Chapter 42: Awakening
Back in the mountains Tral awakens from strange dreams of a scientific facility and blood, lots of strangely intoxicating life fluids.
He snaps up to find Darick nearby cooking up what looks to be ant stew. His friend intent on his work doesn't notice him but he can't help but find something attractive about his childhood companion... something that smells delicious yet not from the stew.
Tral raises to his feet with an unnatural swiftness without making a single sound.
Drawn in by this maddening smell he slowly approaches his friend despite his best efforts, his mouth opening as he drools uncontrollably.
Acting without ration he leaps at the throat of one of the people he has been closest to his whole life.
"Eh what the fuck are you doing you idiot get off me" Darick reacts immediately flailing about before pulling Tral off of him slamming him into the ground as Tral violently struggles to get free.
Darick is forced to bear hug his friend who continues to try to drink him without the slightest success as his teeth can't break Daricks skin.
"Wait are you a fucking vampire now, what the hell old man? I thought this was supposed to be a better alternative." Darick proclaims with shock throwing Tral far across the room.
Tral doesn't get up but quickly curls up in a ball to rock back and forth as tears start to stream from his eyes muttering just loud enough for Darick hear "I'm sorry, I thought I could control myself, I-I thought it wouldn't be this strong. I... I want your blood so badly it m-makesss me sick"
Darick looses a lot of his tension hearing this and steps towards Tral who immediately jumps back towards the wall climbing partway up it before yelling "Stay away from me! I'm sorry.. I don't want lose myself gain.. Please just stay back."
Darick acknowledges his friend and moves to the far side of the cave they are in before replying with a question "What happened in there? You were only gone for maybe an hour till you returned like a zombie and passed out. I had to carry you back outside to this cave near where you made that hut. You've been out for a week so far."
Tral slowly descended the wall before saying in a sad way "Th-there was this frozen tree with a man.. no.. a vampire trapped inside. He told me to eat from his heart and now.. now I am a monster.. this is what what I asked for but I don't want to just hurt those I care about. How can I save Arc or Gara if I just turn around and bite them like I did you?"
Darick thinks about it full of worry but tries to calm his friend down "Maybe you're very hungry from the turning and just need some blood to help you through this.... here try this raw ant."
Darick tosses a bit of ant at Tral like one would to feed a wild dog but he just revolts away from it. "That's disgusting dude, it smells fucking foul"
"come on just try it and maybe it will calm you down some" Darick tries to rationalize.
Tral holds his nose before hesitantly lifting it to his mouth with a face full of disgust.
When he takes a bite out of it, his body immediately reactions forcing him to vomit up what little was in his stomach quite violently.
"That is so gross and dead AWE I can't believe you just got me to do that. Now I'm so much hunger, I think I'm losing my mind" Tral holds his hands to his head while his whole body shakes uncontrollably.
He suddenly jumps up and rapidly sprints up the wall to climb across the ceiling to avoid Darick before escaping the cave and into the night.
Leaving Darick behind in a daze "well fuck... I guess that just happened.. Probably shouldn't go off searching for him in that condition."
Tral meanwhile is out leaping from rock to rock in an incredible act of parkour often defying gravity all together in a hasty search for prey.
The first thing he smells seems to by a large goat that happened to eating glass on a nearby cliff.
It barely reacts before it is pounced on and swiftly drained of blood by the now savage Tral although this barely does anything to sate his thirst as he quickly moves on leaving the mostly dry corpse behind.
An hour later much farther away on a mountain passage, a small group of seven bandits huddle around a fire arguing "Damn boss, we haven't come across anyone since that ol incOdent with Desrosa. We aren't bloody hunters so get us somewhere with people to earn some damn coin already"
The apparent leader of the group yells back "You freaking moron! They won't hold that place forever n where we going to go without running into more trouble then it's worth Eh? The south is crawling with tha crazy martial arts types that would break your bones and the north O here is full of military dragging people towards that there wicked pyre which I for one have no interest being a part of"
Everyone in the group quickly shuts up in fear, which makes the leader proud at his display of authority yet little does he realize a pair of hands had crawled their way through the air behind him to hover just off his shoulders.
He is immediately grabbed as a feral figure bites deeply into his neck causing struggle to be useless. The bandits face rapidly drains of colour before he is dropped to the ground revealing a menacing Tral licking the blood from his lips with an appearance of vitality returning to his face.
The rest of the group is still frozen with shock with one bandit shakily crawly way before stuttering out one word "V-v.. v-v-Vampire!!"
This unfreezes the rest but it is far too late as even the ones who use the time it takes Tral to drink their companions to run away, not one of them makes it far before he finishes his meal.
"That was SoOoOo satisfying. Way better then anything I've ever tasted before, I think I can at least handle myself around people now but what to do with these..(he kicks the corpse of one of the bandits) I think I feel a faint connection to it so it should turn into a... what are they called again.. a ghoul! Which is just basically a zombie I now mildly control whenever they reanimate, poor bastards."
Tral stays to do some tests on them when they get up, although the weaker or more damaged ones don't reanimate at all while the others immediately feed on what is left of their flesh.
He finds that he can tell them where to go but can't stop them from feeding on any flesh that comes nearby as they are incredibly stupid with only the former leader mumbling something that almost resembles "Hungry" at times.
At this point the sky starts to brighten sending a shiver down Tral's spine warning him of the coming dawn, so he quickly hides in a nearby cave with the ghouls.
When the sun raises above the mountain peaks he does further tests which fail to make the ghouls go out into the light as their basic survival instincts kick in although his mental orders cause them great pain for refusing. At this point he simply throws one of the weaker ghouls out of the cave and as it crosses into the light it immediately bursts into a flame that hurts his eyes to stare at.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone