I Really Like Ladybugs 🐞

It’s calm, slow acting, a creeping sensation that you can feel coming for miles. Always stalking over you, yet never pouncing.

Like you’re a dy!ng of hypothermia, loneliness is a numbness that crawls into your veins like a cancer, freezing you to the spot while you wait for the sun to rise and free you from the all consuming nothingness invading your soul. But the sun never shows you its face. It’s focused all its light on the gorgeous flowers that bloom in the fields; patiently awaiting the moment their petals unfurl, and paint the grassy plains with rainbows of joyous colors. But while your busy rotting, the sun makes sure to mention that you’re:

“A very good person!”

I’m not hated. I’m not unloved. I am simply…

Lacking.

I’m not worth the energy of someone’s devotion. Because I will never bloom like those stunning flowers in those sun warmed fields.

And even if, through a miracle that was probably intended for someone else, I do manage to open my petals, I can tell I will be ignored.

The gardener doesn’t waste time watering the dandelions when there are luxurious roses to be found.

I have the least opportunities to shine. I don’t have the ability to somehow make myself more appealing. Nor do I know how to gain that skill. I don’t have that mythical IT factor that allows the other trees to grow past the forest floor.

But that’s ok. Because I have to be ok with it.

I’m not fantastic enough to have any other option than to be ok.

I’m not dumb. But I’m not revolutionary.

I’m not ugly. But I’m plain.

I’m interesting, but I’m not exciting.

I’m not talented. I’m average.

I do a good job, but I’m not amazing.

I am everyone’s least favorite in every sense of the word.

“You’re probably in my top ten favorite people!” Yet, I am always in tenth place.

Some people say that you truly die when someone says your name for the last time.

But I don’t think my name has been said for the first time.

* * *

“Hey! Father Quinn, haven’t seen you in a while!” The Technician’s voice boomed across the small space of the cold storage basement, the odd southern twang in his voice combined with how he set down his medical journal like a drunken uncle would set down a pair of greasy tongs, suggested that Elliot was a little more mental than the Vatican had originally thought when they’d hired him.

Elliot outstretched an arm, Father Quinn grabbing it and giving him a firm shake, “Heard you’re about to show some kiddy the ropes!” His eyes, despite the wrinkles surrounding them, were as bright as a schoolboy’s.

“Regrettably so.” Quinn answered curtly, shooting a glance over his shoulder at the nervous priest shifting uncomfortably behind him.

Elliot shot backwards faster than a bullet, immediately swiping everything off his steel metal table books, scalpels, bone saws, jars, food containers, and god knows what else hitting the blue tiled floor with a resounding clatter that made a few scholars upstairs jump for cover, “Well~Don’t you worry kid!” Elliot’s twitching eyes blinking up at Joshua, as he gawked at being addressed by his name for the first time that morning, “By the time you leave this room you’ll know everything you need to know about Vampires!”

Elliot’s fingers gripped onto the handle of the one of the cold storage drawers, his left leg lifting to brace itself against the wall in front of him, “Even a few things you didn’t want to know~!” He wiggled his eyebrows towards Joshua, who had a slight redness creeping up his neck at the comment.

Elliot ripped the drawer open, it squealing in resistance as it was yanked open, revealing a cold, dead, fanged occupant. Quinn’s frown deepened, Joshua’s eyes widened.

“There’s the toothy man of the hour! Still in perfect condition despite the fact good ole’ Quinn here brought him in waaaaay back in 1941!”

Elliot enthusiastically hoisted the body onto the table, the old man dumping the weight down onto the wobbly metal like a sack of potatoes.

Joshua inched closer, Quinn lighting up his cigar as he brain stormed up the best possible strategy on how to convince the head priest to reassign Joshua to someone else.

“I’ve never seen a vampire before…but…I always thought they would look more….” He paused, considering his next words, “Monsterous? This guy looks like he has a wife and kids waiting for him back home.”

It was true what Joshua said. Even as experienced as he was with these creatures, the fact that they looked so normal still slightly disturbed Quinn.

Because what they were seeing on the table wasn’t the snarling, drooling, petrifying beast Joshua had expected, but simply…A guy.

Sporting raven black hair, cleanly groomed into a slick shiny, ponytail, and sharp jawline to boot; he looked like he was set to stand up and go run for office. Tonned muscles that would put a supermodel to shame, accented with a polite dusting of curling black chest that trailed down to a crotch hidden by a small white towel, he hardly even looked dangerous, dangerously handsome, maybe, but to Joshua? He looked down right average.

