Completed Nicht Alle Tot

[Heike Eisen]

Rolling green hills in the Allir Reach. A clearing. And a lone tree near the center of this clearing, ringed by the temperate forest.

She lay on her back in the grass. Her body in the shade of the lone tree, all save for her left arm. There on it a small slashing tear in the cloth wraps, exposing a minute portion of her pale flesh to the afternoon sun.

A man. Dead. Vicious claw marks raking his chest and his face, matching the bloody claws at the ends of her hands. He lay nearby, lifeless body basking in the full sun, the light of day glinting off of the fallen dagger close to him. A red line of blood along one edge of the dagger.

She appeared lifeless, much like the man. She did not breathe. Did not move. Her eyes were open, staring straight up with a glassy placidity. In her right hand and clutched to her chest she held something: the insignia of a golden sword, and this insignia was likewise tied to her belt by a string.

Tiny, involuntary twitching of the fingers of her right hand. This, every few minutes or so.

The sky above blue and clear. A beautiful day for many upon Arethil. Many, but not all.

 

[The Thousand Eyed Angel]

"Sunshine..." The Angel dragged its sword across the forest floor with an iron creaking. Its footsteps each their own tremor. The stench of death followed it. Dried, crusted blood stained the hunk of metal it pulled with it. The insignia of eyes upon its back almost completely covered by rust and dirt. A walking ghost town.

"Sunshine..." The birds scattered and foxes fled for they knew what the footsteps brought only destruction. Though the creature seemed calm now it was but a breath away from its rampage. As it always was. Fear could be smelled off of the plants and trees.

"Sunshine..." Two corpses came into its view. Peace. Rest. Something it never knew and may never know. An unorthodox and irreversible immortality. It headed towards the tree that Heike laid near. Its approach was slow but heavy. A nightmare in the glow of day. It peered upon Heike and deduced she was still alive.

"Rotten flesh. Impeded. Hindered. The sunshine hates you."

 

[Heike Eisen]

There Heike lay. The oppressive sun beating down on the small bit of exposed skin on her left arm. Like a tyrannical boot it crushed her body and her mind under a weight she was powerless to liberate herself from.

There she lay.

Paralyzed. Incognizant.

But alive. As much as her affliction may be counted as being 'alive'.

Birds that were chirping, singing, in the lone tree fell silent as the Angel approached.

 

[The Thousand Eyed Angel]

"Hated by sunshine. Worshiped by moonglow. Creature of bloodthirst. Are you mute?" Something about the beauty of the day was keeping The Angel at a relatively calm mindset. A meeting in the night could have spelled death for anyone unfortunate enough to come face to face with it. The being stepped closer to Heike with its sword still splitting the ground as it dragged. It now peered its faceless helmet down at the paralyzed vampire. It's breath as heavy as the wind itself.

"Immobile. Docile. Pathetic." It reached its talon bearing gauntlet down towards Heike and lifted her up by her head, bringing her face to face with the monster. "I pity you, maggot flesh. Fearless. Stoic. To be rejected by the most beautiful of things. Sunshine. Goddess." It looked down at the corpse beside where Heike had been laying. It's emotionless tone rising again. "You are like me. Murderer. Hopeless. I pity you, maggot flesh." It turned and tossed Heike by her head at full velocity into an area where the sun was blocked by dense forest.

"Back to your shadows. Hopeless. Murderer."

 

[Heike Eisen]

No response. And no resistance, either to being lifted or being thrown.

Heike's body twisted and turned by the whimsical dictates of wind and force acting upon her. She hit the ground and her body rolled and kicked up some dirt and some leaves and at last she came to a stop in an awkward sprawl, like a discarded doll with limbs splayed about.

Sidelong she lay in the shade of the trees, yet it would be some time before her strength and presence of mind was fully restored. Half of an hour, an hour entire.

As she lay, the first thing to come back was control of her eyes.

And she looked about, eyes trapped helplessly in their sockets, encased in a body that as of yet could not function. A certain bewilderment tinging their yellow hue.

The insignia of the Golden Blade had slipped from her grasp when she was thrown. Though still attached to her belt, the insignia now lay in the dirt, tarnished by the clinging grime from her haphazard landing.

 

[The Thousand Eyed Angel]

The creature stared at Heike's limp body for an uncomfortably long time. It knew what state she was in. It was apparent now more than ever. The consideration to kill her was there. Though something kept The Angel from doing so. Pity. Understanding. The idea of imprisonment was something the beast knew too well. While it constantly killed the innocent, it rarely killed the defenseless.

When it did finally look away, it was back towards the corpse of the man that had laid next to the vampire. The Angel approached it. It rose its enormous blade with one hand and brought it down with force hard enough to shake leaves off the trees. It repeated that action until the corpse was naught but bits.

