Chapter Text
The early morning sunshine peers over the horizon and begins to bless the city with a citrus orange glow. A few stray rays sneak past the graveyard and over the mausoleums to gently blanket over your resting face. Its light tickles your cold skin in gentle, warm kisses.
Your eyes shoot open, and you awake with a desperate gasp. Frantically sitting up, you grip your neck, pulse threatening to break through the thickness of your glove. Your heart’s pounding, your breathing's jagged, but as you sit there, with the vice on your neck loosening ever so slightly, your anxiety begins to subside. Just as fast as it started, your panic is soon quelled, more or less, and accompanied by a different emotion. Or rather, a question.
Why are you cradling your neck?
You sit there for a moment, half curled towards your knees, taking calm, deep breaths to soothe your startled lungs. One hand slacking its tight grip on the grass patch beside you, while the other finally releases its hold around your collar. Eyes gaze at your palm, but no red stains the fabric. Why did you think there would be? You feel an impending headache coming on.
Questions begin swarming the nooks and crannies of your mind. Why did you expect blood to be bleeding from your neck? Why did you awake so frantic? Why were you asleep in the first place? What were you doing? Where are you??
Calm down. Just take a deep breath and think from the beginning.
You were trailing a vampire, and you remember entering the cemetery. Some of the gravestones you came across were broken along the way. You rounded a corner and then… A soft groan slips from your lips as you bring a hand to your forehead. The previous threat of a headache becoming a promise.
Your eyes roam the area where you sit. Gravestones and the mausoleum you remember rounding, some adorned with cracks and broken pieces. Small bits of concrete are scattered around. You take another deep breath as a sudden but subtle smell reaches your nose. What is that, smoke? Burning leaves? No, not leaves.. You know the smell, but you can't quite place the word for it… You sniff the air and turn towards the scent. There, a few paces away, lies a corpse. Its upper half is missing as bits of ash and smoke rise from the glimmering sunlight.
A jolt of realization rolls through your body. Holy shit! Is that a vampire?? You naturally reach for a stake but come upon none on your person. In fact, with further inspection, almost all of your tools are missing. Did you go all out on this bitch and not remember a damn thing?!
Your headache persists as you try to remember until something else dawns upon you. If you were out cold right after the battle.. FUCK! You immediately grab for your phone. You have to get a picture before its corpse is completely gone! You scramble to your feet and search through your pockets once you realize your phone is not in its usual spot.
Frantically patting your person, you finally find your device and rip off your glove to snap a picture. Above the shoulders are already ash, but you must take a photo for your collection. If anything, you’ll just doodle cross eyes on the dirt where its head would be. As you’re scrambling to aim your phone before the corpse disintegrates further, it slips in your hold, and your thumb accidentally presses the gallery app instead. It's a quick fix, but still, damn it! You’re about to back out of the gallery app when something on your phone catches your eye. It causes a slight second of hesitation before you continue and correctly open the camera app.
The pictures taken.
The tension on your frame eases as you no longer have to rush against the sun. You could now care less about the corpse in front of you as your attention remains on your phone. You click back into the gallery. At the top, you see the picture you just took, but that’s not where your gaze lingers. Instead, you click to enlarge the image beside it. It’s night with the moonlight shining on the star of the show, the deceased vampire. The photo's fairly different from the one you just took. The time of day is off, and the head seems purposefully out of frame.. How odd..
You zoom in on the photo and inspect it a moment longer before peeking past your phone. You catch the last moments of the corpse fully disintegrating, leaving remnants of the vampire's clothes behind. Those, too, seem to burn in the sunlight, but not completely, just enough to singe parts of the fabric.
You scroll back between the two photos, comparing them and noting their differences. Night and day, neither showing its head, blood, no blood. It’s just so odd, you don’t remember taking the other photo at all..
Your headache resurfaces, threatening to attack the sides of your brain as you try your best to connect the dots. Looking between the two photos and the surroundings where you stand, you note some of the things that stand out to you.
The stones and walls of the mausoleums around you are cracked, and a few are imprinted with crumbling debris, like they were hit with a strong, blunt force. The vampire is dead as its still body remained the same in both photos, despite the different angles. You are lacking a severe amount of your personal gear.
