She chokes on the smoke filling her lungs and pushes her way toward Filipa’s room with one hand covering her mouth and nose, though it does little good to shield her face from the thick, suffocating smoke. A loud pop resonates through the space and just as Aramei passes the threshold and makes it into Filipa’s room one of the beams holding the roof comes crashing down, collapsing the entire back section of the cottage.
There is no other way out now except through the window in Filipa’s bedroom.
“Filipa!” Aramei screams through the smoke, her lungs burning. “Filipa! It’s on fire!”
She pushes Filipa out of the bed and Filipa lands on the floor with a thud. But Aramei, realizing there is no time for Filipa’s usual five-long-minute way of waking up no matter the dire situation, grabs her by her long, brown hair and drags her across the bedroom floor toward the open window where smoke billows out thickly.
Filipa screams out in pain as she’s dragged, but things are happening too quickly for her to protest. Aramei pulls her sister from the floor when they make it to the window, allowing her to stand on her own. “Hurry!” she shouts over the roar of the flames getting closer every second.
Filipa doesn’t hesitate and still dressed in her nightgown, she climbs quickly over the windowsill and falls onto the ground below.
Aramei crawls out next and drops to her feet next to Filipa who now takes the lead and grabs a hold of Aramei’s arm and drags her farther away from the collapsing cottage.
“Father!” Aramei screams. “We have to save Father!”
“He’s dead!” Filipa says, pulling her along, “The house is gone!”
They run out into the village square to find that they aren’t the only ones out in their night clothes and bare feet, nor is their cottage the only one on fire. The entire village has gone up in flames. The villagers are running through the dirt-covered street screaming, crying and calling out to lost loved ones.
Aramei and Filipa run away from the flames of a nearby cottage and toward the people.
“My son!” one woman cries her face blackened by soot. “Where is my son?”
Just as Aramei goes to grab the woman and pull her away with her and Filipa, her son comes bursting through the front door of their burning cottage carrying a makeshift bag of their belongings he had saved from the fire. He rushes over and takes his mother’s arm, dragging her away with him. “They’re here! The Black Beasts!” he shouts to Filipa. “Get your sister out of here! Now!”
Aramei looks at Filipa with panic in her eyes. Filipa, equally panicked, grabs Aramei by the arm again and they take off running towards the forest. Only seconds in and they find themselves barricaded by a mass of black fur and gnashing teeth. They stop so abruptly that Aramei crashes into Filipa’s back and they both fall over. Filipa scrambles for Aramei’s arm, or hand, or whatever body part she can grasp onto. She can’t take her eyes off the beasts standing before them so tall and terrifying that her entire body trembles uncontrollably.
Aramei stands up first and brings Filipa with her, pushing her behind her as they begin to step backward toward the trees. Aramei's face drips with sweat where streaks of black from the soot on the air trail down her face, making her look all the more primal in the faces of these beasts; those that look the same as the one she mended in the barn just six months ago. But these beasts are not like that one and Aramei knows it.
Filipa tries to take off running back into the burning village, but when Aramei won’t move to follow, Filipa stops. Tears stream from her face. “What are you doing, sissa? We have to run!”
The biggest beast in the front rears up and comes crashing back down swiping its massive claws at the air toward them. Aramei and Filipa stumble backward into the brush and Filipa falls. The beast roars, blood dripping thickly from its teeth, but another beast comes in behind it and thrusts out its hairy arm, knocking it through the trees.
Aramei, staying on her feet, shouts at Filipa, "Run! Go, Filipa, now!"
"Not without you!" Filipa shouts, pulling herself back to her feet.
"I said, GO!" Aramei's voice is strident, but she never takes her eyes off the beasts blocking her path.
Reluctantly, Filipa takes off running through the woods, leaving Aramei behind. Aramei's eyes dart all around her, searching for anything she might be able to use to defend herself, but the cold, hard reality is that there's not much in the way of a weapon when all one is surrounded by are trees and brush.
She can hear the screams of the villagers piercing through the darkness in every direction, and the howls and the echo of structures collapsing under the weight and intensity of the fires. In her peripheral vision, Aramei catches a glimpse of dozens of these beasts darting through the darkness, some running on all fours while others hammer their way into the village on two legs, slashing down figures as they try to flee.
The beast standing tall in front of her is the only thing keeping the other seven at bay. They want her. Their gnashing teeth and guttural, demonic growls send terror through every loft of her body.
The beast pulls back its giant arms and cranes its neck, letting out the most menacing howl of them all and the other seven cower away, slipping into the trees and out of sight.
It’s just Aramei and the one beast now as it stares down at her small, frail form. Aramei’s body shakes and trembles. Her knees knock together beneath her thin, soot-stained gown. “Please…,” she says, putting up her hands and slowly backing away. “Please just…spare my sister….” Tears choke her; she can hardly breathe anymore.
