You Promised
Marko
“MARKO!” Dwayne screamed as he kicked the hard cave wall with incredible force, nearly breaking his foot in the process, then paced away while dragging and slashing his long fingernails on anything that got in his way. Dwayne. The broody, strong and silent one.
I knotted my fingers into my hair and began to feel dizzy. Nauseous. Images of my beloved friend getting staked through the heart started to flood my head as I was stumbling around in a small circle, my eyes on the floor as tears streamed down my cheeks.
Marko was dead.
He was actually dead. Deceased. Departed. Gone for all eternity, even though David had promised us immortality. I just couldn’t fathom it. It was incomprehensible - the thought of death hadn’t crossed any of our minds since our leader had turned us. It hadn’t crossed mine, at least, and by the looks of it the others were also shocked beyond measure.
My knees weakened and I felt my back hit the coarse cave wall. I slowly let myself slide down until I was sitting. I could have sworn my stomach was doing backflips, but I knew it was all in my head. I wasn't supposed to have feelings like these.
I looked at my knees in front of me, and spotted Marko’s blood on my jeans. A small, whimpering sound escaped from my lips. I haven't felt this useless and vulnerable in over a century. Not since before I was turned.
Before I got too lost in thought, I detected David sitting across from me through my blurry vision. His long overcoat was stained with blood, his white hair was now grey with ash. I blinked a few times in a pathetic attempt to see him more clearly, but it was no use. My eyes kept filling up with tears.
A few more ran down my face as I watched as my sire’s expression went from complete nothingness, to ice cold, to pure utter hatred. A single tear had rolled down his face when the Frog brothers had used the sunlight to burn his hand, but nothing more. He showed no sorrow. No despair. The only thing I could see in his eyes was a piercing, monstrous lust for revenge.
Revenge was something that we all wanted, but I could already tell that the reasons were different with David than they were with Dwayne and I.
David didn’t care that Marko was gone. Maybe some part of him deep down in what was left of that wretched soul of his was torn with the loss of his friend, his brother, but he wasn't letting it show.
Right now he was too occupied with being angry, no, infuriated, with the fact that three kids had caught him off guard. I don't know why I jumped to these conclusions so quickly with David, but now that I had, I couldn't believe anything else. I couldn't picture him feeling any other way.
I felt the anger boil inside of me, but I shook it off. No, no, this wasn’t the time to get hot under the collar about David, but that time would come. My brother was dead. My little brother. Marko. Poor Marko... He didn't deserve this.
I folded my arms on my knees and rested my head on them as I heard Dwayne yelling further into the cave, followed by loud crashing and breaking noises. I was surprised that David wasn’t getting up to yell at him for trashing his things.
Don't get me wrong, breaking things was part of being a Lost Boy, we did it for fun, but when it was DAVID'S things...
Fuck David. Fuck David and his lies. I hated him. I loathed him. I wish he had died instead of Marko. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to…
“Never grow old and never die, huh?!”
I felt my blood boil. Shit. Now I got it started. Starting things with David never ended well. A sudden rush of adrenaline burst inside me, and now I couldn't back down.
I stood up as David looked up at me with a slight trace of confusion ghosting over his rock hard expression. I knew he was waiting for me to speak again. Or… Shout.
“You promised us immortality! You promised MARKO immortality! Now look what fucking happened! He’s fucking DEAD! And you don’t even care, do you?! DO YOU?!”
I watched him flinch for a second at the last part. He was hurt. I knew I was being unfair, but now that I’d started screaming at him, I couldn’t stop. My subconscious had found its excuse to lash out at David about all the things I’d kept inside about him.
Or maybe I just needed to lash out period. Dwayne took it out on the furniture, I took it out on David. This was my brother. Just like Marko, David was my brother. Part of me was trying to calm the other part down. Where were all these feelings coming from? I've never hated him so much in my life.
“He was our brother, god dammit! He was YOUR brother! You promised us we’d always be together. The four of us. Easy to make that promise, wasn‘t it?!”
I glared at David as he stood up, looking him right in the eyes for the first time in a very long while. I was a bit too close to his face for my liking, but my anger gave me the confidence not to break our eye contact.
“It’s not my fault Marko died, Paul,” David said coolly. It didn’t dawn on me for a second that the tables had turned. I was now the one acting like the Tasmanian Devil with anger management problems, while David was being the reasonable one.
“Yeah, well, it’s your fucking fault that we’re in this position in the first place!” I didn’t quite know what I meant by that, and it only made me realize that this fight was going to be useless.
The bastard chuckled at me.
“Take it easy, Paul. Be careful of what you say when you’re angry…” he mused sarcastically, then pulled a smirk. “You love what we are, what I made you. Don‘t try to tell me any different, because then not only will you be a fool, well, you’ll be a liar, too. You know I don't like liars. ”
I grimaced and finally tore my eyes from his as a single tear dripped down onto the soil beneath us. I'd never shown this type of weakness in front of David.
