Tales of Death´s Daughter

“Clara, Clarice! Food is getting served!” I could remember it very clearly. The day the world diverged from its set path into an abnormal one.

My sister and I – both twelve years old – played outside in the garden as our mum waved us inside around midday. We were eating meat, a rarity even for nobles whole mother talked with an accountant about our finances. Dad was as usual at the capital during summer to … well, we both didn’t know why and mother never wanted to tell us. She didn’t like lying, so that’s what always happened when she didn’t like a topic.

But we weren’t unhappy. We were a bit alone as we were separated from other kids, but we had each other. Us three … against the world.

But it was during that day as mother shooed us towards our room and didn’t let us leave while she discussed loudly with several men.

“Do you know what’s going on?” Clarice looked out of the window with interest, stealing the only stool we had in the room.

“No clue. Maybe dad is coming back?” I asked a bit hopeful. Even though he was always quite distant to us, especially during the last few years and our parents met each other less and less, he still bought candy with him each time he got home. And that was something we couldn’t get in the north easily.

But no, he wouldn’t come back that day. Instead, our panicking mother came back into our room, pulled us out and directly put us in a carriage packed with stuff.

“Hurry!” She shouted towards the driver of the carriage and entered the carriage as well.

“Where are we going?” I asked a little bit confused. Usually we wouldn’t head out this quickly, especially not when the streets where filled with other people.

“It’s going to be fine, darling. Hold onto each other’s hand and don’t let go, okay?” Our mother said a bit hysterically as the carriage had to halt right in front of the estates doors. The streets were packed with humans.

“Mum … you are scaring Clarice.” I said and hugged my sister right away. She wasn’t good with situations like these and was easily influenced by the emotions of the people around her.

“You have to protect her, alright?” Mum asked, right as we heard screaming outside in front of us.

“What is happening?” Clarice asked confused and screamed loudly as mum opened the door again and dragged us back into the estate. “Mum! It hurts.” And yet, mum didn’t let go of our wrists at all, but rather pulled us towards a place we were forbidden from entering. The cellar.

It was dark, damp and honestly the scariest place I was in my whole life.

“It’s going to be fine. The soldiers will deal with them … and we will be rescued by the knights in the capital.” Mum said and hugged us tightly. Tears streamed down her face, which made me and my sister cry as well.

Help never came.

The northernmost city was cut off from the rest of the continent and no one was brave enough to stand against the hordes of demons streaming into the north.

No one.

For three days and nights, we remained in the cellar never leaving once while the sounds of humans slowly died down, only to be replaced by animalistic demonic noises.

And yet, we all found comfort in our embrace but that didn’t stop us from being found. The wood above us creaked loudly as a heavy demon strolled around above us. But none of us noticed the four horned man walking around the cellar until he opened the door.

“There you are. I was wondering where you hid. If I may introduce myself, I am demon king Monde. It’s nice to meet you.” He said while mum pressed us against her chest.

“Please! You can have me, but please spare my children!” Mum stood up slowly and hid us behind herself, but it was for naught.

“I’m sadly interested in all of you. Come with me.” There was no other option. Even though she was hesitant, mum still took our hands and followed the king who didn’t look like one.

The city once a beautiful -albeit slowly decaying - wasn’t recognisable anymore. Citizens were laying dead on the streets and demons roamed the area. Both sis and I screamed loudly in terror, but nothing changed the sad reality in front of us.

“You husband isn’t anywhere around, is he?” Even though I couldn’t hear her answering, he still got everything he needed. “What a shame.”

And then, we were all put on a cart with a lot of hungry looking citizens and distanced us from the king again.

“Clara, Clarice. I want you to close your eyes, okay? It’s going to be fine.” At that point I already had serious doubts about them at, but still closed my eyes nonetheless. And curiosity didn’t took the better of me as we were brought into the keep, while I heard the others screaming and smelled iron in the air.

It was a gruesome experience for a twelve year old, eclectically as Clarice and I were separated from our mother. Forcefully.

For a whole day, we were locked into a burnt out room until the demon king visited us.

