Chapter 11
XAVIAN
AN HOUR EARLIER…
Consciousness returned in fragments, like shards of glass piecing themselves back together under my skin.
Each jagged piece sliced through the fog in my mind, bringing with it flashes of sensation.
The cold seep of mud against my knees.
The sticky weight of blood drying on my hands.
The distant patter of rain that sounded like a thousand tiny accusations drumming against the earth.
I blinked slowly, my eyelids heavy as lead, and the world swam into a hazy focus, blurred edges sharpening into a tableau of horror that clawed at the remnants of my awareness.
My breath came in ragged gasps, each one pulling in the thick, metallic reek of blood that hung in the air like a fog, coating my tongue with its coppery bitterness, mingling with the sour tang of unwashed bodies and the damp rot of cardboard shelters scattered across the ground.
The rain fell steadily, relentless, turning the earth into a slurry of filth and crimson puddles that reflected the distant glow of city lights in fractured, wavering shards.
I pushed myself up on trembling arms, my palms sinking into the muck, fingers curling into the cold sludge as if grasping for stability in a world that had spun out of my control.
Bodies lay everywhere, at least forty of them, twisted in the throes of their final moments, faces frozen in silent screams that echoed silently in my mind.
One man, his beard matted with blood and dirt, lay sprawled on his back, his chest carved open with a single, precise stroke that had split ribs like kindling, his skin hanging loose and pallid, drained of the vital essence that once animated him.
Nearby, a woman clutched a tattered blanket to her chest, her throat crushed inward, the imprint of fingers—my fingers—still visible in the bruised flesh, her eyes wide and glassy, staring at nothing.
Others bore marks of raw, unbridled violence: a young boy's limbs splayed at unnatural angles, his spine twisted from a blow that had caved in his back; an older figure slumped against a shredded tent, his chest stove in as if by a force far beyond human strength, ribs protruding like broken branches.
Tents and tarps lay in tatters around them, scattered belongings soaked in the downpour—a forgotten backpack spilling canned goods into the muck, a worn shoe half-buried in a puddle of congealing blood, a child's toy, absurdly intact, smeared with red fingerprints.
This was no random alley or isolated underpass; this was a homeless encampment, miles from the derelict buildings where I had last been aware, far on the outskirts of the industrial district, closer to the river's edge where the city frayed into wilderness.
The overpass loomed above, its concrete underbelly dripping with rainwater, casting long shadows that merged with the fog rolling in from the water.
How I had gotten here, how much time had slipped away in the blackout, remained a void in my mind, an empty stretch that could have been hours or days, but the scale of the slaughter told me enough.
The blade had run rampant, unchecked, claiming far more than necessity demanded.
I could feel the echoes of it in my body, the phantom twitches in my muscles from swings I didn't remember, the ache in my joints from pursuits through the night that left no trace in my memory.
I remembered only the three from before the darkness swallowed me, those urban explorers in the fog-shrouded ruins, their laughter cutting through the whispers as Virelya pulled me toward them.
They had been young, careless, poking through the decay with hoodies pulled up against the mist, backpacks slung over shoulders, oblivious to the shadow closing in.
The blade had surged then, a rush of cold fire racing through my veins, yanking my perception toward them with brutal force.
My legs had veered without command, boots pivoting on the cracked pavement as if strings had jerked me sideways, the tremors in my limbs giving way to an unnatural smoothness, a predatory grace that wasn't mine.
I had felt it take over, inch by inexorable inch: the hunger flooding my muscles like liquid shadow, coiling around my will and squeezing until my own thoughts receded, drowned out by the voices' triumphant roar.
My hand had twitched toward the sheath at my side, fingers brushing the hilt against my volition, the metal humming eagerly under my touch.
A rush of alien euphoria had built in my core, pushing out the last remnants of fear, replacing my fury with a hollow, insatiable need that propelled me forward, step by unwilling step, toward the group.
And then the blackout had descended, like a curtain falling, erasing everything after.
But this carnage stretched far beyond those three, a massacre that must have unfolded in a frenzy, the blade piloting my body through the night, seeking out this hidden cluster of the forgotten and reaping them wholesale.
Blood coated me from head to toe, slick and cooling on my skin, soaking through my coat and shirt, mingling with the rain that failed to wash it away.
I raised a hand to my face, feeling the tacky residue smear across my cheek, and my fingers came away red, glistening in the dim light.
My hands trembled as I pushed myself upright, the dark veins beneath my flesh throbbing visibly, swollen and black like rivers of ink threatening to burst, pulsing with a rhythm that matched the faint hum of the blade at my side.
Exhaustion weighed on me, a bone-deep weariness that made every movement an effort, my muscles aching, each twitch sending jolts of pain up my arms and legs, as if my body had been pushed to its limits in a marathon of violence.
My breaths came shallow, labored, each inhale pulling in more of that choking metallic scent, my chest heaving against the invisible chains of fatigue that bound me.
But the practical truth hit harder than any fatigue.
This was waste, excess that served no purpose beyond the blade's gluttony, lives extinguished not for survival but in a storm of unchecked hunger.
I staggered to my feet, boots sinking into the mud with a wet suck, and surveyed the scene again, the rain washing rivulets of blood down a nearby tarp, pooling in depressions where feet had trampled the ground into chaos.
The authorities would notice this, a body count this high in one place, drawing eyes and investigations that could trace back to me, tightening the noose around my exile.
Reporters would swarm, police would cordon off the area, forensics teams picking through the muck for clues—a footprint, a fiber from my coat, anything that might lead them to the warehouse.
Worse, it meant the blackouts were escalating, the blade asserting more control, turning me into a vessel for slaughter on a scale I had managed to avoid until now.
No sentiment stirred in me for the dead, no useless guilt over faces I did not know; they were fuel, nothing more, their essence a means to an end.
But the inefficiency of it grated, a sign that my grip was slipping further, the curse digging deeper roots, eroding the fragile barriers I had built over years.
Yet as I staggered to my feet, wiping blood from my eyes with a sleeve that only smeared it further, the real terror uncoiled in my gut, twisting like a knife.
The hunger persisted, not sated but burrowed deeper, a pressure building beneath my skin like a storm gathering force.
Even after all this, after draining essence from dozens, the whispers echoed in my mind, faint but unrelenting, murmuring demands that twisted through my thoughts like smoke.
Feed, they hissed, not with the frantic edge of starvation but with a patient insistence, as if the blade had tasted plenty and yet craved more, its appetite shifting into something bottomless.
My veins burned with it, the darkness not retreating as it once had after a feeding but settling in, threading tighter into my core, making my breaths come shallow and labored, each pulse sending waves of heat through my limbs.
I could feel the satisfaction there, a lingering rush of cold fire from the essence absorbed, a dark euphoria that hummed in my blood, invigorating my weary muscles with stolen vitality, making colors sharper in the dim light, sounds crisper despite the rain's drone.
It was the blade's pleasure, a sated glow that should have quieted it, but instead, it amplified the want, turning fulfillment into a tease, a promise of more that gnawed at the edges of my mind.
The essence coursed through me, a stolen power that mended micro-tears in my flesh, eased the tremors for fleeting moments, but the whispers mocked it, whispering of emptiness, of a void that no amount could fill, leaving me caught in a cycle of brief ecstasy followed by deeper craving.
This was not the old pattern, the familiar cycle of hunger and release that had sustained me through years of exile; something had fractured, the blade's silence no longer a reward for indulgence but a fleeting illusion, leaving me frayed and hollow even in the aftermath of excess.
Fury rose hot in my chest, directed inward at my own folly, because I knew the cause, the variable that had upended everything.
Her.