Your hand subconsciously slides to your crossbow when you realize it's not there. Your breath hitches once, but you keep calm. You look to your left, then your right and find it on the ground, placed next to where you woke up. You bend to pick it up and return it to your person, adding another note to the list. Broken crossbow bolts litter the area, yet in the photos, the corpse didn’t seem to have any wounds from them, or any wounds that can be seen in the pictures at all. Only scuffed looking clothing.
None of this makes sense. The damage to the surrounding area shows that whatever went down between you and this vampire went down hard. Yet nothing adds up. You can’t remember a thing about it.
Bringing your hand up, you gently rub the back of your skull. Maybe you hit your head? It would explain the headache and your inability to remember, but you don't feel like you hit your head. The pain in your head feels.. Different. You wonder if you should find a doctor or something. They’ll know for sure if you’ve got a concussion or not, right?
“Oh, these goddamn teenagers!” A hoarse voice causes your muscles to tense. It's distant, but the spitting of rage and velocity carries itself to your ears as it continues to angrily muse to itself about vandalism and when it ‘finds those damn kids.’
The groundskeeper.
Oh, you gotta go. You scramble to pick up all the broken bolts that you can see, as well as the vampire's cape, which you use as a makeshift ”bag” to carry your broken things and the vampire's clothes before you bolt. You only trip once in your retreat to flee from the very unhappy groundskeeper, and thankfully, you left before they ever knew you were there.
You scurry yourself out of the cemetery and head towards the motel you’ve been staying at these past few days. It’s more than a few blocks away, so you’re in for quite a walk, but you’re thankful the day is still young, barely anyone is awake or out at that matter, so less chance of you being spotted. Thank goodness. You imagine you look like an old school robber with the way the vampire's cape is slung over your shoulder, like a bag of stolen money. The more you think about it, the more you feel ridiculous. You don’t even know why you grabbed these things anyway. Usually, you just leave the vampire's remains as is and just pick up any tools you’ve used that dropped during the fights. You must still be frazzled.. and the sudden spawn of the groundskeeper definitely didn’t help. Oh well, you’re not gonna drop these now, that would be intentional littering, and you are NOT a litterbug like that. Nope, nope, nope.
After what feels like 20-some minutes, you finally reach the motel. Thank god you didn’t get spotted, or at the very least confronted, that would have been awkward, and you’re not even sure how you would explain yourself. In other good news, your motel key is still in your inside jacket pocket. You didn’t even think until now, with all your gear being mumbo-jumbo everywhere, that your key could have fallen out as well. But it didn’t so- hurray!
You saunter into your room, close and lock the door and toss the cape onto the floor. You’ll sort through that later. From all that walking, the soreness in your body had all that time to rear its ugly head. Your muscles are starting to hurt. Ugh.. You slip off your jacket, your sash, which is much too light for your liking, and your gloves, landing them next to the vampire's cape as you make your way to the bathroom. Time to get a look at yourself and see the damage.
The mirror reveals your slightly dishevelled state. The front of your shirt and your pants are stained with graveyard dirt and grass. Your hair’s all sorts of wack, and your collar is all ruffled. Even your face is accompanied by bits of dried soil. And, last but not least, the inevitable soreness seeping through your muscles. Not too bad in all honesty. You run the faucet, loosely wash your hands before cupping some of the water and slapping it to your face. You are going to take a proper shower; you can tell just by looking at yourself that you need one, but for now, you just want to get the dirt off.
You run your hands down your face and look back into the mirror. Your fingers gently prod at the small dark circles under your eyes. You kinda look like Bee. They’re not as prominent as hers, though, and a bit of R&R should fix them right up, but they are forming. Hmmm.. Bee.. You wonder how she’s doing; it's been a long time since you last spoke to her in person. You have so many new photos and stories to tell her! Your eyes wander over your reflection as your thoughts about your friend buzz through your mind, you even subconsciously make a stoic expression in mock imitation, up until your gaze lands upon your neck. Gentle blues and purple peek through the ruffled white collar of your shirt.
You unbutton the first button and lower your collar for a better look. A bruise forms around the entire front of your neck. You lean forward, slowly tilting your head side to side. Does it wrap all the way around?? ... You pause for a moment and look at your wrist. You pull back the sleeve. There's a forming bruise there too. How’d you know to check there?
A gentle pain begins thudding within your head again. A groan leaves your lips as you hide your face in your hands. You can’t remember what happened, your headache is coming and going, and it's all starting to piss you off.
God, you need a drink..
