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From his very first vampiric moments, Pyro could tell that something was very wrong.
Of course it was all wrong. So was this whole blasted town. If only everything went well in the past, and he didn't have to travel all the way out to this place forsaken by God... And once he ended up here, he could feel the tension in the air. The strange group of people he encountered, the rumors about vampires roaming the area... Which ended with him suddenly ending up at the mercy of two of them. What was supposed to be a short trip into the woods, to find more beacons to consecrate, turned into him being hunted for sport by two inhuman beings. And he couldn't do anything to save him. He could run, cry for help, or pray. Nothing could save himself. Cold, clawed hands forced him underwater, sharp fangs plunged into his neck. His breath quickly ran out, and so did his blood. He died, and yet, he was born anew. And left at the complete mercy of the very person that turned him into this wretched being.
And the horrors didn't stop there.
The hunger was easily the worst. Attempting to eat anything but blood or meat left him with a disgusting, ashy taste in his mouth. Pyro was starving, but not in a way that he could easily satisfy. His thoughts quickly returned to the safe, warm house of his parents, where he never missed anything - until... One redeeming quality of his situation was that he wasn't just left to fend for himself. The two vampires that caused him to become this thing took him in, and guided him in all the overwhelming feelings that this new form of his caused.
But that still wasn't the end.
Pyro didn't remember how it happened that he turned Shelby. He just remembered that he was hungry, painfully hungry - and the second his friend figured out the identities of people who she went fishing with, something snapped within him. She already knew, so what was the difference? He lunged at her, tackled her to the ground, did the same thing that Scott Goldsmith, his sire, has done to him once. Except, he saved Shelby some of the pain. There was no drowning, no claws pulling on her skin to hold her in place. One bite, and everything was finished. She was one of them now.
Something was still off, however.
Since their transformations happened so closely to one another, Pyro could easily compare his own changes to those that Shelby went through. Everyone could see the difference. Everyone could tell that despite both of them being days, weeks old fledglings, they were developing very differently. With each day, Shelby was becoming more and more like Scott - and less and less like Pyro. Her skin paled into a bright, white tint, making her look almost like a porcelain doll. At the same time, Pyro's skin withered, became dry and unhealthily grey. Her hair got even more volume, even curled at the tips - while Pyro's got a bit longer, but also thinner, and more oily, making it look constantly wet. Her red eyes were playful and shined brightly - his, with black sclera, looked dangerous and unsettling, as if he was going to curse anyone he made eye contact with. Both Scott and Shelby had short, straight claws - Pyro's were longer, dark and hooked at the tips, rendering his scratches a lot more painful. Even their teeth developed differently - while only Shelby's fangs elongated, all of Pyro's teeth got sharper, especially his fangs and incisors.
He could feel how both of them looked at him. Scott was slightly unsettled, but more so disgusted. Shelby was worried. Once, she offered to brush Pyro's tangled hair, to make it look a bit more presentable - the effects were marginal. She didn't ask again.
Something was wrong with Pyro his whole life. Was that going to follow him after his death?
An angry, starved fledgling lunged out of the bushes straight at an unsuspecting sheep. The animal let out a startled cry, which only got louder when the predator sunk his teeth into its nape. Then, the cry slowly got quieter, as the sheep was slowly drained off its blood and life. Pyro tightened his grip, his claws digging so deep into its wool, they actually pierced skin. A frustrated growl slipped him when the animal eventually collapsed, landing right on his lap. But he was too hungry to complain. When the sheep finally stopped moving and its blood has run dry, the vampire tore off the piece of skin that he just bit into, and began greedily chewing on it. The taste of blood dripping down his throat satisfied him - at least for now. After all, vampiric hunger could never be fully quelled. It always returned quickly. And whenever it did, so did Pyro's rage.
Hunting around Oakhurst was no longer an option, since the humans learned the truth about vampires - and he was, of course, outed together with his whole coven. Now, aside from trying to survive and please his sire, he had to deal with all of these annoying people getting into his business and trying to kill him. There were already people in Oakhurst he disliked (okay, only one person, really. And of course that was Avid), but his vampirism amplified all of his emotions - including the negative ones. Simple disdain turned into burning hatred. Whenever he saw someone like Avid, whenever he heard his voice that was like nails on a chalkboard, he wanted to lunge at him and rip out his throat. And that, to some degree, applied to the other humans. If only he could, he would've dealt with them already... But Scott told him to hold it, to control himself. If this was a war, they couldn't risk it all too much. At first, Pyro hoped that it was a sign of worry and care from his sire - only for that naivety to quickly disappear. He was Scott Goldsmith. He didn't worry, he didn't care, even for his fledgling. He was already annoyed with him for turning Shelby. It was a game of numbers for him, and Pyro charging in the middle of the fight would probably not do much on his own.
He had to wait. And he hated waiting.