“For starters,” Elliot began, leaning down with a grunt to pick something off the floor, “I highly doubt you’ve never seen a vampire. If Mr. Normal McNormalface on this table says anything, it’s that vampires are all around. You just don’t know what to look for.”

He emerged from the floor, two sets of rubber gloves clutched in one hand, “And secondly, I’m gonna show you what to look for.” A wolfish grin spread across his face, “Starting with these precious pearly whites of his.”

Once Elliot, and Joshua had donned their gloves, the exhibition began, Elliot instructing Joshua to pull back the vampire’s upper lip.

“Alright, so his canines are what Jumped out at’cha first, I’m guessing?”

“Yup…” Joshua’s voice wobbled, “Are these the ones that do the…uh…”

“Sucking? Piercing? Mauling?” Elliot finished for him, “You bet your precious little behind they are!”

Quinn snorted at Elliot’s antics, he was certainly the most eccentric man he’d ever met, but he was probably better for it. Not many potential Venators actually went through with their training, most taking one look at succubus’s, or a vampire’s corpse and running for the hills. Elliot, while certainly overwhelming people at times with his unusual habits and personality, had a certain charisma about him that somehow made macabre situations like dissections, and anatomy lessons, just that much more bearable.

“Now, if you look deeper into the mouth, you can see all these weird bumps on the other teeth,” he paused to let Joshua do so, “You see em’ right?”

“Yup…” Joshua croaked, seemingly having no other way to be say something affirmative, “I see them.”

“Great! Now, those bumps were actually the beginning of new teeth forming!” Elliot’s voice spoke with excitement, “See, once a vampire starts to exit its teen years, it starts to grow all these fun new traits. Lift up this vamp’s eyelids, I wanna show you something!”

Quinn chuckled to himself, as he heard a strangled screech lurch out from Joshua’s mouth.

“Jesu—I mean—!” Joshua stumbling over his near slip, “What on God’s green Earth are those things!”

“Second eyelids!” Elliot exclaimed, “See how they fold across the eye horizontally like that? Like two pieces of moldy red bologna slapped across the iris! Vamps use these little beauties when feeding, they slide over the eye to protect them against their prey; while also still being able to see through em’ almost like a dove’s clear eyelids.”

“I think I’m gonna be sick.” Joshua gurgled, dropping one of the eyelids and holding the back of his hand to his mouth.

“Oh don’t be like that Kiddo! You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!” Elliot chirped, chipper as chipmunk with nuts between his cheeks, ripped Joshua back towards the body by the front of his shirt, “As I was saying, they use the semi-clear second eyelids to protect their eyes. Because of these little flaps being underneath their main eyelid, they technically don’t need to use their top lids anymore, since the second ones handle all the moisturizing.”

“Yup…” Joshua croaked out again.

“But because all vampires were human at some point, they still instinctively blink, and do all the same stuff we do with our eyelids.” Elliot stopped for a fraction of a second to take in the first breath Quinn had seen him take since the examination had started, before just as quickly returning to talking, “So here’s the important bit you gotta know if your little ass is goin’ to become a Venator like Quinn over there-!” Pointing to Quinn with his eyes.

“What’s ‘the important bit’?” Joshua questioned, his face still slightly green.

“Let me show you!” He swatted Joshua’s hands off the vampire’s eyelids, Joshua gladly relinquishing his hold on the wet, springy flaps.

Elliott pushed both sets of top and second eyelids closed, “Alright, if you see a vampire with both lids closed. You’re smooth going, they’re fast asleep, and probably ain’t gonna wake up.”

He flicked open the top, human eyelids with his pointer fingers, “If the top lids are open, it’s very unlikely the vampire is actually awake, but it’s still likely that the vampire is aware that something is going on around them. Similar to how a cat’s ears move in their sleep. While a cat uses its hearing to monitor their surroundings whilst they’re asleep, vampires tend to use their eyes, because it’s the remnants of their human nature relying on their eyes rather than their ears.”

Elliot paused for a split second, “Point is, Kiddo, if you see a vampire with the top lids open, and the second eyelids closed, you gotta be careful to not make too much noise.”

“Or be careful to not change the lighting in the room.” Quinn piped up, blowing out smoke from his lit cigar.

