Notes: I also posted this in my livejournal, but I figured I might as well post it here too.

Started July 25, 2005

Gray Lines

Chapter 1

With every step he took, his worn shoes sank ankle deep into the crunching snow. He could not remember when the last time was that he had bought new shoes. It must have been several years at least. Footwear was not on the top of his priorities, but now he was beginning to wish he had cared earlier; his toes were losing feeling, and his socks were soaked with melting snow.

A mere three days had passed since Luka had sent his soul to the sun, and Kei had already forgotten that there was still a need to stay warm even when one was undead. He had foolishly left Luka’s old haunt that evening without a coat or scarf, and if he did not get somewhere warm soon, his blood would freeze. What would happen then, Kei had not the slightest idea, but he was not about to experiment now. He had not even had a chance to feed yet.

Pausing at a crosswalk, he glanced around at the mortals rushing from building to building, trying to spend as little time out in the freezing night air. It was times like this when Kei felt that he was completely alone in the world. Everyone else moved so quickly, working to accomplish desired goals before it was too late. Every mortal was the same. They all had the same goal: to get as much done before they grew old and died. It was the same, though none of them realized it. That was all mortal life was, really. Working until your body gave up and then it was sent to another world…or simply to a grave in the ground, or into a pot full of ashes to be kept or scattered by the family. Sometimes Kei imagined that he could almost see the faint lines that pulled the mortals along, getting tangled and intricately entwined as paths crossed and connected. All of these lines led to the same destination: death.

Like a spider treading on a web full of prey, Kei moved through the world with no gray line leading him toward death; he had crossed into death long ago. Only through the blood of these passing mortals did he sustain life in himself.

He despised it…yet he loved it at the same time.

When Luka was with him, he had not minded nearly as much. The older man had a way of making it seem like nothing more than an evening meal, as if it was not humans they were feeding on. Now that he was gone, however….

For the past three nights, Kei had never been so aware as he drained the life from his victims. The first had been a young man, probably in his early twenties, whom had fought and struggled with almost enough strength to dislodge Kei; the second, a middle-aged woman with enough drugs in her system to give Kei hallucinations for the rest of the night—he had barely made it back into hiding before dawn; and the third had been a man whom had tried to mug him. Kei had simply leaned forward and sank his teeth into the man’s throat when he was shoved hard against an alley wall.

Now he held his own arms tight around his chest as he trudged through the snowy sidewalks, trying to keep himself warm. He longed for the summer season, when the mortals had hot, rushing blood that was there for the taking, not obscured by four different layers of clothing that he had to pull aside in order to get to it….

The blood lust was coming over him, and if he let it go much longer, he would lose all control of his actions. Kei quickly ducked into a cigarette smoke-filled bar—the first one that he came to along that sidewalk. His eyes briefly scanned the mortals in the room before striding over to the bar counter.

“Could I just have a glass of water, please?” he caught the attention of the bartender by tapping his fingernails sharply on the wood.

“Well you’re a good boy, aren’t you?” a woman’s voice spoke teasingly from just behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder at her as she sat down next to him and ordered a martini.

“Not necessarily,” Kei smiled at her. If he could get her to willingly leave the bar with him, his meal for the night was set. In the meantime, though, he figured he should be friendly. It was a game Luka had always been particularly good at.

Within a few minutes of chatting with the woman, he had already become quite bored, though he hid it well. He would not lose a fresh catch simply because she only cared to boast about the expensive gifts she had gotten for her recent twentieth birthday from some friend of her father’s….

Kei lost the thread of conversation, and was staring at the glittering reflections of in the liquor bottles on the shelves behind the counter when he heard the woman laugh, “Aa! I’m boring you, aren’t I?”

He blinked and looked at her, sliding an easy smile onto his lips. “No, of course not. But I was just thinking…how would you like to get out of here? I know of a lovely place where we could enjoy ourselves away from all this…” he waved a hand dismissively in the direction of the rest of the bar.

The woman—Kei realized that he wasn’t even sure if he had caught her name, but perhaps it was better that way—raised her eyebrows suggestively and then grinned.

“I’m up to that,” she replied, setting some money on the counter for her drink and then standing and pulling her fur coat tighter around her slim body.

“I hope you don’t mind walking a bit in the cold,” Kei spoke as they stepped out of the bar.

It had begun to snow.

“Well, as long as it isn’t a long way away….”

