The Creatures Series

Seventeenth Night

Seventeenth NightCreatures of the Night

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##### Seventeenth Night #####

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What comes after the afterlife....? Many have experienced, yet no soul can live through it to tell the story. But this is not the end of me.

As I fall along with the rain, I’m thinking of covering my wound first before doing anything else, but my fingers wouldn’t move. I try to make some smoke appear mentally, but nothing comes from my call. It’s like he just swallowed all of my power away from me. How I wish I have one of my seal keys right now.

And now, I’m going to die.

How pathetic.

I never let panic overwhelming me, though. That’s the good of it? I’m going to die faster if I do.

I’m... going... to die.... I let emotional tears escape from my eyes this time.

*

It’s always darkness that comes when I close my eyes. But luckily, I don’t have one of those nightmares, this time. I just stay still in the darkness. Peacefully. Until the light comes to take me.

When I wake up, I don’t imagine of anything that will come into my view. But what I see right now is not something that can usually be expected, either.

I’m lying on a bed, surely. But I don’t recognize the materials at all. My long hair is tucked behind, so I can see the colors clearly. What most I don’t expect is to find a sleeping figure next to me. And not just any figure.

His pale skin, which actually has the shade of light grey, is clearer in view now that he’s shirtless. It’s flawless. His black hair looks smoother than ever. And his face looks like a work of art, which form can be manipulated by the painter easily.

It’s the man who tried to kill me.

I pull myself away as far as possible to the edge of the bed, having my back lean into the cold concrete. My black smoke reacting better this time, faster and more flexible. I form many tentacles, with extra addition to the razor sharp edges. This obviously can kill a vampire. The problem is that whether I can do that fast enough before I get killed myself or not.

I know that I’m awake. That’s why the rising up from the bed into a sitting position before opening his eyes. There’s something... odd about the way he looks at me. Then, when he look at me, he smiles. With the most dazzling, beautiful way.

I don’t know what exactly triggers him to be so happy to smile like that, but I’m not going to get distract by such unimportant thing.

“Good morning, Arsëne,” he greets warmly.

I don’t know what kind of game he’s playing. But I just want to cut to the chase and kill him now.

I move my tentacles mentally toward him, launching the first attack before he can strike me or process what is happening. They all move in unison, stabbing everything that’s in their way. I can’t see his figure at all because my tentacles are practically covering him wholly. But when I pull them back, all I can see is only shreds of a ruined bed.

“That’s not so nice of you, honey.” I turn my gaze to find him standing in front of a door. “But I understand that you thought I was my brother. I can’t blame you. We both look so much alike, that we can be considered as duplicates. But don’t worry, though. I’m different from him. I will never hurt you.”

Ignoring his babbles, I launch my attack once more. The unlucky part is that he’s still as fast as before. He dodges to every possible side of the room every time I thought my tentacles finally got him. Well, almost. Until I finally realize that my chest has been rushing pretty strong that I realize that I’m already at my limit for my condition. I fall on the bed.

“Arsëne!” I can hear from his voice that he’s approaching me. But I never let him touch me.

“I won’t touch you if you don’t want me to. Please, just rest for your own good.” His tone keeps getting weird in my ears. Why would he even bother to act nice, anyway?

I lie on the bed with my chest on it, but keeping my eyes contact on him.

“Arsëne....” He crooks his eyebrows.

“You don’t know how happy I am when I first saw you again. I can finally feel myself full enough. I’ve spent centuries to wait until you come back again. It’s been so lonely without you by my side. But I don’t care. As long as I know that you’ll come back, then it’s enough.”

What is he babbling about?

“You must be confused. Let me explain. You and my twin brother were engaged at your previous lives. But the one who loved you is me. We loved each other, even though no one knows that our feelings exist. One night, there’s a fire at your mansion. I was on my way to save you. But I was too late. Your soul had died, while your body stays still. I was forced to spend centuries alone until your rebirth.” There’s something about the say his dark eyes radiant. Is it... sadness? Is he... for real?

“You must have doubt my words,” he states with a single sigh.

I know that he’s not reading my mind. He observes, like me. Only better and more detailed.

“You must felt really desperate when you lost your lover,” I comment coldly. But I don’t say that I believe his tale. Playing along is just an activity that I do as long as I’m still weak and newly injured.

“You don’t know just how hard I tried to keep my sanity,” he replies bitterly.

“What did you do to her corpse?” I ask curiously.

“I couldn’t accept your death very well back then, Arsëne,” he smiles sadly, and then let the smile fade away. “I married your dead body, even though I knew you were not with me anymore. No one dared to oppose it, because they pitied me.”

I blink at his remark. He... married a dead body...?

"So, do you still keep it? Her corpse?"

"No.”

"Then I guess you don't really love he—"

"But I did. Until a few days ago. My brother secretly stole your body—well, your old one—from your case when I was in my slumber. The timing is just such a coincidence. I asked him where you were, and he said he already disposed you. I almost killed him. Almost. Until I detected you.”

