Whispers in the Dark (Being Rewritten)

Chapter 11

11

I sat on the cold, damp stone ground. It was so dark. The only light that came in was from barred window on the wall behind me. I was too afraid to touch it and its warmth though. So many rumors about how the sun could burn you had spread all over the lower classes, including mine. Instead I held myself, my thin arms wrapped around my body and my knees tucked up high against my chest so my chin rested on them.

My stomach was killing me. I hadn't eaten since the other night, when I told them about what happened. They had brought me to this room, this cell, so they could question me about it but no one had come yet.

I looked down at my body. My clothes were ripped and torn. My hands were dirty and covered in blood. I had no shoes and my feet had a number of bloodied blisters and cuts. Wherever this place was, I didn't want to stay for much longer. Just sitting here, in this small dark room terrified me.

I wanted to get up and look out the small window on the door at the other side of the room. I commanded my body to stand but it didn't as so much move a muscle. If I wanted to tap my foot even, I soon realized, my body wouldn't listen. Why wasn't it doing anything I wanted?

There was a loud rusted creak of a door and I tensed up. Not long after the creek there was a slam and the sound of heavy booted footsteps. A group of them. I pressed my back against the wall as I watched the door to my cell swing open and a group of large men walked inside. All of them were dressed in dark red clothing and one of them wore a pair of thick leather gloves on his hands. When he closed them into a fist I could hear the materials squeak as they rubbed against each other. There was one man who stood out from the rest of them however. The man who stood at the front of the group. He was dressed in a long dark cloak trimmed with shiny blue embroidery. The hood was pulled over his head so I wasn't able to see his face. Only few locks of long, dark hair that had escaped his heavy cowl and his mouth which was currently turned up in a sly smile. That smile allured me. And scared me.

"You're the child who had his sire killed?" the robed man asked. My body trembling and too scared to speak, I nodded my response. "Tell us what happened."

"W-We went out, a few months after she turned me," I began a bit meekly trying to recall as much of what happened as I could. "She didn't think I was ready to go out but I made her take me anyway. Then we w-were attacked." It was so hard not to start crying. I could still hear her screams; see her body as she burned on the ground. I did my best to hold back my tears as I told them what happened next. "She-she was burned alive... My Lord." I had almost forgotten to add the "My Lord" part. That was a big taboo; I would've been in a lot of trouble. He watched me, waiting for me to continue on with the story and though I couldn't see his face I could tell he was growing more and more impatient. So I continued but I no longer looked up at him. "She was killed by a big man with red hair and a long black jacket."

In a second the man with the gloves had grabbed me by my shirt collar and I was dangling in the air. "Say that again." It didn't sound like an order but I did as he said all the same.

"She was burned, sir! By a big man-in a long black jacket!" I resisted the childish urge to pee my pants. Soft laughter echoed through the room and my attention was brought back to the man dressed in black.

"So that's why my subjects have been disappearing to and fro," he mused. "The hunters have returned." I had no idea who the hunters where but I was sure whatever they did to our kind was nothing compared to what the men in front of me could and would do to me. "Len."