“No, it’s not very far at all. Don’t worry.”

The woman wrapped a soft scarlet scarf around her neck and glanced at Kei after a few minutes of silence. “Have you no coat?”

Kei laughed lightly, rubbing his hands together. His blood was quickly growing cold. He needed to get this over with.

“I left it in my hotel room, and didn’t realize it until I was on the street, when I had no intention of going all the way back to retrieve it. It’s just around this next corner,” he added as they passed underneath a streetlight.

“You haven’t told me where it is we are going,” the woman accused playfully, flirtatiously.

Kei didn’t answer, but instead led her around the corner—and seized her arm, shoving her around and into the small space between two buildings. As the woman opened her mouth to scream, he tore into her throat, silencing her and drinking her hot pulsing blood.

Kei pulled away just before she died, and for a moment he just stood there, one hand still clutching the woman’s limp wrist. He could feel his entire body heating up, almost as if in passion. He dropped the woman’s hand and used her scarf to wipe the blood from his face. He stepped back.

As he looked down at the dead woman’s crumpled form that was already beginning to collect the falling snowflakes, Kei felt something nag at the back of his mind. He bit his lip and jumped up onto the rooftop of the building behind him, and then he walked slowly across the top to the other side where he leapt down onto the sidewalk.

Find another ‘friend’.

Luka’s voice echoed in his mind, and Kei shook his head violently, as if that would extricate the memories. He did not want a new ‘friend’, whatever Luka might have advised him to do, but he was growing quite lonely. The problem was, he felt absolutely no connection to the mortals around him.

Seven years later, Kei had still yet to find a new ‘friend’, and he was losing hope. But then, in the news, he had noticed a significant amount of coverage devoted to some new city called “Mallepa”. It was a land full of immigrants, people of all nationalities and cultures. Kei thought he might see if it was all it was being made out to be, so he booked a passage to the mainland. It was partly do to curiosity that he left, but it was also due to the simple fact that he was growing bored of Japan. He had lurked in various cities along the Japanese islands, and he had seen all he wished to see. Now it was time for a change of scenery.

The ship that would take him and a few hundred others to the mainland set off on a morning in late March, so Kei boarded the ship as early as he was allowed and immediately closed himself in the small room he had paid for. He desperately hoped that no one had noticed the hissing of his burning skin underneath his overcoat and his rather floppy-brimmed black hat. Once in his room, he lay down on the low bed with the thin mattress and allowed himself to drift into an uneasy sleep; he was never comfortable letting his guard down with so many mortals around.

Mallepa was nothing more than a normal city. The only difference Kei could see was the variety of nationalities…that were actually living quite well together. It reminded him of an American-like mix of people, though about eighty-five percent of the population was Asian. Deciding that perhaps this could be a place to occupy for a while, Kei took residence in a tiny boarding house, where he had a bedroom (which held nothing more than a twin-sized bed and side table), and then a bathroom that had a shower stall. It would be more than enough for his needs.

When he ran out of the money Luka had saved, Kei began to steal from his victims. It added another heavy stone of guilt to his disintegrating conscience, but as he needed the money, and the dead did not, there was not much to do about it.

He spent the next several years drifting throughout the city, lonely…yet with his heart not especially set on searching for a ‘friend’. He knew he was being stubborn, and doing nothing but sending his mind into even more of a depression, but he lost the energy to care. He stopped caring about everything. He didn’t bother cutting his hair, and it grew into a long, golden, straggly tangle. His clothing became dirty, for he would wear the same outfit for days on end.

There were times when he would forget to feed, and he would stand in the middle of a busy street for hours, watching the tangle of lives moving toward the absolute destination. It was a morbid fascination of his, pondering how the people would grow old and die, while he remained frozen in time, living forever. It was the most horrid thought ever for him, and yet, he could not keep his mind from journeying down that ever-repeating path.

One warm January night, shortly before dawn, Kei was stumbling through the ruins of a building that had been destroyed a few years previously in a riot when a bomb had been tossed through the window. He found a bit of wall that had remained standing, and he sank against it, slumping back in exhaustion. He had not fed for several days. Every time he saw a mortal and considered feeding from it, he felt a rise of self-revulsion within himself and would force himself to turn away. Even when he tried to kill only the ‘evil’ mortals, it was no better, because then he felt as if their evil blood was poisoning him and making him even more damned than he was before.

There was no winning…and perhaps…perhaps it was time for him to just…give up and lose.

