Onyx: In Darkness - 1. Onyx: In Darkness

Onyx: in Darkness

By: Cailen Vautour

People say that death is just a part of life, that perhaps our souls take residence in a great beyond and that there is a heaven there waiting for us. I can tell you however, I’ve never seen any pearly gates, nor a bright light, or even angels. Instead I discovered a world of darkness for which I have never been able to escape; I have tried many times, oh yes. Perhaps there is not meant to be a heaven for someone like me. As time wore on and I grew tired of this place, I concluded that perhaps this is heaven. Alas no, for at this moment an end would be heaven, no… if this is an afterlife, this is surely hell, and I am damned.

My parents, before I was ripped away from them, called me Thomas Blake, but in my world I go by another name, a name the darkness calls me in my dreams, and haunts my every waking moment. A name given to me by my master and binds me to him.

Onyx.

Vampire. Demon. Undead. We are called a variety of names. An awareness of our kind has existed for over a millennia now by you humans, but their paltry tales are so infantile, so plain, that I fear reality is still a far cry from their darkest imaginations. A stake through the heart cannot kill me. Fire cannot burn me. Cold or pain cannot afflict me. I am already dead. I can enter a home at will, and I do not fear the cross. My master once bathed in holy water while eating an alter-boy for dinner, or at least I have heard.

We can enter your home while you are sleeping, and while you peacefully dream, we drink your blood, and from it your life, energy and dreams. Our saliva closes the wound so you will not remember, it is the reason on many nights you cannot remember your dreams. We were there, in you, over you, and all around you in the dark.

‘Onyx…’

I awoke from my long slumber, the air stale against my skin. The metal table against my back was cold and my skin stuck to it. I braced my feet against the door and the string wrapped around my toe slid off easily. With a gentle kick the door ripped off its hinges and air rushed outward like a cork from a bottle. I leapt out of my tomb and was greeted by an awful sight.

I was in a morgue; three doctors lay on the floor. Two were unconscious. One was dead. I could smell death, as if there was nothing left to take, like the empty husk of a shellfish, or seafood left in the garbage for too long. A man dressed in a long black cloak stood over them, and under the cloak was black leather armor with multiple straps and hinges that held it to his body. His hood was down. His yellow eyes glowed eerily at me like firelight.

“It’s about time you have woken, Onyx. Night has begun.”

“Master,” I bowed but frowned at the bodies on the floor, “an accident?”

“No, no accidents,” he smirked and waved his hands, “can you not feel it?”

The air was getting steadily heavier, and my vision swam as if I was in some intense heat, or I was looking through…

“Gas, master? How did I come to be here?” I asked.

“You were found!” he growled angrily. “Have I not warned you repeatedly about sleeping in the open.”

“It was a sewer.”

“Silence Onyx!” he commanded. My body obeyed.

“Now is not the time for an argument childe, we must not leave any evidence, and considering how hard I smashed that pipe, trust me, those human safety systems are really becoming a bitch, it’ll probably happen any moment...” He paused then reached out and pulled me close to him as a roaring sound enveloped us and everything burst into flame. The flames pounded over my skin like water from a shower. I glanced down to see the skin of the two doctors boil as my master led me out a window. Off into the night we scampered.

We flew at incredible speed, the limitations of flesh not bound to us, and stopped in a park a few blocks away. He threw me to the ground and tossed a set of clothes at me.

“Put those on,” he said calmly.

“You know I don’t need them,” I jabbed.

“Put them on Onyx, I do not wish to see your current state of undress.”

I examined the clothes; a simple pair of jeans and a flannel shirt, socks and a pair of sneakers. All smelt fresh.

“Who wore these?” I asked.

“They belonged to a man whom one of those doctors molested as a child, a mere two blocks from where that doctor grew up as a boy. But the man was having sex with his daughter… no lie, small world.”

“I thought you said we were not supposed to follow humans, that drinking from the same person can lead to depression, that it was forbidden” I said arrogantly.

“I came across this case randomly, it’s funny how random… can be so normal. He was a priest, you know, the guy… hasn’t told her yet…”

I contemplated how bat shit crazy my master was, it made me so angry that he had not the foggiest idea of how he made me, but that’s the thing… he made me… as in he fucking murdered me! Now I have to follow him around like a heart-stricken-sloppy-one-night-stand that won’t go away.

“…and you know how I like fucking the religious ones, they become such closet cases, they think they’re gay and offer blowjobs in the airport bathroom. Who was that senator again?”

“Which senator? You did that twice.”

“All too right! I’m that awesome… in bed.”

“I’m sure…”

“You know, I never took you… but I could you know… if you wanted.” He slid his hand over my shoulder and I pushed it away.

“One: don’t ever touch me. Two: for fucks sake you’re older than my great grandparents, and three: you fucking murdered me and made me this, and four: I wouldn’t fuck you with a stolen dick!”

“That’s the spirit laddie.”

I decked him and he flew backwards into a tree. The trunk split and several large branches crashed down around him. Angry whispers and darkness suddenly swirled around us, hissing in our ears; our wills forcing us to obey.

