Malis can feel her hands balling into fists at her sides, can feel the edge of her fingernails as they leave deep, red welts across her palms. Turning quickly, she throws those balled fists against the door, a groan of frustration bubbling up from her chest. “I just want to go home.” Closing her green eyes for a moment, she leaned forward to press her forehead against the cool wood of the door turned dead-end wall. Her breathing steadied just a little, though her heart continued to thump erratically in her chest. She could feel Lena’s eyes boring a hole into her back, but she still didn’t turn to face her.
And then-
Suddenly there was fire in her veins, such raw, infernal heat that she would not have been surprised to draw the blade across her wrist and watch molten lava spill from her skin. Her hands uncurled so that her palms were pressed against the wood as she braced for the next wave of pain that rolled over and pulled her under. Her body shook and it wasn’t much of a surprise when her knees gave out beneath her. She landed in the dirt and stone in a heap of crumpled limbs, her knees pulled tight against her chest and stomach. Another wave of pain tore through her and she cried out, her back arched and her head thrust painfully behind her as if this could somehow alleviate the ripples of pain tangling her limbs. It didn’t, of course it didn’t, nor did it help when Lena appeared uncertain and dutiful, kneeling in the dirt beside Malis. Malis groaned again, just a whimper at first, and then the sound evolved into something deeper, something darker. In an instant she gave in to the pain, gave herself up to it, and only then did she find she could uncrumple her body, unclench those seizing muscles. Snarling, she lurched into a crouch, startled to find she had all the grace and ability of a practiced predator. Even more surprising was the thrill she felt racing through her veins beside that impossible heat.
“Get the fuck away from me.” Malis snarled, her face inches from Lena’s, her voice dangerously low, intoxicatingly slow. Lena looked startled, then shocked when her gaze met Malis’, and then she was scrambling away like a beaten animal, pressing herself against the far wall of the maze. For a long moment Malis was still, so long it felt as though time had come undone, unraveled, and hung suspended over them like snowflakes. Every detail was impossibly clear. Still crouched, she turned to look deeper into the maze, noting the immense stone walls built with even red brick, and the think tangles of vine and brush that hung over them. Curiously, her gaze lifted, but what she saw pressed a snarl on her tongue that warped her pale face. There was no top to this maze, no end to greet the sky, there was only black, only shadow, and it seemed to churn, to pool and drip down the walls. She grimaced.
A yelp came from the wall where Lena was apparently trying to will herself to pass through, and Malis turned, her eyes sharp and predatorial. The vines had come loose and, like possessed snakes, had wrapped themselves around her legs and arms. She yelled and thrashed and screamed both for and at Malis, apparently at war with instincts that told her Malis was dangerous (Lena had seen something in her eyes) and with reason that told her Malis was the only way out of this.
But Malis made no move.
In fact, Malis too was at war with herself. At some point, the vines had grown spines, spindly needles, and they had opened up the flesh on Lena’s bare arms. Blood welled in those wounds, pink at first, and then glistening red in narrow rivers through puckered flesh. Something in Malis roared, it fought and it burrowed and burned at her throat. Gasping, her hands flew to her neck, her fingers clawing at the skin there like she was trying to remove something. But it did no good. The thirst, this strange hunger, it welled and welled until there was nothing left but instinct and urge, and suddenly Malis understood the hordes, the way they ambled on broken limbs with glass in their bare feet, tore at flesh and bone with faces half-eaten, wholly ruined. It was because nothing else mattered. Your soul came secondary to instinct, to urge.
Malis screamed, and it was a sound of fury and loss and rage. At once she was upon Lena, paying no attention to the vines because they paid no attention to her. Even as they pulled tighter, opening new wounds on Lena’s arms, gifting those screams new and incredible pitches, Malis didn’t care. But that wasn’t entirely true, she did care, or she wanted to, but it wasn’t for her companion. It was for the way her humanity seemed to drain from her with every passing second, it was the way Nerissa had first opened up the wound to let it do so, the way Lena had opened it more. The instinct to feed, to kill, it was suddenly too much and Malis felt her teeth sink into the skin at Lena’s neck. Her newness, or maybe the way Lena thrashed, or the way Malis felt nearly stupefied by her thirst, made her slow at first, sloppy. She spilled more blood than she drank and it dripped tellingly down the plain gray of her shirt. But as Lena faded and Malis grew stronger, the feeding was easier. There was less mess, less guilt- even when Lena went limp and her heart slowed and then stopped. Only then did Malis pull away, full, and pretending like her life depended on it that Lena had got what she deserved. A life for a life, even if that life had only been a plastic toy in the hands of a heart broken child so many years ago. Even more so, she refused to acknowledge the thrill of the kill, the urge to do so again.
