Cassian’s eyes widened at the impending horror, but pure reflex took over. He rolled to his left just as the vampire-like creature lunged, causing it to miss its target and slam heavily onto the floor. Seizing the moment, Cassian stood up with every ounce of his strength he had left, slamming his foot down to pin the creature’s hands against the ground where it lay splayed out like a fallen skydiver.
The vampire growled with its scary fangs out, facing towards the ground with pure hunger as its hunt failed. Meanwhile, Cassian bent over to seize the metal wrench from its hands, which was pinned through his feet. When he took the wrench, he noticed something unusual in one of the hands of that vampire-creature, near its wrist.
He noticed a sharp four-finger scratch on his wrist, from where its green, glittery blood was visible. His breath turned heavy as he sighed and blinked, once looking at that wound. He discovered something from which his own blood run cold, with pure goosebumps throughout his whole body.
"That’s- I thought it was something usual... Alissa’s arms had-", he murmured this small, incomplete sentence to himself in a lowered voice, with despair, and his eyes were heavy with guilt and horror. At the same moment, his brain started working very unusually; something very sharp whispered in his ears, "You are the only one responsible for your girl’s condition; she ended up there because of you, AHAHAHAA".
His mind froze, and after listening to that weird voice, he started mumbling about his internal conflict, "N- no- It isn’t... no!". This was very uncanny, as his body froze and he was fighting with himself at that moment to make himself believe that the things that are happening right now to him are just part of his delusion; nothing is real.
But the worst happened: the world in front of him turned completely dark; he was able to see nothing. At that exact moment, a weird air-floating bluish shadow-like creature, which was not a vampire, came in front of his eyes in this dark place like a blue fire that was glowing in front of him. This creature wasn’t defined like a human figure; it was different, as the eyes and mouth were just large black holes, and everything else was like a figure made from fire.
The most chilling moment occurred when that blue fire-shadow started speaking, and his mouth hole started to sync with the words that were heard by Cassian at the same time. The voice was low-pitched and echoed sharply in his ears,
"You complain about your pain, yet it was your own blindness that ignored the bleeding wounds of others. You claim to have loved? That is a twisted lie. You merely weaponized your affection, using it as a desperate tool to uncover the dark fate of your parents- a tragedy birthed by your own hand.
Think about this painful truth: they were dragged into that dark abyss for one reason only. They did so to protect their only son from the sublime horror of this immortal curse HAHAHAHA".
Cassian’s body started shivering with the cold words of that fire shadow. His legs started to tremble, and he felt that he was losing control of his body at a slow pace. Yet a part of his brain made him believe that it was all a part of his misconception and that nothing that was happening right now was real. He tried moving his head away from that shadow-like thing and bent his head down to look at the ground. Unfortunately, all his trauma was triggered at once when he looked at the ground below his feet.
It was Alissa; he was keeping his feet on Alissa’s hands instead of the vampire he found in the garage. She was just like before, his real Alissa, not someone horrific or a vampire; the real her lying on the ground and her hands beneath his feet. The same mark on her wrist that he ignored earlier, thinking of it as usual.
The blue fire shadow-creature was not visible to him, as he was looking towards the ground, but his sharp, low-pitched laugh was clearly echoing in his ears, which was a mix of sharp, high-pitched tones too, that made it more horrific.
With guilt, a word came out of his mouth in an airy, low, shocked tone, "Alissa-". His tears fell silently below his chin and dropped onto Alissa’s neck, which was not injured with any vampire bite or syringe insertion; everything was just like earlier. While he was able to listen to the echo laugh of that creature, he also heard something else; it was Alissa who was sniffling, her face still towards the ground, and he was not able to see her.
He lost all control as he fell into his deepest trauma and guilt at once. Due to this consequence, he lifted his trembling feet from her hands with despair; his body was icy-cold at that time. He sat on the ground beside her slowly to make her stop crying. He raised his hand to caress her hair, heartbroken with guilt and a large amount of tears falling continuously from his eyes at a silent pace. As soon as he caressed her hair, she turned to face him.
It was Alissa, his Alissa; she was crying with intense fear, and he also felt that her body was burning hot like earlier. To his surprise, the loud echoing laugh of the shadow also stopped, and now it was only him and her left alone in this darkness that surrounded him earlier. He wasn’t able to decode how Alissa was visible clearly to him in this dark environment, as he was all triggered with emotions and had no control over himself.
She started to speak to him with her soft, airy crying voice, "Cass, help me! I don’t want to die, please. I can’t leave you alone, please!" She started to cry uncontrollably while begging Cassian to help her out of her situation. She raised one of her hands, which had that scratch, and offered Cassian to hold it, while she was wailing, looking at him with intense pain. Cassian started to cry aloud with her before holding her hand, as he was broken completely from inside to watch this sight.
"How- did this happen to you?..." He wailed, the words blurring into a heavy, wet sob. "Tell me how you got that mark... ALISSA PLEASE REPLY!" he added while his voice strangled and he was fighting for air.
Alissa replied, still in the worst pain, bawling hard, "Your Dad- he... he used his nails- when I was pulling you from his grab-".
After listening to that, he squeezed shut his eyes, and his tears fell directly on the ground, while his jaw was tense and he did nose scrunching. He again opened his eyes; his breath was gasping, and he was drawing his corners back with his face, which completely turned red due to the pressure he was emitting in his cry. He helplessly raised one of his hands and moved it towards Alissa’s hand that she was offering him to hold.
He finally held her hand, crying hard, but suddenly her grasp on his palm became tight. It became so tight that he finally spoke, "Babe, I will cure everything! Don’t worry, I am here! Feel at ease with yourself-"
To his surprise, as soon as he looked again into her eyes after saying these words, he noticed her eyes had completely turned red, and she started laughing very hard even when tears were still falling from her eyes. "Alissa! What are you doing?" he said with a confused, frightened voice as he remembered it was the same creature that Alissa had converted to earlier, and that was present just in front of him, holding his hand hard.
"AHAHAHAHAHA", the mixed-pitched voice of the fire shadow-creature from earlier again started echoing in his ears at the exact moment. Cassian was scared to death after realizing it was all his delusion and that the shadow-creature played dirty tricks on him, so it could easily break Cassian’s problem-solving ability at that time. He realized that the vampire Alissa was ready to scratch his hand, which was in her grasp, just like the wound she had on her.
It was late, but as soon as he made himself realize that it was all his delusion and he should react quickly with his instincts, he silently picked up the hard metal wrench that was beside his other hand.
Without letting Alissa know his next move, he-