King of Darkness

Amelia

I don't know what happened afterwards. It felt like he didn't only drink my blood, he drank my soul. I didn't know that he threw my belongings into the river, nor that he carried me for miles to a shelter.

When I woke up, he was gone. And so were most of my memories. In their place was this new part of me, one that called all my attention to it and wouldn't let me focus on anything else. It was like a hot-burning rage. One that completely consumed me. So much so that when someone asked what my name was, I couldn't answer them. I couldn't remember.

My memories had human-sized holes in them, even the ones I was creating the very second I woke up. I was in a large room with over two dozen others. The walls were grey and it smelled like dead animals in here. The others looked beautifully awful. Their facial features, their skin, everything looked like it had been painted in the renaissance. But they were covered in dirt and blood. The girl with golden hair had twigs sticking out of it.

The room was large and grey, it smelled disgusting. I got up from my spot on the floor, but tripped over some girl with blonde hair. There were more people here though, but they were all gross and disgusting. I didn't know where I was, I couldn't remember who brought me here. All I knew was that I was searching for something, I had just forgotten what. Surely I’ll remember when I see it. 

The room smelled gross, the other people in here eyed me oddly. They just stuck to their places, sitting against the grey walls or laying flat on their backs, but not me. I wanted to leave, I needed to find it.

"Don't." A girl warned me. I shot her an angry look and kept walking. I felt her hand wrap around my ankle. The room was large, but I saw the start of a hallway to the right. I tried to shake her off, but she wouldn't let me.

Her fingers made a gut-wrenching sound when I crushed them beneath my heel. She let out a cry and retracted her hand. Serves her right for thinking she can touch me, I thought to myself and walked into the hallway. I didn't make it far until the door opened and someone stepped in. He was older than me, though there weren't any grey streaks in his hair nor beard. He looked positively bored out of his mind.

"Get back into the room girl," he said. "We'll call you when we need you." He turned around to leave, but I wouldn't let him.

"No." I said. He halted on his spot and looked back at me, as though this was the first time he properly looked. He looked from the tip of my head to my toes and folded his arms across his chest.

"No?" He asked me. He wore a simple black shirt and trousers, as though he was in mourning. I didn't want to go back into the room, I was in pain, I remembered that. I needed... Something.

"I need..." I started, but I couldn't think of what I needed. I felt the anger flare up inside of me. Everything hurt, from breathing to talking to walking, I just needed whatever made that go away.

The man knocked on the door he came from, never taking his eyes off of me. Another man opened it, but never peeked more than his head in.

"What is it?" He asked in a similarly bored tone the first man had used. He pointed at me, which caused the bodiless man to look at me too.

"She's from the latest batch right?" He asked. A flash of pain erupted from the right side of my head. I remembered his voice, he had helped carry us in. But who was us? I tried to think of more faces, but all I remembered was that girl from before. She had looked at me when they carried me in. But why were there more people? I remembered floating alone.

"Yes." The man sounded surprised. "I remembered feeling rather glad they brought another woman. She shouldn't be up and walking for another few days."

The bodiless man stepped into the room, revealing an absolute mountain of a body. His head just barely didn't touch the roof of the house. Both looked rather surprised.

"She sounded like she needed a feeding." The first man spoke as though I wasn't in a room.

"I'm not hungry." I quickly answered. The thought alone made me nauseous. Why couldn't they just understand!

"Of course you're not." The mountain laughed at me. I wanted to rip his arm off.

They just stared at me, like I was some sort of cute puppy who was learning a new trick. With each passing second, I felt more and more like charging forward and taking them on. I managed to convince myself that I could if I was fast enough, even if he was about three times my size.

"Nothing to be done." The large man finally concluded. "Can't let them out until it's time."

They both left, just like that. My anger turned into desperation as I banged my arms against the door until they were bloodied. I thought I could hear them talking from behind it, but not loud enough for me to understand what they were talking about.

"I told you not to." The girl said, still holding her hand. She had followed me into the corridor but didn't seem to be gloating in her victory. She seemed surprised when she got a proper look at my face. "They got you bad huh?"

