RAMSEY BIANCHI

"So, tell me something, amigo, how did a guy like you end up becoming a vampire's apprentice?" I cocked my head to the side as we walked in circles in the basement of the shop.

We were currently training, not that I needed it, but Elias was taking his role as mentor incredibly seriously. He wanted to make sure I excel in both combat and sorcery, so far I was doing great according to him. Little did he know I was only humoring him, Elias was extremely knowledgeable with the ways of magic, but he wasn't that good in combat. He was a good fighter, but not a worthy opponent against me, he knew the basics of self-defense and a bit of jiu-jitsu.

"Half-vampire." Elias corrected, he gripped the staff of the Living Tribunal, my hands were loose, ready to take on anything he threw my way. "Blade saved me, made me his apprentice."

He swung the staff with force, I quickly conjured a magical ring that served me as a small shield, the rings were white and sparks flew out followed by the collision. "Just like that? So a complete stranger offered you a job as his apprentice, and you just said yes? Without a second thought."

Elias and I engaged in a lethal fight, he attacked me without holding back, occasionally throwing in tips and comments about how to better my defense. I've learned how to use the magical rings as a source of protection and offense, I was able to throw them toward my oppressor like a boomerang. Its edges were sharp, and it cut through anything before returning to my hand, I had gone fairly better at fighting with magic. Elias and I would also train without the magic, which was no problem since I was good at boxing.

"There's more to it, obviously," Elias said breathlessly, he raised his hands, meaning that training was over.

I lowered my arms and the magical rings disappeared, I wiped the sweat off my brow and made my way to sit next to Elias. He handed me a bottle of water and I gladly took it. "What happened?"

Elias looked at me for a moment, debating if he should tell me or not before sighing in defeat, he glanced away. "I was around eight or nine years old, I was playing in this abandoned park outside my neighborhood in Transylvania." I raised my eyebrows, surprised to know he came from such a long way home.

"My mother," he breathed out, "tirelessly told me not to go there after five in the afternoon, that it was a dangerous place for a kid my age. But I, of course, didn't listen. It was past the evening when I decided to go home. I took the same path home, that path involves crossing an alley which leads to my neighborhood and thus getting home."

He let out a deep sigh, rolling his tongue over his lower lip before continuing. "Everything was normal as I walked down the alley until suddenly... a supernatural force pinned me against the wall." I frown as I observe the look of fear in his faraway look.

"Now that I am older, the memory is not so terrifying, but for a child, it was rough to never want to leave the house again." He glances at me. "I only remember the predatory look on his face, his breath was heavy, and I could feel it on my neck. His eyes were red like ruby or like a blood moon, the funny thing is that I didn't do anything. I didn't yell, I didn't kick, I didn't do anything, I was completely still. It was so much the terror that I felt and the dispute to understand if I would die or not."

I stared at him in complete shock, the world as I knew it was dead. This There I live in was entirely a different one, in this new world: witches, heroes and villains, vampires, prophecies, they were all real. Elias fell silent as he continued to indulge in the past, I shifted on my seat, my tongue rolled over my dry lips. "That... thing that caught you. It was a vampire, wasn't it?"

"Mm-hmm, yeah." He nodded, giving me a sad smile. "He tried to make me his dinner party, and I almost ended up being one of his victims had it not been for someone else's intervention. To be honest, I don't remember much, other than the overwhelming pain of feeling my blood being sucked. I fell into a coma, woke up a month later." My eyes widened, I took a sip of my water.

"Blade saved my life," Elias spoke softly, looking at me and I gave him a small smile which he mirrored. "He gave me a blood transfusion, not his, otherwise I would become a vampire. The vampire who attacked me failed to inject his venom into me before Blade intervened, so I never ran the risk of becoming one."

"And all this happened when you were nine years old?" Elias nodded, letting out a heavy sigh as he fixed his gaze on his water bottle. "At age nine, did Blade offer you to be his apprentice? That ... that was wrong, Elias. You were just a kid. Your place was with your family."

He shook his head, he turned his body to face me. "No, it was nothing like that."

"So what was it?"

He scratched the back of his head as he continued to speak. "Of course, I miss my home terribly, but... it was me who didn't want to go back."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "I am so confused right now. At the age you were ... like, why wouldn't you go home?"

"I had the option to return." He explained. "Blade and his friend had everything ready, but I was the one who decided I didn't want to go back with them. If I did, I would have to forget everything that happened and a part of me considered it, but on the other hand, I felt that I shouldn't."

I continued to stare at him, I didn't dare judge his decision, even if I didn't agree with it. It may be that I am seeing his decision with my point of view, I would instead return to my family because my reality is that I lost them both. And if I had the option to go back in time and go through what Elias went through, without hesitation, I would go back to my parents. I was biased.

"What happened made me realize that there are greater dangers in the world than terrorists or simple thieves, I simply refused to see the world as it used to be." I nodded slowly. "So I made my decision and let Blade know."

I saw no regret in his eyes, I could feel that he missed them terribly, but he didn't regret his choice. That made me realize that at the age of nine Elias realized what he wanted to dedicate his life to, he knew it was the right thing to do. Like me with the Hayek issue, I have the option to ignore it but feel a moral duty to step in and put an end to it.

After a moment of silence, I decided to ask him. "Did you ever go back? At some point?"