"The Mountain has made you feed."
It slowly turned around and began to approach Heike's limp body again. It's intentions undetectable.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Time passed. The slow arc of the sun in the sky.

And slowly bits of strength and awareness dripped back into Heike's body and mind. Her fingers were heavy, but she could move them. Simple strings of thought returned. Control of her neck allowed her to roll her head from side to side, to observe more of her surroundings. Feeling leaked back into her arms and her torso, bringing along with it the baggage of dull pain. Deeper awareness was once again possible, and with it a recognition that she was not in the same place as when she had lost cognizance and "blacked out".

A tiny groan escaped her throat, inspired partly by the blunt pain throughout her body and partly by the sheer grogginess inherent in waking after an unpleasant rest. Heike planted her palms on the ground and carefully pushed herself up, sitting upright and supporting herself with her arms. Her legs splayed out long before her, the final bastion of the paralyzation, far too heavy to move.

Wetness. By her waist. She looked down.

Two--no, three--of the potion vials she kept on her belt had shattered, spilling their contents down the legs of her pants. Shattered. As if somebody had done the shattering. Or as if she had landed on them, breaking them. Though a thin haze of fog still lingered in her mind, she recalled clearly falling onto her back once the sun found her exposed flesh.

And she heard something. Footsteps. Approaching from behind.

Heike turned her head and looked over her shoulder.

 

[The Thousand Eyed Angel]

As Heike Eisen was turning her head the first thing to greet her would be the cylindrical helmet that produced spikes from what would see to be the head of whatever this creature was. It stared again for a terrifying length. The sun beamed down hard on the back of The Thousand Eyed Angel, perhaps coincidentally blocking the beams reach from touching the incapacitated vampire.

The beast would turn Heike over to face it entirely. It reached its talon bearing gauntlet down and grabbed her by her shirt and lifted her face to meet its right before the spikes impaled her flesh.

"Hated by sunshine. Worshiped by moonglow. Break free, putrid child. I give you the chance to breathe. Come the day we meet when your energy hath returned," It pulled Heike close enough to have one spike break the skin of her forehead and cause bleeding. "I will offer you naught but death, sun deprived."

It dropped Heike backed to the ground, standing there as a living omen.

 

[Heike Eisen]

Immediate shock. Fear. Feelings Heike herself likely inspired in others, now so inspired in her. She, so rare since becoming afflicted, found herself on the opposite side of Monster and Man dichotomy. Inside a tiny pocket of her mind, some relief. Joy, even. That she should be made to some degree back into the woman she once was relative to the horrific man-like creature before her. Now it was the Monster.

Such feelings, however, were drowned by alarm as it took hold of her shirt and lifted her up. She yelped and tried to struggle, tried to at least hold herself up and support her weight more by grabbing hold of the top of the creature's wrist and attempting to push upward. Futile efforts. Her body above her legs had function, but still they were weak and tired from the crushing gaze of the sun.

It spoke. Could actually speak, deigned to do so, and this surprised Heike to an extent. But the creature was mostly insensible.

"Auch!" Heike winced and closed her eyes and clenched her teeth when the spike pierced the skin of her forehead. An oozing of blood down from the wound.

And it dropped her, her legs crumpling in an instant. She flopped down flat to her side, the scant, unnecessary air in her lungs blown out in a huff on impact. She once again planted her palms in her dirt, and with a slowness brought on by trembling weakness, pushed herself up some and looked up at the creature.

A scowl. At first. And then--her mask down from before--a rueful smirk crossed her expression. "You are welcome to try...fiend."

Memory, brief as it was, of the tutelage of one of her knight-superiors. Herr Elias Schulze, having gathered her and several other squires at the end of a long day, speaking frankly with them about combat. About battle. About death. He spoke at length at how a knight of the Golden Blade shall accord himself, herself, but on this topic he was prone to fall silent for long moments, to speak in low tones, but to do so with resolute conviction. On facing likely or imminent death, Herr Elias said to Heike and the squires:

Die in a manner in which your fellow knights would aspire to.

Heike did not wish to die in the pathetic throes of fear and cowardice.

If this creature sought to kill her--either here and now or when "her energy hath returned"--she would die in a manner she as a squire resolved that day: defiant and bold to the end.

 

[The Thousand Eyed Angel]

It turned its back to the vampire when she finally spoke to it. The forest was dead silent at this moment. Not even worms could be heard stirring from the earth. The wind had even seemed to stop dead in its tracks. An aura, a visible one could be seen permeating from the creature. A dark, dark purple almost liquid looking coating began to cover the outline of this monstrosity. It looked down at its hand.