He closed his eyes. The sun would be up any minute, and then it would shine through the broken walls, directly upon him….

He heard running footsteps nearby, belonging to a small mortal, most likely a child. They were slowing down, and growing closer at the same time. He did not believe he had the energy to move. The swirling colors behind his eyelids made him dizzy, weak.

He suddenly sensed the presence of hot pumping blood directly before him. Without even thinking, his right hand shot out and seized the thin wrist of a young boy who had been about to steal his watch or ring—or both—from his left hand. There was a long moment where the boy struggled to pull his wrist free before Kei’s grip weakened and let his own arm drop limply to the ground.

His eyes slid up, and he stared hungrily at the boy’s throat. He could see the artery below the delicate skin of the child, and it stirred a painful longing in his blood-deprived body. But no. He had sworn off feeding on children. He had no right to take the life of a child.

Sunlight began seeping past the shattered windows on the non-existent second floor. His left hand was exposed to the deadly rays, and the shock of direct sunlight on his bare skin forced him into semi-consciousness, dropping his head in a sudden loss of energy. He twitched slightly and gaspedgrimacing. His hand began to burn with a hideous hissing and crackling. He could almost see the skin peeling away from his hand, though his eyes were closed and all that he saw was the red of his eyelids.

He sucked in his breath, squeezing his eyes shut even tighter in reaction to the pain.

“Aaa…”

“What’s wrong?” The boy’s voice was soft, frightened, yet also concerned.

“Go away,” Kei half mumbled.

But the boy would not, and reached out a hand to help. “Are you alright?”

Kei angrily slapped the small hand away, wishing to be left in peace so he could die properly. “Leave me alone.”

To his relief, the boy turned and fled. Kei bit his lip to restrain himself from crying out; he knew this would be painful, but that did not mean he was going to enjoy it. Just as his entire left arm was beginning to sizzle, the running footsteps returned, though this time they were slightly hindered, and were accompanied by the grumble of wheels.

“I told you to leave me alone,” he hissed between clenched teeth. If this boy did not leave soon, he might lose control and make a meal out of him.

“I—I can’t leave you here!”

The boy’s voice trembled a little, and to Kei’s astonishment, he found a large burlap blanket thrown over his body. The agony of the sunlight disappeared, though his body was slow in healing itself due to his weakened state. The boy found Kei’s arm and tugged at him to get up. Despite himself, Kei fell forward and almost crushed the boy with his weight, but then he felt himself being shoved onto a cart. He did not even have the strength to fight back and stop this ignorant child from saving him.

A long while later (Kei lost track of the time passed), the burlap blanket was pulled away and Kei found himself flinching despite the fact that he was completely hidden from the sunlight.

“What’s with him?” he heard an unfamiliar voice ask. It sounded like it belonged to an older boy, for it had the underlying sound of a breaking voice on the brink of puberty.

“I don’t know.” Kei opened his eyes at the sound of the little boy’s familiar voice. The boy and two others, one of which seemed to be around the same age, were standing around the cart, staring at him. “The sun was hurting him. I couldn’t just leave him there, Shinji!”

Shinji, the oldest boy, made a tutting sound in his throat. “He’s going to turn us in. You should have left him. He’s probably just another damn drunk.”

“I don’t care,” the little boy pouted, and reached over into the cart to tug lightly at Kei’s shirtsleeve.

“Mister? You’re safe now. Can you move?”

“Sho. Look at his hair,” the third boy said suddenly, a trace of awe in his voice. Kei assumed he was talking about the golden color.

Kei blinked a few times and slowly pushed himself up, sliding ungracefully off of the edge of the cart. The boy who had rescued him—or rather, Sho—helped him stand almost upright and led him over to a crate that was against a wall.

Shinji rolled his eyes and walked out of sight. “I’m going to try an open this thing. Get over and help, Toshi. Sho can take care of his friend by himself.”

Kei sighed silently and rested his head against the wall, listening to the boys’ attempts at opening a heavily locked briefcase. Sho walked away and came back a few minutes later with a bowl of some manner of food.

“I got you some food,” he smiled. “You look starved.”

He stirred it a few times and then held a spoonful of the mush (Kei had a feeling that it was heated cereal) up to Kei’s lips, but Kei would not open his mouth, would not even move.

Mortal food was of no interest to him.

“Come on…” Kei heard Shinji grumble in the other room, and a second later there was a loud crack as the briefcase broke open.

