by Zoey Rivera
That, of course, consisted of her having to get stable enough to support herself and him. Richard would laugh as he would take down massive animals with only his arms and fangs and see her struggle to secure a docile rabbit with a shortbow or her go-to broadsword.
Aidan arrived in the fall, at that point Richard and Cheyenne had already secured their relationship. The two of them moved in together, and Cheyenne was even allowed to move into his hab module outside of Eden as well.
On Aidan’s birthday, they went into town and she purchased a scrying bowl and a crystal, then returned to the house to do the spell. Cheyenne collected her map from the bedroom and brought it into their kitchen. She placed it and the other materials onto the table.
“Now do it like we practiced,” Richard said. She smiled at him and he watched as she filled the bowl with water. She hurried back over with it to the table and began reciting the incantation. She blessed the water with insight and placed the crystal into the liquid. It began to beam a glowing blue orb.
“There he is,” she smiled over to Richard.
“Let’s get him,” Richard smiled back at her.
They had moved in together and, for a while, everything was perfect. Until Aidan realized that he and Richard had two very different perspectives on how to exist within Eden.
“How could you live on knowing that there are others that suffer around you? You could HELP them and yet you choose to live your lavish life,” Aidan scolded and Richard scoffed at him.
“LAVISH? Do you not see this tiny hovel we live in? I hardly call this a living compared to the estates of the Elite.” Their voices boomed as they argued about right and wrong.
“So what? We’re supposed to just accept that this is it?”
“Yes, this is it,” Richard motioned around the room. “Everything that comprises Eden: all the people living their lives, every beast in the forest, every tree, every stone. THIS is it. And the THIS we live in, is hardly different than the THIS we would be living in outside of Eden. If anything it gives us a greater chance. It gives criminals a chance to serve their penance or make a new start. Eden is a blessing more than a curse. Accept it.”
Aidan glared at Richard in silence.
“I’m not saying I would get rid of Eden entirely, I just think that the use of it for some sick form of entertainment for the Elite is wrong,” Aidan said.
“I hardly see your reasoning for that. Wouldn’t you be happy to have your fifteen minutes of fame? To live in a world where your voice can be heard across thousands of ears and you can leave a lasting image to be imprinted on others for generations to come?” Richard seemed to be picturing his name in the texts of the school books already. His smile seemed soft and loving toward the thought.
“This isn’t the way to go about it though. I shouldn’t have to be violently pitted against another helpless human being for my own survival. I should be able to make a living and survive without fear that I am going to be dead in the morning,” Aidan continued to argue and Richard just shook his head. It made Cheyenne sad to listen to the two of them bicker day in and out like this. Neither one of them would recant their ideals or agree to disagree. They would both be stubborn to the last breath. Cheyenne sighed as she cleaned up the table.
“You’re being overdramatic about it,” Richard said. “There is just as much a threat of dying here as there would be outside of Eden. If anything there could be less of a threat if you make yourself worth keeping alive. Yes, there will always be people wanting to kill without considering the lives of others. There will always be the threat of starvation if you don’t make money to survive. There is always poverty and being outside of Eden doesn’t save you. So again, I ask, why not accept life as it is?”
Aidan stormed out of the apartment and Richard sighed as soon as the door locked shut.
Richard looked over to Cheyenne. “Am I being too hard on him? I get that he wants to have this big overturn of generations of progress and survival, but can’t he see how unrealistic that is?” Cheyenne just shook her head and shrugged.
“He is new to Eden; he only knows what he sees and what he learned in school. He will have his ideas on how the world should work, what’s right and wrong, until he learns how life actually is. Weren’t you like that when you were young?”
Richard shook his head and looked honestly disheartened at the idea.
“I knew from the moment I entered Eden that this was the life that my ancestors lived and the world I was going to have to learn how to survive in. There has been tons of progress to make Eden more livable than it used to be, isn’t that enough? After all, if he is lucky, he could get an Elite sponsor to aid him. That used to not be a possibility for the people that came before us.” He stood up and moved over to hold Cheyenne’s hands in his.
She leaned up to kiss him and they stood there in a silent embrace, just thinking of all the ones that came before them. How had they survived in this world? They lived in fear that there wouldn’t be a tomorrow, yes. But they at least know, for the most part, that there would be a ‘later today.’ They weren’t living hour to hour as their ancestors did. She, Richard, and Aidan were living. They were surviving.
Richard smiled down at Cheyenne and lifted her chin to make her eyes meet his.
“We can have a better life now, you know?” Richard said, his eyes and words promising something impossible.
“What do you mean?” Cheyenne asked.
“Thomas is stepping down. The guild will be signed over to me in the morning and I want you to take care of it with me. We will have the entirety of Lamia, we can do whatever we please with it,” Richard proposed with a heartfelt grin on his lips. This was such exciting news. Cheyenne knew that Richard had been waiting a long time for this and she was so happy for him. She excitedly hugged him in celebration.
“So, when do we leave for Lamia?” She asked him. He looked at her trying to find the right words to give her news that she could tell she wouldn’t want to hear.
