Chapter Eleven: Escape
Spyk awoke from the dream, not knowing nor caring about the time. He was on his side, with his eyes staring into the ocean. “There’s land on the other side,” he whispered, squinting to get a closer look. “What’s over there?”
Light winds struck the smooth waters, changing their direction in the slightest. Spyk got up and tilted his head the other way, watching as the ocean drifted over the beach. “It doesn’t like the wind,” the words came out slowly, almost as if he had an idea. He sat up straight again. “Why does it hate the wind?”
The creature continued to stare, not moving an inch. He was hungry, but heard nothing. Nobody was talking, and there was no fresh smells of blood. “I want food…” he mumbled, still not blinking. He squinted again. “I wonder what’s over there…”
A flash of light instantly appeared at the horizon, which finally closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. He bent forward and began to close in on the water with his hands slowly drifting forward one after the other and his feet following, like a Neutral stalking its prey.
He saw it again, this time causing him to flinch and pause. He focused on the other side and saw something. Fire and leaves were dancing. Right before he said something, he was hit by a wave that seemed to come from nowhere, almost as if it were… created.
Spyk coughed out the salt water, rubbing his hand against his tongue. He was almost stuck in the now wet sand, and the tree he was sitting by earlier had fallen over.
He turned around, looking down at his chest where sand had attached itself. He attempted to claw it off before seeing something at the corner of his eye. A block, but… not quite white. It was… see through. He reached out for it. It was colder than anything he had ever touched before… even his own bones were warmer.
“It’s… cold.” He said while examining the object.
Spyk’s eyes wandered down to his open skin, where his dirty bones were distinguishable from his fur. “I’m dead…” He turned his head, “so is the tree.” Tilting his head again, the ice slipped down from his drooped fingers back down into the sand.
“Death and Cold… Death and Cold… Death and Cold.”
The time was day. The sun had already risen over the mountains. Pink, Needdo and Brittany were practicing their Tai Chi.
Biyu decided to butt in, telling them their “dances” were boring.
“It’s not a dance,” Pink had explained, attempting to shoo her off. “It’s a form of exercise to focus and calm the mind, and of stretching to relax the muscles and prepare for the day.”
“Whatever,” Biyu had flicked her hand at Pink. “I’m here to make it more exciting. We should use our powers while doing this, and create a beautiful sight of Water, Fire and Leaves.
Pink had noticed that she never said Ice. Pink didn’t want to have anything to do with Biyu anyway. She had decided to sit at the beach with Skip.
They noticed how the land at the horizon looked a little… dark. Skip mentioned they should ask Biyu what it was, but Pink ignored his suggestion. “I don’t get why they like her so much.”
“She brings the fun into it, Pink.”
“That’s exactly what I don’t like. It’s like what I said to Needdo last night. She’s too carefree.”
Skip sighed, finally saying, “You’ve got a twelve year old with you. Sure she’s old, but among you three she’s young. She needs somebody to keep her happy. You are always depressed and Needdo is just…”
“He’s just Needdo,” Pink finished, closing her eyes. “I guess you’re right. But she’s rude, annoying, carefree…” she slammed her fist against the soft sand, “and she called what our Sensei had taught us for ten years a silly little dance. Oh, if she knew Nezumi, she wouldn’t be such a…”
“Such a what?” Biyu interrupted, glaring into Pink’s eyes.
“Why you little!” Pink hissed, standing up. “Stop eavesdropping! This is a conversation between me and Skip!”
“Behind my back!”
“You mean the one that isn’t sturdy enough to keep you standing upright?”
Needdo and Brittany were still in the dance Biyu had taught them, sending fire and leaves into the air. It was a sight, but they would need to stop soon.
Pink had backed up into the water, watching as Biyu continued to snarl at them. “Now wait a moment!” Skip attempted to stop them, but nothing worked. Biyu sent up a huge wave, sending it in the direction towards the horizon, nearly drowning Pink in it.
The wave went away, and Pink had had enough. She drew her hand forward, and closed her eyes. Suddenly she heard a crack, and opened her eyes once again. Biyu was frozen.
“Finally! That should teach her a lesson!”
Brittany and Needdo had stopped their dance, staring at the two cats.
Biyu fell over; cracking the ice she was stuck in. Blocks of ice were sent after the wave.
She coughed and coughed, barely moving. Needdo looked at her in shame, and Brittany was crying. But Pink didn’t care. She now knew why the Prophecy had only spoken of them. They just couldn’t afford these distractions. She looked down, and walked down the coast without looking back. If Needdo and Brittany wanted to stay, it was fine by her. It was time for the “King” to pay for what he did.
A wooden boat docked at the worn down harbor. Off stepped a mouse. It was Maylene.
