I feel my heart crumble as the boy that I was supposed to be in love with smashes it cruelly within his fingers. I stare at him with tears brimming in my eyes, as he brings the knife to my neck. I suppose it is better this way, I don't think I could've survived without him anyways. I watch his dry eyes fill with mock sympathy. "No hero to save you." he murmurs, tracing my lips with his hand. I tremble under his touch, mainly from fear. I feel the trickle of liquid coming from my neck as he presses a little. Is there any other way...do you have to do this? I think it, but I don't speak, terrified of the words even exiting my thoughts. He smiles his unusually charming smile, the disarming smile that dashed away my doubts of him. "So ceremonious, Darren." she walks up behind him. She is the one who took him from me. I pull on the restraints. "It's not very often that the sacrifice gives you their virginity first." he murmurs huskily. The wench raises an eyebrow. "A virgin, eh? What a rare treat." she smiles "She was a rare treat." he laughs, a loud, charming sound. "Now she's just the sacrifice." he grins down at me, that smile that doesn't reach his eyes. "You sure you don't want to keep her?" the woman with canine teeth the size of curved crayons, their diameter about a quarter's worth. "Mmmm...I would, if she wasn't so annoying." he murmurs, "She always talked too much." He presses the knife deeper, making an incision into my throat. I can feel the hot blood ooze out. I stare at him as he quickly cuts through my trachea, and stabbed me in the heart. I was glad to finally be away from him, the moment of clarity that told me that bliss was approaching me. My glassy eyes stare up at her as she punctures my arm with her delicate fang. "She tastes like adrenaline." she murmurs.
I continue to stare blankly, though I know I'm dead, I feel a breath of consciousness. That woman is talking to my Darren in hushed whispers. "She should be dead..." "She is." "Then why can I hear her thoughts?" Darren hisses. "I don't know!" She throws up her hands in exasperation. "The Master won't like this..." she says, and I know she's staring at me. STOP LOOKING AT ME! I know Darren is wincing from my surprisingly loud thought. "She wants you to stop looking at her." he says, looking pensive. "I wonder when the Love Elixir is supposed to wear off. All of these thoughts of me in most undesirable settings." He knows. I feel like blushing but I can't. I remember him in my bed, sleeping, his dark hair messy, the steady rise and fall of his chest as he sleeps, one arm thrown casually over me, pulling me closer to him. Now I know Darren is blushing a little. "It's rare that I spend the night at anyone's house. She was very persistent." He grumbles, looking into my face. "Did you like her?" A deep voice says suddenly, as a man appears in the doorway, the woman torn from her reverie. The man is fairly intimidating. He's tall, his dark skin is wrinkled, and I know he's also very old. But the man stands straight, and has an air of elegance and authority. His purple eyes bore into Darren, who is shocked, "Master, I-" he stops and looks at me, hearing my hopeful thoughts. I squash them, and he turns around, satisfied, "I did. I like most of them." "But you like this one more, because you deflowered her, did you not?" He says, more curious than accusatory. He swallows hard, "Yes. I did like this one more." "And you're subliminally raising her spirit from the dead." he says striding over and closing my eyes. "The eyes always disturb me." I am now blind, but I am not deaf. "I...I don't know..." Darren sounds pained. "Just how much did you like this one, Mr. Jekyll?" "I don't know." "You shared a bed, she must hold sentimental value, considering you're more one from loving them and leaving them. Of course, there's always the possibility that you formed a bond." "I hope not. I can't share my soul with anyone, especially with a mortal." he says weakly, and I wonder what a bond is. "A bond is where one of my kind feels the need to claim someone as theirs, so the split their soul and let the other person have it, and then if the other person returns a piece of their soul in return, they both can find each other anywhere, and once one dies, they'll linger in their body till the other person, their tether, exchanges the souls." Darren answers automatically. An actual- "Yes, an actual piece of their soul. I would get into what my kind can do, but I don't think this is the right time." he mutters, running a hand through his curly hair, "But we can't have a bond, she doesn't know how to transfer souls." "Love is the transfer of souls." the man murmurs. "We can wait for another moon. Chase, reconfigure her." The man commands as he strides out of the dank torture chamber. A few minutes later. I'm breathing again. I open my eyes and am greeted by Darren, who is staring at me. "You're one of us now." he mutters as he shows me the scars I knew were on his neck. "What are you?" What am I? "The dead who aren't supposed to be alive." he shrugs. So...does that mean I'm a zombie?