“How are you doing?” He asked, towering above us while I stood in front of my crying sister.

“Leave us alone!” I said scared and tried to back off, but we were already at the wall.

“I won’t. Or maybe? I have a great idea. Come with me.” He said, grabbed my hairs and pulled me out of the room, my sister following behind closely in an attempt to rescue me. I screamed in his grasp, my whole scalp hurt until he finally threw me and Clarice into a deep pit with around twenty other children inside.

Then, he presented us a dagger smiled cruelly.

“Only one will leave the pit.” And with that, he threw the dagger down leaving us confused.

It didn’t take long for the ugly side of humans to take hold though. While my sister and I were desperately hiding in a corner the older boys and a few girls started fighting for the dagger, while the others wept quietly. They slaughtered each other.

And the winner went around, murdering all the helpless kids who didn’t participate until he reached us two.

“Please … don’t do this.” I cried out, but still eyed the dagger every second. My head was strangely clear as he swung the dagger at me slowly, enabling me to ram my shoulder into him. Naturally I couldn’t hurt him with my pitiful weight as he was not only taller, but also way more muscular than we were.

But we had one thing on our side. We weren’t alone. I bit into his left arm while Clarice – strangely out of character – grabbed his other hand and wrestled with him for the dagger.

And surprisingly, we won. I occupied him long enough for Clarice to secure the dagger until he distanced himself.

“Just let it be … this isn’t a place you will survive long.” But we had already made up our minds without even communicating. We wanted to survive. We needed to. Screaming loudly I stormed towards him, threw my whole body at him while he did the same. Air escaped my lungs as I was flung to the ground. But my sister had all the time she needed to stab the dagger deeply into his side.

He screamed loudly, grabbed her by the throat and squeezed hard. He wasn’t anywhere close to giving up yet and seeing Clarice in pain let me go crazy. Ignoring all the pain in my chest, I stood up, rushed towards him and grabbed the dagger. Then, I pulled it out him and stabbed his back repeatedly. Blood flowed out of the wounds, more and more of it until he finally sank to the ground. But even then, I didn’t stop, the image of my sister being hurt still on my mind.

“It’s seems we have found a natural killer.” Only as I heard that faintly did I gaze towards my shocked sister, my small hands blooded beyond recognition.

Shocked about my own actions, I let the dagger glide out of my hands and cried out loudly. “Sis … don’t cry. I’m here.” Clarice said, hugged me tightly and patted my back.

“But I only have use for one person.” The demon king said while sliding down the mud wall. In defiance, I looked at him while protecting my sister.

“I will not hurt her.” I stated which did stun him a little.

“Even though it’s the only way to survive?” He asked curiously, only stopping right in front of me.

“A life without Clarice isn’t worth living.” We have always been together. In fact, I couldn’t even imagine how it would be without her. And I also didn’t want to.

“Then you both have to die.” He said, grabbed my hairs and pulled me up effortlessly. Screaming loudly, I trashed around but couldn’t do anything.

But my sister could. I didn’t know when she did it, but she stormed around me, and tried to stab the man who was protected by a black barrier.

“Or I have a better idea for you two.” He said, let me go and jumped out of the pit effortlessly. Then, we were bought back into the same room we were in previously and didn’t see anyone for a whole day. We were hungry and thirsty already as he got back to us, our chained and bleeding mother right behind him.

“Mum!” Clarice shouted out and directly ran towards her, but was soon stopped my the demon king who grabbed her collar and tossed her back over to me.

“I have a nice idea … do you know that your mother also survived a round in the pit? Mysterious, right? But I don’t have place in my army for all of you. We aren’t running a charity after all. So we are going to see fits more, shall we?” He closed the door shut behind him, dragged me into another corner and then stood in the middle.

“The gift of corruption … I wonder what it does to you.” Nobody could understand what he implied at all. But soon, a red pulsing light appeared in the middle of he room which he quickly left.