The beast then begins to change. His tall height shrinks as his hind-like legs become more human-like. His great snout sinks backward into the skull. He raises his arms above his head and wails into the night. The bones breaking and growing throughout his body are audible even to Aramei’s human ears as they set themselves back in place, his ribs growing outward first and then falling inward into a cage. All the while the rubbery, hard skin fades from black to a more human-like complexion. His wiry black fur disappears into the follicles of his flesh.
Aramei had fallen to the ground at some point, but she can’t recall when. She sits with her arms propped beside her, staring up at the man who was also a beast. Her eyes are wide and terrified; her mouth hangs open, her lips trembling.
“Viktor?” she forces the word from her lips as if it’s the hardest word she’s ever had to say and it literally leaves her breathless.
Viktor stands before her, nak*d and unashamed. His face holds no emotion, but the depths of his eyes are tainted by madness. Aramei tries to crawl away on her backside and hands, but Viktor walks over and kneels beside her, rendering her immobile. Her bottom lip trembles and she can’t speak.
He reaches out and cups the back of her neck with the palm of his hand and pulls her rigid body closer.
The trembling of her lip spreads down into her shoulders and quickly down into her feet. No part of her body is without movement. Viktor cocks his head to one side, studying her.
“H-How do you live?” she finally gets the words out.
But he doesn’t answer.
Viktor raises one hand and a long, black nail emerges eerily from the very tip and then he slices open his forearm with one swift pass of it. Blood drops become one heavy stream in just seconds, but he shows no signs of discomfort.
The nature of his smile chills Aramei to her very bones. Her eyes dart to and from his and the blood draining heavily from his arm.
In one blurry movement, Viktor grabs Aramei by the neck and pulls her toward the blood, forcing her mouth over the wound. “Drink it,” he demands, pressing his hands into the skin around her neck.
She chokes and gags, trying to refuse it, but in the end she knows she can’t. She swallows down every vile drop of it that doesn’t manage to drain from the corners of her mouth. She nearly throws up, but the blood is too strong and she can do nothing to keep it from coursing through her body. She can feel the heat of it in her limbs and in her toes as if she’s drinking down potent ale. It begins to tingle and itch in her veins and fill her mind with euphoric visions.
Eventually, she is completely intoxicated by it and she struggles against Viktor no more.
He pulls his arm away and lays her half-limp body against the ground. Her face and throat and chest are drenched in blood. But she feels like she can lay here forever and dream, to become lost in the blissful moment that his blood has so deceptively created in her mind.
The dark sky is layered by a thick orange glow with cinders and flames rising up in every direction. The village is an inferno where Black Beasts run through the streets, cutting people down with their massive claws, infecting them one by one. Aramei hears all of this as she lies on the ground next to Viktor’s bare knees. She feels it when her sister is killed, feels it in her own heart the very moment that it happens, but she can’t react to it. All she can do is lie there and stare into Viktor’s piercing green eyes.
And then all sound is sucked from her ears when the blade is pushed into her stomach. Her breath catches sharply and her frail, helpless eyes widen up at him.
Viktor is no longer smiling. He looks upon her with pain and remorse and wickedness. Aramei chokes on the blood rising into her throat; her own blood this time and not Viktor’s. She gasps for air and reaches up her bloodied hand to touch his unshaven face. Streaks of red are left in the wake of her fingers as they fall weakly away seconds afterwards because she’s too weak to hold them up.
“You will never die,” he says, the warmth of his lips hovering just inches from hers. He inhales her scent and cradles her head in his hand again to bring her lips even closer and he brushes them against his own. “As long as I live, you shall also live in my shadow.” He kisses her softly. “You will never die and you will never be his.” The chilling smile vaguely returns in his eyes, just enough for Aramei to see it.
Viktor twists the knife in her stomach, gritting his teeth and flaring his nostrils. Aramei whimpers and tenses with the excruciating wave of pain burrowing through her body. Her eyes are completely glazed over by thick tears. Droplets of blood trickle from her nostrils.
He slides the blade out and holds it up in her view and licks her blood clean from the blade. She sees that it is the same knife, her own knife, which she used to stab him with last winter.
His nak*d form blurs in and out of her vision as he walks away from her body. The howls of the Black Beasts and the cries of the people sound muffled all around her until it all eventually fades. The dark sky is filled with a billion stars as she gazes up at it. And for a time that seems quiet and utterly still, Aramei finds her peace. The life drains out of her quickly until finally the stars blink out of her vision.
There’s a rustling nearby, or perhaps it’s the shuffling of feet against the earth, but Aramei opens her eyes weakly to the sound of it. Everything is silent and still and surreal. She can see through the slit her eyelids have made that it is barely dark; the horizon is layered by a faint pinkish glow, indicating early morning just before dawn. The stench of the fires that have mostly burned themselves out through the night lingers heavily on the air, choking the back of her throat and stinging her eyes. She coughs; her chest rattles her body awake and she rolls over onto her side, her soft skin painted by dirt and blood as it lies pressed into the cool earth. Her vision triples and doubles before it comes together to create a single vague image.