celestial symphonies

[lunarforests]

daisy ˚⟡˖ gemma ❝Fuck that, I didn’t want a job waiting tables anyway,❞ Daisy sighs. She stood outside a casino restaurant with crumpled resume in hand. The interview had been doomed from the start. She arrived late and frazzled - while this was fairly typical behavior of theirs, it didn’t exactly leave a good first impression on a fine dining restaurant. They’d tried to talk up their ability to handle disgruntled guests, but she’d gotten the impression that the casino preferred to deal with them discretely and quickly, which wasn’t exactly Daisy’s forte. The manager had thanked her for her time and showed her to the door. There would not be a second interview. Or even a rejection letter.

She knew how this kind of thing worked.

They were looking forward to a fat tip check from working at a place like that. ❝It’s fine. I’ll be fine,❞ She told herself. Behind her, the casino and its restaurant slowly disappeared under the horizon, under a haze of blue sky and dust. At the light pole of the streetcorner, they began looking at the various fliers taped there, many yellowed and torn with age. They always made life work out. Somehow, some way. She liked looking at the ads on telephone polls rather than the help wanted section in the daily paper. ❝Do you think any of these are still legitimate?❞ She asked, mostly to herself, but partially to the other who stood with her, waiting for the crossing sign to change. ❝You wouldn’t happen to have any leads for a job fit for a high-school-drop-out, would you? Preferably the night shift. I’d even take graveyard. As long as I don’t have to get up at the ass crack of dawn.❞

@b4rredteeth

[aster-writcs]

her fingers trace the edges of the wounds in a delicate, and precise manner. no more shaking, no more fear. he can feeel it—the hesitation melting away and curiosity replacing the panic that had previously ambushed her, churning her into someone he'd never seen before. she's much calmer and it's a relief, to say the least. though he's still a bit worried for her current pysche: a trauma response and a crack in reality couldn't be healthy for one night.

thankfully she doesn't recoil—trusts her own hands before she trusts her eyes and his words. he can't blame her, he supposes he would have done the same.

"...i know you don't understand, that's because your assumptions are entirely reasonable and you're trying to fit this into a framework that doesn't exist." he realizes his words answer her confusion more than her question, which could multiply that confusion. "or does exist, but doesn't in your world or, at least, it shouldn't." he's rambling now, using speech as a distraction to put off the haplessness of repeating himself. he finds that asking someone for help is the most humiliating experience in the entire world, and that includes the mild seduction of rollerblading.

he watches the impossible register across her face. the tiny movements behind her eyes as the world rearranges itself into something else. it occurs to him, belatedly, that there is no graceful way to dismantle someone's understanding of reality. "i'm— let's just say, my biological structure no longer matches yours." maybe he should have started somewhere else...

her laugh catches him off guard. brief. involuntary. enough that the corner of his mouth threatens movement before he remembers himself.

then—sex. the suggestion reaches him several seconds late. for one suspended moment, sidd merely blinks at her. his brain, despite the blood loss, makes the entirely unnecessary decision to imagine it anyway: with her. in the bathroom... drenched in blood.

he has to physically turn his face away from her to rid himself of those thoughts.

"listen... i appreciate the confidence." or lack of confidence since he's quick to pick up on the realization that he had apparently needed to arrive half dead before the subject could be mentioned at all. there was something profoundly undignified about that... another breath. "but i'm currently operating at a significant circulatory deficit."

a pause. "under different circumstances, perhaps." he shouldn't have said that. "i would be remiss if we didn't revisit that topic of conversation in the morning when i've regained my strength." he shouldn't have said that either. a pause. "…under the current circumstance, i'm mostly trying to remain conscious." the humor fades as quickly as it arrived. not rejected. simply set aside.

she asks him to stop making her guess. fair.

his eyes close for a second. "i promise you, i'm not attempting to be unclear." a pause. "i'm trying to figure out how to explain something that sounds absurd even when it's true."

he shifts carefully, one hand braced against the floor as the remaining cuts continue their slow, unpleasant work of closing. the blood around them stays stubbornly red. the blood inside him stays absent. his gaze returns to hers. steady. tired. he explains,"the wounds heal eventually." he nods once toward his chest. "my body can repair itself over time, it's part of the gift." a faint shake of his head. "but i can't replace what it's already lost, that's why i'm still weak. that's why you had to carry me here."

he lets the sentence settle before continuing. his breathing has evened somewhat, though every inhale still carries an unmistakable weakness beneath it. "i don't need stitches, though i appreciate the effort." another beat. "i just need to replace what's lost."

finally— he forces himself to say the part that has lodged somewhere behind his ribs since he'd collapsed against her door. "...and i was optimisitc..." the words resist him with embarrassing determination. he has collected debts from men twice his size without flinching. threatened lives. negotiated impossible arrangements. somehow none of it compares to this. "...that you'd help me acquire some," a heavy sigh, "blood that is."