“Well,” he started.
“What?”
“There is one thing about me taking over the guild and Lamia that I needed to tell you,” Richard avoided eye contact with Cheyenne as he said this and she suddenly was overwhelmed with an immense feeling of discomfort. “If I take over the guild, I need to be the ideal image of vampirism. That means, I can’t be with some human, it wouldn’t make sense.”
“Some human? What are you saying?” she asked.
“I’m saying, let me change you. Let me bring you into my world. We are obviously meant to be, so let me make you the image of perfection and transform you into a vampire,” his hand tightened over Cheyenne’s. It became less of him holding her hand and more of him gripping it—as if he was keeping her from running away from him.
She tried to process what she was hearing. She had spent so much time around the clan but was she actually ready to become one of them?
“I don’t know, what will happen? Why can’t I just stay human?”
Richard shook his head at her questionings but she was serious. She didn’t understand why she had to change in order to accommodate this society that already knew her as she already was. She saw no real reason beyond image for her transformation.
More than anything though, she was afraid. What if the mutation made her lose her mind? What if she became an entirely different person after? What if she no longer loved Richard, or worse, she feared, what if Richard didn’t love her? Her mind raced with this neurotic line of questioning when Richard pet her hair.
“My love, it is simple, stop overthinking it. I just need to look perfect and a human has no place at the lead of a vampire guild,” the way he said this, so matter-of-factly, made Cheyenne’s skin crawl. There was no place for her kind. There was no place for her. She stepped back from Richard.
“What about Aidan?” Cheyenne asked.
“What about Aidan?” Richard retorted.
“What will happen with him? He is staying with me, will he not be
viewed as lesser because of his status as a human?” she questioned Richard. His laugh was condescending as he shook his head and ‘tsked’ her.
“You think I didn’t think of that? I would give Aidan this apartment and a little stipend to start him off, then we would leave him here. He needs to learn how to survive on his own, anyway. He can’t rely on you for everything, after all.
At any moment something could happen to you. And then what would he do? He is a strong young man, he needs to learn that life is more than a bunch of pointless debates about these meaningless changes he wants to make to an already functioning society.”
Abandon Aidan? She couldn’t do that. She had promised their parents that she would care for him until the day that she died, and that was exactly what she intended to do. What she would do. There was no way she was going to leave Aidan on his own so soon in the game.
He barely had any proficiencies for defending himself. He hadn’t even begun learning the more basic survival tactics, like cooking or any other means of self care. No, there was no way that Cheyenne was going to leave Aidan on his own. She pulled her hands from Richards.
“I can’t leave Aidan, you know that.”
Richard let out a slow, steady sigh as she said this.
“He’s going to be alright, don’t you trust in him?” He tried to slink back closer to her but she took another step away from him as he did.
“It’s not whether I trust in him, I don’t trust in Eden to keep him alive,” her sapphire blue eyes stared coldly into Richard’s as his rubies burned hers back.
“Fine then, I hate to have to do this the hard way. Cheyenne, if you don’t come with me, I have no qualms in murdering Aidan. He is a hinderance to the world I want, anyway. His constant screams for revolution and change delay the global acceptance of our fates. So choose, either your life or Aidan’s.” For the first time, Cheyenne was seeing Richard for what he truly was. He had been blunt and distant but never as crude as this. It was inhumane what he was making her do.
“And if I don’t choose? What happens then?” Her eyes never broke contact with his.
“I will need a new bride,” his smirk was sickening as the words poured out from it. Cheyenne shoved Richard away from her and ran out the door of their apartment.
“Shy,” he called after her. She kept running, eyes burning as she swallowed her sorrow and focused on making her way to Johnny’s place. When she arrived, the apartment was empty. She crumbled onto the floor and openly wept.
She sniffled and made a weak attempt at collecting herself, just in case Johnny were to walk back into the room. She steadied her quivering breaths and tried to relax herself. She managed to calm down enough to think rationally for a moment, remembering that she and Richard were together in the hab module. She would have to move out of there as well, for her own safety. She laid across Johnny’s bed and slowed her breathing as she logged out of Eden.
Chapter 3
Cheyenne could hear a muffled sobbing as her character awoke back in Eden. The air felt stale and rotten. The ground was cold and damp. She had been out of game for a while trying to settle into her new hab module. She knew her character would have weakened a bit from inactivity but she hadn’t expected to feel so lightheaded and dizzy. Her throat burned. She blinked her eyes into focus, finally noticing her surroundings. She was alone in a room of whimpering hostages.
They were bruised and beaten. Most importantly, they were bleeding. Blood was smeared all over the walls and doors. The handles on the doors weren’t budging. She tried the locks again to double check. They couldn’t escape, no matter how much they wanted to. Not that she had any desire to leave. Although, she could tell from the rapidly increasing heart rates, that they desperately wanted out.
Cheyenne’s body suddenly became very aware of every ounce of blood that surrounded her as she felt all five of these nameless blood sacks' hearts practically throbbing out of their chests and into the unfeeling, hollow abyss of her own. She had always assumed that when vampires got into this state, they were blacked out.
