World of Darkness and Philosophy

[Goober4473]

Hey everyone. I haven't been around here much lately, and I'm usually just in the D&D dicusssion forums, but I thought I'd post these two short stories I've been working on in case anyone likes reading. I wrote them as a school project. The idea was to explore philosophical ideas in narratives, thus combining my writing and philosophy classes. This is what I came up with. They're set in the old World of Darkness, if anyone knows it. They can be read in either order, so pick one randomly to start with if you want.

Monsters
“Can a person make up for evil?” Neva asked. She sat in the office of Pastor Matthew, in a small church in Boston. The room, unlike its latest occupant, was neat, clean, and organized. All of the surfaces were dusted, the wooden floor was spotless, the books on the shelves were organized, and the desk was clear. Neva, on the other hand, was grimy and disheveled. Her short black hair was a greasy mess, her face was covered in dirt, and her clothes were ratty and had gone quite a while since they were last washed.

Matthew was a man of about thirty, with kind eyes and short, well-combed dark hair. The girl that now sat across from him had shown up during that evening’s sermon, and asked to speak with him in private afterwards. She struck him as an unsure and uncertain teenager that just needed some confidence and assurance, and her question assured him that she had guilt issues, probably as a result of low self-esteem. “I don’t believe evil can be made up for, no,” he said to the girl in a matter-of-fact tone.

Neva looked crushed. “Oh…” she said in a depressed tone.

“Don’t worry, though,” he said, smiling at her, “I don’t mean to say that a person can’t be forgiven.”

“How,” she asked, confused, “if you can’t make up for evil?”

“What is it you feel you need to make up for?”

Neva sighed. “Where do I even start?”

“Well, what made you come here?”

“I… killed someone,” Neva said slowly, sadness washing over her face, “and now it wont stop hurting.”

Murder was hardly the worst Matthew had heard during his time as a pastor. Dark things that wear the faces of people hid among the impersonal swarms of the city. Most were unaware that these supernatural beings walked among them, but Matthew had come to know the creatures of the night. He had spoken with shapeshifters, magicians, and spirits, and had become all too familiar with the living dead called vampires. Once human, these immortal beings were the rulers of the city. They controlled politics and corporations from behind the scenes, and fed on the life of their unaware human flocks. Some committed truly horrific acts. Still, he hadn’t expected to speak about death when a young girl approached him to discuss a problem. He took a moment to readjust himself before continuing.

“Would you like to explain what happened?” Matthew asked the girl calmly once he had readied himself.

“I couldn’t stand living in the orphanage anymore,” she explained, looking as if she was about to cry, “so I ran. I was alone and had nowhere to go. But then I met Alexa. She took me in, and gave me a home. But she was a thief and a liar. She made me steal for her, and take the blame when she got caught. I was scared for a long time, but then she made me angry, and I killed her… But then it hurt. It felt wrong… Not like before… And then everything hurt. Everything I’ve done… Everyone I’ve killed…”

“You’ve killed before?” the pastor asked, concerned.

Neva nodded slowly.

Matthew considered the person that now sat across from him. This young girl, who looked sixteen at the oldest, had not only killed, but had done it more than once. Perhaps she was not a young girl at all. When he has first met her, she had seemed normal, but now when he looked at her, he felt a chill. She appeared alive, but now when he looked into her eyes, she reminded him of stillness and death. But even if she was inhuman, she seemed to be seeking forgiveness.

“Would you do it again?”

“I don’t want to…” Neva said, tears forming in her eyes.

Matthew considered the girl again. He saw sadness, fear, and remorse in her. She could be unstable, and even dangerous, but she seemed helpless and in need. Human or not, everyone deserved to be forgiven. “Even though you can’t make things right again, and you can’t change the past,” he explained to the distressed girl, “God forgives all things. If you’re truly sorry.”

“God doesn’t care about me anymore,” Neva said with pain in her eyes. “He cast me aside, turned me into a monster, and then punished me for it,” she said angrily.

“I know it feels like you’ve been cast aside. But no one is made into a monster. Only you can make yourself that.” Matthew tried to sound comforting, but ended up sounding more condescending than anything. He had great insight into the motivations of others, but had never had much of a knack for empathy.

“What do you know about monsters?” Neva glared at the pastor.

“I’ve met my share,” Matthew rebutted. “None of them were made by anyone but themselves.”

“You’ve never seen a real monster.”

“Of course I have,” Matthew said confidently, but then he sighed and his eyes fell. “I watched my sister become one…”

“Oh… I didn’t mean to…”

“You know what a vampire is, right?” Matthew asked. He was certain that she did. She had an aura like a dead thing, and had called herself a monster, cast aside by God. She was one of the walking dead, and he was now confident he knew what to say.

“And she was…?” Neva trailed off.

Matthew nodded. “But being undead didn’t make her a monster.”

“What then?”

