Chapter 71: An Urge (1)
Elliot’s POV
“Fate is cruel, and still, it is the source that leads us to our destiny.”
–– Elliot Starfall
A sharp, ghostly pain spears through my right arm—what’s left of it, anyway. It’s gone, hacked off, burned away, but I feel phantom fingers twitching in the dark, clawing at nothing. I press my left palm hard against my knee, feeling the damp fabric of my trousers soaked with the foul brown water of the sewers, this fetid grave for anything that can’t crawl out. My teeth grind against each other as I fight the twisting in my shoulder. My stump jerks uncontrollably, rolling from side to side like a demented marionette, the phantom pain so vivid I want to scream.
There’s no blood. The wound sealed thanks to that monster’s blood I drank. My curse. My gift. The torn fabric of my shirt sticks to the redness and greenish-black bruising around the scar. It’s healed in a way that should take weeks. But I don’t feel blessed. I feel like filth. Like rot. The only good thing in my mouth is a sickly sweet metallic aftertaste I can’t stand. I spit it onto the floor.
My legs shake. I’m shivering under the sheer weight of it all, like a mountain pressing on my spine.
What would Ren do?
My brother is dead. They killed him. Those blue-blooded creatures that pretend to be people. That’s why I’m here, shoes drenched in blood. The cold-looking blood, but being ironically warm, half a man, staring at the wreckage of what we are. I try to stand, but the world swims, so I grab the slimy wall to steady myself. I’m lost. No plan. No future. Just this endless city mist, cold as death. Wandering. Hunting. Killing them. Dying.
No long life for me.
I correct myself. No life at all. Sooner or later, the city will swallow me whole.