We cannot harm each other.

He pushed clambered out of the debris and approached me, grabbed my chin and forced my head up to him.

“Go and hunt, and don’t get caught again. I will know, and next time I might let them cut you open before I kill them.”

“Thanks, master…”

“The name’s Marcus, take care childe and goodnight!” He vanished into the darkness, leaving me standing alone under the shade of a battered tree in a park.

I walked down the path and headed for a more populated area when I spotted a man standing solemnly by the edge of a pond. I touched into his mind from a distance and felt his desires and thoughts. He wanted to drown, he wanted to kill himself.

‘Too easy’ I thought, and like moth to a flame I drew closer and closer until he felt my presence and turned sharply. He glanced around cautiously.

“Anyone there?” he asked aloud. I blended into the shadows of the bushes and he could not see me.

He was handsome, a similar age to what I might have looked like if I hadn’t died at eighteen. His hair was golden blonde and his face angular and smooth. My hair was jet black in comparison and stood out against my pale face.

He returned to the water’s edge. Stopped. Hesitated. Took one step forward. Hands reaching out. Ready to leap. Now was my chance to strike. I leaped forward, caught him by the shoulder and threw him to the ground.

“What!” he called out as I pinned him down and bit into his neck.

Biting a human is a unique experience, because you instantly tap into every thought and memory they ever had, and every dark thought, and moment in a single instant, as if you had been the person. It comes at you all at once, and then the darkness surges as you can see yourself ending that story as sure as closing a book.

I saw flashes of memories and faces and a boy, a very important boy and I saw my own face flash before my eyes. I was important to him, he loved me… he was…

Andrew Scott and I were in school together, he was a great friend of mine. We hung out almost every day. We even slept over at each other’s houses all through high school until I died. Suddenly a darker memory flashed through my mind. But this time, it was one of my own.

I saw him and I having sex and two figures biting our feet. I sensed my master in the vision. I leapt off Andrew and spat out his blood, disgusted at the thought I had seen. He had fallen in love with me, because of vampires, from ones like me… and Andrew had made it this long, before trying to die.

An anger like I have never known before raged through me, I don’t know what possessed me, but I picked him up and carried him home at such speed knowing exactly where it was. He lived alone in a terrible apartment. I placed him on his bed and covered him up and gave him a kiss on his forehead. I bit into him gently and gave him a dream, that I was protecting him and he would be safe.

I found a spot over his bed in the rafters and made myself a nest in the insulation and fell asleep, submitting to the darkness as the light of the sun grew high.

I spent the next few weeks living in Andrew’s rafters and nightly came down to drink from him and invade his dreams, and soon they became sexual. I could feel his arousal around me and I knew soon I would not be able to resist him.

I woke up one night and I was no longer in the rafters but in Andrew’s bed. Above me a large gaping hole had been torn through the sheet rock and insulation. I was covered in dirt and debris as I sat up and saw him staring at me. I stood quickly and he held out his arm in caution.

“Easy there Thomas,” my name sounded so foreign on his tongue.

“My name is Onyx,” I said plainly “it is my name of darkness.”

“They told me I was insane, I knew you died, I was at the funeral, but then I could see you alive in my dreams. I tried to forget you, I tried to move on, but I felt like you were protecting me, so I stayed. I couldn’t bear it anymore, and then I felt you… and I could feel this darkness around you. I dreamed you were in my ceiling, and I found you… you’re real…”

“I am… real enough... yes.”

“But… you’re not Thomas, though you look just like him when he died,” he turned his head away letting out a sigh.

“I was Thomas, but I am so much more now, I’m no longer him but a collection of all that I have destroyed. I’m a vampire now, a demon of darkness, a drinker of dreams.”

“Are you here to kill me?”

“No, I am here to save your life… the reason why you loved Thomas was a dream given to you while we slept as boys, by vampires. It is not of your own creation. They made us have sex in our dreams, the reason you wanted to die was because other vampires made you love me… I didn’t wish to see you destroyed, so I stopped you by the river.”

“You made me believe there was a monster in my rafters,” he said angrily “I’ve been dreaming of a demon coming and getting me in my sleep.”

“And so there was…”

“I thought about taking some pictures of you, but I couldn’t make myself do it,” he admitted.

“That’s for the best, as soon as you did, the darkness would order your death, we are not to be known. In fact I’m surprised we made it this far.”

“So why are you telling me all this?”

“Because in a moment I am going to bite you and you will forget all this has happened.”

“Onyx, if this is only just a dream; can you allow me one small mercy?”

“What’s that?”

Without warning he closed the space between us and his lips crashed into mine, I opened my mouth and allowed him to enter. His weight toppled us backwards and he lay over me on the bed as he wrapped me in all that he was. Suddenly he stopped and I looked to him and his eyes had turned glassy, my saliva had rendered him asleep.

I should have wiped the memories, I should have left then and never returned, instead I lay next to him on the bed and fell asleep in his arms.