[lunarforests]

He must have some of his strength back to him, Daisy thinks. He's back to talking in more than one word sentences. Still, the tip of her finger draws back cold after tracing Sidd's skin. Colder than normal, she should say.

There had to be more going on than just his injuries that continued stitching themselves together. If she looked hard enough, she could see the sinews regrowing, attaching to more newly formed skin.

❝Why can't you just come out and say it directly?❞ Daisy sighs. ❝Always these word games with you.❞ He's forced her to read between the lines, and after witnessing what she had just seen, she didn't know how Sidd expected her to understand his meaning. ❝I'm not a nine-year-old boy. You don't have to explain how your body is different than mine.❞

Her intentions are still truthful, even if spoken through the the ruse of a joke. Okay, Sidd, lets get to the point instead of dancing around the subject until you kneel over. Instead, her assumption embarrasses him. She's heard tale of men doing more than this to hook up with someone. While she'd never thought Sidd to be the type, she wouldn't write anyone off. ❝I'm not promising that we're revisiting anything.❞ He still hadn't come clean about anything. Come morning, she may not even be on speaking terms with him, depending on how the remainder of the night turned out.

❝You may not be attempting to be unclear, but that doesn't mean you still aren't. Just come out and say it if you're, like, some secret government alien experiment or something,❞ Her impatience continued to grow. Their bubble was beginning to feel like some plane of contradiction. It was both an emergency, that Sidd couldn't run the risk of going anywhere else, but not urgent enough to stop him from rambling. He had been bleeding out just minutes ago, but his skin was impossibly mending itself back together. Gift? What gift? Blood? What exactly was he asking her? She needed to rob a blood bank? Sacrifice someone to him? She had a running, justifiable reason for hating the clerk who worked at the corner store by the apartment ( He never gave her the right amount of change and, once, stiffed her of a ten dollar bill ) and she wouldn't mind if he suddenly went missing.

And then it clicked.

Sidd could, if he were looking, he could see the soft light of recognition shine in her eyes. ❝You're a vampire. Like The Lost Boys?❞ The blood, him repairing his skin, the need for blood. Even his teeth. Daisy had never seen him in the daylight, but then again she was barely out of her apartment before dusk as it was. ❝So like...you van to suhck my bloohd?

[aster-writcs]

it was a funny notion— that he was now the jester instead of her. that he was the one with the quips while she continued to panic. near death experiences bring out the most peculiar circumstances. even as she treats him with contempt, he finds her amusing. her threats, not to condescend, were quite adorable.

she tells him not to sleep. the words land strangely. he has heard panic before. countless variations of it. this one however, possesses a history. sequence. the cadence of something spoken once, then again, then enough times to become muscle memory.

then she isn't talking to him at all. and he understands. she's asking something of a someone else. someone who isn't in a pool of blood in front of her. the plea was never meant for him. and whatever fear lived behind her words had been planted by some other circumstance. because sidd cannot remember the last time he'd raised his voice in anger. it was something he had never been particularly capable of giving or taking away. anger, perhaps. disappointment. silence. but shouting? it had never belonged to him. not like that. not with the deliberate intention of making another person smaller. someone else had taught her that expectation. he then realizes his mistake. he shouldn't have come here—not because he didn't trust her, because perhaps he trusted her too much.

his eyes lift to her with what little concentration remains available, as he pulls himself up by his elbows. “woah…hey.” he’s quieter now. careful. his gaze follows the tremor in her hands before returning to her face. “look at me. don't go somewhere i can't follow.”

for a second, he thinks she listens. for a second, the room becomes smaller: not the bathroom, nor blood. or the fact that his body is being held together by whatever stubbornness remains. just the two of them and the strange, uncomfortable reality that she is afraid for him. 

then his body betrays him. the blood loss has taken too much from him. too much control. too much effort. the fangs remain and the hunger claws at his throat—a broken gasp leaves him, rugged and nearly out of breath.

she attributes this nonsense to a halloween costume and under different circumstances, he suspects he might have appreciated the assessment.

then he watches her brush his hair away from his forehead. the gesture should be insignificant, but rather, stills something inside him. small. unexpected. inconvenient—a reaction he would prefer not to examine too closely. she says she can help. he knows she can. that is perhaps the most surprising development of the evening.