"The shadows. They hurt. They hurt so much." Black wings jutted from the creatures spine. They seemed to form as if they were flesh. Causing dramatic amounts of crimson blood to spill from the place they birthed. They flapped a terrible gust while still drenched in such ludicrous amounts of blood. "I ask you, moon lover."

It swung its sword back around to point extremely close to Heike's face. The force of the swing kicking up dirt and sending branches flying.

"How can you thrive in such suffering? When the sun hath given up on you, are you not ashamed to continue to live?"

 

[Heike Eisen]

It was one thing to read or listen to tales of monsters. It was another thing to read or listen to tales of certain unique monsters. And it was yet another thing entirely to be in the presence of one of these unique monsters that stalked Arethil.

The aura, as strange and foreboding as just about any other magic to her Reikhurstan sensibilities, provided a mild shock, but her trepidation was already simmering fiercely in her chest, in her veins. The wings--unexpected as they were--a secondary jolt of shock, lesser than the sight of the aura. There was only so much fear a heart, even an afflicted, unbeating heart, could carry.

It was the sword that owned the greatest portion of her fright. And there it came, swung at her with terrible force in an arc that she was certain would bring her doom.

All the steel of her resolve had to be mustered to stay as she was, to not flinch or shy away or close her eyes and cower. To face it down. The words of another of her knight-superiors, Herr Dieter Roth, flashed through her mind: Fear is the cornerstone of courage. But you must not let it consume you. You must not.

Lightning-quick images of Gunther. Of Maria. There in her mind's eye.

But it wasn't her doom. The arc of the sword stopped just short of her face. Her head jerked to one side from the wind whipped up by the staggering force of the swing. And Heike returned her head to where it was, facing the long blade and tracing with her eyes the metal back to the arm which wielded it. To the sinister, spiked helm covering the face of the wielder.

The creature asked a question that, at least, made some clear sense.

"I don't thrive. But I make do," Heike said, trying her damnedest to sound as resolute as possible, despite the tightness in her chest. A sharp breath in her nose, a slow exhale; a mimicry, a taste, of the life she'd lived. "I carry my shame, but I also carry my mementos of a better time. I will die with no remorse for how I have accorded myself. With honor. With truth. With justice."

A mocking smirk in the metal-clad face of death. Die in a certain manner, indeed. Bold even through the sharp claws of fear.

"Immortal things fiends such as you are too weak to kill."

 

[The Thousand Eyed Angel]

It didn't seem phased by the insults. But something did bother it. Something it would make very clear.

"Honor? Justice?" It swung its sword back by its side and lingered in the silence just a bit longer... Yet in terrifying speed thanks to the wings it had conjured it was right above Heike. In another flash, it's armor clad leg came crashing down on the vampire's forearm. It ground its foot into her appendage as it gripped her by her hair and pulled her to its face yet again.

"NO MURDER IS JUSTIFIED. NOT MINE. NOT YOURS. DO NOT SPEAK TO ME OF JUSTICE, MAGGOT FLESH." It lifted its foot just to stomp again. Its voice rivaling that of thunder. "YOU SPEAK AS IF YOU ARE HIGHER THAN ME. I TOO AM BANISHED BY SUNSHINE. WE ARE EQUAL." It would release its foot to throw Heike against a nearby tree and stand over her. "BROKEN FLESH. WORTHLESS BEAST. YOUR RESOLVE DOES NOT HIDE YOUR FEAR. HONOR? CAN YOU RE-FLOWER THE MOUNTAIN? CAN YOU BRING THE SUNSHINE BACK? DO NOT SPIT YOUR POINTLESS DRIVEL AT ME."

It slammed the edge of its blade into the tree right above where Heike laid after being tossed. Another feel of gravitational shift. "I STILL HATE ME MORE THAN I HATE YOU, MOON-WORSHIPED."

Its heavy breath was all that followed its words. That, and the faint sound of crying...

 

[Heike Eisen]

The creature flew up.

And came back down. Hard. All the force and weight slamming onto Heike's right arm. Her eyes widened with the shock of tumultuous pain, great and arresting even through the dulling of it by her condition, the sheer scale of it reminiscent of life. A strained and agonized growl escaped through clenched teeth, her efforts of restraining it falling short. And she let out a tiny yelp as her hair was grabbed and her head wrenched upward.

Don't scream. Don't give it the satisfaction.

The creature raved at her. Roared its screed. But to Heike it did not matter what the monster had to say. Its mere existence was an affront to all things humane. Much like the vampires who assaulted and destroyed Reikhurst, this creature was pure evil. It was not to be bargained or reasoned with. Only resisted. Slain, if such a lofty goal was somehow within her grasp.

Another stomp, and a louder yelp of pain. Her bones had been made stronger from her affliction, but they were not indestructible. Something now felt wrong, gravely misaligned, inside her right forearm. Difficulty in flexing the clawed fingers of her hand.

