."
Laurence!
I felt my bones melting in my flesh as a fresh wave of panic attacked my body and soul. Not my Laurence! 
"Laurence…" I burst into tears. I cannot let him come here. Never!
At that moment, I knew I had no other options. I had to be strong if I wanted to save him. I have to be. 
"Sleep while you can. You need your strength in this place."

The End of My Dreams
Chapter One (part two)

The End of My Dreams
Chapter One
(So I'm going to try a go at fantasy writing for this story, go easy on me Witty Girls)