"...i know you don’t believe me.” the words leave quieter than intended. less argument. more admission. another breath. then, slowly, his hand moves toward his shirt, fingers catching briefly against the sticky stained fabric before he lifts it enough to show her. the wounds are there. the evidence of whatever found him before he reached her. except there is no longer blood surrounding them. the cuts are already fusing themselves closed. slowly. imperfectly. not the miraculous kind of healing people imagine when they think of vampires. something uglier. something clinical. a body repairing itself because it has no other choice. and poorly due to the bloodless.

“take a look..." his gaze drops briefly to the stains on her hands. to the tremor that hasn't left them, and he’s not sure she’s ready for what he’s intended on asking. 

“that’s why i came here.” his eyes lift back to hers. "i needed your help." another beat. "just..."

his jaw tightens slightly, frustration appearing not at her but at the limitations of language.

"not the kind you're thinking." he looks away for a moment. because saying it plainly feels too much like asking. and siddharth desai has spent a lifetime making sure he never needs to ask.

[lunarforests]

Maybe its his quietness that draws her in. Not just the softness of his voice or his gentle fingers, but all of it. All of him. The unexpected, subdued nature of it all. Dad would have yelled more. Argued. Reminded her that if she didn’t step in, they’d have a bigger mess. He’d be dead. Or in the hospital. While doctors wouldn’t ask too many questions, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t call a social worker who would. Did Daisy want to be separated from her dad? Did she want to watch him die?

Funny how she’d been left behind regardless. She’d done everything right and still wound up alone. 

Well. Now alone with Sid, bloodied in her bathroom. He was the one bleeding out, and yet he was comforting her instead. She liked the feel of his breath on her skin. She liked his thumb pressed into her forearm. She liked the darkness in his eyes searching for the darkness in her own. He was still a stranger to her, and yet, somehow, still the closest thing she had for a friend. She didn’t ask questions she didn’t want the answer to. Sid didn't question what he didn't want to know. Nothing about family or any other nonexistent friends. That was what Daisy had always liked. She knew nothing about him, but she didn’t have to know anything to recognize their shared damage. Just two kids, left in the embrace of night.

A different version of Daisy would have slammed the door in his face or not answered at all. A different version of Sid wouldn’t have even knocked. In the morning, she’d blame the blood, which was just beginning to dry on her skin. As if it were enough to keep her stuck to the ground rather than any sudden obligation she may feel to him.

It’s true, she doesn’t believe him. She isn’t entirely sure what he’s even trying to convey to her. Sharp teeth? What could possibly mean? Subdued words when he should have been angry had disarmed Daisy. The needle drops along side the bandages. Her guard down, her mind more open than it had ever been before. Gaze drifting down to his chest, Daisy witnesses the impossible. Until her finger traces the invisible sutures, she doubts. The tips of her nails can feel the skin heeling, however subtly. He feels very alive. Impossibly alive, where he had just seemed on death’s door mere minutes prior.

❝I…don’t understand,❞ A hush remains stuck in her throat, as if she spoke too loud she might burst the bubble that kept them isolated in the bathroom. ❝If…you’re able to do…that, what could you need from me?❞ 

While she’d been left in the dark, Daisy didn’t want to be kept there. Not with Sid hanging…something she couldn’t possibly know over her head. She wracks her mind. Then frowns. ❝If you tell me that sex is the only way to fix…whatever this is, then I’m officially not interested.❞ The lie slips out with ease. She even laughs, her humor having returned. She wanted to go back to her reruns. She wanted to finish the nachos she’d been working through. She wanted to pull the blanket over her head and let this whole, terrible night come to an end. She wanted morning, even if it felt so far away. ❝Will you please just tell me what’s going on instead of making me guess? I don’t want to play any cryptic games, Sid.❞

[lunarforests]

There weren’t many things that made Daisy sick. She insisted that she had seen it all. As much as anyone could, without working in a hospital or being present in the middle of a battlefield. She’d seen gun shots and stab wounds. She’d felt blood gushing from heads and watched someone throw up until their stomach had no more contents to give. During a scary movie, she played the role of cool kid, oh this is nothing, she would insist. I used to see worse when I was a kid. 