Ravenous.
Impulsive.
Unthinking.
She had always thought, they couldn’t possibly be thinking or really functioning properly during it. She was dead wrong.
That whole night was stained into her mind’s eye more clearly than anything else she had ever experienced in her entire life, in or outside of Eden. The room poorly lit, save for a slit of moonlight from a sad excuse of a window.
On the ceiling there were three oculi hovering about, perverted minds looking through them as they slowly edged around for the best view. She felt her body quiver with excitement as she lurked over to her very first victim. He was young, maybe eighteen, with curled black hair and watery brown eyes. Every detail of his pained expression was forever engraved into her heart, down to the beads of sweat forming and rolling down his freckled, flushed, pale face. The boy was crying and pleading with her.
“My name is Shiloh Dane, please don’t do this. I have a family, up in Sorin. Please, I’m just trying to get to Sorin. Please, don’t do this, please. Please!” his tenor voice was cracking as he desperately searched for a way to reason with her. It was hopeless. His sobbing became uncontrollable, to the point that Cheyenne couldn’t make much else out at that point besides, “please, please, please.”
Hearing that word, over and over and over, she felt it lose all meaning. She smiled wryly as she towered over his cowering body. She stood Shiloh up by his scrawny, sweaty neck against the metallic walls of their prison. He was about the same height as her, so she managed to raise him nearly a foot and a half off the ground.
The sound of him weakly struggling against her grasp as his boots clashed against the wall. She felt the odd sensation of a swallow as his adam’s apple bobbed against her palm. He slowly stopped fighting her and was nearly limp when she lowered him back down to stand in front of her. Retaining her grip on his throat, she leaned in and sunk her teeth into his flesh until it punctured through and she began feeding. Cheyenne was almost too overwhelmed with this feeling of ecstasy from being quenched. It was almost erotic.
The next four remained nameless, voiceless sacks of blood.
They didn't fight.
They didn't beg.
They didn't get the chance.
Before Shiloh’s lifeless husk could hit the floor, Cheyenne had already slaughtered and drained the others. She stood there, soaked in blood, among her victims. Her breathing slowed from its excited hyperventilation and her mind began to rationalize what she had just done. She completely lost all grip on reality in that moment and gave out a seemingly endless shrieked in her traumatized paralysis. The door slowly creaked open to reveal Richard smiling at her, lovingly.
"Hello, my love," he beckoned Cheyenne over to him but she cringed away. She didn't know what to do. She didn’t know what to say. All she knew was that Richard had made her into this murderous beast. This blood that she was stained with wasn't her fault, it was Richard’s. She scanned Richard with paranoid and freshly bloodshot, crimson eyes. "Breathe, Cheyenne, darling. You'll just make the transition harder for yourself."
"Transition?" her voice squeaked questioningly, even though she knew exactly what had happened to her.
"Do you even need to ask, sweetheart?" He moved her hand, forcing her to open her stats panel.
"There, can you see? That icon there is your status. You're one of us now, my dear." He smiled down at her and she stared horrified at that crimson bat symbol for the very first time. "So, my love, shall we?"
He reached to pull her closer to him and she shoved him off.
"I told you, I didn't want to be like you. Where is Aidan? I have to get out of here,” she sobbed as she ran out of the door into the sunlight. Her legs gave out and the floor embraced her.
Richard called out to her, "Don't stay out there too long, your HP will start to take a hit. I can't be having my queen walking around injured on her first day out."
; Cheyenne stumbled back into the shade as she quivered in fear of what she had become. She was a monster. She was a bloodsucking, impulse driven beast. She felt nauseous. She felt confused. She felt so many emotions at once, she didn't know what she felt. Richard came over to collect her again and Cheyenne shoved him off once more.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" she demanded as she unsteadily tried to make her way into the Mir and as far away from this horror as she could get. Richard watched her leave, partially amused and yet still slightly judgemental.
"However long you need to adapt, my love. We will be here waiting for you," he called out condescendingly to Cheyenne as she limped sorely out of eyesight. She crawled through the shade of the trees as she tried to find her way back to Gwintin. Making her way back to Aidan to make sure that he was alright.
The trees all looked the same and left her wandering in dizzying circles. She cried under a tree as a group of trolls approached her. They sensed her presence and she was quickly surrounded. A piece of her embraced the thought of how much of a sweet release that death could be at that moment.
As the trolls encompassed her, the image of her brother came to mind. She knew that she had to see him. She had to. She gestured to open her inventory and attempted to equip her broadsword and shield.
Empty slots.
She shouldn’t have been surprised that Richard had looted her body while she was unconscious. She just hoped that it was the only thing he had done to her.
“Expellere!” she shouted. When she performed spells, she was used to an aqua aura - the physical manifestation of mana - appearing to perform the spell, but her familiar aqua was replaced by a magenta one that expelled from her chest and propelled the creatures away from her. Her magic proficiencies as a vampire were increased two-fold, so she had actually cleared a greater radius than she had initially anticipated.
