He could hear the soft laughter over his own sounds, something between a cough and a gag, with wheezes thrown in. He hadn't learned to Blush, and his throat and eyes constricted dead, dry flesh. Instead of tears, wet strands of blood-marbled saliva hung and fell.

"I told you. The Hunger is in the Blood."

He couldn't just hear him, he could feel him. Over there, something dark and malevolent. That corner of a room that's darker than the rest, or the copse of trees that absorb light. Something wicked, felt as much as sensed. Behind the eyes. In the Blood.

"Always the Blood."

Sometimes the foul thing that he hated would ramble on, sometimes just spout fragments of sentences. Lords. Blood. It was hard to hear over the hate ringing in his ears.

He felt it move, but the feeling was the after-image of a firefly, or lazy ripple of a splash; an echo of something that had already happened. Arms like steel grabbed him, and he felt the Blood inside boil and surge. Fearterrorhate. He beat at the thing's head until he felt the small, broken bones in his hand grind against one another. His own darkness inside swelled, the fear consuming him, and the darkness began to close in.

"No. Stay with me, Childe."

It felt like swallowing back vomit; how, he didn't understand. The terror was still there, but somehow the old thing kept it from consuming him, and granting him the mercy of oblivion.

Sharpness scraped across his shoulder. The bastard was teasing him with his fangs, and he flailed the pulp of his hands against the impervious body again.

"Always the Blood."

This time, the teeth tore instead of scraped.



"Is something wrong?" she said
Well, of course there is
"You're still alive," she said
Oh, do I deserve to be?
Is that the question?
And if so, if so, who answers? Who answers?
- Pearl Jam, "Alive"