But with Lena dead and the door still gone, Malis turned into the maze. She was careful to avoid the tendrils of reaching vines against the hedges that made each corridor, careful to avoid the shadows where they dripped and pooled at the edges. Suddenly the maze opened up and she found herself facing her first choice. But from the shadow of the corridor on the right came a man with black, pupiless eyes and blood dripping from his chin. Her hand lifted quickly to her own face as she realized she must look just the same. But as he peeled away from the shadow and she could see him more clearly, she felt despair and hope rise simultaneously in her chest. “Erebor.” She breathed, frozen, moving only when he collided against her and wrapped strong arms around her back to pull her close. “Oh my god, Erebor.” She said again, burying herself against him. For a moment she felt like she would explode, like she would shatter into a thousand pieces as her heightened senses tried to make sense of the way she felt for him. But then he was disentangling himself from her and pulling her towards the direction from which he had come. “Malis it’s this way, I made it to the end but, oh god Malis, I had to make sure you weren’t here too.” She felt his eyes on her as they ran deeper into the maze, his hand tightening around hers when he felt her hesitate. “Malis, please, we have to hurry.” Her brow furrowed when her eyes met his, and a feeling she didn’t recognized prickled at her belly. “Is this what we can expect the rest of our lives? Jesus fucking christ, Malis, I swear I’ll never let this happen again.”
Malis said nothing as they ran, though those feelings of hesitation, of something being wrong, they grew and grew. “Ere,” she said suddenly, grinding to a halt, “something isn’t right. This feels too easy, there’s nothing here but us.” The look of concern on his face, the furrow of his brow, it lifted for a moment when she said ‘us’ and suddenly he had pulled her close again, his hands tangled in her indigo hair and his mouth pressed urgently against hers. For a moment she forgot everything else, forgot Nerissa and the Zs, forgot the way Lena’s blood had spilled down her chin, even forgot the way she had liked it. For a moment there was only them, only that kiss, the heat of his mouth against hers. “Us,” he agreed as he pulled away, touching the line of her jaw with surprisingly gentle fingertips, “and don’t you fucking forget it.” She felt the hunger in her flare again, though it was a different kind of hunger, still heightened, still consuming, but not a bloodlust.
Before her face even had a chance to show a flicker of emotion, she had dropped into a run, smiling when Erebor reappeared at her side. Within a minute, the time shortened considerably by their heightened speed, the corridor opened into a half circle and a plain stone basin perched on an ornate stand waited for them at the center. The curve of the half circle was made from stone and hedge just like everything else, but the straight line at the center was glass, thick and unbreakable and glittering with impossible light. Reaching for his hand, they approached the shallow bowl. The liquid inside was thick and red and immediately Malis could feel herself losing control, like a wild animal she crouched closer, a tortured snarl tearing from her mouth. “Drink it, baby. Drink it.”But Erebor’s voice was all wrong, disembodied and echoing. Malis’ eyes, all black and pupiless, lurched to his face in tortured confusion. “Erebor-”
There was a knife at her throat suddenly, the blade digging into the skin of her neck. She froze. Even as she watched, Erebor’s shadow crawled up his legs, his torso, his arms, his face, until there was no Erebor left at all, only dark, only shadow, and it beckoned to her. All at once she thrust her weight back, the cold blade of the knife disappearing from its place at her throat, somersaulting on her back so she could spring away and put the fountain between them. It worked, and shadow Erebor roared its dismay. “DRINK IT.” The creature roared, reaching across the basin to grab her. But she jumped back, slamming against the glass wall she had all but forgotten about. It was then, as she turned to balance herself, that she noticed an identical basin glittering with clear liquid on the other side.
She understood immediately.
Enraged and hurt, violence flared like fire in her stomach. “You better fucking not be Erebor, because I swear on everything I love that if you hurt him, I will come back for you. I will kill you. I will hunt worlds until I find you again. If you hurt him-”. She lunged then, dodging past back into the maze. But as she passed him, that shadow beast with Erebors face, a hand swept at her leg. Wrestling free, she bolted through the maze, grateful with every fiber of her being that she had paid attention to each twist and turn they had taken. Ahead she could see the spot where she had first met Erebor, the fork in the hedge corridor, and she lunged for it. There was a roar from the shadows behind her and she turned to see the shadow creature pacing back and forth across the opening of the hedge corridor. He couldn’t cross it. For a long moment she watched him, her heart breaking even as she realized the most dangerous truth of all. She loved Erebor. She trusted him wholly. And that made him a weakness, it made him dangerous.
A pain in her leg drew her attention from the shadow Erebor, who was now grinning delightedly, and she looked down to find shadow clinging to where he had touched her as she fled. Even as she watched it, it started to spread. Horror filled her veins like ice. For a moment she stood frozen, captivated, completely unsure what to do. But then she remembered the half circle chamber, the identical basin she had seen on the other side of the wall. Understanding dawned. Drawing up the mental image of each turn they had taken to reach the blood basin, she reversed it and entered the opposite side. It only took a few minutes as she raced past, lithe and graceful and entirely too pleased with the ease she had adjusted to becoming the ultimate predator. Nothing tried to stop her, but she hadn’t expected this way to be difficult. That was what purpose Erebor had both served and failed.
At last the clearing came into view, that small semi-circle with a stone basin at its heart, and she approached it slowly. There was a small cup sitting in the bowl and she picked it up uncertainly, her finger wrapping around the handle. But as she drew the filled cup up to her lips, she paused. To drink it would be to become human again, to rip the predator from her veins. She didn’t want that. But she thought of her family, of Erebor, or what that bloodlust would mean for their safety if she ever made it back again, and the cup flew to her lips, spilling over her tongue and down her throat. Like a veil had been lifted, her humanity came crashing back down on her. Suddenly no longer able to stomach the taste of Lena’s blood in her mouth, she keeled over and retched into the dirt. The only relief she found came as she watched the shadow wither and bleed away from her skin as the water served its purpose.
MALIS
makai x oksana