“When we were young, our father was killed. She couldn’t forgive the woman that did it. She let herself be consumed by anger and hatred. During her mad quest for vengeance, she met a vampire that wanted to use her anger as a weapon, and he made her like him. But really, she was a monster long before that. It wasn’t undeath that made her a monster. It was her own choices.”

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t worry,” Matthew smiled, “she got over it.”

“How?”

“She learned to forgive herself.”

“Forgive herself?” Neva looked skeptical. “So, what, she stopped feeling bad about it and that made God forgive her?”

“It’s not about not feeling bad about it anymore. It’s about realizing that there is nothing you can do to change the past, and choosing to do what’s right now.”

“I only wanted to do the right thing… and God offered only punishment…”

“Why do you feel you were punished? Becoming something inhuman isn’t a punishment. It’s-”

“I’m no cursed mortal!” Neva yelled, her voice a hiss. She rose from her seat, and the room grew unnaturally quiet. Her skin turned ghostly white and her eyes became pools of inky blackness. Fog emanated from her, forming tendrils and visages of death that seemed to suck the heat from the air. Black feathered wings, like those of a raven, unfolded from her back.

Matthew stared. No longer was there a pitiful young girl that felt of death in his office. Instead, there was a being of power and grandeur. Her presence was as undeniable as it was silent, still, and cold.

“You weren’t there when the voice of God punished us,” Neva, or what was instead of Neva, hissed. “When he offered us oblivion as the only way to escape war.”

Matthew looked at her in awe. “Well then…” he muttered to himself.

“I am a Halaku, Slayer, angel of death cast from God’s grace and condemned to reap the souls of humanity. You say God forgives all things? How can you say the when He wont forgive me?!”

The visage of the inhuman thing faded. The wing, the fog, the silence and cold were gone. In place of the being that had such a powerful presence was just a young orphan girl, sitting in Matthew’s office crying.

“Why can’t it go back to how it was?” Neva sobbed.

“I think,” Matthew said, realizing that he did not understand the situation as clearly as he had thought, “maybe you should start at the beginning… Um… When you’re ready.”

Neva wiped the tears away from her eyes with a dirty coat sleeve. “Alright,” she said hesitantly. She paused for a few moments, regaining her composure. “My name is Isda,” she began, “I was made before humans walked the earth, an angel of the Seventh House: the Reapers. We were charged with the recycling of the world. The passing of the old to allow the new. I, along with my companions, Jaserum and Azatoth, watched over the birds of the earth with my two companions. We were the last step in their cycle. Death to make way for new life. Then there came humanity.

“The world was made for you. It was beautiful, magnificent, and wonderful. But we couldn’t share it. We were commanded first to love humanity, but also to remain hidden. I loved humanity more than anything, but I had to watch the first humans stumble through the world, unable to appreciate it. I wanted so much to show them my love, but all they saw were dead birds. For all my attempts to show them the beauty of renewal, they feared the death they saw. I was sad, but content that God knew better than I. I waited. But then one of our number foresaw terrible destruction. A potential future that revolved around humanity.

“There was a debate among the angels. If we did nothing, we could be doing nothing to prevent this terrible event, and we were commanded to love humanity above all else. But if we acted, we could bring it about. Finally, Lucifer, the highest of all of us, the Morning Star, the voice of God, came to us, and told us that he would choose to teach humanity, so that they could avert this disaster. He said that he would choose the first of God’s commands, to love, over the second, to remain hidden. I joined him, along with my companion Jaserum. Azatoth remained.

“We revealed ourselves to the first humans that night, and we expressed our love. We showed them what they were capable of, and they were glad. I showed them my purpose, and they did not fear the death I brought. They knew it to be natural and beautiful. But we were punished. When the day came, the archangel Michael, the new voice of God, came to us. He offered us one way to escape the wrath of God: to be stripped of our existence, and lost to oblivion. We could not conceive of a punishment worse, so we refused. We were given human death, decay, greed… The fallen of my house were named Halaku, the Slayers. We would now have to bring the humans we loved so much into death, like they were nothing more than beasts. I only wanted to help the ones I loved, and I was punished for it.”

“You did it out of love?” Matthew asked.

“Yes,” Neva nodded.

“But it sounds like doing nothing had just as good a chance of helping as acting. It would have shown equal love to do nothing, and yet you chose to act. Why?””

“I…”

“You wanted to show them your love?”

“I guess…”

“And you cared more about humanity appreciating you than obeying God’s commands?”

“I didn’t know… I didn’t mean to hurt anyone…”

“Then how did you end up killing?”

“Our punishment was to bring death, so we did…”

“Why?”

“Human death…” Neva shuddered “It was too much… We couldn’t take it. It hurt too much…”

“And yet you made it happen?”

“It would happen no matter what…”

“But you wanted to control it?”