“Now that Marko’s…gone, I’m not so sure anymore, David, I-... Maybe it’s not worth it. We- We’re all just gonna die anyway. Even though you promised we wouldn’t. You promised, you- you fucking LIAR!”
I must have punched him in the face. My knuckles hurt and David’s lip was cracked. His tongue darted out to slowly lick the blood that was trickling down his chin, before he grabbed me by the neck and forced me against the wall in less than a second.
I groaned in pain as the rocky surface bruised my back.
I felt his breath of blood and smoke on my bony neck and he spoke to me in a whisper:
“I gave Marko life, just as I gave it to you. I could do nothing to prevent Marko‘s death, but I can, however, do several things to cause yours. So, Paul, if you’d rather be dead like Marko, I can snap your neck right here, right now.”
I squirmed in his grasp. I tried to swallow; my Adam's apple struggled underneath his palm, and I felt a slight panic starting to arise even though air supply wasn't an issue for us.
David was looking right at me, a small smile playing on his lips as he watched my pathetic fight, waited for me to give up - and eventually I did.
I looked away as I sighed in defeat, and I felt his clutch on my neck loosen as he let go. He patted my shoulder and held on to it for a few seconds, shaking it slightly in a friendly fashion before he turned his back to me and started to walk away.I spoke up.
“What are we gonna do?”
David stopped.
“About what?”
I swallowed and gritted my teeth, pulling my lips into a thin line.
“The ones who…” I stopped myself. “Michael and Star, and those kids.”
David clenched his fists at his sides so hard, his knuckles would have turned even whiter if it were possible. He turned around to look at me.
“We’re gonna kill them,” he said, the flames in his eyes returning.
For some reason, I started to calm down when he said that. Reason and sanity started to flood my enraged emotions and I could finally function normally.
David wasn’t gonna let the kids who did this to Marko get away with it. Maybe he did care.
David had yet again started walking away from me, but I stopped him one more time.
“David?”
He froze and turned his head to the side, so that he was looking at me from the corner of his eye.
“Are yo-” my voice was hoarse and quiet, I cleared my throat as a couple of silent tears escaped from my eyes. I tried again. “Are you going to miss Marko?”
David raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked at me. He saw my sincerity and his expression softened.
He licked his lips and nodded, then turned his head again.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
He waited a few seconds before he started walking for the third time, and I wasn’t going to stop him. I smiled and wiped the tears off of my face with my jacket sleeve before I kicked a small rock into oblivion and followed David back to our home to see how much of a mess Dwayne had made.
I knotted my fingers into my hair and began to feel dizzy. Nauseous. Images of my beloved friend getting staked through the heart started to flood my head as I was stumbling around in a small circle, my eyes on the floor as tears streamed down my cheeks.
Marko was dead.
He was actually dead. Deceased. Departed. Gone for all eternity, even though David had promised us immortality. I just couldn’t fathom it. It was incomprehensible - the thought of death hadn’t crossed any of our minds since our leader had turned us. It hadn’t crossed mine, at least, and by the looks of it the others were also shocked beyond measure.
My knees weakened and I felt my back hit the coarse cave wall. I slowly let myself slide down until I was sitting. I could have sworn my stomach was doing backflips, but I knew it was all in my head. I wasn't supposed to have feelings like these.
I looked at my knees in front of me, and spotted Marko’s blood on my jeans. A small, whimpering sound escaped from my lips. I haven't felt this useless and vulnerable in over a century. Not since before I was turned.
Before I got too lost in thought, I detected David sitting across from me through my blurry vision. His long overcoat was stained with blood, his white hair was now grey with ash. I blinked a few times in a pathetic attempt to see him more clearly, but it was no use. My eyes kept filling up with tears.
A few more ran down my face as I watched as my sire’s expression went from complete nothingness, to ice cold, to pure utter hatred. A single tear had rolled down his face when the Frog brothers had used the sunlight to burn his hand, but nothing more. He showed no sorrow. No despair. The only thing I could see in his eyes was a piercing, monstrous lust for revenge.
Revenge was something that we all wanted, but I could already tell that the reasons were different with David than they were with Dwayne and I.
David didn’t care that Marko was gone. Maybe some part of him deep down in what was left of that wretched soul of his was torn with the loss of his friend, his brother, but he wasn't letting it show.
Right now he was too occupied with being angry, no, infuriated, with the fact that three kids had caught him off guard. I don't know why I jumped to these conclusions so quickly with David, but now that I had, I couldn't believe anything else. I couldn't picture him feeling any other way.
I felt the anger boil inside of me, but I shook it off. No, no, this wasn’t the time to get hot under the collar about David, but that time would come. My brother was dead. My little brother. Marko. Poor Marko... He didn't deserve this.
I folded my arms on my knees and rested my head on them as I heard Dwayne yelling further into the cave, followed by loud crashing and breaking noises. I was surprised that David wasn’t getting up to yell at him for trashing his things.
