Chapter 34 The Red Eyed Hunger (1/2)

Why had Jane come again? Phillip and Anna had warned her countless times of how dangerous it was to approach Rassa when he was like this, let alone the penalties she'd face should the Knights catch her. She'd spent over a week worrying about whether or not she should believe that Rassa wasn't a monster. His parents insisted, but Jane had thought she was closer to Rassa. She'd even...kissed him.

It seemed silly now for her to have done something like that. No doubt Rassa had had bigger problems to deal with than her feelings. But no matter how Jane tried to rationalise Rassa's condition, the fact was still quite clear. He'd lied to her.

And so, after she spent time thinking about every possibility as to why that would be the case, Jane finally decided she needed to talk to someone who was closer to the truth. If not Rassa, than his parents.

Jane listened. She learned. And then she was told to go home. As if she could just go home after learning all of that about her best friend. The one person outside of her parents who had never looked at her with anything but kindness, even after he'd changed. To chain, this was a simple decision.

She just needed to make sure he was okay. Nobody but the knights and the doctor had seen him in days, and they refused to give any information regarding his condition, apart from the fact to 'reassure' everyone he was not drinking blood, animal or otherwise. But after what Phillip said...not drinking blood seemed to have a more concerning outcome than him drinking it. At least when he was arrested by hunger Rassa was able to act normal. So normal that no one had noticed his changed state for three years!

So, calming her racing heart, Jane took a deep breath, and crept forward through the forest's edge to the cage. As she crept closer, Jane notice how fragile Rassa looked. He was curled into a ball on the floor of the cage, his body still covered in grime and filth. He looked, quite plainly, as if he was dead. Jane's eyes widened, and she stepped forward in concern, only to see the slightest twitch of muscle. She stopped, then whispered loudly.

”Rassa?”

There was no response. Not even an acknowledgement of her presence.

”Rassa? Can you hear me?” asked Jane.

...

Of course Rassa could hear her. He'd heard her as she stood nearly a kilometre away, pacing back and forth as she deliberated on her next move. He'd smelt her sweat and nervousness as she approached. But most of all, he'd smelt her blood...

Rassa had never thought that something could be so divine and so horrible at the same time. He had no energy left, the only thing he was capable of doing, was trying to hold himself back. He'd tried tuning out the world, focusing on the smells of the rotting food that still covered him instead of the blood of the guards mere metres away, but it wasn't working. Worse still, Red Eyes was starting to make sense.

He was hungry, of course he should feed. They were all prey, it didn't matter the sourse, so long as the aches went away. So long as he could feel himself again.

No, please, no.

His protests had diminished from a command to a plead. If anyone were to hear the conversation inside his head, he was sure they would think him pitiful. What kind of monster argues with itself over the condition of its next meal? Rassa was truly a conundrum, one that Red Eyes was officially sick of.

'You have held back long enough child, any longer and you will begin to decompose. Then only a blood sacrifice will save you'.

'A what?' Rassa asked, shocked at this new peice of information.

'It is our nature' Red Eyes elaborated, 'We can survive without blood for months of course, but that is only after we have been unsealed, only after we have trained ourselves for countless years to resist the hunger, to suppress it. You are an sealed child, barely three years old. In the life span of a being that can live for tens of thousands of years without any problems, you are nothing more than an infant. Your will power might be stronger than any other your age, but you cannot prevent yourself from the subdeath that will come upon you when the sun rises in seven hours. You are foolish to wait this long, not I have no choice but to teach you a hard lesson, one I hope you will learn from diligently'.