“Or that.” Elliot nodded towards Quinn.

Elliot pulled back the vampires second eyelids, before manually adjusting the actual eyes so they appeared to be rolled in the back of the head, “Now, If you see a vampire with both sets of eyelids open, but the irises aren’t visible, you better go play the lottery because if you manage to be quiet enough to not fully wake up the vampire, then you might just be the luckiest man on Earth.” He coughed, shooting a glance towards Quinn’s cigar, before returning to his work, “Anyways, Kiddo, point is, if you see a vampire like this, you gotta be quieter than a mouse, because the vampire is awake, and listening for you.”

Quinn was liking that nickname the more Elliot used it, Kiddo got Joshua nicely. Much better than Mousey, given that the man was 6 foot 3.

“I want you to really listen to me when I tell you this last thing,” Elliot looked up at Joshua’s sea sick face, “Alright Kiddo?”

“Yup…”

“If you say ‘Yup’ one more time I’m bashing your skull in with my bone hammer.” Elliot joked, although from Joshua’s horrified expression, he had not found it funny in the slightest, “Say, ‘Yes sir!” Elliot saying his command in sickly sweet tone, whilst batting his grey eyelashes mockingly.

“Yes sir!” Joshua said with the discipline of a soldier addressing his sergeant.

“Good job, Kiddo!” Elliot whooped, slamming his hand onto Joshua’s back in show of praise, causing the man to jump three feet in the air.

“Anyways!” Elliot exclaimed, slamming his fist against the metal table, “Enough screwing around, and take a look at what I’m about to show you!”

“Yes sir!” Joshua’s voice wobbled slightly, as his eyes reluctantly turned back down to the vampire’s face.

Elliot’s fingers pulled back all the vampire’s eyelids, and shifted the vampire’s eyes straight forwards towards the ceiling, if the thing weren’t dead, Joshua could’ve sworn the thing’s eyes almost twitched towards him, “If you see a vampire with both sets of eyelids open, and the eyes aren’t rolled back, you’re dead.”

Joshua’s facial features twisted into that of horror, and he stared up at Elliot.

“Oh, for God’s sakes. I’m just fucking with yah’!” Elliot’s face twisted back to that wolfish grin, before immediately dropping to an expression of stone cold seriousness that made even Quinn feel a little unsettled, “But seriously Kiddo.”

Elliot looked dead into Joshua’s eyes, “If you see a vampire like this, you either say your final prayers, or you fight for your fucking life. Because it’s awake. It knows where you are. And it’s coming for you.”

Joshua swallowed, his face losing its green color in exchange for hallowed pale color that matched that of the dead vampire beneath him.

Quinn’s eyes narrowed, taking in Joshua’s expression, and searching for any sign of exaggeration. But he saw none. Good. Fear was the best teacher for a young Venator. With how terrified Joshua seemed of simply looking at the corpse of a vampire, he could be assured he wouldn’t attempt anything recklessly brave, or make any stupid mistakes when actually hunting.

Quinn’s cigar sputtered out a few pathetic little spots of ash, and he looked at the rapidly declining stick, “I’m headed up to get my cigar box.”

He strode towards the stairs leading upwards, “Once you two are done, Joshua, I want you to head to your room and write down everything you remember from Elliot in a journal. The things he’s teaching you right now could save your life many times, so you had best not forget them.” Quinn began to ascend up the stair case, managing to catch a few last words from Elliot before he reached the door at the top.

“The older a vampire is, the more dangerous they are, the hungrier they get, and the more their bodies change. I haven’t personally seen one older than 300 years old, but they start looking less like this guy, and more like what you pictured in your head before you saw this vampire right here.”

“How old is this vampire?”

“No older than 90 years old.”

“And how old is the vampire Father Quinn and myself are supposed to be hunting?” Joshua’s voice jittered.

“From what I’ve heard about him? The bastards at least 500 years old.”

He craned his neck from side to side, enjoying the loosening pops, as he straighted the tattered collar of his too-tight jacket. His current outfit having been stripped off a wealthy man he’d slain several months ago, the now ragged clothes once being a refined cotton suit, that the old man had washed and dried and tailored to perfection. The care now lost to weeks of wear after several spirited bouts of sweating, prowling, and splattering, till the once cool grey suit was now dyed to a brownish-black. All this topped off with scuffed work boots that he’d stolen off a homeless man’s room temperature body, and a ragged wool coat that was shredded from head to toe.