"No, you're not a zombie." He rolls his eyes as he unties the bonds holding me. "Then what am I?" I inquire, rubbing my wrists. "You are basically a black hole. Dead but not dead, you feed on the souls of the living. Basically, we're the bad guys in manga, but less evil." "So who are the good guys?" "The good guys are the guys that track us down and burn us alive, and then for good measure, pour holy water on us. We're the vampires except most of us don't have fangs." I look pointedly at the girl. She grins, her teeth gleaming menacingly. "I see. So you were going to um...eat me?" I say, not really wanting to hear the answer. "There are two types of Soul Eaters. There's the Manufactured ones that are made and only need souls once and awhile, and there's the Purebloods, the ones with fangs that are born Soul Eaters, who require the entire essence of a person, more often than the Manufactured. So I would reach in like..." he puts his hand out to the center of my chest and suddenly everything is cold. I gasp in surprise and he smirks. "like that, and we'd split it. In reality, one manufactured Soul Eater doesn't need more than one person a month. Less so for the Purebloods." "We need one like, weekly." the girl, Chase, grumbles, rubbing the base of her long fangs. "How did you become one, Darren?" I ask quietly, "I made a deal with the Guardian of the Gates." "Who?" "There is a place some people go when they die...where you're given an option. You can return to Earth, or you can go to the Other. Most souls automatically go to the Other, because it's their time. But some like to defy life and choose Earth." "Most Soul Eaters are rouge, when the come back. They wander around, aimlessly killing people, with no idea how to nourish themselves. If they're lucky, they'll find a pack with an Elder to teach them. If not, the go back to the gates and are sent to the Other." Darren is staring at my chest. I look down to see a blood drying as the hole in my chest closes. Chase is sitting at the long dining table set up beside the cross and the table with various instruments of torture scattered on it. "Darry, we should get out of here." she snorts. "Darry?" I muse, looking at Darren. "Uh...she likes to call me that. It looks like the faulty Love Elixir that saved your life wore off." He mutters. "I agree with Chase. Get out." A guy with fangs and a table cloth shoos us away. There aren't as many people as I expected. The place is very Gothic, and very large. I'm guessing an abandoned hotel. The lights work and the water runs, so someone pays the bills. There's probably about thirteen people, including Darren, Chase, and I. Chase and the guy with the table cloth are the only people with fangs. "That was Dimitri. He's determined to get me in bed so we can make more Purebloods." Chase snorts, "They're usually stillborn anyways." she adds softly to me. Darren is too busy being charming to listen anyways. He was definitely the best looking one out of everyone. "So do we still age?" "Yeah, mostly. But the first ten years after you die, your growth basically stops. No one knows why. Master Williams won't tell us." Chase looks at him, "Master doesn't like it when you address him like that. Just because you're his favorite doesn't mean you can do anything you please." "He doesn't seem to mind." Darren replies cheerfully. I'm wondering how old Darren is then. He looked like he was in his mid twenties, but he may very well be in his thirties. He'd told me he was twenty-six, so he would be thirty-six. I'm twenty-two so I'd be thirty-two. Not too bad. It only matters now how long Darren has been a Soul Eater. He's right, the Love Elixir has run out. I look at him, and I don't feel the need to murder everyone else in the room. But I do get a fluttery feeling. "Darren, if I was the person you were going to eat, does that mean you need another one?" "Yes, as a hunter, I have to go find another one." "So do you do the same thing over and over?" "Mostly. Sometimes I don't bed them because they're not pretty enough." "I'm honored that you thought me pretty enough to screw then." I mutter sullenly.