Something was different..

It had started with a panicked breath..
It was hot.. Exasperatingly hot and the air was thick like syrup and hard to

breath in. Not that he had to anyway..
Secondly, there were the sound of chimes.. They were soothing because he had

placed them there like a greeting. He would know everything was okay at their

delicate and vibrant sound. Much like a trained animal. But something in the

back of his mind nagged distantly and something was different. But what was

it..?
When he opened his sunken eyes, the creature known as Omek gazed out at his

surroundings from his sitting fetal position. The world of blindness that was

his closed eyelids began to light. As he rose to his feet, he glimpsed the

environment around him. It was much the same as he was: cold, ugly and deceased

in every way. Any trees present having wasted away by time, reducing them to

nothing more than mere skeletons. The land too lay in waste.. It bore no plants

nor water and it was saturated with a strange red mist. And above everything lay

a waxing pink sun in the distance, distorted by intense heat waves as well as

something else.. Something that made him tired. He couldn't quick put his bony

finger on it..
The dirt beneath his feet was red and sooty. The dusty earth settled easily atop

his boots And it stretched on for miles as far as the eye could see.
Settled in the wasteland, surrounding his immediate vicinity were many

buildings as though he had awoken in the middle of a village or hamlet. But it

too was dead just like everything else. The buildings bore a strange fade and

many of them looked as though they had been burned from the inside out, leaving

only husks of would-be shelters for little human families. Pathetic little

creatures, he thought.
Omek inhaled deeply as he shifted and progressed forward but breathing was

still difficult for him and he had begun to understand why. When he looked

closer, his eyes had discerned that what he had previously thought to be simple

red mists were really droplets of blood careening through the air like dandelion

seeds. Weird. It was also delightful despite his short breaths. Weird because it

did not coat everything else as it did himself, the mists settling atop his

samurai fashion armor. Delightful because he had found it calming. Its scent and

its taste, utterly delicious.
As he strolled aimlessly through his own psyche, Omek came upon simply more

empty buildings all without doors. Their wide and open maws spreading darkness

in their loneliness as they yawned in quiet gray death. Slowly too did human

bodies begin to appear here and there and he had to smile.. If he could. For he

bore no lips to do so with. He was a freak. Something he had come to the

conclusion of a long time ago.
They were reoccuring for him, the bodies. They were an an assurance that he

was still comfortably numb to their presence. comfortably alone with them for

they did not bother like everything else in his life. They were quiet and alone

too just as he was and that suited him just fine. He had come to prefer the

disturbing silence that often accompanied them. The bodies also signaled that

all was well with him in his own mind. Nothing out of the norm and he liked

that. In his many years, his dreams had not shifted much and he had become

capably lucid within them, shaping and sculpting them to his preturbed mind's

liking. It was his retreat from the real world. His get-away and alone time.
But still, something was different and annoyingly so.. It had started with

the bodies of course and in moments, as he quietly rounded more empty buildings,

Omek began to notice the human cadavers showing up WITHIN the walls of the

deserted homes as well as strange faces that bore sickly expressions twisting

themselves into the masonry of the walls. The limbs of the departed started

sprouting awkwardly from even the dirt on which Omek tread. Nothing one moment,

and the next, they were quite simply just.. There. Their heads and ragged torsos

as well as legs hung limply from curious places as though they had been set

there before anything were allowed to continue. Or as if magic had placed them

purposefully in the way of things. This irritated him.
But his dreams had gone further and as he continued his walk under new

suspicion, the bodies of animals had begun to crop up as well and now he was

thoroughly confused. On top of that, the earth beneath his feet had begun to

swell and a sickening caress had begun to take him for what felt like no

apparent reason. Why?
Burgeoning now and trembling like a great force that reduced the land beneath

Omek to mush and decay, the swell opened up like a gaping sore on a pig's flesh

and from it spread maggots that effortlessly wormed their way up from the mud

that had begun to take form in this sad world. They had burrowed their way

through the corpses, writhing in the open air as they reached the top. so silent

was the ordeal that he could hear their writhing in the mud and inside the

remains of the corpses of both animal and man. All the thousands of them

gathered here as if to be present for Armageddon.
...And then the voices came. They had always been present though, you see.

