Nocturnal

Rating: PG-13/T (Edges towards R/M with the violence)

Genre: Romance/Horror/General/Drama

Summary[30 Days of Night Short vignettes revolving around the vampires in the pack. Movieverse, ninety percent involve Iris and Marlow. They're my favorites. Uses LiveJournal 50 sentence words.

Author's Note: I wrote these mainly in my writing notebook at school, during class… Which probably explains why my grades aren't anything spectacular… We've been writing vignettes in English class, so I figured it was a good time to practice as well…

Disclaimer: I don't own 30 Days of Night. Duh. Steve Niles does.

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12. Wait

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Marlow's breath was shallow, chest moving slowly, voice raspy. Blood covered his pristine white shirt and much of his black jacket, though the former was much more obvious than the latter. His obsidian eyes, that which could rival the devil's, were shut.

Iris remained perched ever vigilantly by his side. She had long since scared off the others, who curiously poked around to see what was wrong. Precious few in the pack were genuinely and truly loyal to Marlow- the others were just nosy. In this way vampires weren't so different from humans- they enjoyed gossip. Jumped on it like a pack of hungry jackals sometimes.

Lying in the snow didn't seem to faze Marlow in the slightest. A human would turn blue after being in the snow for too long, but vampires were made of much sterner stuff than that. Besides, it wasn't like he had a choice; they were many miles away from the ship- at least a day or two of walking.

The snow kept falling day and night, thankfully hiding the sun from view. They were still in the farther northern regions of the world. It was colder, but at least sunlight was fairly limited. The ice was too thick to burrow two holes before sunrise, and Marlow would never let Iris make his hole for him; in their pack, weak vampires were left behind, and Marlow was a leader who practiced what he preached.

Iris sat patiently nearby, hoping (not praying; vampires don't have a God) that the snow would continue until Marlow had healed enough to survive. It seemed to be taking so long. Why was it taking so long? Iris twitched, and Marlow's eyes opened. Iris smiled at him.

"How do you feel?" Marlow sighed, straightening a little (He'd been leaning against a rock).

"Well enough," Was his gruff reply. The group of humans they had encountered had had more resources than expected; guns, firecrackers… and acid. Why, Marlow could not fathom. Stupid and crazy humans (their typical prey) usually tried to use Holy Water. It seemed the smart ones used sulfuric acid. They died all the same, but they did their damage. It hadn't been enough to kill any of the pack, but it weakened a few of them.

Marlow pulled himself into a crouch, wavering dangerously, his vision blurring a bit. Iris quickly put her hand on his forearm to steady him, and he tensed sharply. Iris' hand didn't move. Once he was relaxed and steady, and when Iris was certain he wouldn't fall, she stepped back and stood with him.

After a brief moment to make sure the cracks in his composure were filled and smoothed over, Marlow returned fully to his identity as the frigid leader of their pack. Together, they strode back to the pack and prepared to hunt again.