Chapter 1 - Carpe Dium (Part I)

I groaned and tried to move my numb muscles. What the actual Hell had just happened? Surely I’d just had one of my more bizarre dreams; that couldn't have truly existed? I forced my eyes open, slowly and painfully, and found myself lying down in perfect darkness, and by the painful stiff feeling in my spine I was most probably lying on the floor. Which led to the question, where was I? And, more importantly, where were Matty and Vince?

A searing white light suddenly hindered my vision, making it impossible to see anything other than painful coloured dots from behind my eyelids. It forced me to shield my eyes from the glare and abandon my perplexed rhetorical questions.

‘K-kimmy?’ A timid, scared squeak in the corner. Matty.

I sighed with momentary relief and propped myself up with one hand, rubbing my sore eyes with the other.

‘Of course babe. Are you ok? Where’s Vince?’

A brief pause.

‘You don’t look like Kimmy.’ He sounded scared, and with a sudden sense of dread my stomach felt like it had plummeted down into the depths of some Godforsaken sea and been cruelly crushed by the pressure.

‘What do you mean, I don’t look like Kimmy? I AM Kimmy!’ I laughed shakily, trying to convince myself more than anything else.

It was then I began to notice. I felt different. I glanced at my hand. I began to shake. My skin was a pure dazzling white, adorned with black leopard spots. My nails were completely black, pointed and sharp, but still human in shape.

I staggered, winded, to my feet, my hand feeling my face, checking that everything was in the right place and as it should be. Mercifully, my face still felt human in shape, but my ears had shifted from the sides of my head (a horrifying feeling in of itself) onto the top of my head, and seemed to be pointed, with a fine fur covering them – like a cat.

I frantically looked round the room for something I could use to find out more about what was going on, and my eyes eventually settled on a mounted full length mirror on the wall. I dared myself to go over to it, dragging my aching body up off the ground and lurching across the room, to look at what I had become. I instantly regretted it; I wasn’t me. This part human, part cat thing couldn’t be me. I was still human in many ways, but I didn’t look like me in the slightest.

My hair was longer, softer and thicker, and a pure raven black. My skin was soft and smooth; everywhere I was a shimmering white, flecked with black leopard spots, with smaller ones speckled across my face and a black patch on the end of my nose, much like a cat. Like my nails, my teeth had also become razor sharp and pointed, more suited to tearing through flesh than anything else. I had a lot more lean muscle than before, with more prominent curves changing the shape of my figure, much to my embarrassment. I looked back to my face, and noticed that my new ears were indeed cat like in appearance, covered in a fine black fur on the exterior, with the interior a delicate pink colour.

I flicked my gaze to the rest of me, and then my jaw positively dropped. I don’t really know how I’d missed it (I suppose, looking back now that there was probably just too much new information trying to sink in at the same time, and that I was being overwhelmed.) but I had a tail. Yes, a tail. Much like the rest of me, it was white, with black leopard spots, and the end of it was completely black. Unlike the rest of me though, it was very fluffy, covered in a thick, ultra soft fur. As I concentrated on it more, it began to twitch and swish from left to right. I was completely dumbstruck by this point, my jaw pretty much dropped to the floor in shock.

For me though, all these changes, as shocking as they were, they weren’t the biggest shock. No, the biggest new discovery for me were my eyes. They’d been dark brown in colour, often flecked with lighter shades of hazel brown and orange. Now they were a bright, piercing blue, with swirling tints of icy blues and an electric blue ring encompassing then. My eyelids and the entire area around my eyes were as black as coal, the pupils of my eyes were dilated slits, and when the light caught them the the surface reflected the light back, completing my cat like physique..

As I tried, and failed, to drink all this in, Matty and Vince apprehensively crept over behind me, staring at me, wide eyed in disbelief. Both of them looked a lot paler than usual, and Matty looked like he was going to be sick, and although he was trying to hide it, he wasshaking quite badly.

I didn’t know what to say, but a thin whining noise crept its way from behind my lips. Shielding my face with my arms, I collapsed into a heap onto my knees, unable to physically look at myself any longer.

There was a gentle hand on my shoulder and a dry chuckle behind me.

‘Cheer up Kims, it could be a lot worse. At least we’re not dead, for a start. Besides, there are far worse animals you could look like. Like a pig, or a cow, or something with antlers.’ Vince tried to reassure me.