The Drifter opened his eyes wide, the blood red orbs shining with a crimson glow, as he locked onto a particular scent. One he recognized from the hours earlier, trapped in the shed, the child who’d wailed the loudest of all. Who’d screeched when beaten in games, and shouted at the top of his lungs when pleading for his peers attention, and howled when he’d scraped his knee. He could smell him down South, miles away in a remote part of the forest, practically eons away from the city where the next step of his journey would take place, but his vendetta against him disregarded all semblance of care for the effort it would take to get there.

The Drifter scratched at his neck, the itching hadn’t died down, but he would endure it.

He took in one last breath, the wind lightly kissing his face.

And shot off into the darkness.

＊＊＊

It was silent now. The screams of terror had been silenced several minutes ago.

Blood dripped off his maw as his fangs gouged into a particularly succulent artery, a rumbling groan of sanguine pleasure emanating from his throat at the taste of iron flowed over his tongue with each suckle. Each element of the drink overtly apparent to him, his tastebuds picking up on every single detail of the delicious flavor with an efficiency that Drifter had never experienced before.

The boy had possessed a large family as luck would have it. A few quiet-footed siblings that liked to play hide and seek, a few visiting cousins that preferred tag, and two sets of parents that fancied themselves as heroes, clumsily wielding kitchen knives as they futilely fought the inevitable.

He brought his teeth down into one of the mother’s abdomens, his fangs plunging through the uterine wall as blood poured into his mouth like a geyser, his gut swelling with a healthy bloat as he swallowed mouthful after mouthful of muscle and gore. He closed his eyes in ecstasy, the taste somehow even more luscious than ever before. And the smell? Oh, it was overwhelmingly breathtaking.

Perhaps these new advancements in his body wouldn’t be so hard to get used to after all.

His head lifted from the corpse as he tilted his face back, reveling in the feeling of the lifeblood flowing down across his body. The itching sensation in his neck receded like the tide as his intestines began to sluggishly digest his feast.

Drifter finished off his meal, not bothering to clean himself off. Happy. Stupidly happy. Practically skipping with glee. Because for the first time in hours, he didn’t feel like itching his neck raw. The feast had culled the feeling somewhat, soothing the unbearable tingling over his scar.

He slowly lifted off his haunches, the evidence of his dripping off him like crimson rain, letting off a pattering sound that pleasantly danced into his ears. The sound multiplying as he strode towards the lop-sided door that he’d torn off its hinges. He took when last look over his shoulder before exiting, it looked like a bomb had gone off inside. Blood sprayed across every possible surface, the wooden floor shattered in places, bent knives and broken glass scattered across the room, corpses strewn about, some with their limbs resting in one place while the rest of themselves lay in another. He chuckled to himself, turning forwards as he sauntered off into the darkness.

He leisurely ambled for a short while, using his nose to guide him to his next destination, following the faint scent of oil in the air. Drifter’s tongue curled out of his mouth, the tactile appendage expertly scraping up the clots forming around his scraggly beard. The after dinner treats crumbling under his teeth with delectable crunches. But as much as he would have liked to savor the taste with his enhanced tongue all night long, he had a train to catch.

He stopped walking, and kneeled, pressing his left ear to the ground. Drifter waited.

Then, sound.

A deep rumble, like thunder warning the oncoming storm. He flinched with how loud it was; blinking rapidly as his ears adjusted. Usually he was only able to barely hear sounds this way, but with all the enhancements he was experiencing, Drifter supposed he should have expected that his hearing would over compensate.

He gathered himself, shaking the momentary shock from his system with a few wild thrashes of his neck.

He spread his palms against the grass, the tips of his fingers twitching lightly, his ears making similar movements.

Another rumble echoed out from the ground. He felt the smallest of vibrations rush through the dirt, and travel up his arms. The movements traveling from the North. Perfect. It seems a train is headed his way. If he was quick, he’d make it. And you’d better believe he was quick.

Drifter adjusted himself, getting into his sprinting position on all fours. Letting one last rumble pass through him to insure he had the proper direction.

He dug his claws into the dirt, and pushed off, launching himself forwards with a speed he had never felt himself reach before.

His blackened heart jumped in his chest. Bounding, and sprinting, and diving through the foliage whipping across his body hit a high like no other.