For three nights we slept together and I would drink, but he would remember, I would not allow him to forget. I knew that I was being foolish and soon I might get caught, or another would discover my treachery.

For our kind there is no death, but there is imprisonment, to have our bodies mutilated and burned, and then poured fresh into concrete and left for all time, forgotten in the annuls of the basement of a skyscraper or ten feet beneath a forgotten grave. This would be my fate when another vampire drank from Andrew, so it was safer for me to stay, and let them think him claimed.

‘Onyx.’

“What is it?”

Andrew and I were in the throes of another passionate tryst when I heard my master call, I did not wish to leave but I had no choice.

“My master calls, I must go.” I could not look at him directly.

“You will be back?”

“I promise.” I turned and kissed him on the cheek.

“I will wait,” he said.

“Andrew, I know you cannot control this, but do your best not to sleep. It’ll be safer.”

“Okay.”

I rushed out into the night and did not have to travel long till I found my master waiting for me on the river docks a few miles out. He did not normally hunt so close to me. I approached him cautiously.

He was dressed in his cloak and the moon rising over the river made him glimmer eerily. His yellow eyes pierced into mine and he frowned at the site of me.

He knew…

“My childe, my scion… have I taught you nothing!” he yelled, slapping me hard but not enough to topple me over.

“Master… I…”

“Do not call me your master, you no longer have that right… you’re disgusting… to think you could have… feelings for a human.” He said feelings with an air of extreme distaste.

“He was my friend!”

“You are dead, he is not your friend, he is a human… and you know what they are?”

“What?”

“Filth… I have lived the lives of tens of thousands of humans and in all of them, they lie, they cheat, they are unfaithful, dirty, breeding, putrid mounds of flesh… Adulterers, liars, thieves, and cheaters! Not one soul is redeemable, not one heart pure, they are a cancer to this world, and they created us! For we are the accumulation of all human creation, they made the darkness in which we live, and for that they are unredeemable!” he shouted.

“You’re wrong!”

“Show me then.’

With great speed he vanished and a wild panic enveloped me when he suddenly reappeared with Andrew in his grasp.

“Onyx!” he shouted and threw Andrew into my arms. “Kill him!” he ordered.

My body moved to obey, and my arms tightened around Andrew’s neck. I saw fear in his eyes. I wanted to stop but I could not.

“It’s alright, Onyx,” Andrew gasped. “I love you.”

With a cry I ripped my hands away and Andrew fell out of my grasp gasping for air. I turned to my master with an anger I have never felt before.

“No, I will not harm him!” I launched into an attack I knew I could not win, he was a lot older and stronger than me, but I had no choice, I had to protect Andrew.

Our scuffle did not last a moment before he had pinned me to the ground. He grabbed a pipe and was about to run me through when suddenly Andrew lept over me just as he struck. The pipe lodged right through Andrew and covered me with bits of him and a shower of blood. He fell angelically and landed on his side gasping for air.

“Andrew!” I cried taking him in my arms.

“Onyx,” he gasped reaching up for me “drink, you must drink…”

I kissed his bloodstained lips and found in them a memory I had not seen, or had missed before... No, it was a memory of pure light, so wonder I never saw it; it was of Andrew and I as small boys and his love of me… it was pure and untainted by the darkness of my kind. He had loved me, even without the dreams from us vampires. I was wrong.

“I love you,” he sighed and I watched the light fade from his eyes and he was gone.

I set his body down gently and faced my master for what I could only assume would be one final time. I betrayed our kind. Unforgivable. I would be punished.

“Are you ready to face judgement?” he said calmly.

“I am…”

Shadows danced and the heat of darkness closed in around me. I was going to be imprisoned until my mind was gone.

Suddenly a light pierced the darkness from the heavens, and I squinted. The shining of a thousand suns burned upon me and pushed away the darkness. A figure emerged from the heavens, descended and landed next to me covering me from the light.

“Andrew?”

An angel bearing the resemblance of my beloved smiled at me.

“You would betray all that you are to protect an innocent heart. Even in darkness love can endure. You shall be punished, but be allowed the chance for redemption,” he said. “My gift to you, Onyx, is my love.” He kissed me on my forehead and with a single finger touched my chest and my heart that had long been silent, roared to life.

“A mortal gift, the right to choose your destiny. I hope I will see you again soon, my love.”

Suddenly he vanished and I was plunged into darkness once again.

My master looked at me quizzically and approached slowly listening to my heart racing in my chest. He paced around me as if unsure what to make of me, or if I was even real.

“You were wrong,” I said. “They are redeemable.”

“You best hope childe, because if you are wrong…” he leaned in and whispered into my ear “I will make sure it is me you see… when you are devoured.”

With that Marcus turned on his heel and started to leave.

“Oh and Onyx…” he said turning around glaring at me with a fiery gaze.

“Yes.”

“We’ll be watching you, in your dreams…”

And since that night so long ago, I remember Andrew and what he gave me, and every night I fight the demons that come to me in my dreams, for one day I hope to break free and be united with him once again, when I am no longer, in darkness.

The End