I snorted. This was too surreal for words, I could only seem to conjure up guttural utterances, and even that was a bit of a push. I was apparently part human, part cat (or, more specifically by the looks of things, part snow leopard), and was in a big, mainly empty white room (bar the mirror, there was no furniture to be found), a survivor of an apparent Apocalypse along with my boyfriend and best friend. Oh, and to add to it, we were now apparently in some newly formed World, with a weird symbol on our shoulders and were part of a tribe. It all just made so little sense to me, I was giving up trying to make sense of it anymore.

I moved my arms and snuck a second glance at my reflection. Slowly, it began to dawn on me that, if this wasn’t a dream, then there wasn’t any way back – I was going to look like this for the rest of my life. I whimpered again, and began hugging my sides and rocking slightly, trying to protect myself from this new reality.

Vince sat down beside me and gave me a gentle hug, being the compassionate friend, as always, even though this was probably terrifying for him too. ‘It could be worse, at least you haven’t been deprived of cigarettes’, he whispered.

I laughed hoarsely, managing a weak, grateful smile. He was right –it could be worse. I wasn’t some kind of mutated monster. And hey, at least I didn’t have antlers. I might not be me anymore, and there was no denying I looked weird, but it could most definitely have been a lot worse.

Glancing towards Matty, as a fresh hope starting to flicker in my mind, my face fell, the small shimmering hope was immediately quenched. With his fists clenched in tight, shaking fists, he couldn’t even look me in the eye, staring intensely down at the floor. I stood up and went over to him, and attempted to hug him. He pulled away, shaking his head numbly.

‘No, not yet. I’ll get used to it, but until then, please give me time.’

Tears stung my eyes, and a lump formed in my throat. ‘Matty, I’m still me,’ I pleaded, ‘please just look at me.’

He started to look up, then shook his head again and looked back at the floor.

I turned away from him, and sat back down on the ground, feeling cold and empty – alien even. I couldn’t even cry. I began frantically looking around the room for some form of escape from the room, from the crushing pain of rejection from the one whom meant most to me. A door, a window, anything would do!

Vince coughed uncomfortably, and I stopped my futile, panicked search. ‘Well, this couldn’t get any more awkward if it tried. Sooo... as there is no better time I can think of to mention it, I thought I should point out that I appear to have some new tattoo on my left shoulder. Anyone got any explanations for how it could’ve got there?’

I snapped out of my bemused daze and looked over at his shoulder. He had an identical mark to me, with it stopping on his arm just above his tattoo on his arm. They kinda fitted together well, as his tattoo was of a skull with red roses in its eyes, and with tribal markings embellishing the top of its dome, similar in a way to the Geishra, equipped with vampire teeth. A tattered scroll twisted around the skull, and was emblazoned in heavy Gothic font ‘Death Never Prevails’.

‘That’s the Geishra thing’, I murmured. I’ve got one too, on the same arm. I vaguely remember that voice told us that it signifies our tribe, or some crap like that.’

Vince nodded, lost in his thoughts. ‘I think so, and I’m guessing us three are the tribe? Although three seems like an incredibly small number for a tribe, I have to say.’

‘You guessed correctly, Vampyre’ a silky female voice purred. The same voice I’d heard when I’d screamed their names to protect them. Although, by the looks of things, maybe 'protect' wasn't the best term to use, given our recent circumstances. We immediately all stood up and grouped together in a tight circle, our backs together, pensive, sensing potential danger.

‘No need to fret mortals, I mean you no harm. In fact, I’m here to welcome you to the new world.’ A door at the far end of the room opened. A large mahogany door, with engravings of dragons carved artistically into it. How the fuck had we missed something like that? Reading our thoughts, the voice laughed softly.

‘You didn’t see it, simply because it wasn’t there. Now that your initial shock is over though, it’s time for your initiation to Parthadix to begin, my dearest Shar-du-Maal.’

We stared at one another, perplexed. Parthadix? Shar-du-Maal? The voice laughed again at our confused, blank expressions. A soft, seductive laugh, but soiled with spite, hatred and what can only be described as pure, unrelenting evil. It was a demon’s laugh, to be sure, but a gentle demon, for the time being at least.