He nodded. "I did. Nine years later, when I turned eighteen, I went back and saw my family. When I left I only had one little sister, nine years later I came to find out I now have two more siblings, twins. They seemed happy and okay." He smiled at the memory. "That's what matters to me."

After that small break, Elias offered to help me perfect my Latin pronunciation, casting a successful spell in its mother language depended wholly on the ability to pronounce the words correctly. We spent about four hours in that, I already knew the spell I was going to use if it came down to having to destroy Hayek for good. I was trying hard to memorize it, then I had to practice how to cast the spell using hand gestures. Elias would recite it and I would perform the ritual, the spell could only come to fruition if I chanted the spell and did the hand gestures.

"Elias, why does this fight between light and dark happen every century?" I asked him.

"The fight between evil and good is, for lack of better words, eternal." He put away his staff in a black deluxe sword hard case. "You can't really put an end to it, one of the two forces always remains."

"Is that a problem?" I cocked my head to the side.

Elias nods his head from side to side. "It's not really an issue if the force that remains is light." Oh, but it was, there's always a preference and darkness had been the victim for eons on end. "The tricky part is that light cannot reign alone, as long as it lives, darkness will always arise on the other end. Balance is the essence of life, the age-old curse."

"And what if both forces are destroyed?" I theorized.

He turned to me. "That has never happened, I would even dare to say that it is impossible. Never in the course of history has that happened."

"The way I see it is not that it is impossible, but that they have not found a way to do it," I told him, already thinking of a way to defeat both forces for good.

Elias saw the look on my face. "No, no ma'am, that's not going to happen, so you better get rid of that look on your face." He scolded.

I arched an eyebrow, doing the opposite of forgetting. "Oh, come on, Elias. You and I both know this has to end."

"Ramsey, do you have any idea what price you'll have to pay?" He looked at me sternly. I stared at him and in my eyes, he saw the answer. "That's too high a price."

I breathed in before slowly releasing it. "It's also fair."

"To whom?"

Without hesitation, I said, "To the both of us."

HAYEK

Being alive was a gift for some people, to me, it meant punishment. I remembered when I used to enjoy being alive and surrounded by the people I loved the most on this planet, I was once a human being, now I'm just a ghost. I am lost and filled with rage. Not only that, but I can still smell the repugnant odor of burned flesh, I still feel the heat of the fire that burned around me, the screams of those Irish soldiers that killed my people I could still hear them begging for mercy.

I groaned, pulling myself out of that bad memory. Furthermore, I stood up from the high chair before making my way towards the filthy mirror. Ever since I came to life in the body of Finn Connors, an excellent gift from Dr. Cho, I found myself hiding away in the sewers where Curtis used to hide. My hand touched the reflection I couldn't call my own, I saw the boy's vibrant blue eyes, his curly blond hair, and strong physique. I was trapped inside the body of a stranger, a boy.

"What did I do to deserve this?" I asked the reflection, his voice was young and pleasant to hear. "I never asked to be the force of darkness."

After being imprisoned for four hundred years in the magical crystal the Witch of Life created, something inside me changed. A feral and evil thing woke up inside me, when I saw my tribe being burdened down, I unleashed a powerful force inside me. It fed off my negative emotions and the desire to kill everyone. After four hundred years of imprisonment, I learned the truth about myself. I had been chosen to wield a dark power; unlike the Witch of Life this power will only be wielded by me, there's no predecessor or successor.

But I knew I wasn't the only gifted person to ever set foot on this earth, there were more before me. Killed, imprisoned, punished for being who they were destined to be.

So tell me something, why are we being punished for being who we were destined to be?

I'm sure nobody asked to be the Witch of the Afterlife, harbinger of death, legacy of darkness. The universe did this, its stupid balance did this, not ourselves. I never wanted to be a villain, I carried with me lethal power, and instead of having my way with it, I chose to use it to protect my people.

My tribe.

My home.

But now, all I want is to make the universe suffer, I want to screw its balance, so it knows how it feels to have all you've stood for ripped away from you and slaughtered. I can't be the only one paying for a crime I didn't even commit, the universe's precious creatures did the killing, I only returned the favor.

It was my right.

"I am in my right," I said out loud, my eyes were covered in blackness.

I turned away from the mirror and sat on the floor crisscrossing, my wrist laid on my knees and my back was straight. Furthermore, I closed my eyes, I breathed in before reciting the spell to open up a portal to the dark dimension. Strong currents of wind blew past me, I heard the simultaneous roars of powerful creatures, mystical beasts waiting for me. I opened my eyes and stood up, a portal had opened in the middle of the sewer, it reeked of death and pestilence.

I breathed in the smell, this is what I am.

My fist tightened beside me before I jumped inside the portal, it sealed once I went through it. If I was going to punish the universe and free myself from this ridiculous theatrics of the vicious cycle of violence, I needed to be powerful.

And that's the beauty of darkness, nobody knows just how much power it harbors.

🅷🅾🅻🅰

H

APPY NEW YEAR
EVERYBODY!!

I can't believe Christmas is
gone already, it happened so
fast, but it's always like this so
ehh.

So, idk if everybody got my
announcement but in case u
didn't I'll repeat it here: I'll be
taking a break from Wattpad, I'm
not sure how long this hiatus will
take, but it's not permanent.

I'll be updating this book normally
since it's finished, but then that's it.
All of my books will be on hold
including That's Life, I'll leave it like
that so hopefully when I return it'll
have more votes and views.

Stay safe mis amores 🤍