Ever since he could remember as a child, he'd heard them. But that didn't mean

he had to like them.. And he didn't. They brought trouble that often distracted

him and drove him to drudgery as he paid them heed.. He had spent a great many

years laying them to rest so that he might continue his meaningless undeath in

peace and yet here they were again, echoing from the corners of his brains with

nonsensical child's nursery rhymes and cynical questions dipped in innocence to

which he lacked the answers! "What have you done, Kalin?," they chided one after

the other like pathetic worms, using his childhood name. "We tried to help you,

and this is how you treat us?," they asked in mock concern. They had become more

agressive and between the fatigue that had started to slow him, Kalin was forced

to stop as they began to yell at him and plead like dying women. In monstrous

female tones, they cried out inside his head "WHY?!?!", in rapid succession.

They all sounded the same as they began to weep, their sorrows becoming

realities as they invaded his own sanctuary. Kalin began to hear the cries all

around him as dark things, vicious and twisted things swelled, skipped and

licked one another, melding into themselves in the impossibly deep shadows of

the abandoned homes. The crying of infant children began to join in the symphony

of hysteria as well and it angered the undead warrior even more! He promised the

voices assured death if they did not stop.. He went as far as to try and rectify

this chaotic scene by, again, manipulating his dreams and forming them the way

he had had them so many times before. The way he would want them. He tried and

he tried to get the voices to cease, but they ran rampant about his head and

everywhere around him, strengthening as they flooded both his mind and his world

like a cancer, surrounding and closing him in..
Just then he could feel the burrow of the maggots under his boots and his

feet began to throb with pain. He wriggled his legs and feet in an effort to get

it to stop before suddenly, he sensed something impending! He looked furiously

for the source while the shadows and voices worked joyously to envelop him in

their madness in and out of his head, and then he found what he was searching

for behind him, and the voices snickered and giggled. They teased and laughed as

the impending source behind Kalin bore down on him in the form of dogs! The same

ones who's bodies Kalin was sure were scattered about his dream with the rest of

them. They must've decided to get up and come greet the assassin.
Omek drew his sword as he had done thousands of times before and stood at the

ready for the silent undead hounds to come within' range.. Meanwhile his feet

still ached and worse yet, the pain had extended to his legs and lower stomach.

It was intense enough that he almost had to slouch and he had to wonder what the

hell was going on? Everything was out of his control and he could not correct

it! His dreams had gone wild and he was suddenly the victim of his own twisted

imagination! He had to wonder how much worse it would get. He wasn't stupid. He

knew he would wake up eventually, but why not now? how could he could not walk

away from this one and simply 'will' himself awake? So how long would he have to

endure the worsening situation? What the hell was going on!? His fantasies ran

away with him as he contemplated perhaps being trapped here in this place. Maybe

something had happened to his body in the real world? Was he dead? Was this hell

or had he simply lost his mind? For the first time in many hundreds of years,

Omek had finally felt frightened if even only for a moment and it sunk in

easily.. And he knew his suspicions rang true when the devilish voices, who

whispered to him babbling as though they might soon lose their own minds, began

to laugh and giggle all the more as they manifested over and around the corners

of more buildings and dead trees. Their spindly, shadowy shapes peeking over the

low rooftops with wicked horns and from around corners and dead trees and

cadavers.
"That won't save you now Kalin.. Nothing can save you from us!," they

whispered in unison as he held his katana to strike the muddy browns shapes that

were the numerous hounds that were so near. And the voices were probably right.

For almost his entire un-life, Kalin had been able to use force and bully his way

through situations. And when the times called, he would not hesitate to beat and

bloody those in his way. He was not afraid of death and nor was he afraid to

dispense it. That was the way the world was for him. But If he could not exert

control over the bedlam that was slowly but surely catching up with him, then

who knows what could happen to him if he chose to stand his ground. Those hounds

were coming for him for a reason and him only. So what would happen when they

got to him and struck while he stood defenseless? Perhaps a fate worse than

death? He did not wait long to find out.
Kalin did not consider himself a coward by a long shot. He had always stood his

ground even in the face of great danger. He backed away from no man. He had held

his confidence too in the face of spell-slinging humanoids and greater vampires.