‘Parthadix, your new homes, my dears. For a new world deserves a new name after all. As for Shar-du-Maal, well that would be your little tribe’s name, which literally translates to Tribe of the Dusk, due to all of your, er… conditions.’ The voice paused to giggle slightly before mentioning our apparent ‘conditions’. Heart racing, I suddenly realized something: she’d called Vince a Vampyre, although he looked just the same as he always had done to me, bar being a little bit paler than usual, from shock. But what about Matty? He looked fine to me. I suddenly hoped that it was just Vince and I that were afflicted with 'conditions', but I knew from the sudden ominous lurching in my stomach that it wasn’t the case.

‘Wait a minute! You just called me a Vampyre, but I don’t feel any different, other than this ridiculous craving for a cigarette. Kimmy’s condition is obvious, but what about Matty? Plus, like you heard me say before, three of us can simply not be called a tribe. So are there more of us somewhere, or does this new world have stupid ideas for what constitutes as a tribe these days?’ Vince inquired in his usual blunt fashion.

The voice hissed bitterly, briefly dropping the friendly façade, then after a momentary pause the soft laugh was back, silky smooth as ever. ‘You must learn not to run your tongue, Vampyre. You are not a Vampyre as you Earth bound mortals know them, although not far off. You can survive in sunlight, and NO you CAN’T fucking sparkle!’ she cut across him as he was about to open his mouth and make a snide remark, ‘Your skin is considerably fairer than that of an average human, so you burn much easier, but that’s as far as that goes. You do, however, need to drink blood. Human blood at that. And you now have an allergy to garlic. Like any other allergy, it won’t kill you to be around it, but eating it will be fatal. Same as any other severe allergy.'

'You will find that your strength has marginally improved, but one your main assets is that you are now one of the fastest mortals in Parthadix, so congratulations for that,’ she continued dryly, ‘to finish off your new abilities, you will find that your night vision will be as good, if not better, than your daylight vision. Same for you two as well. That enough detail for you, Vampyre?’

Vince thought for a moment, thinking against any snide marks he most probably wanted to make, then nodded, satisfied with her response. ‘Now then,  my dearest Matthew. You aren’t a Vampyre, and evidentally aren’t a Tai-egra,’ Matty sighed with relief, ‘but you are now a Lycanthrope.’ Matty groaned and shook his head, disgusted.

‘Here was me thinking I’d narrowly avoided all this freaky shit,’ he muttered darkly under his breath, clenching his fists even tighter so that the bones were clearly visable underneath his translucent skin. Vince patted him sympathetically on the shoulder. I thought to do the same, but then thought better of it.

‘Ha! No mortal, you are cursed with being a Lycan, whether you want to be or not. To avoid constant pestering like the Vampyre, I’ll give you the basics. Contrary to what you humans believe, Lycans don’t transform under a full moon. In fact, you can choose to transform as and when you please, and you have full control over your senses. Usually, that is. Sometimes though, if you get increasingly angry, that will change. When you’re angry, you will transform, so you may want to learn to control your temper. Furthermore, as is the way of the Lycan, you will get many compulsive urges to kill and attack humans, so you can have fun fighting those.’  A brief snort of laughter rung sharply around the room.

‘You may not be as fast as the other two either, but on the plus side, you’re still miles faster than humans, and you are now formidably strong. Whether you’re in your Wolven form or not. As for what that Wolven form looks like, well, you can have fun finding that out for yourself. I wouldn’t want to ruin all the surprises, now would I? I would suggest though that you avoid any restricting clothing, particularly heavy, metal armor. That may get an itsy bit painful and slightly… messy.’

‘Now then, to answer the Vampyre’s previous question – no, you three are not a complete tribe. Not yet, at least. Each of you possesses a Caelbri, a soul counter-part, tied to you via a spiritual bond, so to speak. So basically, if you die, then they die, and vice versa. They make up the majority of the rest of Shar-du-Maal, but there is still one significant other. I’m sure they’ll explain the rest in due course, so long as you’d be so kind as to go through that door way, into the world beyond? Sooooo… Until the next time we meet, I bid you adiou.’

‘Wait!’ I shouted. A brief pause.

‘Yeeeess?’

‘Who are you?’