“I guess… I thought maybe… Maybe if I could bring it quickly, it wouldn’t be as bad… But it drove us mad. We kept killing and killing. We learned to do it faster, better. We began to forget why, and became concerned only with how. It became an art. We began to enjoy it… Jaserum and I were lost entirely to destruction. Even Azatoth, our closest friend since the beginning of creation, became nothing more than another creature to send to oblivion. We killed and killed until there was nothing else to us. The war was meaningless to us. We went where we could wreak the most havoc, and ruin the most…”

“Eventually, the war ended. We lost. And we learned of the punishment worse than oblivion. We were locked away, in nothingness, in numbness. We were alone with our memories of what once was. The fallen host was driven mad, but the two of us were already monsters filled with only twisted rage. I don’t know how much time passed then. I remember that some of the other fallen disappeared from our prison, and some returned, but I was too lost in anger to care.”

“What changed?” Matthew asked. “Why come to me now?”

“After what seemed like an eternity, cracks began to appear in our containment, and I escaped. I was lost in twisting energy, when I felt a presence, something to latch onto. I found Neva, dying in a pool of her own blood. She had cut her wrists in desperation. She was living in fear under Alexa. I attached myself to her body as her own spirit passed. I felt her hatred for Alexa, so I acted on it. I severed the horrid woman’s life easily. The feel of the kill came rushing back. But then I began to feel the rest of Neva’s emotions, and her thoughts began to mix with my own. I saw what I was, what I had become, and what I had done, from a perspective not twisted my millennia of hatred. I would have ended my life like she had if I didn’t know the abyss that awaited me…”

Matthew considered the story, brows furrowed, then half-chuckled to himself, smiling slightly.

“What?” Neva asked, annoyed, “You don’t think I’m serious?”

“It just turns out,” he explained, “that I was right about you. Just not in the way I thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“When you learned God was angry, you wanted forgiveness, right?”

“Of course…”

“Did you ask for it?”

Neva stared at him blankly.

“I think at that time, you still would have chosen to do it again. You didn’t understand that what you did was wrong, so you could ask for forgiveness, but you couldn’t mean it.”

“So God punished me for not knowing I was wrong yet?”

“Maybe. Or maybe it was an inevitable result of your action, and not a punishment at all. Or it was done to teach you, so you could some day understand what you did was wrong. You do agree you did wrong, right?”

Neva nodded.

“So I think you’re just like my sister. You weren’t punished at all. Something bad happened to you, but it didn’t make you a monster. You did that yourself.”

Tears began streaming down Neva’s cheeks again. “I…” she sobbed, “I don’t want to be a monster anymore…”

“Only you can make yourself a monster. But you can always choose to change. If you understand you did wrong, and you become someone who wants to do right, then it doesn’t matter what you’ve done. That truth is God’s infinite forgiveness. Not a voice telling you it’s all better now, not a magic spell that makes everything better. Just a truth.”

Neva wiped her tears away again. “What should I do…?”

“Accept what you did was wrong, and decide to be a better person, or, well, angel, than you were before. Forgive yourself.”

“I don’t know how…”

“I think that’s something you’ll have to learn on your own.”

“Oh…”

Matthew smiled at her. “If you’re sincere, you’ll get there.”

“Thank you…” Neva smiled slightly at the pastor.

“Of course.” Matthew paused for a moment. “What will you do now?”

“I don’t have anywhere to go…”

“How about I take you to my sister’s place? She might know where you should go from here.”

“Okay…”

Matthew stood and walked to the door. “Shall we?” He opened the door and headed to the front door.

Neva rose and followed the pastor tentatively. The two exited the church into the parking lot. The moon was full, and street lights provided illumination, but the parking lot was hazy, like a dark fog covered it, and it was cold, even for an Autumn evening. No cars except the pastor’s parked next to the church could be seen, and the sounds of the city were distant echoes.

“There you are, my wondrous destroyer,” a cheerful voice rang out from above, “I was getting worried.”

Neva and Matthew turned and looked up. A man stood on the roof above the door. He was tall, with long black hair, and wore a white suit with a black tie. “I was expecting,” the man said, looking down at Neva, “to follow a trail of bodies to you. But here you are, talking to this holy man.”

The man pouted. “What’s wrong?” he asked mockingly, “have you lost your touch? It his faith too powerful for you to fight? Has he pacified you with his magnificent mortal powers?” The man let out a cackling laugh.

“But then again,” he said with a twisted grin, “you always did like to play with the cattle before a slaughter, my delectable queen of decay.”

Neva stood petrified, and began to tremble. “Jaserum…” she whispered. Memories of war and death came rushing back. Part of her wanted to go back to that life. To kill again without hesitation. To know her place in the world. To be with her partner once more. But the memory made her sick. They felt wrong, and they hurt to remember.

“Aww,” the man said as if to a small child, “your silly new body has fear. I know!” he exclaimed, “I’ll find you a new one. We can cut it’s soul out and I’ll just put you in. How would that be? But hmm,” he said, pouting again, “who would be fitting of your majesty? A beautiful murderer? Or maybe an innocent child for you to corrupt? But first,” he said with a grin, “let me get rid of this nuisance.” He gestured to Matthew.

Matthew stepped back as the man became something else. His skin turned a pure white covered in stains of crimson and black. His eyes became orbs of clotted blood, and black raven wings extended from his back. A twisted black scythe appeared in his hands, and he rose from the rooftop.