Drifter would make that train.

I turn another corner, a glowing red exit sign flashing aimlessly over a heavy metal doorway. I push the doors open, making sure to pull it closed behind me. It shuts behind me with a sharp click. I step forwards into a new space. This one looked identical to the last. Same plain white floors. Same flickering lights. Same beige lockers that had nothing inside them but the dust of 100 fallen students who were nowhere to be found. D@mn. Here we go again.

I step forward, my barefoot making a quiet slap against the cool flooring. The sound echoes around me, bouncing back and forth from locker to locker. My heels blistering at the lack of cushion. It was just my luck that I had taken them off just before they showed up. I begin to confidently stride forwards despite the pain. That was the key. Confidence. That’s what my grandmother had told me at least.

“Confidence is all you need.” She’d whispered to me when I was still a kid, when I’d sneak off to her house in the middle of the night to see if I could convince her to tell me more of her stories, “If you look like you don’t notice them. They’ll leave you alone.”

I didn’t know what she’d meant then. I don’t think I know what she means now. All I can do is keep up the act. Keep following her advice. Maybe they’ll just go away.

I try a locker door, wiggling the lock a bit before giving it a tug. It didn’t budge. I shrug it off.

“I forgot my combination! Now I can’t get my inside shoes!” I practically shout down the empty hallway, my voice ricocheting down the space, reverberating still as I continue down the same hallway I’ve been down 100 times. 101 times including this time, “I wrote it down on a sticky note in my car!” I turn back around, retaking my earlier pace down the hall.

I hear a click behind me. I don’t pick up speed. I don’t slow down. I walk on. Confidence is key. You act like you can’t see them. Then they’ll leave you alone. I turn left.

I hear a wet slap against the linoleum behind me. Like someone had just jumped out of the shower.

I continue my journey.

Dripping of water, or what I think is water, following close behind. Right behind me now.

My breath doesn’t falter. My steps remaining perfectly calm. The clacking is right at my heels.

“Confidence.” My grandmother’s voice whispers to me, “Confidence is all you need.”

A sunny smile spreads across my face, “I hope I still have that sticky note! I don’t want to have to break my locker open!” My voice perfectly balanced. Just like it had been perfectly balanced 100 times before. When I’d first walked into this god awful place an hour before. All I’d wanted was to clock in, get paid, and go home.

The dripping subsides. Slowly dragging themselves away. For the last time I hope.

I turn left. A red exit door’s light shining a bright against my face. Set just above a set of heavy metal doors.

I pray to whatever gods might be listening to me.

I push the doors open. A warm breeze of fresh air greeting me, paired with an even warmer ray of summer sun spread across my cheeks. As a familiar parking lot welcomes me.

I collapse to the floor. Letting out a shaky breath as I take in the new sensations that breach the endless repetition that had almost consumed me.

I pick myself up off the ground. The gravelly parking lot stones digging into the soles of my feet as I head back into the building. The building that wasn’t so bad when now that I knew I wasn’t going to infinitely walking the halls.

I open the door to my locker, snatching up my leather shoes, and striding into the nearby room.

Smiling faces of students there to greet me.

I push my glasses up my nose, picking up a piece of chalk and scribbling down the focus of today’s lesson.

I set the chalk down, dusting off my hands as I begin my preprepared speech, “Environmental Time Loops: What they are, the entities that cause them, and how we can adapt to them.”

***

But perhaps the worst part of all this was the itch. He scratched at his neck incessantly, his steel-like claws eating through the scabbed over skin resting on top of his jugular, on top of the scars that his creator had left behind. The two twin bites that had sealed his fate all those years ago. Drifter would never admit it, but that concerned him. Deeply.

He dug his talons deeper, plunging them further into his flesh, pushing past veins and dense muscle to reach the epicenter that burned beneath his skin, muttering Latin curse words underneath his breath at the insufferable tingling sensation buried somewhere inside him. He’d tried to pay it no mind on the day it had emerged a month ago, assuming that ignoring it would make the problem disappear. It didn’t.

He wriggled his fingers frantically, stretching and reaching, and rubbing at every possible angle, desperately hoping that he’d finally claw the sensation away, but it was no use. The itch persisted, in fact it seemed to worsen the sensation no longer ignorable, the tingling sensation evolving into a nearly painful burn, like someone had spread hot sauce into his neck’s sinews. He ripped his talons out of his flesh, the macerated wound he’d created sealing shut in the blink of an eye.