Don't get me wrong, breaking things was part of being a Lost Boy, we did it for fun, but when it was DAVID'S things...
Fuck David. Fuck David and his lies. I hated him. I loathed him. I wish he had died instead of Marko. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to…
“Never grow old and never die, huh?!”
I felt my blood boil. Shit. Now I got it started. Starting things with David never ended well. A sudden rush of adrenaline burst inside me, and now I couldn't back down.
I stood up as David looked up at me with a slight trace of confusion ghosting over his rock hard expression. I knew he was waiting for me to speak again. Or… Shout.
“You promised us immortality! You promised MARKO immortality! Now look what fucking happened! He’s fucking DEAD! And you don’t even care, do you?! DO YOU?!”
I watched him flinch for a second at the last part. He was hurt. I knew I was being unfair, but now that I’d started screaming at him, I couldn’t stop. My subconscious had found its excuse to lash out at David about all the things I’d kept inside about him.
Or maybe I just needed to lash out period. Dwayne took it out on the furniture, I took it out on David. This was my brother. Just like Marko, David was my brother. Part of me was trying to calm the other part down. Where were all these feelings coming from? I've never hated him so much in my life.
“He was our brother, god dammit! He was YOUR brother! You promised us we’d always be together. The four of us. Easy to make that promise, wasn‘t it?!”
I glared at David as he stood up, looking him right in the eyes for the first time in a very long while. I was a bit too close to his face for my liking, but my anger gave me the confidence not to break our eye contact.
“It’s not my fault Marko died, Paul,” David said coolly. It didn’t dawn on me for a second that the tables had turned. I was now the one acting like the Tasmanian Devil with anger management problems, while David was being the reasonable one.
“Yeah, well, it’s your fucking fault that we’re in this position in the first place!” I didn’t quite know what I meant by that, and it only made me realize that this fight was going to be useless.
The bastard chuckled at me.
“Take it easy, Paul. Be careful of what you say when you’re angry…” he mused sarcastically, then pulled a smirk. “You love what we are, what I made you. Don‘t try to tell me any different, because then not only will you be a fool, well, you’ll be a liar, too. You know I don't like liars. ”
I grimaced and finally tore my eyes from his as a single tear dripped down onto the soil beneath us. I'd never shown this type of weakness in front of David.
“Now that Marko’s…gone, I’m not so sure anymore, David, I-... Maybe it’s not worth it. We- We’re all just gonna die anyway. Even though you promised we wouldn’t. You promised, you- you fucking LIAR!”
I must have punched him in the face. My knuckles hurt and David’s lip was cracked. His tongue darted out to slowly lick the blood that was trickling down his chin, before he grabbed me by the neck and forced me against the wall in less than a second.
I groaned in pain as the rocky surface bruised my back.
I felt his breath of blood and smoke on my bony neck and he spoke to me in a whisper:
“I gave Marko life, just as I gave it to you. I could do nothing to prevent Marko‘s death, but I can, however, do several things to cause yours. So, Paul, if you’d rather be dead like Marko, I can snap your neck right here, right now.”
I squirmed in his grasp. I tried to swallow; my Adam's apple struggled underneath his palm, and I felt a slight panic starting to arise even though air supply wasn't an issue for us.
David was looking right at me, a small smile playing on his lips as he watched my pathetic fight, waited for me to give up - and eventually I did.
I looked away as I sighed in defeat, and I felt his clutch on my neck loosen as he let go. He patted my shoulder and held on to it for a few seconds, shaking it slightly in a friendly fashion before he turned his back to me and started to walk away.I spoke up.
“What are we gonna do?”
David stopped.
“About what?”
I swallowed and gritted my teeth, pulling my lips into a thin line.
“The ones who…” I stopped myself. “Michael and Star, and those kids.”
David clenched his fists at his sides so hard, his knuckles would have turned even whiter if it were possible. He turned around to look at me.
“We’re gonna kill them,” he said, the flames in his eyes returning.
For some reason, I started to calm down when he said that. Reason and sanity started to flood my enraged emotions and I could finally function normally.
David wasn’t gonna let the kids who did this to Marko get away with it. Maybe he did care.
David had yet again started walking away from me, but I stopped him one more time.
“David?”
He froze and turned his head to the side, so that he was looking at me from the corner of his eye.
“Are yo-” my voice was hoarse and quiet, I cleared my throat as a couple of silent tears escaped from my eyes. I tried again. “Are you going to miss Marko?”
David raised his eyebrows in surprise and looked at me. He saw my sincerity and his expression softened.
He licked his lips and nodded, then turned his head again.
“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”
He waited a few seconds before he started walking for the third time, and I wasn’t going to stop him. I smiled and wiped the tears off of my face with my jacket sleeve before I kicked a small rock into oblivion and followed David back to our home to see how much of a mess Dwayne had made.