Across the Starry Sky

[Ricia]

Across the Starry Sky
​

The time was around the 1960s.


Towns were usually bustling communities and the car industries starting to look bright. Telephones, smaller computers and even robots were making the news. Space travel was no longer a dream and the thought of extraterrestrial life was looking more likely. The medical community was also making extreme strides for the betterment of the country.


The town was called Wind Point. Not big enough to be called a city, but it was by no means a small town. The down town area was a bit shabby with run down homes and pale pale paint jobs. People for the most part stayed out of each other's bussiness, crossing paths when there was business to be done. In the upper part of town, building were close together and less likely to be damaged or abandoned.


During the night, the down town was mostly quite. The city lights didn't quite reach there, leaving the darkness to its devices. One good thing about such a potentially scary idea was that the stars were really quite beautiful on that side of town.
​

 

[Penelope Burns]

Wind Point had the name for a good reason, as Astrid quickly learned. Her cowboy hat, one she stole days earlier from another traveler, flew off into the darkness almost immediately upon leaving the car, also stolen. She knew theft was wrong, but she was a Vampire, and deceased. She had limited funds and no way to truly travel, but she had to find her Creator before he could hurt more people.


It had been a seventeen year long hunt, across dozens of countries and hundreds of cities. From her icy homeland in northern Sweden to the desert surrounding Wind Point, she followed the vampire.


She knelt down, sniffing the air. Blood. Either a murder was happening nearby or her creator had just fed, either way she had a trail to follow.


The town, a large town by all accounts, had back alleys everywhere, each one as empty as the last. Unlike the tirelessness of Las Vegas or New York, Wind Point was silent at night, as dead as any victim of the creator's hunt. She had to find him, find him before he hurt someone else, before another woman lost her family, her home.


After several minutes more, she found him. Sitting across the street from a noisy bar, the scent of blood making it obvious. He fed, probably only just threw the poor victim's body out in some back alley to be found by police the next morning. How many was that, four hundred? Six? The trail of blood he left in her time of following him alone was enough to make even the most disgusting serial killer uncomfortable.


"Det är kul att se dig (It's good to see you.)." The creature said, his endless charm and charisma emanating into the air. It's how he convinced so many to follow him, to let him drain them of all their life force to fuel his trail of blood until the next stop. It was disgusting.


"Prata inte med mig, mördare. (Don't talk to me, murderer.)" She responded, spitting in his direction. She would not be calmed, not persuaded into believing his lies again. It was going to end before the night was done.


"Är det dags för ord över, blod dotter? (Is the time for words over, blood daughter?)" He said, getting up. When standing, he was over a foot and a half taller than her, his enormous body towering above.


After a moment of fear, his intimidating size getting to her, Astrid pulled her knife out, prepared to kill him. The knife was not too special, but she knew that one stab in his neck would at the least severely harm him. Despite the height difference, that would be where she'd aim.


With all of her energy, Astrid sprinted to him, her speed faster than the fastest human racer. In an instant she was in the air, above even him, her knife prepared to make the killing blow.


Of course, she would have killed him had his hand not appeared in the way, grabbing her face with only one of his two giant palms. She had less than a second to struggle, to free herself from his grasp, before he threw her face first into the ground, hitting her with a wave of dizziness as she rushed to get back up.


Before she could even stand completely up, his fist connected with her stomach, forcing the breath from her body, making her struggle to breathe. As she tried to recover, his knee made contact with her stomach yet again, forcing her to the ground.


"Sista chansen, dotter. Du är skam, en patetisk ursäkt för en vampyr. Försök inte hitta mig igen. (Last chance , daughter. You are disgrace, a pathetic excuse for a vampire. Do not try to find me again.)" With those words, he turned away from her, keeping her from achieving her revenge.


Astrid tried calling out to him, but her voice was weak, she could barely let out a phrase, let alone a yell. Alone, she lied on the ground, light amounts of blood pouring from her wounds into the dirt.

 

[Ricia]

Melody had been in this low tech city for days. She had been trying to find someone to help to break her current curse, but no one wanted help. When she tried to take a job, people would ask for her ID or for an application. That was the problem with worlds like this, she couldn't get anything done. She could be stuck for months in a world because she didn't have the proper things to meet her goal. Sometimes things like that could take months... and if it took more then a couple months, well she said screw it and left somewhere else.


