Teogonia (Chapter I)

I

Swiftly, and yet with preternatural quietness, the Vampire leaped from building to building of that particular City. The entire place had grown eerily quiet after the Great Chelsea Struggle. Local denizens were growing more and more scarce. There were fewer lights on each of the dark gray buildings during the long nights. The City still flickered its red-blue glow of humming satellite dishes, resulting in an ever-present purple aura around the distant edifications. But the Vampire wasn’t sure if there was anyone still watching or even broadcasting anything. The few things that actually still moved in the City drew dangerously conspicuous attention from all of the remaining critters and creatures hiding in the darkened alleys. These were malicious beings, who took on a variety of shapes but all had the same objective: to consume each other. Hence why the Vampire paid increasing attention to moving swiftly, but silently through the City.

The Vampire wasn’t all that different from those creatures, also needing to find smaller, weaker critters to consume, while avoiding confrontation with the bigger and more vicious ones. The Vampire was neither a he nor a she, but rather an it. Depending on the context, the spoken codes or the articles, the Vampire knew some body parts were exchangeable. He could become a she or go the other way around. And the Vampire had become skilled at using this trait as a survival skill.

But none of the Vampire’s skills meant a thing when confronted with a Modorra. That was the reason the Vampire was fleeing across the downtown area. The black sludge of the Modorra oozed furiously from crevices, drain pipes and gutters, overflowed from open windows and rooftops, spewed upwards from manholes. It coalesced in brief moments and then shot outwards, looking for other places to grapple. The Modorra fed on coherent thought, and the Vampire knew it. Any escape from the Modorra would have to be executed with a clear mind, and the Vampire struggled to execute the graceful leaps from ledge to ledge while keeping fear, doubt and intrusive thoughts at bay. The mind had to be a blank. Do it, don’t think it.

Briefly, the Vampire considered that if the route over the buildings led to the riverside, the Modorra might be lost by crossing the bridge. That brief thought gave the Vampire’s position away, and the Modorra lunged forward. It had gotten so close, that the Vampire could see the details in the dense sludge: the myriad font types, each one organized in an infinity of sentences flowing over each other in slick black ink. Rabid sermons, furious arguments and seemingly endless anger. Splurging relentlessly from the darkened corners, edging closer and closer to the Vampire.

No time to waste. The Vampire pressed forward. Setting a heading, turning the mind into empty nothingness. Only a couple more blocks to go until the edge of the water. That mental blank deterring the Modorra, confusing its senses, slowing it down. There was now almost a whole block between it and the Vampire. Must keep running. The last building was lower than the others. Sliding down a drain pipe, the Vampire then leaped across the alley down below in a pirouetted somersault towards the lower rooftop.

And then, there it was.

From the corner of the Vampire's eye, the flicker of a TV screen was too bright not to be seen. The Vampire hadn't been aware of it, trying to keep a clear head, but now it seemed all too obvious that the static noise had been heard all the way from the previous building. As the TV came into view, inside one of the apartments of the taller building, a newscaster's voice also emerged from the static. In somewhat muffled metallic tones, the man told his news:

-"...disappeared through the tear in the Fabric. She was last seen in a vacant lot near the corner of Old Street and Great Eastern Street in London, on the Outer World, nearly seven years ago." The screen went on to show a picture of the girl, redheaded and freckled, cleaver in hand and a child-sized butcher's apron over a simple baby-blue dress. It was just a glimpse in the Vampire's shifting line of sight during the acrobatic move. Yet, even after disappearing from view, the newscaster could still be heard for a few extra seconds. -"Authorities are unable to confirm whether the Butcher's Daughter could even survive in the Outer World without a fleshcraft, and speculate that she may be lost forever. A truly unthinkable fate for an Avatar."

Still sprinting across that rooftop, the Vampire was inevitably reminded of the image they had all seen seven years ago. It had been frozen on all television screens and plastered on the front page of newspapers that day. The image of the man who had tried to talk her into going back through the tear. How he lay face-down on the ground, his glasses strewn a few inches from his face. Unconscious. She had knocked him senseless and vanished. She had chosen to stay in the Outer World. The only Avatar who had ever made it out. What did it all mean? Could any Avatar just leave? Could the lesser creatures like the Modorra? What happened to those who left? The Butcher's Daughter did not look healthy out there. But she still chose to stay. What was out there that was so important? Too many questions.

Come to think of it...

With a final whipping motion, a flutter of fonts engulfed the Vampire in tumultuous darkness.