Well, maybe not that kind of drink, at least not right now… not with this headache. Maybe some tea? Coffee? You don’t know, you’ll figure that out later. You remember seeing a small cafe along your scurry home. Perhaps you’ll stop by after your shower and a change of clothes.
You peek through your fingers and glance out the bathroom door. Your gaze lands upon your jacket in the distance and travels to the vampire's cape right next to it. Maybe also after going through that, you need to see if you can scavenge anything and also dispose of the vampire's clothes. You’ll see how you feel about going out after.
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You’re seated at one of the outside tables at the cafe. You’ve already showered, changed your clothes into casual wear and just woke up from a 2-hour nap 20 minutes prior. As you wait for your waiter to come around, you scroll through your phone. Primarily looking at the recent two photos in your “Sports” folder, at the vampire. Nothing stands out that you already didn’t see at the cemetery. It's just.. Weird… You keep thinking back to it, but you can’t place your thoughts on any of it. In the shower, after running your hands through your hair with soap, you didn’t find any hint of bumps or cuts that would lead to your memory loss, and yet your neck and wrist were covered in bruises. Even your ankle had the palest of bruising. So you definitely didn’t leave without some sort of mark. But still.. Ugh.. thinking about it makes your head hurt..
You place your phone down and reach into your pocket, pulling out a beaded bracelet. Its colors consist of red and yellow, as well as some pink sparkly beads too. You found this while going through the contents you stuffed into the vampire's cape. You don’t remember picking it up, but then again, you were in a hurry when scrambling to get out of there before the groundskeeper spotted you.
You roll the beads within your fingers. It's a stretchy bracelet, like one of those children's “build your own” kits with the many colored beads. You wonder where it even came from and why it was at the cemetery of all places. Obviously, it didn’t belong to the vampire; that would be stupid. Yet the longer you look at it, especially at the yellow and red beads, the more annoyed, angry, and concerned you feel. You don’t like it.
You shove the bracelet back in your pocket and finally pick up the menu. You’re here for a drink and to relax and get your mind off, whatever. Now let's see. Tea or Coffee… ooh, lots of good choices. Chamomile, honey, chai latte, matcha, peach, black tea, macchiatos, americano... Oooh, chocolate and whipped- wait, they have lavender?
A younger voice breaks you from your perusal.
“Good morning! Sorry for the wait. My name is Alex and I’ll be your server for today. Have you decided what you’d like to drink, or would you like some more time?”
“Ah, hello!” You quickly shoot a smile towards the server in your greeting before looking back at the menu. “Um… Yes, I think I have decided…” You place your finger under the drink name. “I would like a medium- … a medium . . .” You pause. Your finger gently taps under the name of the drink you were about to order. Before your brain finishes processing, you shoot your full gaze to the server. They flinch in surprise.
It's the kid! . . . the kid?
The stupid headache resurfaces.
You- How do you… Why do they… How do you know them? But- But you don’t.. What?
“Uuu-uhm. . .”
You’re snapped out of your internal thoughts as the teenager in front of you starts to fidget with their server notepad, uncomfortable.
Oh god. You’re staring aren't you?
“Ah!- Sorry! Haha! It's quite an early morning! Still getting the sandman out of my brain- haha!” You clear your throat. “Um, I’d- uhm.” You point to the menu again and quickly spill the name of the drink you’d like to order. They write it down and ask if there’s anything else you’d like to order, awkwardness and uncertainty woven into their voice. You stumble a bit, not thinking that far ahead at all, but end up ordering a muffin.
Only when they leave your sight do you hide your face in one of your hands. God, that was awkward. Why did you make it awkward? What the fuck was that??
You take a deep breath. Your head is still pounding, not as much as before, but god is it annoying. What is going on today?? You’re filled with so many questions and too little answers. You could scream. But you’re in public and you don’t want to embarrass yourself further. You exhale through your nose.
Man… maybe you should have gotten yourself a drink.
After a while of sitting with your thoughts, Alex, your server, who you have only just met today, returns with your drink and muffin. You can sense the awkwardness as you thank them. You feel a bit guilty for that…
You don’t stay at the cafe long after that. You enjoy your drink, leave a nice tip as a sort of silent apology and decide to eat your muffin on the walk back to the motel. Normally, you’d sight-see the way back, taking your time and really enjoying the city after a successful hunt, but your mind is plagued with uncertainty. Your trek is a lot shorter than it would be.