This curse however was nothing extremely weird. Melody just had a tail. A monkey tail specifically. Which she just never explained to people. Most just ignored her. Some complimented her on her awesome tail.. others looked at her like a lunatic. Kids kept trying to pull it, that actually hurt. Regardless, trying to get bay in this world had been a bit hard. She had to sleep in abandoned shelters and eat the rations she had after an unsuccessful day of scavenging.


Melody had on her a tan backpack made of sturdy cloth. She also had on a belt that kind of had the same style to it. Pockets lined the belt and only an endless amount of things could be in it. A thin blue crystal hung from her neck on a thick black string. Her hair shinned a pretty black color, almost a bit purple. It was a small pixie cut, except for the long strand of hair on the side of her face, which currently was braided. Her skin, even in the darkness was rather tan from constant exposure to the sun.


After another bogus day, Melody started her way to her humble abode. Aka the dirty abandon house down town that she was sharing with a couple other homeless people. Peter and Gills. They were pretty cool, so she thought.


What was a bit different then normal though was the bleeding figure on the ground on her way to her clash site. There was not a lot of blood, but there was a bit. Mostly a bit around her stomach area and some dribbled on her lip. Melody rushed over before leaning down to take her pulse. There was none.. but she wasn't dead? Melody put her hand on the women's upper lip, to fill for some kind of breath. She was breathing. Undead? Hopefully the good kind. It was about a 60 to 70 percent chance she was a bad undead. "Hey.. are you ok?" Melody asked, her fingers left her nose to brush the mysterious undead's hair out of their face to get a better look at her eyes.

 

[Penelope Burns]

Darkness seemed to surround Astrid as the world around her became nothing but silence. She felt like a diver, isolated, surrounded by unfamiliar land. She tried, time and time again to escape, to free herself from the endless night.


After being trapped for what felt like a lifetime, Astrid heard a voice, calling out to her through the darkness. "Hey.. are you okay?" The voice said, sounding like an intercom that hadn't been repaired in years. Despite the roughness of the noise, Astrid could understand everything she said, as though they were right next to one another.


Eventually, after wading through enough of the darkness, it seemed to begin receding. She swam towards the light, hoping beyond hope that it would release her from the night.


Within another moment Astrid was awake, her eyes opening to see... A girl? She was keeping her head mere inches from Astrid's own, at a distance every stranger would consider uncomfortable. Astrid resisted the urge to shout in shock, not wanting any more attention than she obviously already had.


"H-Hello..." She said to the stranger, her English still heavily accented despite knowing it for years. She had no idea who this girl was, but obviously she meant well enough.


"Thank you for your help." She said immediately after, feeling her fangs come out from hiding. Food, the voice at the back of her mind said, knowing that there was a perfectly capable human mere inches from her fangs. Astrid's eyes widened for a moment before calming down, knowing that she still had at least a few hours before she would risk losing control. The young girl was not going to be Astrid's victim, she would not be her creator.

 

[Ricia]

(Sorry for this being so short. I figured i'd get a post up over not..)


Melody's accent was indescribable. It was strange and something that even a well traveled man or women could not place. She was heavy on some letters and light in others. It made her words come out a lot like when a foreigner tried to speak english. Yet at the same time she sounded fluent, her words were correct in both use and structure.


"No problem." Melody said slowly. She then beamed at the girl, "Hey? Need a place to stay?" She asked. She then put a quick finger in the air, as if to tell the girl to wait. Melody stood up before pivoting her shoulder forward and pulling off the strap of her backpack, almost throwing it onto the ground. Shen threw open the flap with an excited force and started to dig around in it's continence.


"I know I have something...." She really didn't describe or elaborate what 'somethings' was as she continued to wiggle around her hands in the bag. Soon she pulled out a small ceramic green pot. The pot had a large cork on it, which Melody started to work open. With a quite pop, the smell of strong bitter herbs washed over the area. "Phew!" Melody waved her hand over her face, "Here, this will help with the wounds. Keep'em clean n'stuff." She crouched down again and offered the stinking paste in the pot to the girl.

 

[Penelope Burns]

Astrid looked up at girl, listening to her as she spoke. Her accent made it very clear that she, like Astrid, was foreign, though from where? She wasn't European, though maybe Turkish? No, it didn't sound like the accent of other Southern European countries, possibly Middle Eastern? She didn't look like one, but looks were often deceiving.


Either way, she had offered Astrid both sanctuary and medical help. While she wouldn't need the latter, the former would be spectacular. Breathing in the stench of the herbs, Astrid spoke to her savior. "Thanks for the offers, but I only need a place to sleep, if possible. I'll pay whatever you want, of course." Astrid said all of this knowing that she did not, in fact, have money, but hoped the girl would be generous.