“How am I supposed to tell Spyk that I couldn’t find any food for him?” she complained, stepping around in circles in confusion. “The “King” of Vescrole finally figured out what was going on and sent guards everywhere. I couldn’t get a single scrap.”
She stepped off the landing dock, heading her way to where Spyk usually was. “I guess I’ll go find him. This isn’t going to be pretty. I just hope he calms down faster than usual.”
As soon as she was out of sight, Spyk appeared out of nowhere from behind a tree. “I want to see what’s over there,” he said, looking at the boat.
“My Lord!” a voice shot through the harbor and in an instant every guard and sailor stared at Spyk.
“What you doin’ at da ‘arbor, m’lord?” asked a familiar voice.
It was a dead zebra, its dirty and bleeding stripes indistinguishable from one another. A whole half of his face was missing, and his open chest was empty. He had no tail, and his right leg was about twice as long as the left. It was Captain Ziri’kat, who sails the boat Maylene uses to obtain fresh prey.
Spyk said nothing, which seemed to allow everybody to continue staring. He constantly shifted his eyes from Ziri to the boat.
“Well, m’lord? Sum’in ya want?”
Spyk turned around and walked down the ramp. He walked down the coast a little ways before turning to his right and stepping through the water.
“He won’t let me go there…” he tilted his head again, lost in thought. “But I’m their King. Why won’t they listen? Why won’t they respect me? Am I… not allowed to go? Why not?”
He continued to make his way through the bottom of the pier, finding a way to climb into the large boat without being seen. He swam his way to the other side, attempting to hide from the others. “I don’t know how to use this,” he whispered, before hearing, “I can’t find King Spyk anywhere!”
He widened his eyes. “I’ll just swim.” He didn’t need to breathe anyway.
Spyk dived in, reaching the floor. He had no buoyancy; his body stayed stationary on the wet earth. Arm after arm, he began to crawl forward as if he were hunting but instead with the water resistance which slowed him down incredibly. He looked up, paranoid that they would find him.
After what seemed like days, Spyk was stopped by something smoky and dark. He reached his hand forward into the strange object, which stretched in both directions like a wall. He rose to the surface.
The “wall” rose very high, but it seemed to curve after a long distance. “Is that why…” he stared straight at the wall, thinking about his home and Maylene’s story of sunlight; “There is no light?”
He reached his hand forward once again to find that this wall was not solid; it passed right through.
In discovering this he stretched his right side further into the shadows and eventually his left but without placing his head through. “There could be light,” he whispered, slowly inching closer. “What does light look like?” The hybrid pondered, pausing as soon as his eyes were between both sides of the strange barrier. A wave struck him from behind, sending him into the smoke. His face became buried into the ocean, flipping him upside-down. Mini wave currents picked him back up, allowing him to follow their flow. The water looked lighter than it usually was. It was a much brighter blue than he remembered it could be. His hand reached the surface and soon the rest of him. His eyes were staring right at a ball of light in the sky as his head poked out of the water.
“The sun is a grand ball of light that shines for half the day and gives life to everything,” Maylene’s words echoed in his head. “We don’t need light, you see, but the things we eat do. That’s why I leave every day; so I can get you and me food to eat. Maybe not eating won’t kill us but it’s sure to get to our heads and make us insane. Everybody needs to eat; even the dead.”
So the ball of light was the sun.
“It’s so bright…” Spyk placed his arm between the light and his squinting eyes.
He looked behind him to see the wall once again. “What is it for?” he turned back around, seeing he was closer to the other coast. “Why is it brighter over here?” he looked up at the sky. “Where is the sun over there? Why is it…” pause. “Gone?”
He looked down and noticed the ocean was turning red. “What?” his ears picked up strange sounds; almost like the sounds he created when hunting.
He shrugged and continued to swim, eager to make it to the other side.
Pink was closing in on the mountains. “I’m almost there.” She whispered.
She was walking where the water’s waves ended their path. It washed over the sand, sinking her feet and the lower part of her dress. Anytime she’d stop her paws would become stuck in the mud for a small bit. The seaweeds tickled the soles of those paws, but she’d get annoyed when they’d wrap themselves around her ankles which told her she had to bend down and untangle the weeds.
The latest splash felt a bit thicker. “What-” her head bent downward. The water was red. She twisted her neck the slightest to take a look at the ocean. It wasn’t all red-only a spot was. They seemed to spread out like clouds in the sky. “It’s blood,” she gasped, and instantly she began to run to the spot.
The splashes behind her rose to her tail and disturbed the flow of the water. Soon she had to sway her arms to stay afloat until she reached the spot in which she dived. A swarm of large fish was attacking something… or someone. Whoever it was was bleeding, and they needed help. Or maybe it just a smaller fish? Or so she thought until she saw an arm. Definitely not a fish.
