Lime's fable (Chapter 1, first draft)
Part 1. Crashing In
A beam of light pierced through the gap between the curtains and poked Damien Lang in the face. He was never a sound sleeper, and this thin beam of light was enough to knock him out of his dreams.
“What the heck - ” Damien grunted as he tried to block the light with his hand and worm his way out of bed. He thought he closed them tightly last night, because last night was a night of full moon. And because of his half lycan heritage, full moons would just make him all stressed out and anxious, so he went to bed much earlier than usual and double checked his curtains were closed properly.
From the tingling burning sensation on his hand, he could tell that it was almost noon, which meant he had slept for at least 15 to 16 hours. But due to the effects of the full moon, he still felt sore and tired even after all that sleep.
And being shone upon by sunlight was a nuisance to him as well, due to the other half of his heritage - one of vampires. He had no idea how his parents met nor did he have any idea on the circumstances that led to his birth. He was left on the doorsteps of a church nearby, and he was thus adopted by the old priest running it. It was a matter of luck that the old, timid priest had certain knowledge about the underworld and was willing to raise him without making his complicated lineage a bigger or more complicated deal than it had to be. And maybe out of the same spirit, Damien decided to call himself a lime, as kind of a word play on lycan and vampire.
His stomach was growling, and his head was hurting with ringings in his ears - maybe it was time to grab something to eat after that long slumber. He had to be at his top energy level soon, for he still needed to make his shift at a local dive bar tonight. One could argue the mixed son of two night stalker races should be doing something with more grandeur than just being a busboy and janitor, but he was just not interested in anything right now. He could score some free drinks and snacks after each shift, even before he could legally consume alcohol, and that was enough for him.
He tried searching for his kin when he was younger, but he found nothing. It was as if the night stalker races all vanished in one night without leaving much of a trace.
He almost locked himself out when leaving his tiny apartment before he realized he forgot to bring his keys. And now the books that were randomly lying on the ground and his small table all shifted to different places and his blanket was rolled up to the head of the bed. Yet, his keys were nowhere to be found.
“Where could they - ” Damien scratched his head and frowned. His stomach growled once again, and the soreness in his muscles seemed to have grown a little more.
The ringing sound in his ears grew louder as well - which was a bit out of the ordinary, because even with many nights of full moons before, the ringing was almost the lighter symptom and normally subsided after a short while.
Just this moment, a far and faint voice of a girl came into his ears. And with an absurdly fast speed, it came closer and closer to where he was. She was grunting, cursing and yelling something that he could not make off, as if she was wrestling something.
“Fuck you! Fuck off!” These were the first audible words from the girl’s voice, and before Damien could react, his window went off its frames, the broken glass shards exploded in all directions, and the thick, sunlight blocking curtains were thrown into the air.
“Boom!” A human figure with a full head of bright red hair and wearing a suit of black combat suit covered with gashes, tears and blood stains fell onto Damien’s bed. The metal frames and the springs creaked and bent from the impact, and the filling of the mattress burst out from its sides.
What came with the red headed figure were two creatures - they had the rough sizes of large dogs, but with six legs with long claws and exposed tendons. And Damien was able to see the face of one of these creatures - it practically did not have a face at all. What it had was a structure made of moving pieces of rock, debris of wood and long, winding worms with shiny spiked, curved fangs, held together by some kind of black goo. The same kind of goo that was dripping all over his bedroom floor from the wounds on these creatures’ bodies.
“Aaah! Fuck you!” The red headed figure roared in the same voice Damien heard earlier as she kicked one of these creatures between its middle legs and sent it into the air and then banging on the wall. But at the same time, the other creature took the opportunity and sunk its fangs in the girl’s right arm.
But before this creature could cause the girl any more harm, Damien already had his right hand on the back of its neck and his left on the lower back. His fingernails grew longer and pierced through the pale gray, rubbery skin of this creature, and his fingers locked in on this creature’s spine sockets. He did not know why he did it, as he never did this kind of thing before. And yet something deep within him whispered to him, and he knew in but a mere moment what he needed and wanted to do.
Pungent dark goo and dark green slime splashed all over his mattress as Damien pulled the creature’s body in different directions. It was the first time he exerted his full force in a violent manner on anything, and the creature’s spine was torn apart along with its entire body.
The girl cursed once again, and with a quick swing of a curved dagger, the upper half of the creature was removed from her right arm, with only some severed fangs remaining on her sleeve.
Damien’s eyes met with the girls. She had these deep, bright, green eyes, which, though seemingly very uncommon, paired quite well with her bright red hair. The dirt and blood on her face did not hide her fair skin and the few freckles, and the few locks of hair sticking to her face seemed to have made his heartbeats sped up.
Damien muttered: “Are - are you okay - ”
Before he could finish, the other creature lunged from the corner of the room right at him. The worms crawling out of its face shot at Damien like chained and moving harpoons.
Damien felt sharp pinches on his chest, his left shoulder and his right forearm - the fangs of these worms penetrated his skin and muscles, and he could feel a kind of numbness radiating from these wounds.
“Bang bang bang!” The girl pulled out a handgun and opened fire and opened three giant holes on this creature’s body. These were definitely not ordinary bullets, as some kind of golden flame emerged from the bullet holes and engulfed the creature almost instantly. If Damien did not shove the creature away, he would have been touched by the golden flame as well.
“Are you - are you okaaayyy - ” Damien tried again, but his words started slurring and his muscles became uncontrollably relaxed. The red headed girl jumped up and caught him just in time so he did not hit his hand on the corner of his desk.
“Dammit.” The girl laid Damien down and checked his pulse by the neck: “Gosh, why is your body temperature so low? ”
“What - what happened?” Damien felt that his eyesight seemed to be getting blurry and shaky as well.
“Their toxins become nastier with low body temperature.” The girl shook her head and pulled out a piece of folded yellow paper: “Here, I’ll put this in your mouth, it’ll be very hot, okay? Don’t spit.”
If it was not weird enough, after putting the piece of paper into Damien’s mouth, the girl cut her middle finger, chanted some kind of spell then dripped a drop of blood onto the folded paper in his mouth.
The next moment, Damien saw smoke coming out of his mouth and an intense heat exploding in his mouth. The smoke also went into his lungs, and his tongue felt like it was being scorched by fire. He tried to cry for help, but his mouth and tongue are both numb and powerless, for some reason, with the smoke in his mouth and lungs, he did not have the urge to cough or vomit.
“Hang on, just for a few minutes.” The girl took out another piece of folded yellow paper, lit it up with a lighter and threw it in the air.
An arch made of almost pure golden energy appeared behind which was the scenery of a strange place. The smell of grass and wildflowers and the faint chirping of birds came through the arch, which made Damien think for a brief moment that he might be hallucinating.