As she got up, trying to show the girl that she was fine without medicine, Astrid noticed the tail. Despite the... Distraction, she was able to stand on her own, mostly thanks to her vampiric levels of energy. "I'm Astrid, by the way." She said, trying her best to ignore the tail as it swung around behind the girl.

 

[Ricia]

"Astrid... Sounds almost like asteroid... you know, the big rocks in space." Melody said, her arms came over around her head to represent how big 'big' was. The pot and cork were still in her hands, so both the items hung over her head for a moment. Melody had a crooked smile, though the smile looked true and happy. "My name is Melody. Not Mellon, Medley, Mel or Melo. Just Melody." She listed off a small amount of, possible nicknames. " 'Cus I am a beat, not a fruit." She told Astrid.


Her hands by this time had fallen back to her sides, she pressed the cork into the pot, cutting of the horrendous smell around the air. It still lingered, but nothing a light breeze wouldn't neutralize. Melody then knelled to the ground and shoved the pot back into the over stuffed backpack. "And about payin' me... Letting me help you is really all I ask." Melody stood and leaned down slightly to brush the dirty off her knees. Her tail swerved behind her almost calmly, which was a strange contract to the seeming hyper mentality.


When she finished brushing off her skin, she reached for her backpack, picking up off the ground as she rose. She huffed as she turn the bag around and swung it onto her shoulder. "Would you like to lean on me?" Melody offered, walking a bit closer to Astrid after getting herself full situated.

 

[Penelope Burns]

Astrid attempted to hide a look of surprise at the girl's comparison to an asteroid. That was certainly a first. Her name was Melody, and her clarification following implied that she hated nicknames, or at least disliked them. It certainly wasn't useful information, though her offer of a free place to stay certainly was.


Astrid felt her fangs slip further outward, make themselves more obvious to her new companion. I can't let her see this. The girl was strange, and the tail was certainly a curiosity, but the most important this was protection from the dawn. Well that and food.


Looking away from the girl, Astrid stood halfway up and immediately let herself fall, trying her best to look ever more frail than she already felt. "I think I will take that lean, thanks." She said, smiling without showing her teeth.

 

[Ricia]

Melody felt herself lean forward, alarmed, when Astrid had fallen forward. She was not sure, but she was almost sure she kept seeing the flash of fangs. Fangs however could mean anything. Paired with the undead feature could mean very little things. However Melody had been to many worlds and seen many different variations of vampersim. How the disease was spread and many other such things. Well that was to say Astrid was a vampire. She would be some weird sub-species. Oh! She could be a species Melody had never seen before!


Melody snickered a bit to herself when she thought about trying something new. It was all so exciting. This is what she lived for. As lonely as this was.


Getting closer to Astrid, Melody wrapped her arm around the other girl's waist and helped her swing her arm around her shoulders. Melody then took Astrid's wrist to help hold her up. Astrid felt cool the touch. Only solidifying the undead status. Which she had declared the moment she helped the women on the ground. Undead were really a mystery. She was not sure how they worked since the inside of them didn't work. She was no scientist though. So perhaps those questions will remain unanswered.


They walked under the night sky for a while. Though it was not too far, injury's added to the equation most likely made the walk feel like forever. Soon, they turned up to a broken down house. There was a hole in the side of the roof. Police tape laid broken around the house and the door looked like it was barely standing. Grass was over grown around side walk. It just looked really bad. Smelled just as unpleasant.


"Here we are." Melody cheered.

 

[Penelope Burns]

Astrid looked at the house as they arrived, glad to have a distraction from the constant nagging inside her head. It looked terrible, to say the least. On the bright side, it was free, and seemed to a mostly closed roof. The smell made her want to gag, but out of respect for her hostess Astrid held that in.


Food!





Astrid twitched as the voice inside her head screamed at her. Why so early? She had more than enough blood to sustain herself for at least another few hours. She would have had more than enough time to wait for Melody to sleep and find someone to sip from. But no, her body needed food, and there was a living human right in front of her.


Instead of doing everything her instincts were telling her to do, Astrid looked at Melody to respond. "Thank you so much." She said, trying both not to smile and not to seem like she disliked the house. She would not ruin her chance at a home, and she would certainly not ruin the girl's life by draining her, which Astrid knew would happen if she let instinct take over.