once broken, twice fixed
The sky is dark that night. Almost as dark as the blood that oozes out of Victor’s side, more and more with every second. The hand he has pressed to the wound is warm with it. It’s filthy, too. Victor lifts it and licks at the blood, which is his own in a way, but also not entirely.
His fangs itch.
He needs to feed.
He’s bleeding too much, and he hasn’t eaten in so long…
The street lamp winks somewhere before him, as if to show him the way. He follows the light, hoping to find some poor soul along the way to sate the thirst that begins to build up in his throat. It isn’t the uncontrollable kind yet, but soon it will be. And then… then it will be impossible to avoid being killed.
The streets are empty. Not a single human in sight.
Once more, Victor curses the hunter.
He came out of nowhere. Victor was harmlessly walking home after a few drinks, and then all of a sudden there was a muffled gunshot, a wooden bullet in his belly and pain, pain, lots of pain.
Blood followed, of course. The scent combined with the pain made Victor’s head spin hard enough to bare his fangs in public. That was his mistake, he realized as soon as another bullet bit into his shoulder. One more drove into his thigh within the span of a second and, shocked into anger, Victor was forced to flee. Ridiculous that him, an almost 400 year old vampire, had to tuck his pride under the collar and leave, but in his weakened state he wouldn’t be able to fight. He knew that well. And so did the hunter, who came after him.
With a snarl of exasperation, Victor left the busy main streets. The bullets from his shoulder and thigh he plucked out with his fingers, they were shallow enough for him to reach. The one in his guts, though… He grimaces as he feels the wood rub against his organs. It burns. It burns and makes it hard to focus. Too hard to hunt. And Victor is too weak to enthrall, too weak to enchant.
Too weak to hide, it seems, too.
A wooden bullet wheezes past his ear.
He stumbles, supporting himself with one hand on a nearby wall, then looks back. At the end of the alley stands a hooded figure of the hunter who ruined Victor’s night. As Victor watches, trying to make out anything about the cloaked figure, the hunter reloads his gun.
Maybe he should just let him kill him, the thought crosses Victor’s mind briefly. He’s lived long enough and lately… well, lately life just hasn’t been like he remembers. So would it be so bad if he just…?
Another bullet shoots past him, followed by one more, which bites into the building wall behind Victor’s shoulder. Shrapnel smacks Victor on the cheek, cutting his skin open. A breath of annoyance leaves his lips.
When the hunter pulls the trigger for the third time, Victor doesn’t wait for what’s to come. He kicks off at a run, his every step making his side burn harder. The bullets rain after him, their muffled snapping against the concrete dogging at his heels.
Victor takes a turn, then another, and then… then he comes to a dead end.
Walls close in on him from all three sides and the hunter’s footsteps echo right around the corner. Victor can hear them as clearly as all the heartbeats within the buildings that rise around him. He looks at his surroundings, fighting for a chance to live despite pretending to be so at peace with dying.
Then, suddenly, he realizes that he’s already dead.
The absurdity of the thought makes him laugh. He stifles the first giggle, but another comes and one more, and then Victor laughs out loud. He laughs until his sides hurt, until the burning inside his gut rises up his throat and he pukes out fresh, warm blood.
Bent in half, he’s laughing and spitting blood when black leather boots come into his field of vision. Victor wipes his lips with the back of his hand and looks up, still with an uncontrollable grin.
From his position on the ground he can finally look under the hood of the hunter’s cloak. Brown eyes gaze down at him, shining with pity.
“Do I really look that pathetic to you?” Victor asks.
The hunter doesn’t reply. Victor wants to sigh, but a cough rips at his lungs and he spits another mouthful of blood at the man’s feet. His amusement turns into something bitter inside his lungs.
“Kill me then,” Victor orders. “Be done with it. I’m ready.”
But the hunter doesn’t oblige. He watches Victor suffer for a moment longer, then crouches before him. His gun rests on his thigh, silver and gleaming in the sparse flashes of the neon signs from the street behind his back.
“Whoever told you I want to kill you?”
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