Back at the motel, you toss the empty muffin wrap in the trash, kick off your boots, and plop yourself on the bed. Letting out a long-winded sigh as the mattress supports your back. It’s not even 10 in the morning, and you’re already exhausted.
You lay there staring at the ceiling of this cheap motel. You don’t really know how much time passed. Minutes? An hour? Your thoughts are too occupied with confusion and a headache playing peek-a-boo with your temple.
This is annoying, and your limbs are feeling antsy. Your fingers picking at the pillow's corner, your foot hanging off the edge of the bed, tapping in the air. Your mind’s not giving you the answers you want, this goddamned headache is pissing you off…
“Fuck it!” You shoot your arms and legs into the air. “I’m going back!”
That’s it. That. Is. IT! You are returning to the cemetery. You are going to figure out what happened, why it's such an inconvenience to remember, and why what WHAT! Because all these unanswered everything has ruined your morning. Something. Is. Wrong. And you are going to figure out why.
You jump out of bed, slap your boots back on your feet and storm out of your room. You almost slam the door, but decide not to. Even though you kind of wanted to.
You are marching back to that graveyard to conduct a thorough investigation. Something has to trigger your memory. You’re pumped up, full of determination to get to the bottom of this. If only the cops and police tape weren’t in your way…
You stop. Standing on the outskirts of the cemetery's entrance, about half a block away. There are flashing cars, human and robot officers, and police tape everywhere. Any passerbyers or grieving families are being turned away and denied entrance. Great. Perfect. Excellent. You slap a hand to your forehead. You should have known. Of course the groundskeeper filed a formal report. Gravestones and mausoleum walls, broken and cracked. Of course the police would get involved.
Welp. This kind of throws a wrench in your plans, but just a temporary one. You don’t want to let this go, so guess you’ll have to sneak in once nightfall. Which will be in.. You pull out your phone. 11-ish hours, give or take... A groan leaves you as you sulk your way back towards the motel. Now you have to sit with your thoughts and wait.
The thought about it doesn't sound pleasant though… You know what? No. You decide to take a detour. Might as well spend the day actually enjoying it, rather than moping in a motel room. Just cause your morning was ruined doesn’t mean the whole day has to be!
You go about your usual ‘successful hunt rituals’. Sightseeing! Admiring the place you saved from the demons of the night before your next assignment! It's like a reward. Besides, you’ll just get yourself together later and head to the cemetery before it gets dark. But until then, you’re going for a walk and you are going to enjoy it!
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
Aaaaand, you slept in…
You meant to take a light nap after your “stroll”. A little 20 - 40 minutes of shut eye. Not a 6 hour goddamn coma. Man, you must have been way more tired than you thought.
You left the motel much later than planned and, out of habit, you re-stocked your gear, which took you longer to get out the door. Although you did leave your crossbow. You don’t really need it tonight anyway. The vampire’s dead and you’re only returning to the scene to get some answers. Plus, you’re pretty confident there are going to be cops patrolling tonight and, although you give yourself credit for being quite sneaky, you don’t want to explain why you’re holding a crossbow, while lurking around a graveyard, right after it got vandalized, in the dead of night. Yeah, no.
The coolness of the night air breezes through your hair, gently dusting your cheeks with a chilly whisper. You’re not cold though, the weather is rather comfortable, but your thoughts are still how they've been all day. Plus, you’re still rather peeved from sleeping in. A sigh leaves your mouth as you continue to saunter down the sidewalk, your gaze drifting to the clouded night sky. Only the moon shines through the smokey atmosphere, the stars long polluted by the lights of the city. Man, even looking at the moon pisses you off and you can’t pinpoint why.
You shake your head. Whatever! Just- Get to the graveyard, snoop around, and get your answers as to why everything sucks. Simple, simple. Oh, right, and don’t get caught. Simple, simple.
Glancing down to your phone, already open to the GPS, you decide to take a left down the alleyway. It's a bit of a short cut, even if it does kind of make you feel sketchy but, who cares, no one’s awake at this time anyway.
Though, you might have spoken a bit too soon.
As you near the other side, distant chatter fills the silence. You stop, glancing around the alley before choosing to shield yourself behind the nearest dumpster and abandoned boxes, turning off your phone so its light doesn’t give you away. You don’t want to startle whoever is enjoying their nightly, or rather, early as fuck morning stroll by suddenly emerging from the alleyway like a creep, so you’ll just wait for whoever it is to pass by and then continue on your way. That's less creepy, right?