A cackling sounded around the room, sending chilling shivers of trepidation along my spine, tingling the hairs on the back of my neck.

‘My dear Tai-egra – you’ll find out soon enough.’

With that, the demon was gone, leaving an inexplicable anxiety that rooted itself deep into my stomach, sitting there, patiently waiting for the perfect moment to unleash itself in its many waves of apprehension and incomprehensible unease.

Prologue - Requiem

I am alone. What more can I say? My friends, my Caelbri, my tribe and my boyfriend all either lie dead, or worse. Seven years ago, I didn’t believe there was such a thing. Especially with the whole ‘Apocalypse/ End of the World’ shit that was going on at the time. Yes, there was indeed an ‘End of the World’. No, it wasn’t on the twelfth of December 2012. Or that other date that nutter religious guy guessed. It was in 2012 though. It was a Saturday, and I was having a day in town with my boyfriend and a friend. Little did anyone realise how warped our lives would become. How they would become destroyed - twisted, convoluted shards of shrapnel that would be sharply torn asunder, all in a matter of mere hours.

* * * * *

We wandered aimlessly through the outdoor market, the bewitching aromas of sizzling burgers on giant barbeques slowing our pace. It was lunch time, and as per usual I hadn’t eaten yet. We walked on further and the infused aromatic tang of herbs and slowly char-grilled meat were blotted out by the more bitter, acidic smell of Vince’s cigarette. I disdainfully wriggled my nose – I loathed the odour of smoke, especially cigarette smoke, but I didn’t complain. I might not understand, even to this day, the desire to smoke, but it wasn’t my place to stop Vince, particularly as he was keeping me company until Matty arrived. Plus, as a bonus, it stopped all of my hunger pangs.

I checked my phone again. Still nothing, Matty was late again, but I’d guessed that it would happen; the local bus service was notorious for its shitty service, or lack thereof.

‘Still nothing?’ Vince blew the pungent smoke out of the side of his mouth, so that it was as far away from me as possible. I shook my head.

‘A bus probably hasn’t even turned up yet,’ I sighed, exasperated. Vince threw the burnt out tab on the floor, then instantly lit up another.

‘What did you honestly expect Kimmy? It’s fucking atrocious. A flying carpet would be a much more efficient form of transport that that pile of wank.’ I nodded wordlessly. Maybe not worded eloquently, as I had grown to expect from Vince, but he was right.

I’d known Vince a few years now, for most of Secondary in fact, and even though we now went to different Colleges in town, we had remained good friends. People at Secondary used to mock how clichéd his name and appearance were. With naturally pointed teeth, an appearance not too dissimilar to The Crow (minus all the makeup) and a full name of Vincent Crowne (yeah… the name really hadn’t helped matters for him), he was a perfect target for unintelligent youths with big mouths and no brains to hurl abuse at. At least, he would be, if not for his infamously short temper, his physical strength and the fact that the last time someone had given him trouble, the unfortunate culprit had lost most of their teeth, the remainder of their brain cells and any and all dignity which they previously held on to.

To his friends though, Vince was a good guy. Never without a cigarette in his mouth, he would always put his neck on the line to help someone out of a jam, even if it caused him inconvenience. Be it offering someone a place to stay when they had nowhere to go, sorting out arguments between friends, or even just staying with someone (in this case me) until their boyfriend of over two years turned up, Vince was, overall, a very caring person.

Bzzzt! I jumped out of my skin. I frantically dug out my phone; I glanced down at the screen to see it was Matty ringing me. My heart started thumping loudly in my ears.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi Kims. You won’t believe the morning I’ve had. I tried to text you multiple times, and it just keeps saying it’s failed each time. Not to mention the bus being late, again!’ Matty sounded irate. ‘Where are you at anyways? I’m walking across the bridge up to the market square now.’

‘Calm down Matty, you’re here now; that’s what matters. I’m with Vince at the market place. Meet you besides the statue, then we’ll head to the pool hall?’

‘Sounds good to me. See you in a minute then.’

