Tale of Death

Chapter 14 - Surviving The Fall?

After who knows how many hours, Shi found herself waking up in a pitch-black area, wet clothing still somewhat wet from the water, as was the ground under her since she felt mud. The darkness wasn't the issue, not even the wetness was, the main issue for Shi was the nail-driving headache that pierced her brain. It felt like something inside of her head was about to explode, but, she suppose that is to be expected when you fall who knows how deep underground.

Speaking of how deep, 'Where the hell am i, shit, my body aches so much, why is it so bad?' She thought to herself as she tried looking around, all she could see was darkness, her eyes barely being able to adjust to it in her hazy state. She tried not to panic, but it was hard, one bad thing after another just keep happening to her from the start of this trip, heck, the start of this trip was caused by a bad thing.

Since she couldn't see anything, she tried to stand up, pushing her body up with her hands, yet she couldn't move. Her body was hurting too much, and her legs refused to listen to her command and move. 'Dammit.' She cursed under her breath and gave up trying to stand up. She went for the second-best thing, trying to move around with her hands.

Using her hands, she started to feel around her, touching the wet sand that had now become mud, she kept feeling around, until eventually, she felt something odd. The mud near her legs was oddly sticky and felt weird, so she brought it closer to her face to check out what it was. With a sniff she could easily figure it out, it was something she knew all too well. 'Shit I'm bleeding. I don't even feel the pain from the injury, my entire body just hurts, it might be completely numb from blood loss. That's not good.'

Shi was beginning to panic, though she tried not to show it, or act irrational, it was hard to keep calm when you knew you were bleeding out and you couldn't do anything about it since you couldn't move. "Think Shi think." She said aloud, trying to force her mind to come up with a solution to the problem, which it seemed to be failing at until she heard something weird.

'Calm down.' A familiar voice echoed in her head. Familiar because, it was her voice, but she wasn't the one saying it.

"What, who?" Shi respond in a confused stupor, she had heard the voice making a suggestion to her, but she didn't know who it was coming from. Her eyes gazed around the room to try and make out a figure in the darkness. Yet failed to find anything, not that she could.

'It's me, XO, I'm still within you. I am here to help.' The voice responded once more in her mind.

"Here to help? What, i thought you were gone after you explained everything at the start, you never said anything after that. Why are you even still here, i thought you were my suppressed bloodline or whatever, now that it's awake, shouldn't you go away?" The confusion about who was speaking to her was cleared up, causing her to calm down somewhat, but the confusion about why this, being, was still around took its place.

'You're not wrong i should've disappeared after it awoken, at least i think so, however you didn't fully accept the bloodline awakening, and you're subconsciously still suppressing it, thus, until you fully accept it, and fully unlock your bloodline, i am separated from you. Now, no more questions until we are out of this situation, we have an issue to deal with.'

With that explanation, Shi accepted it. It wasn't wrong, she hadn't fully felt any change from the bloodline, and even then, she was actively still thinking of herself as a human and nothing more, so it made sense for her body to suppress the bloodline, she just didn't know how, or how to turn it off. "You're right, we can talk about this later, let's deal with the bleeding before it gets worse."

With that said, Shi ripped off a piece of her shirt, it being quite easy to do so, and used it to wrap around the wound that she found. Yes, she found the wound, the wound was actually a broken piece of stone that was stuck into her leg, which she guessed got stuck in there while she was falling. Luckily it was easy to pull out and bandage up, easing the loss of blood to a minimal amount.

"Now what?" Shi asked the voice in her head, yes this was getting weird. Speaking to voices in her head, what has her life become. If her mother heard about this, she would be very concerned.

'Rip another piece of cloth and soak it with blood, then use something to light it on fire.' The voice responded to her question, giving her an odd suggestion.

"Wait, blood? Why would i light the blood on fire, wouldn't that make it harder to light?" She asked in an unsure tone, to which the voice quickly replied, easing her worries.

'You're a Vampire, the body of a Vampire is easily flammable, which also makes your blood flammable, using it would make it light easier and burn longer.'

"What? That seems like a huge disadvantage, but, i guess in this case it's rather useful." Shi was unsure how to feel about that information, on one hand, it was useful in this situation she was in, and she might even be able to find some uses for it outside of this situation, however, on the other hand, she now realized why she got burnt so easily before in the fight.

Without wasting more time on useless thoughts, she ripped another piece of her, now revealing, clothing and soaked it in some of the blood from her wounds. She didn't have anything to wrap the cloth around, so she just used the long stone which she pulled out from her leg, wrapping the cloth around the edge. "Now comes the hard part, lighting it."

Her worse enemy was before her, an enemy she had bested once, but it had bested her many times, lighting a fire with two rocks. It was a pain, she had to slam them together multiple times, and even then she barely got a spark, however it seems that the voice was right, as it only needed a few sparks for the blood-soaked cloth to light on fire.
Once it was lit, it blazing, Shi held the flaming cloth stone, whatever you want to call it, torch, out in front of her, revealing a little bit of the space around her in the darkness. It was a small cave made from stone, she was clearly underground, she just didn't know where, and since she couldn't move, she couldn't get out of it yet.

"Now, since you're talking now, let's talk, there are things you need to explain," Shi said to the voice within her, as she closed her eyes to think better, while also resting them.

'You're right, there are things i need to explain to you before i fall back into hibernation.'