Neva’s heart leaped with joy and dread at the sight of her magnificent partner. For countless ages, he had been her only love besides death. But she knew she was different now. She knew she could not join with him again in wonderful harmony. She manifested her angelic form once again as Jaserum descended. Her wings unfolded, her skin turned pale, and her eyes black. Ghostly mist twisted around her in turmoil and distress, mimicking her thoughts. A simple wood-handled scythe appeared in her hands.

Jaserum’s weapon sliced down at Matthew, but struck the blade of Isda’s own as she moved in front of the man to defend him.

Jaserum yelled out in surprise and anger, his voice like a chorus of howling spirits, “what are you doing?!”

“I… I can’t let you hurt him,” she said shakily.

“Why not?!” He howled.

“I don’t want to keep hurting people...”

He stepped back and looked at her in anger and confusion. “What’s wrong with you?”

“We were wrong, Jaserum.”

“And what, you want to cry about it? We’re not wanted anymore, so let’s bring the world into oblivion with us!”

“We can change… We could be like we were before all the fighting…”

“It can never be like before, Isda! The world’s gone to hell and it’s only getting worse! The only way to fix it is to take it all apart! So stop acting crazy and kill this pathetic creature already!”

“I… I wont. And I wont let you.” Isda raised her scythe defensively.

“What’s happened to you?” Jaserum asked with a wavering voice. “Where is my goddess of hatred? What have you done with her?!” He howled. “I’ll tear her out of you!” He lunged forward, swinging his weapon wildly.

Isda parried his attacks expertly. She was glad to find that she had not lost her skill in combat. Jaserum had always been faster and stronger than her, but he was unfocused and imprecise. She hoped it would be enough to keep him at bay.

“Get out of here,” she called to Matthew, who was still standing stunned. He shook himself out of it and ran as fast as he could towards his car.

Jaserum howled in anger and continued his assault. Isda could barely keep up with the rapid strikes. His anger made him careless, but it also fueled his already great physical power. Isda remembered the feeling. The rush of power. But again with the memory came pain. She snapped back to the present as she was struck in the chest by the blunt end of her opponent’s scythe. She reeled back. Jaserum leapt forward, raising his scythe to cut her down.

An earsplitting noise rang out across the parking lot. Jaserum stumbled back, blood pouring from his chest. Isda looked back to see Matthew standing behind her, carrying a shotgun aimed at her one-time partner. Another shot rang out and Jaserum stumbled back again, yelling out in anger. “I’ll kill you!” He charged the pastor, raising his scythe again. Isda swept her own blade up, striking the charging demon as he attempted to move past her.

Jaserum fell back a third time, this time dropping to his knees. He looked up at Isda with a grin. “There’s that killer instinct. I knew you still had it in there somewhere. Let’s bring it all the way out!” Jaserum rose, his wounds closing as his wings lifted him to his feet. The already dark parking lot grew darker still. Shadow seemed to emanate from the demon, filling the air, grasping onto the walls of the church and the pavement of the ground. The cold darkness surrounded Isda. She felt suffocated, alone…

A sharp pain shot through Isda’s chest. “Come back to me…” She head Jaserum’s voice, as if from a great distance. She looked down. A jagged black metal blade protruded from her chest. Stunned, she stared at it.

The blade pulled back, tearing flesh as Jaserum ripped it from its target. Neva’s body fell to the ground.

Isda stood in a world of shadow. The church loomed over her, a dark and distorted vision of what it had been moments ago. This was once the realm of her house, the angels of the Second World. It was a place of spirits, between life and death. She could feel a pull, like a force of gravity dragging her away from where she stood. The Abyss called to her essence, beckoning her back to her eternal prison.

“There’s no place like home,” Jaserum said mockingly. He stood in front of the church, holding Matthew by the neck, raised off the ground, in one hand, his bloodied scythe in the other. The shadow of Neva’s body lay at his feet, a pool of blood forming around it.

Isda no longer inhabited the body of a human. She had no anchor to keep her bound to the mortal realm. Her form no longer resembled Neva’s. She was taller, thinner, and her face was shrouded in shadow. No longer did she possess the emotions of a helpless, terrified orphan girl. The guilt and fear she had felt began to wash away.

Matthew struggled, futilely kicking at the demon that held him. “Isn’t that better?” Jaserum asked, smirking. He tossed Matthew to the ground in front of Isda. “Now, become your true self again. Kill this mortal and take his body.” He frowned, “it’s hardly fitting of your majesty, but it’s better than that weak little thing you had before. We’ll find you something better later.”

“My true self…” Isda whispered. She remembered the war, the killing, the destruction. She remembered the rush, the feeling of power. The thoughts no longer made her sick. The human reaction was gone. She could go back. She could become a killer again. She could be with Jaserum again. Together they could tear the broken world down, unmake reality, piece by piece.

“Yes, my beloved executioner,” Jaserum said with a smile. “It will be like it was. We’ll be together again.”