Finally, when he felt full, Pyro pushed the sheep carcass off himself and sighed, before falling on the grass. Finally, a moment just for himself. To a degree, resting here, in the middle of the forest, was probably safer than at the castle. There, he could bump into other vampires, or even humans trying to consecrate their beacon... And out here, he was alone. No one would find him, no one would disturb him...
"You gonna finish that?"
The vampire jumped up with a very unmanly scream. Immediately, he began looking around. He recognized the voice, but couldn't find the source of it. It took him a while to spot Owen, sitting on a tree right in front of him. How long has he been sitting there?
"Geez, dude! You gotta stop doing that!"
"Doing what?" The lumberjack tilted his head to the side, his long, white hair swaying on the gentle wind.
"You know... Just... Appearing out of nowhere. How do you even do that?"
"I'unno... It's great for scaring the humans, though. And vampires too, apparently." Owen answered, before jumping off the tree and landing softly on the grass. Somehow, he made no sound while doing so, almost like a cat. "So... Are you gonna finish that?"
"No, you can take it. We can't let it go to waste, right?"
"No, we can't..." Owen agreed, before sitting on the opposite side of their food and sinking his teeth into the sheep's stomach. "You're such an idiot, you left the best parts..."
"What, are you complaining?" Pyro smirked, his expression disfigured by the many fresh scars marking his face.
"No, not really."
Pyro nonchalantly watched Owen eat. It wasn't often that he found himself alone in his company. Usually, he hung around Scott and Shelby, while Owen just did his own thing. From the very beginning, he established himself as the lone wolf of their group. He was willing to live with them in the castle and fight against the humans, but he didn't see himself as part of the coven. And Pyro couldn't help but admire that, to a degree. He felt some sort of connection to his sire and to his fledgling alike - whether he liked it or not. Owen apparently didn't have that problem. He was untethered, independent, free to do whatever he pleased. As long as it didn't inconvenience the other vampires, that is.
But for some reason, Pyro felt a strange sort of kinship with him. In certain ways, even more so than with Shelby or Scott.
Owen's claws were long and hooked, similarly to Pyro's. The exception was, he seemed a lot more proficient at using them - he never got them accidentally caught on anything, unlike Pyro. His eyes emitted the same dangerous, brooding aura that the fledgling apparently did. His skin was also far from the pristine, porcelain-like state that Scott and Shelby were. It was a more natural, darker color, with a bit of an ashy tint. Ever since he entered his true vampiric form, with white hair and all, he finally took off all of his bandages, proudly displaying the layers of scars covering his skin. He never told anyone where he got them - but that also made him more similar to Pyro, unlike Shelby and Scott, who were untouched by any sort of scars and blemishes. And now, as he ripped the sheep into pieces, Pyro picked up on his teeth, much sharper than that of a normal vampire.
Normal... All of these qualities that made Pyro stand out from the others of his kind, made him feel like there was something wrong with him. But if he wasn't the only one displaying them... Maybe they weren't all that wrong?
"Owen?"
"Yeah?" The elder vampire hummed, his mouth stuffed full of meat.
"Why do we look so different to Scott and Shelby?"
"What'dya mean?" Owen raised an eyebrow, looking him in the eye for the first time since he appeared.
"You know..." Pyro reached out his hand, flashing his claws a bit too close to Owen's face. The vampire let out a startled hiss, before looking down at his own claws. They really did match... And when he thought back to the other coven members, and all the other vampires in general, their claws definitely didn't look like that. His sire's claws also didn't match his, did they...? "Is this normal, or...?"
At first, Owen just shrugged in response. Seeing how that didn't exactly satisfy Pyro, he swallowed what he had in his mouth and continued talking.
"Well, the man who turned me told me once about different types of vampires... He said that, in my circumstances, I could become something that’s called a revav- Revev- Renava- Hold on..." Owen scrunched his nose, trying to focus. "A re-ve-nant. There."
"A revenant?" Pyro squinted. "Scott never mentioned that..."
"Maybe his six hundred plus years of experience isn't all that good after all?" Owen snickered, licking off the stains of blood from his fingers. Then, he added "Lo- He said that when someone dies while getting turned, or is very close to dying, he becomes... This. But he didn't tell me much more."
"Well, that checks out... You guys gave me a pretty... Moist introduction to vampirism," Pyro admitted, averting eye contact for a moment. He looked back, however, when he heard Owen snort at his choice of words. "What? You guys literally drowned me!"
"Scott drowned you," the elder vampire corrected him. "I took what's mine and let him do the rest."
Pyro shut his mouth into a tight line, holding back a question that just popped into his head. However, he couldn't hold it back for too long.
"How did my blood taste?"
Once again, Owen snorted at the stupid question.
"It was pretty good, actually..." he admitted, taking another bite of the dead sheep. "Humans eat a lot better now, than they did two hundred years ago. So their blood tastes better."