Hunters did not frighten him and nor did anything else. And when he was told by

his foes that he may want to consider running, Omek sometimes replied, "In my

dreams..", or something nastier that would aggravate his opponents before he

murdered them. But really, this time in his dreams, he had considered just that.

Without a thought, Kalin dropped his sword and in spite of the pain that burned

its way into his chest and arms, Kalin ran. He sprinted as fast as he could and

his heart began to race as though he lived. Behind him, Kalin could hear the

little demons calling to him, wanting him! "Where are you going, Kalin?," they

asked like frail little children. So afraid was he that he thought to use his

disciplines to speed himself ahead of his pursuers whilst he prayed he may wake

soon so that the real world may save him from himself, but it was useless.. And

the voices knew. "It is useless.. IT'S USELESS!! EVERYTHING!", they began to

scream. They grew vicious and monstrous again and they continued.
As he listened to them, his body began to succumb to the fatigue inside him

as well as the lurid burn that had extended its way to his fingertips and head

and he groaned with sickness and began to slow.. And yet, the hounds were right

behind him.. He could feel their hot breath upon him and their smoldering red

eyes that left stringy trails as they paced after Omek.
Finally, it was to much for him and he collapsed, tumbling fiercely into the

red and brown mud beneath him and desperately trying to move. Omek could no

longer breath the thick blood that hung in the syrupy air and began to heave as

his body trembled in panic and struggled to inhale, lest he asphyxiate. nor

could he efficiently move as the burning intensified throughout his entire

being, nearly numbing him as his nerves felt as if they had caught fire. The

feeling was all to familiar.. His stomach also curled in on itself in protest as

the mild sickness that had struck him earlier had intensified. His intenstines

felt as if they would knot in on themselves and burst in agony. All this,

combined with the fatigue he had acquired before anything upon his awakening

here in this nightmare, Kalin's limbs felt impossibly leaden and heavy. Whereas

he was panicked beyond repair, his body had become relaxed. He was not finished

though and he decided to continue to crawl one humiliatingly wretched limb at a

time. As he slithered in the mud towards futile salvation, trying in vain to

hold out against the forces amassed against him, Kalin began to feel the steady

drip of blood in his face as it collected about him in his exposure to the

scarlet mists gracing the land. By now he was literally soaked in it (save for

the mud) as though he had just bathed in the stuff.
The gore distracted him as he moved to keep it from entering his eyes and

blurring his vision But that too was useless. he could not crawl and wipe it

away too. He wanted to scream out in frustration and pain but he did not for

that was weak and unfitting for someone like himself. It mattered not though,

for the hounds had easily bridge the distance from themselves to him and he

knew. Kalin tried desperately rise to his feet as he crawled forward but only

slipped and slid as his legs refused to hold his weight and his arms and hands

lost their control. How could he not be frustrated?
The dogs hounded and called after him with punishment in their eyes, and when

they had arrived, they were merciless. They savagely bit and tore at Kalin,

easily penetrating the vampire's armor as though it didn't exist at all! Their

bites draw his own blood and burned even greater than the pain the maggots had

caused and he tried to fight them but he could do nothing. The voices whooped

and giggled in delight as the hounds ripped at Kalin's livid flesh. Beneath

their amusement though, he hear something darker come from them. Had this

humiliating torture had a purpose? Was it their way of coming for him for

something he had done? "We tried to help you, Kalin!," They said one after the

other. "We DEFENDED you! We protected you from yourself and shielded you!!,"

called his aggravated ego. "You wanted to forget them, Kalin! You wanted to

block it all out, don't you remember, boy?," They berated as they began to use

his own voice in all its guttural and ashy resonance. "We did you a favor and

took it away from you!! We held on to it so you wouldn't have to!!," they

shrieked. What the hell were they talking about?! "You really hurt us, you and

I, by seizing what you wanted without ever asking! You were not even gentle

about it.. Take then what you wanted! All of it!," they snapped!
And with that, Kalin despaired as his ego, which had guarded him from himself