She placed her head above the surface again for air. “Alright, here I go,” she meowed. How could she be a real hero if all her goal was was to destroy the warlock who killed her parents and stole her throne?
She dived back down, and instantly sent her hand forward. Ice shot out from her palm and hit the fish above the person, freezing its fin. It turned around and showed its teeth. It was a shark. A whole group of them.
She sent out her other hand, and both connected sent out a beam of frozen water. The first shark was fully frozen but there were still four more. They swam the other direction, leading her to believe she had one. But they were coming back. She grabbed the stranger’s arm and swam to the surface, swimming backwards closer to the shore where the sharks wouldn’t follow. Her eyes dropped downward to see that his arm was opened with his bone visible. “It looks really dirty,” she said out loud, only to turn her head to see his face. The right side of his face was scarred and bleeding with an open wound where one could see part of his jaw down by his neck. His closed eyes were heavily wounded and his fur was tattered with blood-both dry and fresh.
Her tail felt the rocks on the floor of the ocean. She placed the body down and stood up only to grab his shoulders and dragging him backwards to the beach.
She placed two of her fingers on his neck. “No pulse,” and then she double checked at his wrist. She placed her head down to his chest. “No heartbeat,” she meowed, and pulled her head back up. “I’m too late,” she stated, realizing that there were way too many serious wounds for him to still be alive.
She turned her head when she heard bushes rustling. The other four had caught up with her. “Oh, great”, she hissed and stood back up. “The wonderful bobcat has decided she can follow me as she pleases.”
“No, you stupid furball. Your poor little sister was crying and wanted to see her older sister. You weren’t thinking of abandoning her, you stupid-”
“You were becoming more of a sister to her than I was. She doesn’t remember the night my mother was killed but I do. I don’t even know how Needdo can be acting the way he does after what happened. She has an excuse; she’s innocent and doesn’t remember anything that happened before her fifth birthday. Maybe she should just stay with you. You’re making her happy and I don’t want her to get hurt. I might as well go kill that warlock now before he hurts anybody else.”
Spyk felt strange. Everything was dark and he felt… dizzy. He hadn’t felt dizzy in quite a while. His eyes opened to see the sun once again. He slowly looked to his right. Somebody was standing there. A girl. With pink fur. Fresh pray to him as everything else was. She seemed to be arguing, and he looked further to his right to see three other cats and a fish. He curled his body to hit the earth with his stomach and rose into hunting position.
“Pink, behind you!” One of the cats yelled right before he leaped on the girl and held his hand to her face.
“Stay still or you’ll die faster!” he hissed, lowering his open jaw to her throat. He was hit over with water, causing him to roll back over to the other side.
“Don’t you dare hurt her, you monster!” The blue cat hissed at him.
Spyk hissed back, raising his claws as if to attack.
“He can’t hit us from there, Brittany,” he heard the red cheetah whisper.
He slashed the air in front of him with energy that created red claw shapes in front of the others. “What is-” but before the yellow cat could say anything they were sent forward with force. All four of them, even the fish, were bound in the unbreakable energy.
“Now that they’re stuck in that energy, they can’t disturb us,” Spyk explained to the cougar with a grin. He knelt back down and reached her throat this time. The blood seemed different than what he was used to. It tasted fresh and clean. He continued to drink, until he felt a hand on his chest. It was getting colder and heavier. Was he blacking out again? He wasn’t dizzy like earlier with the sharks. It felt like…
He looked down and saw that his chest was frozen. The ice had emerged straight from her hand.
He fell over in pain. The ice dug into his chest, and his blood was spilling out onto the sand. He was having another flashback. Another memory.
A deep voice spoke to him; a very similar voice. He was surrounded with fire and under a storm, with the sea extended behind the flames.
“The Death of Blood and Life of Ice;
The Warmth of Heart and Cold of Soul;
With One Comes the Other as Double Dice;
As Light and Dark in a Closed Gray Bowl.”
“Death… and Life.” He whispered. “She’s not dead.”
The energy strips unbound themselves, leaving the Legends to move at their will. Pink placed her hand on her neck. “Did he just… drink my blood?”
“Looked like it,” Biyu replied.
“That’s disgusting.”
Skip bounded up to the creature. “He has too many wounds to have been alive.”
“That’s what I thought,” Pink said.
“And he just tried to drink your blood?”
“Yes.”
Skip’s eyes widened. “A vampire.”
“A vampire?” Pink meowed. “What’s a vampire?”
“An undead being that craves fresh blood. How one dies is more limited than how one of us dies. Hunger, lethal wounds, dangerous gases, several broken bones… and so on. None of these will kill one, but they could kill us. They don’t breathe, and their digestive systems don’t function. They’re already dead so the wounds can’t kill him. Only certain things can, but sadly I’ve never been told what they were. I’m sorry.”