And she had. On more than one night she’d come home - or been awoken - to her father, and anyone else he may have roped into his schemes, in the kitchen bleeding out. Sometimes in the bathroom. Always with rolls of bandages and sharp needles. He kept antiseptic under the sink, exactly for that purpose.

It wasn’t the blood that bothered her. Not really. Concern began bubbling in her belly as if her body was beginning to reject last night’s supper. Blood pressed against her arm. Crimson dripping down, down. 

❝Jesus Christ -❞

Only barely does she mange to catch him as he falls into her arms. Daisy looks to the left, then to the right, but the hallway is empty, save for Sid’s blood. She drags him inside, slipping and sliding the entire way to the bathroom. Instinct takes over, like she’s done this before. She has done this before, in two decade old memories she had boxed away and left to rot. His blood slicks her arms. She can’t get him in the tub, so she leaves him on the vinyl floor of her bathroom, grateful for the first time that its not real tile. There was no way she was getting her security deposit back, anyway.

❝What the hell are you doing?❞ The reality of their new situation begins sinking in; she has a half dead man in her bathroom in the middle of the night. The only medical training she had was forced upon her by her father. What did she think she was going to do with Sid? Patch him up? Call an ambulance? If he wanted the hospital, she never would have seen him. If she was going to patch him up, then why didn’t her hands stop shaking? She wants to hit him, so she does, regardless of his current physical well-being. ❝What the hell is wrong with you?❞ Suddenly angry, terrified, worried, and confused, every emotion begged to leak from her. ❝Why the fuck did you come here? So you could die in my bathroom instead of…❞ For once, she doesn’t have another word. For where would be the preferable place for people like them to die? The assholes who claimed no one and had nothing. The people who left first to avoid being left behind. Certainly they didn’t deserve a peaceful death in bed, like so many wished. 

❝I’ve got bandages. Somewhere,❞ Under the kitchen sink. Just in case her dad ever got out of prison. Just in case he ever tracked her down. Just in case he needed her to patch him up again. Her hands won’t stop shaking. ❝I won’t forgive you if you die on my floor. I’ll bring you back just to kill you myself.❞

[aster-writcs]

vision blurs into fragments— his mostly limp body dragged across the apartment. hazy vision is able to find places to settle on, the ceiling first, then the floor, then whatever his eyes happen to catch before the room slips again: an unticking clock likely in need of batteries, laundry unfolded on the couch, a shelf half mounted with a hole pulled out by a faulty screw, roller skate bearings next to a chipped mug on the coffee table. nothing here reaches completion it seems.

his eyes close. second sense, smell—what can he latch onto before lights out? laundry detergent, blood, old wood, blood, rain on shoes, blood, stale take out, blood, coffee, and blood. yet beneath it all—her.  strange how the mind continued reaching for familiar things even when the body was considering less cooperative alternatives. he latches on to her scent as if it's the last he'll ever be able to take in.

vinyl meets cheek with surprising gentleness. it’s cold, but he presumes he’s gone colder. and she demands to know what the hell was he doing. reasonable. but loaded question given the circumstances. briefly he searches for an answer. comes up short. the corner of his mouth lifts anyway— a smirk sluggishly spreads across his mouth. 

“closest door.” a slow shaky exhale, “closest person.” 

he says nothing else, but notes the automatic way she reaches for supplies. the order in which she locates gauze. the cabinet beneath the sink opens before she seems to realize she's walking toward it. she keeps on—question after question until sidd finally realizes that she's shaking, and his blood coats her hands. air leaves him in an undignified rush. "wasn't planning to...” pause. “…although…” his eyes close briefly.  “i may know a necromancer.” he isn't entirely certain whether he says the last part aloud.

he reaches for her wrist. "...daisy." her name leaves him softer than intended. to steady her. his fingers leave another crimson print against her skin. his thumb moves once across the back of her wrist. barely.

