บท 31: Awakening

"Why does he thinks I'm so weak!" Nicole sighed heavily.

"Maybe because you are." A feminine voice replied.

"Don't take his side now."

"I'm just stating the fact."

"Urgh! I hate you, Donna."

"We are one and the same."

"No we're not. We just share the same body."

"Some will say otherwise."

"You know what just SSHHH!"

This was a daily occurrence for the golems that were surrounding Nicole. Even their master did it sometimes and kept talking to himself but it was a bit different for their master's sister. While the master only talked to himself every once in a while, Nicole kept talking with herself whenever she was alone.

"Don't you think we should tell him about our powers?" Donna continued.

"NO!" Nicole shouted.

"Why not? He might even take you with him to fight monsters. Isn't that exciting!"

"But I don't know how to control my powers yet... you remember what happened last time don't you?"

"Oh come on! Nikki died by your brother's bullet not because you manipulated the bullet to hit her head, and even if you did, you don't have to feel sad about it. She tried to kidnap us after all."

"I know but still..."

"Maybe your brother can help us control our powers."

"No! He'll freak out and leave me." Nicole whined.

"You don't know him at all then. If he wanted to leave you he'd have already left you by now."

"I... don't know."

"Alright alright stop whining and absorb the life force from the golems you'll feel better." Donna suggested.

"Yeah you're right." Nicole replied and grabbed the hand of the golem who was standing nearest to her. "I need to practice more, once I'm able to control my powers I'll ask brother to take me with him."

"Do what you like... I'm feeling tired *yawn* I'm going to sleep. Just be careful not to turn the golems into dust. Last time that Bob guy did you a favour by destroying the golems and your brother didn't get suspicious, however no one would be able to cover your tracks now that you're inside this mansion, and he'll definitely know that something is wrong."

"Stop nagging me and sleep."

"Yeah Yeah... wake me, if you need me."

After the tragedy struck Florida, many people were affected by it. Some awakened superhuman abilities while a few were diseased for the entire span of their life. The disease called Andrea syndrome took many lives, having no cure, there was no way to counter this disease. When doctors first tested Nicole, her reports came just like the other patients who were affected by Andrea syndrome but the reality was different.

Nicole wasn't affected by the disease at all, instead she had awakened an ability, which made her one of a kind. She called this ability [VAMPIRISM], she named it like that because of the nature of the ability. Just like vampires needed the blood from others to survive, she needed the life force from others to survive. The Andrea medicine only worked on her because it somehow managed to quench her thirst, but her thirst grew bigger and bigger, which was troubling as the medicine was expensive and her brother couldn't afford much of it. This was the reason why her health kept declining.

This all change when she moved in with Arnold as there were plenty of people and staff near her to absorb the life force from. But she changed her plans when she discovered that even though her brother's summons were technically 'lifeless', they still had a lot life force in them and decided to absorb their life force instead.

It may sound like it was all Nicole's plan but actually she was only doing what Donna, the mysterious voice in her head told her to do. Donna was also the one who told her about her new abilities.

Nicole wanted to know more about Donna and why was she inside her head but wherever she asked about it, Donna went silent. After trying for many times Nicole finally gave up and decided to go along with it. She knew this wasn't normal but Donna always helped her and never did anything to harm her, thus Nicole trusted her a bit.

[VAMPIRISM] was just an ability not an affinity. Nicole had awakened an extremely rare affinity, the <Shadow> which was even more rare than Arnold's ice affinity. The only problem Nicole had was that, the abilities associated with the shadow affinity were really hard to control and could easily overpower the will of the user.

Under Donna's guidance, Nicole had planned on slowly developing her skills but after she was attacked and saw her brother in a weak state, she decided to develop her skills as fast as she could. She'd never allow anyone to harm her brother.

"Soon I'll get stronger and I'll be the one who'll protect you brother."

*****

MEANWHILE INSIDE THE DUNGEON...

AACHU!

"God bless." Nina smiled, "Looks like someone is thinking about you."

"Focus on the monsters." Nathan snapped.

"Yeah yeah let's kill the monsters and leave already. I'm getting kind of bored now." Arnold said, shooting another white panther like monster in its head.