Dark Waters Rising

Wine

A/N

Warning: This chapter contains gruesome imagery. Read at your own discretion.

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The world was darkness, lit only by a blood red sky. 

The dissonant screams of the damned were unrelenting, but thankfully, most of them were distant in that moment. Everything was distant. Hazy. Warped. 

Valentine's skin was slick with sweat from the uncomfortably high temperatures, but he did not dare return to the waters. He'd seen the monsters that dwelled there when he first arrived and decided his chances on land were better than there. Now, he was trapped in a hollow harbor town where everything was painted in the same eerie shade of black. 

His stomach ached. The only things he could find to eat were the decaying, maggot-filled corpses lining the beach. Though his few attempts had left him violently ill, the little he was able to choke down was the only thing keeping him in a functioning state. 

He was on the brink though. Of losing it. He hadn't eaten in a long while. He couldn't stomach the corpses anymore. Just the thought of it made him feel ill. In a feeble attempt to survive, his body had resorted to eating away at itself, making him gaunt, weak, and tired.

Valentine just wanted to shut down. He welcomed that eternal sleep, but no matter how much he prayed for it, death would not come for him. He was, after all, already dead. Instead he was trapped in his starving body, and he suspected his soul would linger in it until it had decayed away completely. 

Part of him just wanted to give up and let that happen, but the other, stronger part of him urged him to hold on. To find food and dull the painful ache inside him for just a little while.  

Blinking away the moisture pooling in his eyes, Valentine clutched his stomach and staggered to his feet. He used the walls of the alleyway to keep himself upright as he shuffled back out to the main street. A few other unfortunate souls wandered the area, but they were as harmless as he was at the moment. 

Valentine groaned as his muscles cramped and his stomach tightened. He really needed food. 

After a while, he wandered up to what looked like a tavern. Figuring it was worth a shot, he stumbled up the stairs and pushed open the front door. 

"Terrible evening, sir. How may we torment you?" A far too cheerful man with a large mustache and red eyes greeted him.

"Do you have food?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

"We do," the man said, "but we require payment for such things."

Valentine searched the pockets of the clothes he'd stolen from some of the corpses on the beach almost a fortnight ago, but found no currency among them. In a last-ditch effort, he asked, "Do you accept siren scales?"

The man's eyes glittered in interest, "Yes. Two will get you a well-deserved meal."

Valentine sighed and closed his eyes as he let a partial transformation take over his body. It took a lot of energy that he really didn't have, so after some scales emerged on his hip, he used his fingers to yank two free and hand them to the man. It stung badly, but given all the pain he was already in, Valentine barely noticed it or the small beads of blood that followed.

He was led to a table where he immediately collapsed into a chair. His hands were shaking, so he tucked them under his thighs and stared down at the table. 

Valentine thought of Wesley as he waited for his meal. It was his only comfort in this place. He liked to imagine what the merchant's life was like now. He figured Wesley would've likely retired as a merchant after his ordeal, so he had this vision of the man at a cottage on the beach, drinking his morning tea as he buried his toes in the sand and watched the sunrise paint the world gold. He couldn't bring himself to imagine Wesley with a different life partner, so instead he pretended that the man went out every morning to watch the waves and wait for Valentine to return. More than anything, Valentine wished he could. He'd give anything to hold the man in his arms again. To breathe in his scent. To hear his voice. 

But he couldn't.

Because he was dead. 

When his food finally arrived, Valentine's mouth immediately started watering. A large slab of lightly cooked red meat adorned his plate, along with a healthy serving of corn on the side. The red eyed man left a goblet filled to the brim with red wine before leaving him to eat in peace. 

Though he knew he should've been cautious about how much he was eating, he simply couldn't help himself. He was so hungry that he immediately picked up the meat with his hands and started tearing into it like a savage beast. It was only when the meat was gone that he bothered to reach for the goblet. 

He brought the red wine to his lips, savoring the fruity scent of it. However, when he pulled the liquid into his mouth, he was surprised by the grotesquely metallic flavor. He pulled back, peering into the goblet again only to see the liquid had changed to the deep brown of oxidized blood. The goblet slipped from his fingers, spilling onto the table. Valentine's eyes swept over his plate only to find what had once been corn was now obviously a pile of human teeth. He felt bile rising in the back of his throat, but did his best to swallow it down. He needed to keep it down, even if it was horrible. 

"What did I just eat?" he wondered aloud, not really expecting or wanting an answer. 

The red eyed man returned, though, giving him one all the same.

"Long pig," he grinned. "It was a fresh young lad that washed ashore this morning. Healthy and pretty in my opinion. We've still got most of him in the back if you want to see for yourself."

Valentine found himself nodding even though he shouldn't have. He had a bad feeling brewing in his gut and he had to know if it was correct. Even if it destroyed him. 

He followed the man into the back of the tavern, his uneasiness growing with every footstep.

When the siren finally stepped through the door, he was greeted by an image of his mate that would haunt him forever.

Valentine's stomach lurched. 

And he jolted awake. 

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A/N

Who's ready for part three? Bit of a gruesome start, but we're starting to answer some questions we didn't get to in the last part. The next chapters will be less traumatizing, I promise. 

Are any of you in college yet? If so what are your majors? If not, what do you think you want to do after high school?

Let's pretend I remembered to post this on Thursday,
-Mora Montgomery