"it's alright. it’s going to be fine.” his breathing slows. a shiver creeps up his spine,  “i just…need to rest a little.”  another shiver works its way through him. his thoughts attempt, with increasingly questionable success, to arrange themselves into something resembling an explanation.

they refuse.

every version of reality sounds implausible.

"...there's a detail i neglected to mention." his tongue brushes instinctively against one canine. then concentration follows. followed by resistance. his jaw tightens. something behind his eyes flickers with a faded effort. slowly, the elongated points inch forward instead of sliding effortlessly into place. each fraction of an inch feels stolen from what little blood remains in his body, until, at last, fangs replace ordinary teeth.

"...apologies." another measured breath. "...that usually requires less effort."

a pause for a proper reaction.

[lunarforests]

❝Great,❞ Daisy sighs. ❝Wrong person, wrong time.❞ The words are meant to be spoken under the softness of her breath, but given her current state, they come out harsher and louder than she had intended, like she was biting Sid when he was already down.

But she was angry, wasn’t she? Angry at Sid, for assuming she’d be able to help. Angry at her father, for showing her how to stitch up a bullet wound. Angry at herself, for continuing to play both of their games.

She also didn’t want Sid to die. Neither of them had many friends, damnit, and Sid was probably the closest thing Daisy had to that.

❝Don’t fucking joke with me right now,❞ She scolds. A necrowhatsit? She’s unsure if she even heard him correctly. It’s when his eyes close - however briefly - that a deeper worry sets in. He grabs her arm and she doesn’t even notice the blood anymore. Words, meant to soothe, sharpen her anger more.

Don’t let me fall asleep, her father had said. It was raining. He’d been running and slipped and fell. The blood down his face was as black as the night outside. If I fall asleep, I might not wake up again, and you don’t want to be without your dear old dad, do you? Now steady your fucking hands and get to work.

❝You can’t rest,❞ She insists now. ❝Not until the bleeding stops,❞ But where was it coming from? Daisy begins to realize the red stains may not be Sid’s own blood, but from whatever other fellow left him in such a state. Her hands have yet to stop shaking. You’re going to cut me up more, if you keep that up, her father’s voice rings out. ❝Please don’t yell,❞ When Daisy reflects on this moment, months, even years from now, she’ll surprise herself with the realization of just how soft her voice had grown as she made her demands. 

Was she talking to Sid? Or to her father? For half a blink, she could swear that she saw Dad, pressed against the faux tile of her bathroom, holding his side together with his blood in the bathroom sink and his blood on Daisy’s hands.

And then she blinks again and Sid has returned with his hair dripping and his teeth elongating. ❝…I don’t know what the hell kinda freaky Halloween costume that is, but this isn’t the time to play games with me,❞ She sits on her knees now, so close to Sid that she could feel his hot breath against her warm skin. In a rare moment of tenderness, she brushes his hair from his face. ❝It’ll hurt like hell, but I can help you at least get back on your feet. If you’ll let me.❞

[aster-writcs]

admitting he hadn't earned his injuries would require a level of self-importance he had never managed to cultivate.

therefore, cause remained stubbornly loyal to effect.

if one were interested enough in conducting a proper post mortem—and siddharth briefly considers that he might qualify for that—they would've arrived at several complicated conclusions, slowly becoming evident to the battered entity now.

one: antagonizing the leadership of a particularly unpleasant vampire coven had, in restrospect been an error.

two: assuming hundreds miles would discourage creatures of crossing state lines for vengaeance demonstrated an optimism entirely out of character

three: relying on local vampires to display a loyalty beyond immediate convenience had proven, once again, futile

four: he really needed some fucking friends.

he files these observations away accordingly in their neat little folders, though none of it proves particulary useful now. it wasn’t necessarily ideal: the amount of blood he could feel draining from his face, then the trail of it that followed him home to those conventional apartments. by morning, the desert would oxidize it all, turn it brown and disguise it as something else. las vegas excelled at that. evidence rarely survived sunrise.

his building finally comes into view, close but his door not close enough.

despite the fact that he had been a vampire of nearly a decade, his healing abilities could still take their slow time, but that wasn't necessarily the issue. the issue was the fact that he was too weak to hold himself up. he needed more blood.

he tells himself proximity is the only deciding factor, as he crashes onto her door. her door being closer to his, that is. but that's a matter of opinion at this point. his knuckles meet the wood with considerably less authority than intended, dragging rather than rapping.

thankfully she's home.

inside he can hear the television chattering away, four elderly women arguing with a cadence only lifelong friends seem capable of possessing. he catches fragments of laughter. a familiar theme song.

the golden girls. ironic.