"I can imagine..." Pyro muttered. Despite his hunger being lost past him, at least for the time being, he took another bite of the sheep. Owen eyed him for a second, as if the gesture offended him - but ultimately, he said nothing. "You know, you never mentioned the guy who turned you... Who was he?"
"The less you know, the better you sleep," Owen snapped back.
"Well, it's a good thing vampires can't sleep..."
Owen held his breath for a moment, puffing out his cheeks, before releasing it slowly.
"Good point," he commented. "He was... A good man. Taken away from me by bad people, that deserved to die. If only he could've seen what became of this treacherous town that he took so much care of..." A vile, angry smile flashed on Owen's face, before vanishing. "And I would do it again."
"For him? Or for us?"
The elder vampire eyed him once more, this time for a while longer. What sort of question was that? Of course, he would do it again for Louis - not for this group of random vampires that he just tagged along with. He felt no connection to them. Scott was too self-absorbed and annoying. Shelby was nice, sure, but naive; she didn't know what awaited her yet. Cleo was stubborn in their attempt to stay independent, Apo was flat-out infuriating, and he felt nothing about Drift, who he witnessed getting turned just moments before venturing out to find Pyro. He felt nothing towards any for them.
Maybe except Pyro.
Owen didn't love Pyro. If someone dared to accuse him of that, he would immediately scratch out their eyes. But he also didn't hate him - and that was already a lot, considering the type of person he was. Damaged by the world, that denied him the only chance he ever got at love. It was supposed to be him and Louis, for the rest of time. But that was gone, burned to the ground together with his lover, Oakhurst, and his future. Now, all he had was this gift, that made him into a true monster that everyone he knew already saw him as. And yet... When he was with Pyro, he didn't hate the world as much. The fledgling was a bit misguided, a bit rough around the edges, a bit messy. But in this way, they were an almost perfect match. And even if Owen's heart would never belong to anyone besides Louis, maybe he could at least try to fill that void with Pyro for the time being.
"I would do it for myself."
"Fair..." Pyro agreed, before taking another greedy bite. "I would kill everyone in Oakhurst for you guys."
"Oh really?" Owen snarked at that. "Which is like, what, seven people at this moment?"
"Yeah, why not? If they threaten us, we should threaten them back, right?" The young revenant grinned, his long, sharp teeth out of his dry, cracked lips. "Who do we start with?"
"Avid." The answer came immediately, and Pyro immediately nodded in approval.
"Yeah, we gotta start with him. That guy's lived more than enough already. He's pissing me off."
"Don't even get me started..." Owen let out a growl, pulling on a chunk of meat. It seemed as if he put all of his frustration about Avid into eating, as he suddenly got even more ravenous. "I told him, just as a warning, I said: 'You're wearing my patience thin, Avid'. Just to, you know, nudge him in the right direction. And you know what this idiot said? 'I don't think I can wear patience? I'm wearing pants.' I swear, if I was out as a vampire at that point, I would've torn him into pieces..."
Pyro giggled at the anecdote. There was something so endearing in how angry Owen seemed about this interaction... For a moment, a flicker of hope lit up in his chest. Maybe he could have something more in him than just an acquaintance, or a friend... Maybe he could find a partner in crime in this old, dangerous revenant?
"So, what do we do with him?"
"We gotta get him isolated..." Owen's voice rumbled a low, aggressive tone. "Stake him. Imagine the irony... A human, dying to a stake... Or first, we can rip out his throat, so that he doesn't scream..."
"Oh, I hate his screaming, man! It's like nails on a chalkboard..."
"What's a chalkboard?" Owen tilted his head, this time the other way.
"It's... Nevermind. But it makes a horrible noise if you pull his nails over it."
"Sure..."
All of a sudden, a ringing sound hit both of them. Their eyes immediately met, equal parts confused and startled. They recognized the sound... Somehow, whenever someone got turned into a vampire, they heard this. As if the final bell, toiling for someone who just left their human life behind and ended this new, immortal state. Owen got up from the ground first, before shaking off the grass that got stuck to his clothes. Then, he reached his clawed, scarred, blood-stained hand to Pyro.
"Well, we just got a new fledgling... Wanna go and see who it is?"
"Sure... Hell, imagine if it's Avid." Pyro smirked, before accepting Owen's hand and getting up from the ground.
"Oh, don't even say that, man... I'm gonna puke if it's him..." the revenant growled. His grip on Pyro's hand tightened for a moment, before he let him go. "It felt like it came from the Obelisk... Wanna bat and go there now?"
"Sure," the fledgling agreed.
Soon, the two angry revenants became two dark, fluffy bats. They dashed towards the dim, ashy sky. All that was left of their presence was a half-eaten corpse of a sheep - a sign of an unlikely, budding relationship.