She was from the new world, another memory started playing in my head. A man with an American accent dressed in British garments. How odd.

"Got me bad how?" I asked in return. She didn't even seem remotely mad that I had broken her fingers.

"However it happened to you." She answered. "I spoke to some other people, everyone has their own story of how it happened, but it all ends in the same way."

"And what way is that?" I asked. Her brown hair was long and thick and reached all the way to her lower back. She hadn't styled it whatsoever, it looked like she was just going straight into bed with it. Like most people in the room, she was covered in a layer of dirt and even had some dried up blood on her forehead.

"With a bite."

I remembered that. The moonlight, someone holding me and placing their lips on my neck, but I didn't remember them biting me. When she saw me struggling through my memories yet again she sighed.

"They did get you good." She said. "Come sit with me. It feels better when you sit."

I eyed the door angrily, but followed her to her original spot, right next to the corridor. My breathing came out raspy and I wanted nothing more than to just go back and kick the entire thing down.

"What is your name then?" She asked me. I sat down on her original spot, with my back against the wall but so that I could still see the corridor. She sat in front of me, smiling encouragingly.

I had to think about it for a few moments, but it started to come back to me. "Marigold." I said, remembering the face of a woman with grey hair and a few missing teeth. I liked her, but I couldn't remember her name.

"I'm Amelia." She pretended like it hadn't taken me several minutes to come up with something as trivial as my name and shook my hand. It wasn't until she let go that I remembered.

"I'm sorry about your hand." I said to her.

"Oh it's fine," She waved it around. "All healed up."

Her fingers weren't sticking out in awkward angles anymore, they looked like perfectly normal ones. Like I hadn't heard them all snap just moments ago. The whole situation was ridiculous, but I couldn't get my brain to focus on her damned fingers. They were healed, less than twenty minutes ago I had broken them, I knew I had, and they were fine now.

It seemed like an odd thing to break me, but it did. What was left of the rage sizzled away and instead came this overwhelming sadness. I didn't know what to do, I didn't understand what was happening to me. Who were these people, why did it smell so gross in here?

"What happened to me?" I asked, trying to blink away the tears. It was only now that I could really see her. It felt like something clicked in my head and I could finally start making memories again. Her hair was brown and thick and she had a small scar over her right eyebrow. Her eyes were dark and her clothes were nothing more than rags. When I looked down I saw myself wearing a black and blue dress, though I couldn't remember if it was mine or if it had been borrowed.

"I'm not entirely sure." She answered and scooted a bit closer to me. She placed her hand, her fingernails were dirty with mud and blood all over them, on my arm.

"You're not supposed to be up yet." She whispered at me. "I've been here for a while, I've seen it happen over and over again. The new people just lay still for three days, then they sit up for another few days before even thinking about standing up and moving around. You were brought in yesterday."

I looked around the room. The walls were grey, but they weren't painted like that. It looked like we were in a cave of some sort, when I looked back at the corridor I found that it was just the way out and that the door wasn't a door at all, it was a giant boulder.

The people all looked incredibly tired. They were just hanging against the walls or rocks they found, some even laid completely still on the floor as she had described. There was only one other girl here, one with beautiful golden hair and pouty lips. She had her eyes closed, though I could see her eyelids twitching.

How could I see?

There was barely any light coming into the room. There was only one hole in the wall, that didn't look like it would bring in enough sunlight to light up the entire room. Yet I could see the small details of people's faces as though it was broad daylight.

"What are we?" I asked her next. Amelia sat next to me, with her back against the wall.

"They call us Lehiam." She whispered once more. "Occasionally they talk as they bring in new ones, that is how I know. They are preparing for something and when that something happens, they'll let us out."

My mind twisted at the thought. I had to sit around and wait for something to happen, I couldn't bear to feel like this for one more minute. Amelia saw my restlessness and placed her hand on my arm.

"It's funny," she said. "They keep bringing in girls to entertain the men, but we keep waking up before them, we keep causing a stir." She turned to me and smiled. "They don't like it when we cause a stir."