"amusing, your choice of words..."

one bloodied hand finds her forearm for balance. crimson fingerprints bloom against her skip and leave their imprint on her forearm to match the streak of blood upon entering.

"long time no see, hot wheels."

gravity begins negotiating its own terms, however, and the collapse into her arms isn't as graceful as it is when their on the rink.

[lunarforests]

There weren’t many things that made Daisy sick. She insisted that she had seen it all. As much as anyone could, without working in a hospital or being present in the middle of a battlefield. She’d seen gun shots and stab wounds. She’d felt blood gushing from heads and watched someone throw up until their stomach had no more contents to give. During a scary movie, she played the role of cool kid, oh this is nothing, she would insist. I used to see worse when I was a kid. 

And she had. On more than one night she’d come home - or been awoken - to her father, and anyone else he may have roped into his schemes, in the kitchen bleeding out. Sometimes in the bathroom. Always with rolls of bandages and sharp needles. He kept antiseptic under the sink, exactly for that purpose.

It wasn’t the blood that bothered her. Not really. Concern began bubbling in her belly as if her body was beginning to reject last night’s supper. Blood pressed against her arm. Crimson dripping down, down. 

❝Jesus Christ -❞

Only barely does she mange to catch him as he falls into her arms. Daisy looks to the left, then to the right, but the hallway is empty, save for Sid’s blood. She drags him inside, slipping and sliding the entire way to the bathroom. Instinct takes over, like she’s done this before. She has done this before, in two decade old memories she had boxed away and left to rot. His blood slicks her arms. She can’t get him in the tub, so she leaves him on the vinyl floor of her bathroom, grateful for the first time that its not real tile. There was no way she was getting her security deposit back, anyway.

❝What the hell are you doing?❞ The reality of their new situation begins sinking in; she has a half dead man in her bathroom in the middle of the night. The only medical training she had was forced upon her by her father. What did she think she was going to do with Sid? Patch him up? Call an ambulance? If he wanted the hospital, she never would have seen him. If she was going to patch him up, then why didn’t her hands stop shaking? She wants to hit him, so she does, regardless of his current physical well-being. ❝What the hell is wrong with you?❞ Suddenly angry, terrified, worried, and confused, every emotion begged to leak from her. ❝Why the fuck did you come here? So you could die in my bathroom instead of…❞ For once, she doesn’t have another word. For where would be the preferable place for people like them to die? The assholes who claimed no one and had nothing. The people who left first to avoid being left behind. Certainly they didn’t deserve a peaceful death in bed, like so many wished. 

❝I’ve got bandages. Somewhere,❞ Under the kitchen sink. Just in case her dad ever got out of prison. Just in case he ever tracked her down. Just in case he needed her to patch him up again. Her hands won’t stop shaking. ❝I won’t forgive you if you die on my floor. I’ll bring you back just to kill you myself.❞

[lunarforests]

Anyone who had an extended interaction with Daisy would be able to guess that her apartment would be a mess. It was not the sort of thing she shied away from; their entire life was a mess, wouldn’t it make sense that their living quarters were the same way? 

No, what took most people by surprise was just how threadbare it was. She hung no posters from her walls, did not decorate the halls with nonexistent family photos. At most, her single landline ( not even a cordless ) had a few stickers they’d picked up from the grocery store and concerts, but little else that made the space uniquely Daisy. 

Other than the mess. Of course.

Those who knew her would be surprised to find her at home with the moon. Despite not being a creature of the night, she still had many nighttime habits. Only by some miracle was she at home when someone knocked on their door. A stranger, Daisy thought. They should have tried her phone first, to see if she was even at home, rather than show up unannounced. The moon still hung high - she should have been on the street, in the casino, at work, maybe getting a facial; anything was possible at three am in Sin City. Instead, they were home. In their robe, watching reruns of Golden Girls and answering their front door. 

❝This had better be something good,❞ They muttered. ❝If you’re not bleeding out or throwing up, you’re about to wish you were half dead,❞ She said as the door swung upon.

That is when they saw the blood.

@aster-writcs