Isda stepped forward, raising her scythe. “We can be happy again…”

“So that’s it?” Matthew said, looking up at the fallen angel that was about to end his life. “You’ll become a monster again?”

Isda paused.

“You think you’ll be happier? Happier than before you fell?”

Isda remembered paradise. The world unspoiled, before the war, the death, the pain. She remembered the song of the birds that she watched over. She remembered Azatoth, the angel that was once as much a part of her as Jaserum. She remembered being content, and at peace.

Jaserum laughed hysterically. “Eden is gone, Isda. Nothing can bring it back, and this sick world isn’t worth keeping. Kill him and join me in taking it apart!”

“I can’t go back…” Isda said, reading her scythe to swing. She felt the pull of the Abyss once more, stronger now. She wouldn’t be able to resist for much longer.

“No,” Matthew said calmly, “you can’t. It can’t be like it was. But you can still be who you were. A renewer of life, not a bringer of death. You don’t have to be a monster”

Isda hesitated.

“Shut up!” Jaserum yelled angrily. “Kill him already!”

“I…” Isda said shakily, “I don’t want to be a monster anymore…”

“NO!” Jaserum howled. “Stop twisting her mind! KILL HIM!”

“No, Jaserum,” Isda said, sadly. “I want to be like I was.”

“Your glory cannot be contained in a pathetic little girl!” He yelled back.

“Her humanity is enough,” Isda replied. “She can help me be who I was.”

“Only I can help you be who you should be! Halaku, Slayer, named by the voice of God! We are killers, by God’s command!”

“God didn’t make us monsters. We did that ourselves. And we can make ourselves something else again.”

Jaserum screamed and blindly ran at her, raising his scythe to strike. Isda struck first. A physical body was encumbrance in the world of spirits. Her scythe passed through the body that Jaserum inhabited, cutting him out and severing its life.

The pull of the Abyss continued to grow stronger. Before Jaserum had time to attack again, now uninhibited by a physical body, Isda grasped Matthew’s hand, pushing him through the barrier between worlds, back into the material world. She looked back at Jaserum. “Goodbye, Jaserum. I hope we meet again when you’re ready to change.”

Isda entered the bleeding body of Neva, as she had done once before. She began to repair the body’s flesh, and regenerate its blood. Jaserum had badly damaged the body, but he had little control over severing life directly. She would be able to repair the damage, given some time.

“Are you okay?” Matthew asked, kneeling down beside the young girl.

“Yeah…” She managed as the wound finished closing. “Just drained…”

“Is he-” Matthew began.

“No. There’s no body for him to use to enter the physical world.” Neva stood slowly. “Do you think… Do you think your sister can help me?”

He smiled at her. “I think she can guide you, and give you advice. But really, it’s up to you to help yourself. I think you can do it though.”

She smiled back and nodded, then paused and looked puzzled. “You keep a shotgun in your car? Aren’t you a pastor?”

“Like I said, I’ve met my share of monsters.”

Silence
Silence consumed the world. A monstrous man loomed above, his fangs dripping with blood. He stared with eyes like deep pools of nothing as he reached out a hand. Pain erupted from where he touched. Blood burst from within. His face was blank, showing no feeling, not the slightest reaction despite the unbearable suffering he caused. Silence.

Zoe awoke in a cold sweat, breathing heavily and clutching her left arm tightly in memory of the pain. She sat, catching her breath and trying to force the memories from her mind. After a minute, she stood and walked to the window across the small room. She brushed the blonde hair from her face, and stared out into the night sky from the third-story apartment. The city lights of Boston obscured the sky, but the full moon shone brightly, reflecting off of her bright blue eyes. Zoe clenched her fists. The light of the moon filled her with strength, conviction.

She had power. It was part of her. Her mother was a warrior, a soldier of nature, gifted with the wisdom of Gaia, the spirit of the Earth, and the fury of Luna, the spirit of the Moon, a shapeshifter that lived between the world of humanity, and the world of the spirits. She had no father but energy. She was a mage, gifted with influence over reality; magic like that which had given her life. She could impose her will on reality. She could control space, time, matter, energy. But these powers had limits. Her own understanding of reality was limited, and her will could only change what she understood. And worse, the more she changed, the more the world reacted. The wills of billions of normal humans resisted her own. Magic was “impossible,” and the paradox of its performance was dangerous and wild.

Zoe was born of strength and magic. But she had been defenseless, weak. She had let her guard down. The next time would be different. She would be ready for the silent killer.

The door creaked open. A girl entered. Zoe tensed reflexively at the quiet, still presence, but relaxed immediately when she heard the familiar voice. “Are you alright?” It had a motherly air to it, though it belonged to a girl barely over seventeen.

“I will be,” Zoe promised herself before turning to face her old friend. Carolyn was a being in stasis, between life and death. Her appearance had remained the same since before Zoe was born. Pale skin, flowing black hair, and piercing gray eyes. In the nineteen years of Zoe’s life, nothing about her friend seemed to change. She was a vampire that fed on the life of others, the same as the monster that haunted Zoe’s dreams, yet she was gentle and kind, becoming violent only in order to protect. There was more humanity in her than most of those still alive.