We shifted awkwardly through the Hubble towards the ancient green statue in the centre of the market, away from most of the ensuing Saturday bedlam. As we walked over to the newly renovated 20 foot statue, I flinched and subconsciously went to grab my left shoulder. There’d been a strange occurrence overnight, leaving me to wake up with a bizarre ‘mark’ on my shoulder. By ‘mark’ I mean some unusual looking tribal tattoo, with delicate, black swirls and heavily resembling Celtic art. It wasn’t red raw like a fresh new tattoo would be, and besides, I hadn’t been in a state, nor been in a place where I could get such a tattoo. I was pretty sure I would remember getting something like that done anyway, considering it covered all of my shoulder and a fair proportion of my left arm. It was all incredibly strange, and it kept flaring up with a searing pain every now and again – like millions of sharp pins stabbing me repeatedly in the shoulder.

Ignoring it as best I could, and trying not to show any evidence of pain on my face, I did my best to casually chat to Vince about games and the like. Like many of these things tend to be, it was coincidentally linked (or, if you believe in such things, down to fate) to the events which were to follow. We were deliberating which game was better, both as a game and as an environment to live in: Skyrim or Fallout New Vegas.

‘Skyrim would be miles better, without a doubt. There are swords, cat AND lizard people and dragons. What more could you possibly need? Plus, as an added bonus, it would make the ‘Cool story bro, needs more dragons’ meme redundant, unlike Fallout.’ I argued furtively.

Vince thought for a brief second, but then shook his head. ‘That may be true, but an apocalypse is far cooler, plus we’d have guns, which I prefer, and an environment we already know. Besides, I’d get sick of people coming up to me and telling me that they used to be an adventurer, but then they took an arrow to the knee. There are only so many times that can be funny. Oh, and let’s not forget zombies.’

I shivered. I fucking hated zombies. I was terrified of anything that was dead, and more so if it was still somehow wandering around, trying to eat me. Just as I was about to retaliate, I saw Matty approaching and broke into an impish grin.

I’d been with Matty for over two years, but we’d never fallen out or argued even once. It was never dull though; Matty was a bright, vibrant character, always laughing and telling jokes. He was a year older than me, so when he entered our Secondary’s Sixth Form, he thought of himself as the ‘cooler’ older guy, and so he tried to ask me out at school, in front of my friends. Whilst incredibly drunk. At the time I didn’t know him at all, although I had heard of him, but I was fairly amused and impressed with his level of determination, even with his lack of coherence, balance and sense of logic at the time.

The next day, once he’d sobered up and apologized profusely, I told him I would go on a date with him. He stared at me, gob-smacked, whilst I laughed and explained that although he hadn’t really set that good an impression, he seemed like a nice guy that meant well.

Now here we were, over two years down the line, still together and happy, head over heels in love with one another. Matty was everything I could want in a guy – a tall, skinny, black haired metalhead with a leather jacket, a sense of humour and a sensible head on his shoulders (well, unless he was drunk of course; then he was just plain hilarious.)

I ran over to him, forgetting the pain for a moment, and hugged him tightly, and stood on tip toe to kiss him lightly on the lips. ‘Took your time a bit there,’ I laughed.

Matty groaned. ‘Don’t even joke about it. I swear the buses have somehow gotten worse. I set off over an hour and a half ago, and the bus took over half an hour just to get to my bus stop.’

I hugged him again. ‘Awww, it’s ok. So long as you’re here, that’s all that matters really.’

He kissed me on the forehead, as he so often did, then walked over to where Vince had hung back, and gave him a brief hug. ‘Cheers for looking after Kimmy, I hate leaving her on her own like that.’

Vince hugged him in return, then broke away to light his third tab. ‘No problem mate, you know I’ll always look out for her; we’ve been friends a long time after all.’

We began to walk away from the statue, making small talk about how terrible the bus service was, slowly progressing towards the local pool hall, when the air was punctured with a thunderous, booming voice.

‘Halt fleshlings.’

The earth shook from the sheer force and volume of the voice and the buzz of the entire town ground to an instant halt. I don’t know how that voice didn’t puncture our ear drums, especially as it was apparently heard on a global scale, but I digress. Cars stopped in their tracks, shoppers immediately stood still, dropping their purchases and gazing up to the Heavens, us included. An eerie silence loomed overhead.

‘Excellent. Now then, pay close attention to what I have to say. For many of you, it will be the last thing you hear.’

