Cleaning up the mess she left in bed, Avie crawled back into the covers, switching off the T.V to focus on her book for the time being. It was getting late, the red numbers on her alarm clock reading out a fairly high number. She didn’t care, the numbers marched up as the book kept her under its spell.
Awaking a few hours later, she came-to still clutching her book, venturing into consciousness as the dreaded sensation of harsh drumming palpitated throughout her body. It sang severely, making her teeth clench as well as her fists while the force hit. The woman couldn’t think clearly in the state of mind, but a muddled thought raced through her brain; maybe if Rhulle sees it, if he sees what it was like when the attacks came on, then maybe a connection could be drawn, and he may know something more—something that could help stop the assault.
Once more she ventured in her state, pain ringing throughout her body and centralizing in her head. Holding her cranium to stabilize herself, she traversed the streets in a stumble, clinging onto the bark of a birch once she reached the tree line. She did this once before, she could do it again.
Damp snow fell off the trees above her, landing in her hair and down the back of her coral coat. It caused her to squeak, as if she didn’t need more discomfort. Finally, after taking multiple breaks to gather herself, Avie held her sight on the manor in the woods, a small relief, all things considered, washing through her.
The woman tripped over her own feet, them refusing to cooperate while she explored the rooms she had been shown, calling out for the feathered cryptid, unable to find him—becoming more and more frustrated as every room she cleared, he was nowhere to be found. Her body reacted to something that was here, Rhulle would see that and help find the source of the mysterious power. He knew this place better than anyone, he’s sure to have seen something that could explain the sensation now that it reverberated in its strongest form.
The clenched fists left small crescents from her nails into the skin, they shook uncontrollably as Avie opened them back up to inspect. Hands were turning pink from the frigid temperature, the frosty snow unforgiving to her exposed skin while she walked back outside.
If he wasn’t in the manor, was he in the shed seen beforehand?
With all her might, she commanded her body to walk there in great strain.
“Rhulle! The vibrations, they’re back… Where are—?”
The woman turned the corner of the building and was cut short by the air in her own lungs. Her eyes fixated on Rhulle, hunched over not far off from when she first saw him. His scarlet eyes were back, matching the blood dripping from his sharp teeth and down his face and body. Said teeth were just previously ripping open an older woman’s neck; her laying on the cold ground under him, eyes lifeless.
Avie focused back on Rhulle, seeing him simply wiping away the copious blood around his mouth with the inside of his forearm, looking at her like a child with his hand in the cookie jar.
Fight or flight didn’t kick in this time around. Instead, she backed away in shock, her mind wanted to look back at the person on the ground, confirm it was real. She fought against the instinct, it made her light and fuzzy, eyes blurring as she kept her stare with Rhulle.
Was he saying something? She couldn’t tell, stumbling back in a daze. It wasn’t processing properly, her thoughts in a limbo while they jumbled over each other, auto pilot taking over.
The pain eventually stopped.
Her mind came back to reality, realizing she now sat in the living room on a covered couch, staring ahead at the grand fireplace. Avie didn’t know how to react, she knew this was what he did, but seeing the act was something else entirely—solidifying the experience as something real. Real death.
With her racing thoughts starting to subside, the shock tapered off, leaving her shaking cold. She wondered how long she had been sitting there, when Rhulle had entered, a timidity about him.
He took in her appearance, gazing over her form up and down, cautiously moving across her to begin a roaring fire, striking flint rocks together in the pit. In the new light, she could see that he was no longer covered in blood, his chestnut plumage as pristine as she’s always seen it. The redhead didn’t want to know what happened in the interim—but it did help set her mind at ease seeing the norm.
Avie watched him sit across her in a plush chair by the fireplace, assessing her.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see you do it. I’m not really sure why, it was rational in my mind that I just wouldn’t.”
“It feels more real now, does it not?”
The woman nodded, “I know it’s so normal for you. I really only saw someone… I mean someone that was…” Avie still couldn’t say the words. She tried again, “I came here again because of the vibrating that messes with me. It came back and I thought that if you could see it or knew what I was talking about firsthand I… I don’t know what I thought. It made sense at the time.”
She watched him look away, “I am sorry you had to see it in this way. Do you view me differently now? Will you no longer want to see me?” he asked, voice low.
“No, Rhulle, I still want to see you, that hasn’t changed. It’s just that, I have to process this; I wasn’t sure exactly how it was that you… Uhhmm…”
“Fed?”
She confirmed, face pale, “Yeah, how you fed on humans.” Exhaling, she let her head hang. A silence filled in the