“Damn it.” He hissed through clenched fangs, resigning to try and distract himself from the itch by digging his claws into the ground beneath him. Leaving deep gouges in the wood as his massive talons and hands drug downwards across the material. This day was making him regret the fact that his mortal mind hadn’t mustered up the brains, or the courage to sprint for the hills on that fateful night. Normally, he’d be able to sleep through the sun, and the birds, and the disgustingly cheerful attitude people obtain during the day. But the itch prevented that, too obnoxious to ignore for long, and too unknowable to try and solve.

He shifted his weight on top of the mildew ridden hay he was laying on; the side of his coat darkening as decades of stagnated mildew leaked into the fabric. Drifter pulled the shredded cloth tighter over his head, squeezing his eyelids shut as he tried to get comfortable despite the sunlight that singed him through the holes in the walls. Along with the overwhelming scent of pollen, the cramped shed reeked of fungus, the smell likely emerging from the streaks of blackness coating the wayward boards of the structure. Black mold was a smell that he should have been familiar with at this point, but he wasn’t. He hadn’t been familiar with anything lately, everything was...intense…heightened. Drifter had thought his senses had been sharp before, he remembered his first few months as a fledgling vampire, plugging his pointed ears with beeswax, and rubbing incense under his nose to block out the tantalizing scent of the blood pumping through the veins of the people around him. But now, his senses were amplified to a degree that was almost painful. He could catch wind of prey tens of miles away, hear the pounding of hearts amidst bustling crowds without strain or resistance, his night vision was incredible, seeing in the dark like a human sees in the light, he could even tell the difference in diet between humans when he tasted their blood, who ate what, and how much iron their life-fluid carried within its plasma.

But Drifter’s senses hadn’t been the only thing he’d seen a change in. He opened his eyes a hair, taking in the appearance of his crimson stained hands, as he continued to mutilate the wood with the iron like appendages. His claws were longer than usual, he’d learned this fact by accident when he’d tried to make a fist whilst in the midst of hunt. Coincidentally, that was also the same night he’d learned they’d gotten sharper. Ordinarily, such an accident would result in crescent moon shaped scabs that would persist on his palms for the next few minutes, but it didn’t. The incidentally deep wounds had closed in mere seconds, he hadn’t given it much thought in the moment, devoting his attention instead to the prey at hand. But now, weeks after, he had begun to realize how strange it had been. Additionally, his eyes picked up a new variation in his talons' colors, their usual grey hue now darkened to an inky black. Drifter ran his elongated tongue through the plains of his mouth, in the past week, he’d grown several new fangs, waking up in the middle of day to find that in sleep, he’d spat out the last few fragments of his human body. The molars, incisors, and wisdom teeth being replaced with fangs designed to tear, slice, and cut through the supple skin of his prey. Even his hair growth had changed, his greasy raven locks growing from his shoulders all the way down to his mid-back in the span of a month.

His pointed ears twitched, as a particularly delighted scream echoed across the plains. It was like a knife to his ear. Drifter shifted over abruptly, tossing and turning, yanking and pulling at his ratty cloth covering him, desperately searching for any semblance of relief from the overwhelming noises piercing his head.

Another gleeful squeal came from children frolicking around the field in front of his shed. The sound slicing through his ear drums. He clamped his massive hands over his ears, trying and failing to muffle the taunting noises of the prey he desperately wanted to catch, but wasn’t permitted to thanks to the unforgiving eye of the glaring sun. Drifter’s eyes blew wide open, the blood rushing through his veins making his eyes nearly bulge out of his head. A particularly small child stumbled, their knees crashing into a patch of rocks, and they wailed as a single bead of blood oozed from their knee.

The scent slammed into his sinuses, leaving him salivating, panting his steamy breath into the damp of the shack as he shook with the effort it took to resist charging outside into the day, and ripping into the prey with his fangs.

His entire body was in torment, his mind torn between the overwhelming task of trying to find the will to not sentence himself to death by bursting into the light to pursue the defenseless bundle of children who screeched and squeaked at their game of tag. The other half of him focusing on that damn ITCH.

His claws met skin without his permission, tearing through the twin scars placed over his jugular, wrenching muscles free, causing his head to go lopsided and sag against the floor and he severed arteries and tendons in search of relief.