Don't. Scream.

After the word equal the creature flung her off the ground and into a tree, the thin and tiny shafts of sunlight poking through the imperfections of the forest canopy narrowly missing the exposed flesh of her face, her arm. Heike collapsed at the base of the tree in a heap, her side to the ground and her back to the bark and her limbs splayed as if she had been tossing and turning in slumber from a horrid nightmare. She couldn't help but to let out a withering groan, inspired from the dull and pulsing pain in her back, her right arm, her head.

The blade biting into the tree. The creature's booming voice.

And a peculiar sound. At odds with everything that preceded it. Crying. Crying. The creature had the gall to make a mockery of humanity through its soulless mimicry.

Slaying the abomination, in her current state, seemed little more than futile wishful thinking. She could take heart in knowing that someone, someday, would be fated to kill this vile creature; that much she believed without question. What she could do, lacking the strength to be the one so fated, was kindle her defiance. To shove down her fear into irrelevance and show this thing that while it could kill her body, it could not--as with honor, truth, and justice--kill her spirit.

In short, she could mock the fiend right back.

Heike waited for a powerful and demanding wince to pass, and she said derisively to the creature, "Shall I fetch you a handkerchief...Maggot Flesh?"

Another wince she couldn't hold back. And the first tinglings of sensation crept back into her upper thighs.

 

[The Thousand Eyed Angel]

"You call me what I am. I cannot be angered at you for that notion." It spoke. Almost plainly. Almost calm. "You have suffered dearly. The Mountain shan't forgive me for it." It raised its head to look up at the sky. Its breathing steadying and agonized crying slowed to a halt. "I wonder, will even you forgive me, sunshine?" It seemingly asked this to the air itself. Likely referencing something.

"I thank you, moon-worshiped." It spoke, its head still raised to the sky. The sound of birds was slowly returning. The distortion of its words seemed to fade slightly, the tone of its voice raising in pitch ever so slightly. It pulled its sword from the tree, the evergreen immediately falling to the side and crashing into the ground. The aura of shadow started to flee from around the creature and the wings sunk back in a horrible grinding, bloody mess. It stood and grunted in pain as it occurred.

"I wonder." It swung its sword back to its side. "What it would have been like to live the life I was given." These were its parting words. The creature then dragged its sword into the distance. Leaving Heike to her wounds.

 

[Heike Eisen]

The creature was unpredictable and dangerous. But today--at the very least, in this particular moment--its unpredictability had seemingly blunted its danger.

Heike's defiance in the face of death--as she had done here--had directly brought about her affliction. The vampires couldn't stand it, none more so than their apparent leader, the elder. They forced her to watch their assault on Reikhurst. Though the pain of watching the home she cherished burn and the people she cared for be slaughtered, she did not relent. And that's when the elder vampire decided to turn her.

Then, her defiance had earned her her affliction. Now, her defiance had earned her the continuation of her affliction.

The creature pulled its sword from the tree and the tree fell. Heike instinctively shrunk back against the remainder of the trunk, wary that the rays of the afternoon sun might find her again, but such was unnecessary; the shade of the chopped trunk still kept her safe.

And the creature left. Like a nightmare banished upon waking. It walked away. And was gone from her sight.

Stillness set in around her. The serene quiet of the forest, save only for the slight and occasional breeze and the rustle of branches and leaves with it. Birds. Birds, again. Singing as if now they had been given a sort of permission.

Heike lay on the ground and in the small island of shade. Lingering pain from the encounter sieging her head, her back, her broken forearm. Blood ran down into her eyes.

And now, lacking an adversary to defy and thereby a method to smother her stark fright, the fear rose up from the murk of her mind and bubbled just beneath the flesh. She couldn't keep her eyes open. She shook. Her hands and arms and body and all. As she had before. Shook in a manner that she as a younger squire assumed that Herr Elias never had.

Yet a calm and quiet voice whispered amidst the waves of quaking fear at having come so close to true death. A gentle voice, emerging there from the very same place in her mind that her earlier relief and joy had come. Seductive reminders...that she wanted it. That she failed to uphold her duty as a knight of the Golden Blade and lay down her life in defense of Reikhurst. Where all her fellow knights had given theirs.

Or so she had thought.

That man. The dead man, whom she killed. Back in the clearing. He was but a petty thief, though he had a vicious streak in silencing those who caught him in the act or otherwise knew of his crimes. A surprising ferocity which led directly to her woes under the sun, her terrible encounter with the spiked fiend here.

The thief had seen her insignia. And he through his final comment before he attacked suggested something that broke the grim impression that Heike for five years had so labored under.

The possibility that her fellow knights of the Order of the Golden Blade were not all dead.