for so long, had unfurled its depraved and blackened secrets to him like an

octopus' arm, laying waste to his sanity in one fell swoop as it presented the

burden of heavy memories to him. He begin to tremble from more than just the

lack of air now..
..Kalin remembered, when he was very small, being forced to remove his

clothes for his father who would lay hands upon the boy. He was also scolded for

playing with friends. It was his father he had lived with all his life that he

could remember. He did not know a mother's love nor would he ever. He'd

remembered mild jealousy when he'd spotted the other children and theirs and it

upset him to no end. In his naivety, Kalin had become angry with his mother for

never having been around for him. Fate had traded it from him in return for his

father's fist, a dark corner and a list of threats he could count till the end

of days.
Kalin would never know much else besides these things. Friends, playtime,

running, laughing, screaming in the wind to feel alive, or tasting fresh bread.

He would never bother to lay in the grass and stare at the clouds. Kalin would

also never know that he was the offspring of a rape victim either. The victim

being his father's -no- his tormentor's own sister in blood and who's body lay

drowned and buried only some few miles away, dumped carelessly over a steep

ravine. He wouldn't ever find out that that his own life lay in the way of a

string of problems that consumed his entire family for generations. Something

Kalin could not help. It simply wasn't his fault but it certainly killed him in

every way he could have imagined.
His father had essentially taught Kalin the dismal price for existing. Like

all children, Kalin soaked it up and learned it. With no outlet for his

confusion and depression, Kalin had taken to slowly torturing and destroying

whatever unfortunate animals he could get his hands on. He had even resolved to

hurt himself almost ritually. He often cried, and when he did so at night, he

shoveled a cloth into his mouth so as not to wake anyone. Especially his father.

Kalin knew not what else to do. He did not know that he could have fled and or

told someone else what was happening to him. He had very little contact with

anyone at all!
Kalin would also never know the joys of women or much else, like living a

full and healthy life. As a young boy before his teens, Kalin had contracted

leprosy. In the coming weeks, Kalin was shunned and eventually burned in fear

and that had become his life in a nutshell. By someone else hand, a lit torch

and a frightened mob, Kalin had all but burned to death in his own home. It was

his prison and it had become his tomb..
He felt that burn now as the rabid skull headed hounds in their matted sickly

brown rotting coats nipped and bit at him. He felt it as his lungs struggled for

breath and through the unforgiving ache in his body. It was now that Kalin had

finally broken as he stood naked before himself, painfully accepting what drove

him over the edge, and he screamed. He wailed and howled in intense agony as he

succumbed to the memories he chose to bury and forget. These things he felt were

his memories manifested. Especially the fire.. How could he forget? his breaths

were few and hard inbetween because he had breathed smoke. He had become

sickened and tired as his body laid down to die. It could no longer function

for him just as it chose to do now. Even the pain of the maggots he likened to

the lick of the flames as they seared his flesh and incinerated his nerve

endings to the point of numbness. Yes, it had all become clear! But what of the

blood? Why did it cling only to him and nothing else?
After his apparent death, Kalin had found to his horror that he was in fact

alive.. He awoke in silence as his voice box had been toasted raw and thus he

could not scream. he could not weep nor whimper. his irreparably cooked and

charred body useless.. The rest was a blur as he slowly died. But it wouldn't

be the end.. Unknown to Kalin at the time was that he had a silent watcher.. Not

exactly a guardian angel, but something else.. It was eerie and when he was out

by himself torturing other hapless beings and sulking alone, he could feel it

watching him. Even now Kalin could feel it's eyes upon him as he lay still,

becoming a meal for flies that the stench of his body had attracted.
At some point Kalin had been embraced before his mind and soul could leave

behind only a rotting corpse. He would later discover that what was watching him

all this time when he thought he was alone and what had finally come for him was

in fact a vampire for as crazy and unreal as it had sounded to him. Embraced,

Kalin became a different monster altogether..
The wraith had explained to Kalin that she had done what she did so that he

