MNSTR

The first beating of footsteps behind Andrew quickens his heart, but they sound pretty far away, so he keeps his pace. The second pair ignites fear and Andrew briefly considers taking off in a run when a hand comes in contact with his shoulder. His head spins as he’s pinned face-first against the cool brick of the now confining building outlining the left side of the alleyway.

“Stay.”

Cold breath breezes across his right ear, disturbing the fine hairs lining it and yep, this is it. Andrew’s gonna die in one of the many empty alleys of Dallas, Texas, a few months shy of his 21st birthday. Then there’s something piercing his neck, breaking skin, setting his nerves on fire and he wants to scream but the sharp, biting, metallic smell of blood catches the sound in his throat.

“Raven? Raven, we need to go. Leave him, you’ve had enough.” Another voice manifests. The sound is tunnelly, and Andrew just wants to close his eyes at this point. A good nap sounds nice.

“RAVEN!”

The pressure at Andrew’s neck loosens instantly and he sways before falling forward, hands barely catching him against the wall.

No blood on my shirt, is all he can think before he’s consumed by murky darkness.

Andrew shoots up, hands at his throat; eyes, clouded with terror, half open. The claws of his nightmare scratch at him, but he shakes the talons away and squeezes his eyes shut. He’d thought the nightmares had stopped. It’d been two hundred years since he’d been turned, and the memory remained strong.

The glow of the moon silhouettes his curtains, and Andrew decides now’s as good a time as any to get up and dressed. He slips on his pants that he’d left on the floor, and doesn’t bother to change his shirt. His duffle is by the door where he left it, and he shoulders it before leaving his tiny apartment.

The vampire that had turned him, The Raven, has only become worse as time has worn on. His mercenaries, The Scarecrows, have built an army, and Andrew is doing everything he can to take them down. It starts with meeting Bones in the bar two blocks from his apartment building. It ends when The Raven and his Scarecrows are defeated—when the world is restored to its rightful owners: the humans. Andrew is fighting for the humans.

-

100 Years Later…

Andrew has witnessed too many lifetimes, but this by far was his favorite because he’d helped build it. He remembered its beginning quite clearly. The start of the end went like this:

Bones and his crew go into the hospital first, eliminate the major threat, and ghost Andrew in. The sun’s heat penetrates through Andrew’s robe, but his legs are steady when they burst through the door on Bones’ command.

The emergency alarm is blaring and the colors dance off the walls when Andrew rids himself of the dark garment. He’s running full speed now, nothing holding him back, finding the Laboratory his only goal in mind. Then there’s the cold thud of a body hitting the ground, pushing through Andrew’s focus and stopping him in his tracks. A look to his left shows him Bones falling to his knees, trails of red falling from his back. His eyes are wide in shock, disbelief, then they’re closed and he’s falling backwards. One of Bones’ crew steps forward from his front, mask pulled down to reveal his identity.

Andrew’s suddenly aware that he’s speaking, screaming above the sound of the alarms. Andy finally looks over at him. Andrew deciphers the message in his eyes. This is where their paths will diverge. Andrew nods then continues his run through the hospital, somehow more driven and determined.

Even in the emergency lights’ discoloration, the compound glitters emerald in the glass vials. Andrew wastes no time destroying shelf after shelf, his undead body not harmed by the foul liquid. By this time he finishes, night has fallen, and Bones and the Runaways are long gone. Andrew finds the bag where Bones said it would be and puts in what boxes he hadn’t destroyed. He races through the hospital and leaps through an open window leading to an alley. He bounces hard off the wall, but makes the landing, blending into the shadows as if he was made to do so. The bag is dropped off at the safety point, and gone when Andrew passes it the next night.

Days later, Bones rises from the grave like someone like him should, and the Runaways make a mess out of The Raven’s empire. While the Runaways revolutionize, and eventually die, Bones finds Andrew. They never find out which of the Raven’s men had shot Bones, but together, they make sure the human race will prosper again.