“My contact found him. A blood hunt was called.”

“So he’s definitely a vampire?”

Carolyn nodded. “Clan Assamite. Assassins that work for the highest bidder.”

Zoe didn’t have much experience in the city. There were too many people, too much disbelief. But Carolyn had taught her everything she needed to know about vampire society. There were rules, and this assassin had broken them. He had killed another vampire, or Kindred as they called themselves, and he had revealed himself to a crowd of mortals. The blood hunt was a death sentence. He was fair game. Good. He deserved-

“Get dressed.” Carolyn interrupted Zoe’s train of thought.

“We’re going now?”

“He’s at the harbor. We don’t have much time before he leaves. Are you up to it?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you sure? Last time…”

“Definitely.” Zoe turned back to the window, letting the light of the moon fill her eyes again.

“Alright. Meet me downstairs.” Carolyn turned and left the room, closing the door behind her.

***********

There had been murders. Nothing special at first. But people started talking. Rumors spread on the streets that the killer was something inhuman. Investigations were made, and more and more people got suspicious. They were getting close to truth, and that was dangerous. If they knew, they would be afraid. They’re belief would lessen the paradox that magic created, but the supernatural would be hunted down and eliminated. Even the static reality they forced on the rest of the world was better than being hunted like an animal.

Four nights ago, Carolyn had called a guy she knew - well, a vampire - that owed her a favor. Max. He owned a bar, and he knew things other people didn’t. He had contacts all over the city, human and Kindred alike. He told her he knew who the murderer was. She called in her favor for the information. If she could put a stop to this murderer, not only would a dangerous criminal be stopped, but the human investigation would find no more evidence of the supernatural.

That night, Zoe and Carolyn had left for Max’s bar. Zoe remembered it clearly. When they arrived, the place was packed. It was stifling. She could feel the consensual reality that the oblivious masses wrapped around themselves blocking original thought, and inhibiting her power.

They found Max at a table in the back. He seemed entirely average. Almost eerily so. It was hard to focus on any of his features long enough to notice anything odd about them. It took a minute of focusing just to realize that his hair was black. Carolyn later explained that he was using an obscuring power, often known by his clan, in order to blend with humans.

There was exchange of pleasantries, introduction, and some small talk. Then came business. Max explained that the murderer was indeed supernatural, but was no Kindred, nor mage, nor shapeshifter. He was something else entirely. But before Max could say what, the room grew silent. His lips moved, but no sound was made.

A man appeared behind Max. His skin was dark, and he wore a black leather trench coat that flowed silently behind him. He held a knife that dripped with black blood. Zoe caught his gaze just as the blade was plunged into Max’s back. She stared into an abyss. A silent oblivion. An overwhelming nothingness. Max collapsed, poisoned by tainted blood. The man leapt forward.

Everyone stared. Zoe couldn’t defend herself. That’s what they all thought they knew. They thought it, and she couldn’t deny it. There were too many. She had the power, but it was useless in the face of the cold, unchanging reality they forced on her.

The man pushed her out of his way. Effortless. She was pushed aside like she was no one. He didn’t care. A meaningless motion to save a second of time. And yet it caused so much pain. With his touch, Zoe’s left arm burst from within, blood pouring out. She screamed in pain, but there was no sound. Silence. Unbearable pain. She wanted it to stop, but the people watched. Their world told her she was helpless and weak.

Zoe winced and clutched her arm. The memory of that monster brought back the pain. He was heartless. He treated her like nothing, and she hated him for it. He turned her into a pathetic crying child. A worthless fly to be swatted away. But not again. This time, she would be strong. This time, he would not think her insignificant. This time, he would pay.

***********

Zoe finished changing. Jeans and an old white T-shirt, sneakers and a black leather coat. She quickly headed out of the apartment and down the stairs. It was still early evening and the street outside was busy. People went about their business, in their constraining fantasy world where everything was ordinary and mediocre. But it was nighttime, and they couldn’t see in the shadows. As long as she didn’t draw attention, Zoe’s power would not be suppressed.

“Did I ever tell you how I met your mother?” Carolyn stood leaning against the building behind Zoe as she stepped out onto the sidewalk.

“What? Why?” Zoe turned and raised her eyebrow at the girl.

Carolyn stood up straight and walked past Zoe. “No reason.” She looked back, smirking.

“Fine.” Zoe sighed. “No, you didn’t. She told me you weren’t always friends, though.”

“Did she say why?” Carolyn kept walking. Zoe hurried to catch up and walk along side.

“She hurt someone close to you, right?”

Carolyn nodded. “She was delusional at the time, but I was still angry when she got better.”

“Makes sense.”

“Sure. I wanted someone to blame. I couldn’t just accept that it happened, right?”

“Maybe.”

“No, dummy,” Carolyn said like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Hey!” Zoe pouted.