might take revenge upon those in his life who had hurt and killed him. So that

he might live anew. Blindly, and with much power now at his charred fingertips,

he agreed and proceeded to do just that. He slaughtered and dismembered everyone

he could find in the place of his birth and death. His father was the first, and

following him were the people Kalin hated. All of them. They had ignored and

betrayed him. They had never helped him when he needed it and finally, they had

killed him. They would all suffer and he promised it. Lastly he tied up his

loose ends by extinguishing the life of the one who gave him this bittersweet

gift of un-life. Though it felt justifiable for him to exact his revenge upon his

enemies, it was at the cost of continuing his wretched existence here on earth

where he brooded and hurt. He whispered these things and many more into his

master's ears as he very slowly bled her to death so that he might savor her

struggle as the world had savored his through life. In essence, these things had

become traumatic for him and he verged a total meltdown. he had become deranged!

And as a result of his blooming insanity, he had, like an extra limb, grown a

new persona so that his mind might stay preserved. Even in death, his mind acted

in defense to save him from himself in the only way that it knew. His ego took

over and shielded the soft, tender person that he once was.. That he could have

continued to have been. But it was not meant to be. And in its place stood

something else. A creature who lived vicariously and accepted what had happened

to it and saw the world through that reflection. One it regarded as cold and

ugly. A world it did not care for nor the life it harbored. It had become the

bane of these things and many more as it manipulated Kalin's outrage and

displeasure for virtually everything. It reacted often with violence.
As Kalin suffered the traumatic experiences of his childhood and preteen

years again full force, he could do naught but scream again and again in misery

as he lay there in the dank mud of his nightmares while the rotting canines that

tore at him barked endlessly around him. So painful had this ordeal become for

him, Kalin began to heave until he had disgorged vomit of course, but following

it were the maggots that had invaded his own body. He heaved again in malady as

the maggots continued to spill forth into pools of saliva. As he continued to

hurl, he could feel the pressure within him force the maggots from his flesh and

out between his sunken eyes. Kalin no longer heard his own screams through or

inbetween his heaving and soon the barks of the ragged cadavers of the hounds

began to drown out in silence as he heard a tiny but steady ring at the center

of his brain. It had become louder as everything else had begun to swirl about

him in silence till the high pitched noise rung clearly in his ears as though he

had gone deaf through ears he did not really even have, for he was more charred

skull and bones than anything else. He begged it to stop! Everything! He did not

know what he had done to unlock these things he had put under lock and key and

digested so long ago. He knew not why they chose until now to plague him! Kalin

clutched his head in torment for what felt like an eternity, but, just as

quickly as it had begun.. It had ceased..
The ringing had come to an abrupt stop. Everything did. Where there was the

chaos that started as his lucid and comfortable dreams, there was now silence.

And when he dared to open his eyes, there was emptiness. Nothingness. It too

frightened him at first for he knew not what other cruel tricks he might have

been subject to, but he quickly discerned that he could at least sit up and

somehow his weight felt supported.. Uneasily.. It was deathly silent and all the

world of his dreams had disappeared in an instant but still he had not awoken..

All that remained was himself, his memories, his armor and even his sword was

returned! But there was something else.. The blood. The blood was still present

and he was awash with it just as he had been. It still continued to dribble and

trickle off of him and for whatever reason beyond him, he dared to try a little

as it neared his lips. He licked at it and it was sweet, just as he knew it

would be.. But it was also familiar.. Suddenly, alone and quiet, memories came

to him that were not his own.. These were somebody else but it felt as though he

had lived them completely on his own. How then did he do this? As he sat in

silence trying to piece the information together, he absently tasted a bit more

of the blood that had saturated him throughout the entirety of his nightmare. By

the Devil was it delicious-- Then it hit him much like his father's fist. The

blood he knew was familiar because it had belonged to someone he had recently

fed from.. A girl.. A small and delicious little creature who's hair he could

suddenly recall the smell of as he made a meal of her... "Aria," he snarled. It

was all clear now. Just days before he had supped upon her life, he had been

assaulted by a mage perhaps more deranged than even he. This one called himself

Razim. When Kalin had been stuck like a pig by Razim's blade, the world he knew

had become hazy and eventually faded as he felt himself experiencing the world

through Aria's eyes. Through Aria he experienced something familiar. Punishment.