My heart pounded deafenly in my head, at the volume and speed of gravity blast style drumming. I gripped Matty’s hand tightly, gulping down air, beads of sweat gathering on the brows of all that were present. My shoulder suddenly surged with pain, but I ignored it; this situation was drastically more important.

‘We, the immortal powers that be, rulers of your world and all others, are, to be quite frank, bored. We are bored of your puny existence, and so we have hatched a plan to… spice things up a bit.’ The voice paused to snigger, a noise of huge granite boulders colliding that made my hair stand on end and icy cold shivers shoot up my spine, before continuing smugly. ‘Therefore, most of your precious world is going to die, and most of you with it. Those of you that remain will become part of our new world, a world of our own creation. It will have been infused with a second world, a world which you know naught about.’

I began to convulse violently, my legs wobbling, nearly caving out from under me; the pain in my shoulder becoming more prominent with every passing second. I let go of Matty’s hand, and clenched my shoulder in pure desperation. I closed my eyes, grimacing from sheer pain. What could possibly be happening to me?!

‘Right about now, those select few of you which have been chosen should be getting signals to show that you have been selected. By signals, I mean a profane pain from your Geishra – your unique symbol etched under your skin, which you may have already found. Each of your Geishras are different, showing the tribe that you belong to. As of now, there is only you in that little tribe, Chosen Ones. But you can change all of that.’

My eyes snapped open – I wasn’t going to die? Plus I might be able to rescue some people from their apparent fate?

‘You all have a quick decision to make. For the next two minutes, you now have the ability to save two people. Just. Two. People. So… who will you protect, and who will you leave to die? Your two minutes begin now. Choose wisely.’

As the pain quickly and mercifully diminished, I immediately grabbed Matty’s hand and Vince’s arm, pulling them both towards me. Without a moment's hesitation, and without even fully understanding why, I found myself internally screaming: 

‘MATTY AND VINCE!’

I don’t really know why I thought to do that, but I seemed to intuitively know that it would work. A female, but no less powerful, voice laughed deep within the recesses of my mind.

‘Very good,’ she purred. ‘You’ve picked well Tai-egra.’ I blinked stupidly. What on earth was a Tai-egra?

Moments later, Matty hissed in my ear. ‘Kimmy, what the Hell is going on?’

Pointing to my shoulder, I whispered so that they could hear me ‘I’ve got one of those Geishra things that voice mentioned. So I’ve picked you two.’ Matty kissed my forehead, squeezing my hand caringly.

‘So long as you’re safe Kims, that’s all that matters to me.’

I squeezed his hand back. Matty was so loving; I couldn’t imagine any future without him. Even if it was unorthodox looking one. And Vince had been such a good friend the past few years that I had known him, through good times and bad; I could hardly leave him behind.

‘Your two minutes are up, Chosen Ones. I hope your decisions have been made. So now you can begin your introduction to the new world.’

My shoulder seemed to explode with relentless, unfathomable pain. My muscles tensed, eyes glazed, open and wide from shock, mouth wide open, ready to scream. My legs buckled from under me, I felt my entire body hit the ground hard, heard faint noises of shouting around me, blurring out and become mere white-noise, and then the entire world just went black.

An introduction.

Welcome to my second blog, a blog devoted to my attempts at creating a new and exciting potential fantasy-type novel, drawn from the depths of my mind during boughts of insomnia, during the twilight hours of the day. In other words, due to sleep deprivation at 3 in the morning, I started writing lots of memos in my phone, of what I thought, at the time, to be good ideas for such a novel.

I've taken these basic ideas (none of which pointed to a story line, bar the introduction, merely set the scene and built up character profiles) and started to piece them together in what spare time I have, in order to begin to create a story of sorts.

I will say this straight away too - I've parted from usual cliches, the steriotypical characters of 'good' and 'evil' (such as all elves being good and all orcs and the like being evil) and done my own thing. Just because they look ugly, doesn't mean an entire species is evil, after all. And hey, some elves might be dicks (and probably are, vain little sods that they are.)

So, all in all, I'm hoping that people will enjoy my attempts at writing, as it is something a bit new, and different. I will probably at some point (if I remember), put up a post about pronunciations of any bizarre words I use in the novel too. Any and all feedback would be greatly appreciated, so as to improve the quantity of the aforementioned novel, but overall, I will just be grateful if you just read it.

Amy.