It drew all of our attention right away, hypnotised us until my heart clenched. All of us started screaming at the same time, as the magic took hold of our bodies. My whole skin was itching, my mouth felt unnaturally small for my front teeth all of a sudden and my vision improved several folds alongside my other senses.

And then came the thirst. So much thirst. And the smell. So enchanting, so desirable. In the corner of my eyes, I noticed Clarice standing up slowly looking at me with hungry red eyes.

And my mother? Her transformation ended far sooner than ours. But she didn’t move much, just her fingers were twitching while her gaze alternated between Clarice and me.

Driven by pure insanity and thirst, Clarice and I ran towards our mother, desiring to taste that beautiful liquid before the other.

But our mum was far stronger than us. She grabbed both of and threw us away from her. She had all the time she needed to finish off one of us, but she struggled. While we were completely consumed by the thirst which drove us crazy, she wasn’t.

She was capable of doing what we couldn’t. Like ferocious beast, Clarice and I turned against each other, understanding that we had no chance against her. I dug my fingernails deep into her skin while she bit my other arm with strangely long teeth. Together, we rolled on the floor until mother separated us from each other, biting on her lower lip while still struggling against the thirst.

Then, she shoved her left arm into my mouth and her right into Clarice’s.

“Listen … both of you.” I bit into her arm greedily, tasting the delicious liquid eating my thirst slowly. “Clara, you need to watch out for your sister.” I grabbed her arm and pulled her down into a kneeling position before I could sink my teeth into her nape.

It felt so good.

“And Clarice, you need to help your sister, okay? You are a team, always remember that.” I felt her tears running down her skin while my sister and I drank her blood greedily. “Together, you can do everything … I love you two.”

These were her last words until she fell backwards powerlessly, still alive but slowly dying of blood loss we continued to inflict upon her.

Slowly but surely though, the beings we were came back to the surface, took full control and threw feelings we couldn’t comprehend at us.

Sorrow, pain, hatred for ourselves and a whole lot of other emotions let us cry right away. Our mother had saved us, but in a sense she had also broken us. How were we supposed to deal with these feelings alone?

We had nobody who could tell us how we should deal with them. All that was left was staring at our mothers corpse and knowing what kind of monsters we had become.

“Clarice …” I wept quietly.

“Clara …”  My sister did the same, robbed towards me and hugged me tightly. “I can’t take this …”

“But we can’t die … mum wanted us to live …” I said sorrowfully.

“Please help me!” She shouted out to anyone listening, but nobody answered. Nobody came to rescue us. Nobody but ourselves could save us.

“We can do this … together.” We just had to follow mums words, it was as easy as that. And yet, it didn’t work out as she hoped it would. True, we were fighting side by side when we were thrown into the pit yet again, but it didn’t help us in getting over our feelings at all.

Nothing did.

Nothing except building a shell of crazy ones around our soft core. A shell we build up together, making us even more similar to each other.

We started completing each other’s sentences, dressed exactly the same and did everything together. We ate together, we slept together and we made sure to like exactly the same things. Our old personalities were just too hurtful to keep existing.

We didn’t share any thoughts, but we still started to think eerily similar things. We were as close as one could get and this slowly allowed us to get over our pain.

Because we weren’t the same person anymore.

And with it came the feeling of loss. We still remembered how it was to be loved, but nobody was giving us this feeling at all. They couldn’t even say who was who and as we started switching names left and right – because it didn’t really matter what name we carried anyways - it became obvious that nobody had any feelings for us.

We had become Clara and Clarice, or Clarice and Clara who sometimes even forgot how they were called originally. Two vampires, looked down upon by their peers and feared by any other demon. But nobody realised what really went on in our heads.

We hated the demon king for forcing us to murder our own mother. Ironically he even forced us to call him brother, which was something we couldn’t forgive at all. We were basically waiting for an opportunity to betray him at any point, but he never gave us one.

He forced us to stay home, citing we were too childish even though he was the reason for our lacking development. Because we were incapable of changing. Just doing so a little bit meant separating from each other mentally … and that was something we were incapable of enduring.

None of us could be alone at this point.