He felt abuse as he had in the distant past. He felt fear and despair again. But

as quickly as his own dream had shifted, so too did his experience through Aria.

With Razim's help Kalin assumed, he was able to experience emotions foreign and

completely alien to him like joy.. Real joy. Happiness was another. Through

Razim and Aria both, Kalin also felt love, and with it, he felt warmth. He felt

security and calm. At peace.
But he knew not how to handle it! Alive for a few hundred years and without

any of these experiences, he was at a loss as to how to react to anything so

gentle. It was stunning. And it made him sick he remembered. His ego had fought

against it in a battle he could not comprehend. while Aria's negative

experiences opened Kalin up like a fish fillet, reminding him of and releasing

all his own inner demons, Aria's sheer love drove him mad with rage. He had

begun to hate her for many reasons now. He hated her totally and utterly because

he had been deprived of such an experience in his own life and un-life. He was

almost jealous if not completely, but he wouldn't admit it to himself. How could

he? Living as he had for so long, he had developed his own brand of arrogance

and pride. And he liked it the way it was. It protected him when he walked,

talked and killed. It was his armor whereas Aria's love had stripped it from him

because he knew not what to do with it. He was vulnerable.. For this he loathed

her because he had no chance of defending himself. The battle field was not the

real world where he would have cut her down like the pathetic little creature he

yearned to throttle with both his hands, but instead it took place in his own

head where he was weakest.. It took place in a world beyond weapons and even

words. If emotions were a woman's battlefield, then surely he had been dragged

into it and he had lost. Utterly. And Razim was to blame for this and that was

why Kalin hated him too, the old bastard. And now.. Because of this event within

his life, he was forced to recognize the things of his past that he hated most

of all. Aria and Razim had brought them back to Kalin like a beautiful gift with

a cobra inside. The fools!! They knew not what the hell they were doing when

they did this to him.. Or did they? Kalin sneered and ground his teeth as he

thought about it in the emptiness of his hollowed psyche. Worse yet was that

whether they intended just that or not, Kalin couldn't just beg for them to stop

had he seen it coming anyway. It was inevitable. And now that his own mind had

begun to run rampant and out of his control with these apparitions of his past

life, what the hell was he supposed to do with them now? They would not leave

him and he could still feel their influence despite his efforts to ignore them.
As he came to these conclusions, the blood trickling about him and pooling

around Kalin began to form without his knowing, into red rose petals that he

only noticed once a few had glided to the floor before his vision where there

lay a body of the petals in place of where the blood used to be..
When he awoke, huddled into the deepest darkest shadows of the loneliest

place he could find, Omek stiffened. Worse than all those things he had come to

the conclusion of, was this: He'd fed from Aria. In his rage over what he felt

Razim and Aria had afflicted him with, he had attempted to drain Aria of her

life blood and end her in revenge... Then Razim would be next.. It was a

successful plan on its own, and she would have died, but life rarely

works out that way and the mage interfered with things, changing the course of

events yet again, that dick. As a result, Omek was not only bound to Aria like a

stupid thrall but any hopes he had of assassinating the girl had just blown up

in his face. He had been forced, through his own stupidity, to move a square

back instead of forward. And now he was shit out of luck. "You idiot," he

muttered to himself in quiet self hate..

Sorry for the length. It could have been shortened had I used longer sentences but for some reason I started on a notepad and it just kind of took off from there and I never really stopped.. Anyway, grats to anyone who gets past the whole thing.. I don't have anything to offer you..

// I demand cookies and cake!

I demand less spaces. x_x

{I demand more Omek! MORE! *shakes fist at Exile* How dare you make a fascinating character and then leave him hanging?!? How DARE you!?!?}