The Beginning of the End || Bloodlines Vol. 1 ✔️ Complete

V • Free Meat

-standing, swaying, a grungy alternative rock song thumping through the speakers on the radio, what radio? I don't even know where I am anymore, what building, and the wind thrums through my hair—oh, I'm outside, when did I come outside? The sky isn't bright but it isn't dark, like somebody turned down the dimmer switch for the world, and all the clouds are swirling together as I spin, am I spinning or is it all in my head? Grass tickles the back of my neck, but why would grass be tickling—I'm on the ground, I guess, but still spinning, the clouds are so pretty it's like cotton candy in the sky, I can hear water, water, always water, the ocean waves from my childhood, from my everything, the only constant, the only thing that's been true my whole life is the ebb and flow of the tide—lapping waves—churning—oh fuck—my stomach is inside out, I think I'm dying, I'm heaving and heaving and nothing is coming out it feels like something is in there trying to punch its way up my throat motherfucker why did I drink so much—is this what it would have felt like, my guts are burning, is that what mom felt, what dad felt, what everyone felt, their organs burning and melting and eating them from the inside out, I should have just blown my fucking brains out why did I stay alive why am I the only one what kind of stupid fucked up god would let this happen to someone go and wipe out the whole fucking human race and just leave one person what a fucking asshole fucking bastard—ugh I don't think I even have a stomach lining anymore—am I dying? Can I actually drink myself to death? Is that a possibility? It feels like it. How long have I been fucked up for it feels like days years months I bet the bodies have started to rot inside their houses and here I am just partying it up in the grass trying to forget that my only friends are corpses now if I could actually walk now would be a good time to just throw myself into the ocean and join the rest-

***

Daphne's throat was like sandpaper as she attempted to peel her eyes open. The sun's rays pierced her pupils with a million needles stabbing into her brain through her slitted eyelids. She groaned, the sound coming out more like a cough.

Her esophagus burned, her throat sealed, her stomach a caved-in disaster that had tried to climb out of her throat for the hours—days?—she'd been wasted.

A shrill cawcaw! cut through the air and Daphne winced at the sound. Fucking crows.

A thought suddenly occurred to her, constricting her chest as her brain fired in all directions. The disease had only taken out humans. According to the CDC studies, however quickly they'd tried to do any, no other species on earth had been affected, not even the ones closest to the human genome. They hadn't been able to test the disease on any other animals because it just didn't react the way that it did in the human body.

Is it possible? The thought drifted through her, and focused her awareness of the pendant's weight. At some point she must have put the necklace on, even though before her bender she hadn't wanted to, as if she were betraying her dad by wearing it. Now, it felt like a brick pressing down on her chest, a heavy weight of secrets and lies.

But also... maybe answers. Maybe somewhere, her biological father was out there, alive, because there was something in his DNA that wasn't fully human. The reason why she was immune, why she was different. Maybe he'd survived too—her only real living family.

No, not family. She didn't even know the guy. He wasn't family. He was some guy—probably an asshole—who fucked her drunk mom and left her alone in a hotel room.

But they were blood. And if he had answers, it would be worth seeking him out. Even if he didn't have answers, if he were still alive, then she'd have somebody to take some of her anger out on, instead of herself. Flashes from wanting to die in the ocean flitted through her head and left a bad taste in her mouth, muck and ash and shame swirling on her tongue.