Carolyn laughed, amused at herself. “Of course I could. I just didn’t. I was stupid. If there was no one to blame, there was no one to punish, and I wanted that. Otherwise there was nothing I could do to make it right, and that would make me powerless. I was afraid. I needed someone to hate so I could feel better about myself.”

“Fine, fine.” Zoe rolled her eyes. “So you’re stupid,” she shrugged. “I wont argue with that.”

“Hey,” Carolyn feigned offense. “I figured it out eventually.”

“Oh, really?” Zoe acted surprised.

“Yeah. I got mixed up in some bad stuff, but I got out, except for the whole Kindred deal.”

“So you got involved with vampires?”

“And a lot worse. I went looking for the power to make things right, y’know? Well I found power, alright, but it wasn’t mine. It was only used through me. I allowed myself to be an instrument of evil. I became powerless and I made nothing right. So that pretty much backfired.”

“So how’d you get back?”

“Mary showed me the light.”

“Way to be vague.”

“Yeah, well, there was magic involved. That gets pretty vague. But she opened herself up to me, and showed me forgiveness instead of retribution. After seeing that, I couldn’t blame her anymore. The person I hated just wasn’t there.”

“’Cause she changed?”

“Essentially.”

“Sounds like everything worked out then.”

“Yep.” Carolyn smiled.

”So what made you bring it up?”

“Why do you think people forgive?” Carolyn’s eyes were piercing. Zoe shivered reflexively again.

“Because if someone’s sorry, they deserve it…”

“Oh?”

“Well, if they’re sorry, it’s not their fault anymore. If they had the power, they’d take it back. Right?”

“And if they’re not sorry?”

Zoe was quick to answer. “Then they don’t deserve anything.”

“No. I suppose they don’t.”

***********

Zoe and Carolyn stood in the back room of a small theater, a few blocks away from the apartment building. This was a small bastion from the mystically suffocating city. The building was built on a wellspring of magical energy. Zoe’s mother knew the owner, a shapeshifter. Now that she was in the city, Zoe used the back room for more obvious magic, in order to avoid the wrath of the physics the city was based on.

Zoe concentrated, focusing her mind on the special relation of reality, the correspondence of all things on a physical plane. She willed reality to shift. Space bent in on itself. Points that were once far became adjacent. The room she stood in and a back alley near the harbor were brought together. She took Carolyn’s hand, and the pair took a single step forward. Zoe released the effect. Space snapped back to the way it was before, how the masses thought space should be. The violence of this snap would have knocked Zoe clean off of her feet, but the energy she pulled from the wellspring buffered the blow, leaving it nothing more than a gentle nudge.

The mage and the vampire now stood in the alley by the harbor.

“So,” Zoe said. “where to now?”

“Hang on…” Carolyn swayed back and forth, off balance. “Let me just regain my sense of direction, and… reality… That always messes me up…”

“Beats walking.” Zoe grinned.

“But could it be any more trippy?”

“Not my fault you’re used to a world where only one thing is true at a time.”

“Is that why magic is so vague?”

“Because it’s more than one thing at once?” Zoe shrugged. “Probably. Makes sense to me, though.”

“Cut some slack for those of us whose mother wasn’t impregnated by mystical forces.” Carolyn clenched her eyes shut then opened them a few times, readjusting to her new surroundings.

Zoe waited until the other girl was done. “You good?”

“Yeah. Let’s go.”

Carolyn made her way towards the docks, checking their position. Once she knew where they were, she headed up the harbor, towards the dock her contact had indicated. Zoe followed close behind.

“So what do you plan to do when we find this guy?” Zoe asked after a few minutes.

“He’s dangerous,” Carolyn said in a matter-of-fact tone. “He’s twisted and fearless, so we wont find out who hired him. Unless you recently mastered the art of mental persuasion.”

“Still just an apprentice there,” Zoe said apologetically.

“So then we need to stop him.”

“Right…” Zoe planned to do much more than just stop the monster that had hurt her so badly.

They were quiet again until they reached their destination. A dock where a small freighter was being loaded by about a dozen men.

Carolyn pointed at the ship. “According to my sources, he’s in there. Can you get us in?”

“I can’t teleport us, if that’s what you mean, but I know enough about minds to make the loading crew not notice us.”

“Good.” The two walked quickly to the freighter, avoiding the working men. Zoe worked her will on reality again, focusing on the patterns of mental activity, causing the humans’ minds to become unable to make connections regarding the two young women that just entered their midst. They perceived, but they made no further thought concerning what they saw. As she passed the men, Zoe continued her influence, using her knowledge of chance and entropy to make them tend towards ideas that lead them outside, further from the ship. She would not let their disbelief hinder her.

***********

Silence. Down inside the small freighter amid the shipping crates there was no sound. The silence brought the memory again. Zoe began to move her hand to her left arm, but stopped and clenched her fists.

