I wanted to paint Werner right after the Embrace before he was completely disfigured. I will write the full scene of his Embrace and what led to it in some other post in the future.
The story below follows him right after the Embrace.
The night after he, on his way from a bar, found a severely burned woman and despite him wanting to take her to the hospital, she convinced him to take her to his motel room instead. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving her on her own after he had seen the men trying to burn her alive.
He was very drunk, because he was celebrating getting a contract for his and Leslie’s book that he was about to sign tomorrow. He tried his best to tend to the woman’s wounds with what he had found in the motel room and tried to talk to her to figure out what happened and if she needed any more help from him.
Werner even offered to take her to the police station to report what happened, but despite his gentle and comforting approach she was impassive and the more he tried to tell her that everything is going to be alright, the more she snapped at him.
He was in no shape to argue with her, so he decided to leave it for the morning, when he's gonna think more clearly. Maybe she will change her mind and lets him call the police or at least take her to the hospital.
After leaving the hurt woman in his bed, he tried hard to stay awake in case he would need to go to the motel manager to call an ambulance for her, but he was still quite drunk and he fell asleep on a couch after a while.
When he woke up his head hurt terribly and it took him a few minutes to shake the sharp pain off him and recollect last night's memories. When he remembered that there was a woman that was severely burned in his bed, he forgot about his pain and he rushed to see her, fearing that he might find her dead.
But the bed was empty and just now he noticed how dark all of his surroundings were, the blinds were closed and the sheets were covering the windows. He called out for the woman, but his motel room was dead silent.
Now, when he was sure the woman left, he instinctively went to check his wallet, but his ID and money, everything was in its place. He sat down, thinking that if she was able to leave, her injuries must have been less severe than it looked like. He thought that she probably got scared after he told her that he will take her to the police station to report the men that tried to burn her alive. After calming himself down, he glanced at the time at his watch and he was shocked.
It was 6pm, he rushed to the window to open the blinds only to see the evening sky. He realized that he missed his appointment with the publisher that was at at 2pm. He cursed at himself, how could he oversleep for the whole day when he had such and important appointment.
As he went to take a shower and started to wash himself, he noticed weird bruises and lacerations all over his hands and after checking, he found more of those over his whole body. He didn’t panic as he explained them as a result of getting burned while helping the woman.
When he noticed clumps of hair in his hand after drying his hair, he cleaned the mirror to see how big the damage was only to notice more injuries on his face, he could see one of his eyes clouded with a milky film. But he couldn’t get a very good look at his face, because there was something clearly wrong with the mirror, he couldn’t get his face to sharpen in the reflection and after a few desperate attempts of trying to clean the mirror he gave up and just got dressed.
He rushed out of the motel to the nearest phone booth and tried to call the publisher’s office to apologize, but nobody picked up as they were probably already closed. He then thought that he should probably call Leslie, but he couldn't because he was out of change. He realized that he was not feeling well, he had quite severe hangover and he felt that all of the adrenaline had worn out... That was why he felt so much cramping and tension inside, shattering headache and a sharp pain in his limbs and rib cage.
He decided to buy a hot dog from a nearby stand, the vendor gave him weird stares, but Werner ignored them, he smelled the hot dog and the stench was awful, but he felt so hungry, he just bit into it and as he tasted it, he couldn’t hold it inside, spitting it out immediately.
Werner turned around to go back to the vendor to tell him something about how nasty the food was, but the people on the street stared at him in disgust that he decided it was not worth it.
He then went into a first diner that he saw, hoping that maybe he can at least have a coffee to get rid of the pressing headache. Inside of the diner he was met with more of the grossed out stares from the other people, some of them even made a step back from him looking at him as he was some kind of a dirty lowlife. He politely asked for a coffee and when he took out the money, smiling at the waitress and saying that he just had a bad day, the waitress forced a smile and squeamishly took the money in a way that made Werner feel like he was contagious.
He felt so uncomfortable with his gaze buried into the table until his coffee was delivered. He was so looking forward to take a sip, but he couldn’t bring himself to actually drink it as if he knew that he won’t be able to.
After what felt like a painful eternity, he took a deep breath and with a shaking hand kicked the whole cup in his throat. Everyone at the diner stared at him, some with disgust and some with general curiosity at the weird man trying to drink a cup of coffee as if it was a shot of whiskey. He tried to hold it in as he realized that there were people watching, but he couldn’t, he started to cough, he tried to make it into the cup, but of course his hands were shaking and he spilled it all over the table.
Some of the men sitting nearby shouted some insults at him. Werner got up and started to apologize to the waitress for the mess, but she just rolled her eyes at him.
