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1. Escape
In the distance my highly sensitive ears picked up the faint sound of a body hitting the ground with a thud. There was no final shriek of terror or cry of rage from the bullet’s victim, as he wanted to die as much as he wanted to escape. He was free.
Startled, but not frightened, I turned and fled into the shelter of the nearby trees.
I was unbound and chainless, but unlike the earlier victims I was still not free. Neither free nor ignorant to such a fact.
Cries were carried upon the wind that swept through the trees. It alerted me to the carnage around me, the death and killing that was going on throughout the compound. More gunshots, few startled cries as more fell.
Never had I gotten this far from base. Never had I smelled air so fresh, filling my lungs which were all too eager to receive any and every fresh they could. Never had I soared so effortlessly over skies so clear.
When I flew, I almost quite literally mean I fly. Reaching incredible heights in a single bound, to a point where air and sky are separate worlds to my all-seeing eyes. It felt as if I could almost touch the stars themselves with my nonexistent wings.
Then I leapt through the trees. No, I glided. My hair whipped behind me and my body moved with instinctual ease through the canopies. I was silent as I ran with blinding speed, blind to my position but aware to my destination.
Still my mind was elsewhere. Soaring past my limits, beyond my boundaries, using the strength and endurance I believed I had lost in centuries past. Even now if I were grounded by a stray bullet I could not find happier freedom with a more contented mindset.
The howl and snarls of wolves broke the almost-silence. Their vicious dispositions surely inhibiting the guards in their way. For a brief moment, the first in almost three hundred years, I felt pity for whomever was in the way of those half-mutant monstrosities.
I wondered if, perhaps, more of us would escape than originally perceived.
No matter. Those who didn’t escape would be killed, set free. Their souls released and liberated under His protection.
Escape was there, so close I could now smell the brisk scent of fresh sea air. I could almost see it. Almost…
I hit the ground hard, skidding to a stop on my bare feet, spraying gravel and dirt into the yawning chasm mouth. For the first time since the alarms had gone off and this night of hell had begun, I was presented with an actual problem. A sheer drop straight down and a wall of rock and steel jutting upwards almost two hundred feet.
It was the labs last hope of preventing my inevitable escape. My final task more frightening than the fury of a gun or the fangs of the mutant dogs at my back. More frightening even, than the lab itself. But in no way would I allow this monstrous gate of Hell impede my path.
I turned and began to run again, this time paralleling the wall. Going faster than ever before I quickly adapted myself, shifting just right, angling myself to cut through the wind at my front, and follow the wind at my back.
My feet made no sound, and yet I heard everything. And yet heard nothing.
The trees were silent sentinels, guarding and waiting for just the right moment…
I took to the air, flying at incredible heights. My feet caught and I continued running, awkward to the fact of running at a vertical angle. Scaling the wall with intense determination, the top of the wall came into view above me.
Relief hit me; joy all too early as the sound of gunfire shattered my thoughts and barraged my senses. Chasing at my heels, golden sparks trailed behind my as I sailed ever closer towards the looming edge of the wall. My speed began to decelerate, and a pang of panic touched my stone still heart.
Twenty feet…
Fifteen…
Ten…
Five…
One final leap and I soared once more. Above the wall. A breath of cool sea breath touched my long dead cheeks and filled my senses with sights and smells I’d been deprived of for so many long years. And for a moment, the world was silent and still.
The stillness was gone and I heard the fabled bang of the gun milliseconds before my shoulder exploded in white hot fire. I gave an involuntary shriek of agony and the wind cried with me.
Over the top I crossed, grazing the smooth steel edge with my bare toes. There was more gunfire, but no more pain than the inferno raging in my shoulder.
I did not fall gracefully, nor steadily. Plummeting towards the ocean I watched the wall with eyes deadly sharp. Movement for the humans was all but too late as I crashed into the pitch black waters.
Still, though, I was not out of their clutches as the lab still had more for me to fare.
My head broke the surface, my lungs burning as I coaxed air into them. My senses returned all too powerfully as the waves smashed me against the jagged rocks protruding from the sea bed. The currents at my feet pulled at me, threatening to drag me down further into the freezing black abyss I was so close to.
I sensed the first one as something dark parted the violent black waves behind me.
Guards lined the top of the Wall, guns trained on the rough seas I blended to perfectly with for their mortal eyes to see.
I smiled despite everything.
My fangs exploded in my mouth, the edge of my un-sated thirst gnawing at my stomach with a new and unbearable ferocity. All too suddenly, out of my control, my body rippled violently. Black claws sprang from my fingertips, each one as sharp as a blade and stronger than steel.
I whirled as the first mutant leapt from the murky black waters, ivory teeth bared and ready to shred. But too quickly did my claws find sheath in its streamline head, its own blood mixing in the waters with my own to drive it mad with wild hunger. It made it thrash uselessly, killing itself as its neck snapped from its own flailing.
My own mind raced with such a fresh smell.
More soon came, shark-like monstrosities with human arms with the capacity to think. Though even with such gifted curses, they were still stupid beasts. Based solely on instinct, programmed and designed to kill anything that came unto their territory. They feasted on their fallen comrade instead of myself.
I took a deep breath and launched myself into the depths. Once I was away from the mutant shark-monsters, the world was almost silent. Only the vague distant sounds of the sea met my ears as I swam with ease, cutting through the water much like I’d done in the trees.
My head broke the water and I gasped in a deep lung full of air. Looking back I had easily traveled a mile, maybe two. The Wall behind me had shrunk, its barrier field breached opposite where I had escaped.
A red pyre was rising into the still night sky in plumes of ashen smoke. The sonic booms of the blast rippled the water and the remote sounds of crumbling pieces of the wall could only just be heard crashing into the waters. Such a sight, such knowledge made my still heart swell.
A sudden thought struck me, made me pause.
I had gotten away…
The dark seas lapped at my pale face as the viridian plume of smoke rose still higher. A red beacon to the night sky that Hell was ascending, but for whom this Hell was for was unknown. A new beginning was on the horizon for myself and the brethren that had escaped like myself.
A new beginning…
I turned my weary body so my back was to the wall and swam towards the moon. I followed my own path…
Alright everyone, this is my new story aptly titled Project Vampire. This will be fairly short, but the story line is solid and my writing style has gotten much better. I'm just trying out a first person POV. Now, for those who aren't aware, where it says Aggris at the top of the chapter, that's the character's name, saying that it's through his eyes.
This story needs beta readers, so if you're interested please submit a review until I get my e-mail fixed. Please excuse grammar/spelling errors because I am lazy. Please review with your comments! Luv ya.