“Shit,” Toshi said in surprise.

“Careful,” Shinji warned.

Sho seemed to have given up feeding Kei.

Toshi and Shinji were beside themselves with glee, shouting and throwing the money about as if they were in some kind of movie.

“We’re rich,” Shinji exclaimed, and Kei could hear the grin in his voice.

But he also heard something else: footsteps. He turned his head to look in the direction of the two boys. An unfamiliar man was walking into the room from behind Shinji and Toshi.

“Can we buy a house?” Toshi asked, unaware of the man’s presence.

“Yes, of course.”

“Let’s leave this place.”

Kei watched as the man approached. “Little Jap bastards,” he heard him mutter.

Shinji obviously had yet to notice the man, because he continued wistfully, “I wanna see the snow…”

The man finally decided to make his presence known. “Mm. Hand it over.” He slapped Shinji sharply in the face when the boy turned in surprise. “Put it all back.”

Toshi bent down, picking up money, and then suddenly he turned around, a large rock in his hand. “This too, yeah?” he retorted, and threw the rock at the man’s stomach. “RUN!” he exclaimed and fled from the building before anyone else could react.

Sho remained standing in front of Kei, staring at the man in shock.

“Sho, run!” Shinji shouted, and made to escape as well, but there was a horrendous bang as the man shot Shinji in the leg and quickly ordered him not to move. Kei flinched at the scent of blood, urging his rising hunger to disappear.

“Nii-chan!” Sho screamed and ran forward, kneeling down next to Shinji, directly in range of the man’s gun, should he choose to shoot him as well.

To his surprise, Kei found himself worried about the safety of the child, but he continued to sit on the crate, leaning heavily against the wall. The man did not even know he was there.

“Go get the other kid…” the man snapped at Sho, “or I’ll kill this one.” When Sho hesitated, he added, “Now!”

With a flurry of footsteps, Sho ran off in the direction Toshi had gone.

Kei watched silently as the man shook his head and muttered, “Filthy punks,” and began gathering his money up again. The smell of Shinji’s blood was infiltrating Kei’s senses, even stronger than before, and he heard a very soft whimper, so quiet that Kei was sure that the man had not heard. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, he realized that the reason Sho had been sent to find Toshi was so that the man could kill them all together and thus be rid of them in the future.

He was not even conscious that he had risen in sudden fury, flying at the man with such force that they crashed through the unstable stone wall. Kei sank his teeth deep into his throat before he could even begin to fight back. The man gave a loud, pained yell of horror, but soon his throat collapsed and he could make no more noise.

The blood was the most delicious thing Kei had ever tasted, and he slurped greedily at the gash he had made on the man’s neck. Blood dribbled over his lips and down the left side of his chin, but he did not care. It was the first blood in too many days to count, and he was going to take in as much as he possibly could before the man’s time ran out.

On the edge of his consciousness, Kei heard Shinji shouting out Sho’s name, calling him back. He abruptly felt someone’s stare on him and looked up to see Sho standing several feet away from him, eyes wide. Kei waited for the inevitable terrified scream, but it never came. To his shock, Sho took a tentative step forward, and then another.

Kei frowned in confusion. “Aren’t you afraid?” he murmured.

Sho slowly shook his head.

Kei began to straighten up. The man had died while he had been distracted by Sho, and he let the body slide a little as his grip loosened. “Huh.” He smiled, and softly expelled a breath of air again.

An odd bit of warmth moved through him when Sho smiled nervously. This child…was accepting him. Of course he was lying; he was afraid—Kei could see it in the way the boy’s cheek muscles twitched just so—but he wanted to be Kei’s friend.

Perhaps there was hope for him yet.

He blinked when he realized that Sho had said something.

“We need to get out of here,” Sho repeated himself, gesturing to the exit. “What if his friends come looking for him?”

Kei stood, dropping the corpse on the ground, and ignoring Sho’s involuntary flinch.

“Where is that blanket you had over me earlier?”

Sho ran to retrieve the burlap blanket, and Kei threw it around himself as if it were a cloak, making sure that his head was fully covered.

Shinji was half-sitting, half-lying on the ground outside of the building. He looked as though he were about to faint.

“Help your brother stand,” Kei said hurriedly; though the burlap protected him from the direct rays of sun, he could still sense it, and the sunlight all around pained his eyes so that he was forced to squint.

To Be Continued…