The assassin was swift and precise, moving with inhuman speed from the shadows of the dimly-lit cargo hold and striking with his knife, dripping with the same corrupted blood as before. Carolyn saw him coming. She turned, striking his arm from above, knocking him off balance with unnatural strength. She readied another attack, but he was faster than she thought. His hand struck her chest. Blood ruptured and constricted, squeezing her insides. Had she been alive, the blood would have crushed her heart and drowned her lungs. But even though she was no longer burdened with the need for organs, the shock of the attack made her double over, coughing up some of the blood that kept her from true death. The man regained his balance and prepared to impale the stunned vampire with his knife.

Zoe reached out with her will. The man was fast. A fact of a reality she did not agree with. She pulled on the fabric of reality, altering the flow of time around the undead killer, causing him to slow in relation to the world around him. He was no longer fast. His blade swung through the air in apparent slow motion. Zoe lashed out, pulling heat from the air and turning it into kinetic energy as her foot collided with the man’s forehead. Conservation of energy was a fabrication, but a difficult one to overcome. Conversion of one type of energy to another was much more effective. The man flew back, appearing to accelerate into the wall of the ship as he returned to the normal flow of time.

The assassin landed on his feet, holding out his knife defensively. He had thought her inconsequential. Zoe’s lips curled into a smile at the thought of proving him wrong. She took a step forward, bending space as she did. With one step she was in front of the undead horror. He reacted quickly, striking out with his weapon repeatedly, but each time, despite his immaculate precision, the space he attacked was not that which his adversary occupied. Zoe stood motionless, mocking him with her smile. His attacks remained steady. He was calm, confident. Her effect wouldn’t last much longer, and he seemed to know it. He showed no anger, no fear. Zoe wanted him to be afraid. She wanted him to regret what he’d done. But his eyes were empty. She hated him.

His blade found its target.

Zoe shouted, and the sound sent a shockwave through the quiet freighter. The assassin was bombarded with sound, a sonic boom blasting him against the wall once more. Bones cracked and flesh tore. He lay broken on the floor, unconscious. The force his blade created, the matter it was made from, and the mystical properties of the blood it had been coated in were turned to sound. The silence was broken.

“I’ll blow you apart…” Zoe said, her fists clenched tightly, her eyes intently focused on the man that made her feel weak.

Light dimmed. The air grew cold. Zoe drew on the energy of the light and heat, and on her own strength. The force of her last attack would be nothing. She would show him her power. The laws of physics meant nothing to her. The backlash that the paradox of her magic would create meant nothing to her. She reached out her right hand, ready to pour everything she had into one focused burst of sound.

A hand gripped her outstretched wrist. “Think about what you’re doing, Zoe.” Carolyn’s gaze gave Zoe a chill. Solemn, piercing, unwavering.

“What…” Zoe was caught off guard, her focus broken.

“What is it you think you’re doing?” Carolyn was frighteningly cold, and her question was filled with scorn.

“I… He…” Zoe muttered shakily.

Carolyn’s gaze was inescapable. “Explain yourself.”

“You said he was dangerous…”

“I did.”

“I’m stopping him…” Zoe said defensively, trailing off.

“Are you?”

“What…?”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“Yes…”

“You’re stopping a dangerous vampire?”

Zoe nodded slowly.

“So that he can’t hurt anyone else?”

Another nod.

“Because it looks like,” Carolyn said, anger in her voice, “you’re trying to kill someone out of hatred.”

Zoe stared.

“You think he deserves it?”

“You… don’t?”

“Of course he does,” Carolyn said as if it was obvious.

“Then why-” Zoe started.

“You think you need to punish him?” Carolyn interrupted.

“I…” Zoe wanted to look away.

“Because he deserves it?”

“Yes…”

“No!” Carolyn yelled, shaking Zoe’s arm. “Because you want it! This isn’t about him at all.”

“Of course it is…”

“No, it’s about you needing someone to blame.”

“But he is to blame!”

“It doesn’t matter. You just want someone to punish, guilty or not. Why?”

“But he is guilty…”

“Tell me why!” She shook the young girl’s arm again.

“Because… I have to do something…”

“And if you don’t?”

Zoe didn’t want to answer.

“You’ll be powerless to make what happened right again.”

Zoe paused, unable to escape. Finally, she nodded.

“You’re afraid to be weak?”

“I guess…”

“To forgive is not weakness,” Carolyn said, smiling. “Weakness is being unable to let go. To hold on to retribution as a crutch to make you feel better. It takes strength to forgive. It doesn’t matter if they deserve it or not. It’s about your strength, your ability to accept what happened.” Carolyn let go of the young mage’s wrist. “So, do you have real strength?”

Zoe took a deep breath, considering her friend’s words. She looked at the barely conscious form of her hated enemy. “Let’s go,” she said after a minute.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah… I just want to go home.”

***********

Zoe and Carolyn exited the freighter and headed towards the apartment building.

Zoe turned to her friend. “The blood hunt…”

“They’ll find him. He won’t hurt anyone else.”

Zoe smiled, looking up at the full moon, letting the light fill her eyes.