There was no point in making this even worse, everyone here thought he was some kind of a drunk idiot, so he ran on the street hoping that the fresh air will make him better.
He walked aimlessly for a bit, but soon he started to go through phases when he felt that his insides were about to tear him apart.There had to be something wrong with him, he needed to go to the hospital. But the problem was, he didn’t know where the nearest hospital was.
He tried to approach people asking for directions, but they either ignored him before he even said anything as they thought he was a homeless person begging for money or stopped to help him, but as soon as they had seen his face they backed away, leaving him frustrated and lost.
He didn’t understand why people treated him so poorly, he was polite and he showered in the morning, wore nice clothes, just because he was not feeling well, they avoided him like the plague.
It crossed his mind a few times to call Leslie, but then he always said to himself that he doesn’t need to worry her just yet, first he wanted to get checked into the hospital, find out what was wrong with him and then he would call her.
After walking aimlessly for a bit, he got tired of the weird stares, so he instinctively avoided people and chose to walk the back alleys, hoping to find a hospital or a police officer to ask for directions.
In one of the alleys he saw a homeless man sitting on the ground, covered in sheets, drinking something from a bottle. As Werner walked next to him, he saw a hat on the ground with a few pennies that people probably threw at him and he thought that today he felt how it probably feels to be in his shoes, so he took out some change and put it in his hat. “Thanks, man.”
The homeless man examined Werner’s face in the street light for a moment. “Man, you look like shit. Need a drink?” The man moved a bit to the side to make space for Werner and gestured with his hand to offer Werner to sit down. “C’mon, sit, man.”
Werner smiled at him, finally someone wasn’t repelled by him, he awkwardly sat next to the man and cautiously accepted the flask. Today was one of the worst days in his life, if it meant that he will share a drink with a man that might be unclean and homeless, but treats him like a human being, then it was what he was going to do. But once again as soon as he swallowed the drink he felt it was coming back in his throat and he barfed. The man laughed. “You don’t drink often, do you?” and tried to hold Werner’s shoulders to somehow comfort him. When Werner turned around to smile and thank the man for his humane behaviour towards him, seeing the man so close to him made him somehow overwhelmed and suddenly everything went red for him.
“Holy shit, man! What the actual fuck!” Was what he heard from somewhere in the distance and then came pain as he felt his body slammed at the wall. Werner was confused and angry, but the cramps were gone.
A different man stood over him, his red hair falling into his clearly furious face. “At least lick the fucking wound!”
Werner didn’t understand anything.“What?”
The ragged man pointed to the side when the homeless man was lying, blood pouring over his neck. “Lick it, moron, what the hell are you waiting for?!”
Werner started to shake his head putting his hands up, clearly confused at what happened and wanting to leave. But the savage man grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him above the unconscious man. “Do it!” and Werner reluctantly did.
He thought it would be disgusting, but it was quite the other way around, the drops of the blood on his neck tasted like the tears of heaven.
Werner shook the unconscious man, horrified with what he might have done to him… “Is he gonna be alright?”
The red-haired man gave the homeless man one disinterested look. “He’ll make it... probably. But that is only because I intervened, you were gonna drink him dry…”
“Now explain yourself. This is my domain, what the hell do you think you are doing here?!”
Werner was shaking and told the man everything about how he was not feeling himself since the night before and how he can’t imagine that he could do this.
The man in the denim jacket listened to everything quite impatiently. “You serious? You really have no idea what this all is?! Damn, that explains a lot. Fuck, why does this have to happen in my domain, dammit.”
Werner begged him to take him to the hospital to which the man just shook his head. “I am afraid the hospital is not what you need, dude. By how fucked up you look, you have to be one of the Lazarus’ flock. You will have to come with me.”
He gestured to Werner to follow him, but Werner reluctantly glanced at the man on the ground before following him. “I... Need to call my wife.”
Severin stopped. “Sorry to break it up to you, pal, but you are not going to call anyone.”
Werner started to back away, ready to bolt out of here, this man was clearly unstable and dangerous. He wanted to call ambulance or police and most of all he wanted to call Leslie and hear her voice telling him that everything is gonna be alright again. “I can’t just…I need to tell her…”
But before he even finished that sentence, the man grasped him by the wrist with a huge clawed hand “I told you, you are coming with me. Voluntarily or not.”
His yellow eyes glared with rage and he crushed Werner’s wrist more. ''Do you understand now?!” The fear of this monstrous man made him give up and just nod in defeat.
Severin took him down to the docks where he knew the other Nosferatu frequented. The whole way Werner thought about what the hell he got himself into, wishing he could turn back time.
Werner © me/doloresdraws