Okay. Now I have enough of his nonsense.

"What do you have to prove that you're not him? You two looks just the same to me. What can you say to convince me that you're just not someone who had been giving me nightmares these past few weeks? What do you even have to prove every word you just said to me? It is just a lie or an act? Do you simply just like to play with your victims before finally killing them in the most unexpected way? Or are you for real?"

He looks at me with eyes wide, something burning from his eyes. "He did what?!" He doesn't even hide the anger in his blaring tone. But even though he’s being so angry, there’s still no wrinkle I can spot in his flawless skin. Weird.

"He gave me those nightmares of killing me over and over again, which caused me to wake up in panic and fire every time he did so. But let's focus on my question,” I say.

His angry face then turns into a frown, which gains more wrinkles.

"Of course it's real, Arsëne. I will never lie to you.”

"I don't know you; not even your name. So please just end this ac—"

"Zane,” he cut me in so out of a sudden that I'm not even sure that I hear it right.

"What?"

"Zane. My name is Zane Van de Contigue,” he repeats with a small smile. One that makes him looks so innocent.

Contigue. I've learned that name before. It's the clan of vampire. One of the strongest one, in fact. They've been manipulating the throne in their hands for as long as the history can record.

“A Contigue, huh? More reasons for me to kill you, then,” I start with a serious tone while getting up from the bed. “Your family is known to cause so many troubles for us Sorcier to solve. There have been too many victims of missing humans that almost blew up into a massive international case. If there hadn’t been for my parents to pull the right string, the vampire species might already be discovered by them now. And even bring down some other night creatures’ kind along to be identified by the humans.”

“I will forbid the entire species to feed in humans if that’s what can make you happy, Arsëne. But I couldn’t replace the past. It is our nature to hunt the humans since the early of the beginning,” Zane say, trying to reach my hands. I scoop it back so that he can’t touch me.

“You still haven’t proved me anything right,” I say with dangerous mutter, pulling up all my razor sharp smoke tentacles. I will not fight unprepared this time.

“ Please, Ars ë ne ─”

I cut him out by launching the first attack.

He jumps back a couple of meters, of course. But my two other tentacles are ready to welcome him. Though even two is still a small number to get him hurt. So I try using 20 at a time.

“Arsëne,” he calls my name desperately, but I ignore him.

“ Ars ë ne ─ ! ” he calls again when I give him a whip s***h.

“ Ar ─” He disappears out of thin air when my tentacles are wrapping around his body way too tight.

Then, out of nowhere, he appears on top of me.

“Arsëne,” he mutters through his clenched set of sharp teeth, him on top of me. I can still feel the sharpness of each of them at where they previously injured my neck. I touch my bare neck. And as if something clicks, I notice for the first time why it’s kind of cold in here. I’m not wearing anything.

“Where are my clothes?” I spat with venom.

“Please understand the circumstances. I wasn’t trying to take advantage on you. I had to cure your injury. But after I was finished, your clothes had all covered with blood. They are a little bit distracting after a while, so I removed them,” he explains.

“And it didn’t occur to you that I need something else to wear as a replacement at all?”

He doesn’t answer, probably debating by himself of what is best to say. Too late.

I hit his side with one big tentacle.

It’s not that strong or that damage impacting to him. But at least it will buy some time to run away. I burst through the door and find many doors stands as far as my eyes can see through the lonely red and bluish hallway.

I’ve been having this strange feeling inside of me since I woke up. Something familiar that can only be redeemed by a touch of mind, yet binds me to never reach it. What is it?

“─ ene ”

I hear it. That’s why I start running faster.

“ Arse ─ , ” I hear his voice calling me.

He’s too fast for me to outrun. Even though I’m already giving as many powers I have into my legs to speed up until I reach my limit.

Finally, I make a turn by instinct and find an elevator. The doors slide open immediately as I run nearer and get in.

I’m out of breath and I only have a very thin and small sheet to cover myself when I land on the bottom. Uneven bottom, added to that.

I look up and find Artro’s face. Looking tired and relieved as ever.

“Artro!” I exclaim in relieve as well. “So you’ve receive my call.” I’ve been trying to contact anyone from my family using their blood connection line, but haven’t got anything back from any of them. “Why didn’t you send back anything?”

“We’re afraid that it will only put you in trouble, so we didn’t do anything and only give your brief clues that only you can detect. I was the one who lead you to here,” he explains as we get up.

“Anyway, did you bring the keys?” I’ve been asking anyone who can listen to me from the blood connection line to bring me two of my keys (or even more if possible), since I’m not sure if I can defeat the vampire (or vampires) with just one. Hopefully I just need one.

He reaches his pocket and hand me one of it. The 7th black key.

I waste no time as the elevator slide down.

I hold the key in the air, turning it as if there’s a keyhole that matches in midair, and let darkness embrace us inside the little space.