You remain still as the people start getting closer. You can almost hear their conversation.
“- Are you sure you had it with you last night?” A softer, gruffer voice questions.
"Of course I am!” The other one confirms, their voice is higher and more energetic in comparison. “She gave it to me before we put her to bed- I put it on my wrist.”
“Did you ever take it off?”
“No- well… Yes. I put it in my pocket when we ran into that rulebreaker.” Venom laced within each sylable before returning to their previous tone. “Although I am quite careful, I didn’t want it to get snapped or soiled by their blood or anything.”
“Hmmm.” You can barely hear the start of a low chuckle” Shouldn’t have brought it.”
“Well, excuse me! It was a lovely bracelet! Made with all the love and care one could put into such a thing! How could I NOT wear it?”
“And yet you lost it.”
There’s no immediate response but you can almost hear the glare within the silence, and the teasing snicker in return.
You don’t mean to eavesdrop but there’s something about the conversation- no. not quite the conversation. The voices... Something about the voices that are oddly… Familiar. Your headache resurfaces but something in your gut tells you not to ignore this.. to see for yourself. See what exactly? You don’t know. But you’re going to find out.
Slowly, you peek your head around the dumpsters corner.
There, by the flickering streetlight, you see them. Two animatronics. A solar-looking one, whose head consists of two toned yellows with rays surrounding its face, stands arms crossed under the light. A lunar-looking one, dark blue and silver splitting their face in two with a starry night cap resting upon its head. It’s sitting on top of the craning thin metal with its legs hanging over the edge. Both with unmistakable dark capes, white blouses, and long dark pants.
The sun and the moon.
They seem to be bickering in jests and comfort but you don’t register the words.
It’s sudden, like a vicious bat to the head, the pain within your mind explodes. You rip your gaze away, gripping your skull within your gloved hands. Upon seeing them, recognizing them, it all floods back. The night before, the kid, the vampire corpse, the chase, hide and seek, the bark of the tree against your back, the metal vice around your neck, bright ruby eyes, and then the calming slumber. Your memories flood back into every nook and cranny of your brain. It's painful, but just as fast as it started, it's over. No more headache. No more lingering uncertainty or second guessing.
You remember.
And you are pissed.
Those fuckers- They tranced you, wiped your memory! What the fuck- How Dare They!
You can feel your blood beginning to boil. How could you allow yourself to get hypnotized? Such a rookie mistake. The heat in your cheeks starts to rise, how embarrassing. Amidst your quiet fluster, you find your hand sliding to your neck, gently kneading your fingers along your artery. Your anger accompanied by confusion. They could have easily killed you, or at least bit you before leaving you to wander with dementia and blood loss. Why didn’t they?. You drop your hand. You can dwell on those questions later. You deeply inhale the crisp night air a few times. The sudden surge from your memory returning, although no longer hurting, was still a shock on your body. You need to relax and you need to focus. There is danger within these streets tonight and you need to think of a plan.
Let’s start by keeping them in your sight as you brainstorm ideas. You peer past the corner of the dumpster again, careful to remain as quiet as possible. Eyes returning towards the now half vacant streetlamp, the sun-shaped one stands leaning against the metal pole. You can’t catch its expression but from the way it seems to be fiddling with its oversized bow and the tapping of its foot, it looks either bored or as if it's waiting for something. You’re unsure. You shift your gaze upwards to look at its counterpart, but the top curve of the streetlamp sits empty.
Tension flashes through you. Your eyes scan the entire area. All you can see are the streetlamps, the other buildings, and the solar-themed one still residing against the pole.
Shit- Where did the other one go?
Something crashes upon the dumpster, its closed lid creaking with the sudden added weight. You barely catch the breath forcing itself from your lungs as you push yourself away from your hiding spot. The shock makes you stumble but you remain on your feet. The former simmer of your blood freezing over as you stare at the tall dark figure hunched upon the dumpster.
Its body is shrouded within its long, blackened cape. Only the glow from its crimson eyes reveal the crooked sneer creeping across its face. It doesn’t bother to stand, its form already towering over you.
“You shouldn’t be up this late, little hunter~”
Without hesitation, you reach for your weapon, wrapping your hand around the stock but you don’t feel the wood against your gloves. There’s nothing but air within your grasp.
Your crossbow. It’s back at the motel, neatly tucked away within its suitcase.
Fuck.