“They don’t?” Brittany replied to his statement about digestive systems. “Then why do they need blood?”
“You know how people with less blood tend to get dizzier more easily or are more insane? It’s the same with vampires. Their hearts don’t beat so the only way their blood can reach their brains and the rest of their body is by sucking in fresher blood. Otherwise, they’ll go crazy and they’ll be more dangerous than usual. In this case they’ll do anything for blood; they’ll even suck the life out of wild critters just to get their daily fix.”
Nobody spoke for a while.
“Can all vampires send out that strange… energy thing? I mean, is that what they do to catch pray?” Biyu finally asked.
“I’ve never heard of it…” Skip replied. “I’ve heard they’re way too fast and stealthy to be avoided by their prey. I’m not sure what that was.”
Another pause.
Pink stepped forward and bent down. “Maybe,” she whispered, reaching her hand to his forehead, “He has other powers.”
The others instantly knew what she meant by this.
She shifted the thick bundle of hair to her right to reveal a pattern. It looked like a blood drop but it had the strange texture placed on all of their foreheads.
“I knew it.”
Skip examined the shape.
“Another Legend?” Brittany meowed. “That means we can’t kill him.”
Oh how innocent Brittany sounded every time she spoke. Pink realized that attacking Biyu and walking off how she did was the worst decision of her life. She was glad she saved this Legend, otherwise she would’ve been in the mountains and far ahead of the others in which they probably could have never seen her again.
“It’s the Legend of Blood,” Skip finally spoke.
“Legend of Blood, huh?” Pink replied. “Sounds like a strange one.”
“Yes, it is. One I don’t quite understand. All I know is that all Legends of Blood in the past have always been Vampires because of their dependency on it or something along those lines.”
Pink stared at him. There was something weird about him. He had a look on him like he was once innocent but got his life taken away long ago. She opened her mouth but didn’t speak at first but finally said, “Biyu, please heal him. All those wounds are making me…”
“Sick to your stomach? Yeah, me too. Stand aside and let me unleash my magic.”
As she closed the wounds she also cleaned his bones. The scars were all healed and his bones were covered. His left leg had no skin or fur, only bones, and his left ear was entirely missing. “I can’t heal wounds like this, I’m sorry. But I could try to stretch the skin above his leg as far down as I can without destroying his skin.”
She managed to stretch the skin down below his knee. “I can’t heal his ear at all. There are no bones or cartilage to hold the structure. All I can do is close the area on his head where his ear once was.” Which is exactly what she did.
“Now I think he needs a wash. He looks kind of dirty.” Pink wrinkled her nose.
Spyk’s eyes opened. He was lying in soapy water. He looked down at his body to see that his wounds were all closed and he was… clean. It felt nice to not have air flying into his arms, and to not have any dirt clinging to his fur. Who had put him there?
“Death and Cold,” he repeated yet again, finally remembering what it meant. “That’s what I am.” He tilted his head. “She’s Life and Warmth…”
He closed his eyes. “That voice… who was it? I don’t remember.”
He heard footsteps. He opened his eyes. “Huh?” he didn’t see anyone. He went back to his memories. He took her blood… why did he? He was hungry…
“Blood…” he whispered. Why did her blood taste different? Was it what Legend blood tastes like? Or was it actually fresh, unlike all that junk Maylene had given to him?
“Maylene…” he wondered what Maylene was going through. She was probably devastated.
He had so many questions. He had seen light. He found the other side of the prophecy. He tasted fresh blood. He was away from home. Now he was in water in the middle of a room.
“I bet you’re wondering what’s going on.”
Spyk looked behind him. It was that girl he tried to kill. What was he thinking?
She had something strange on her neck. It was something he’d never seen before. “We know what you are. A vampire; the Legend of Blood. Do you know who we are?”
“Ice, Water…” he remembered back on his shore when he saw the dancing flames and leaves. “Plants and Fire.”
“You can’t forget Earth. Just because he’s a fish doesn’t mean he’s insignificant.”
Spyk said nothing in reply.
“My name is Pink. And they are Biyu, Needdo and Brittany. And of course there’s Skip. Again, can’t forget him. What about you? What’s your name?”
Spyk was silent. She was talking to him as if nothing had even happened.
“Spyk.” He said quietly, looking straight into her blue eyes. There was a strange feeling inside, almost like the feeling he had for Maylene but stronger. “The most powerful emotion in the world is the feeling one has for somebody they really care about.”
Maylene’s words echoed again, the words that tried to explain a concept he had never understood before. He now realized what it was. It was love.