Around the worlds 1 - A tale of vampires

"I open gates to other worlds using my magic. But the path isn't granted, and it is quite dangerous. And it requires a lot of effort from me," said Neos, still wincing.
"...That might actually help us all a lot, Zahir," Cathy said with a wide smile as she looked at the leader of the vampires. Zahir just kept frowning as he looked at both of them, still uncertain. And he was mostly looking at Michela.
"What did you mean exactly when you said you were another kind of vampire ?"

Michela patted Neos' shoulder sympathetically before getting up again, asking him if he preferred to stay on the ground or to try and get up with her help.
She glanced curiously at Cathy, wondering what she meant with that, before her attention went back to... Zahir? Was that the name? "Exactly what I said. In my world I am called a vampire, but from what I observed, I'm a... bit different from you." She crossed her arms on her chest. Well, she guessed some similarities were shared. Like being considered monsters. "I feed on human blood. I am a night creature. I have some abilities that are defined superhuman." She kept it vague, not knowing what they wanted to know exactly.

Neos agreed to Michela's help, and finally stood up carefully, because of the pain, but also because every vampire around was watching after his every movements. As if he could still prove himself a threat of some sorts.
The man named Zahir looked at her with a renewed interest. "Don't you feel pain ?"

Michela helped Neos up, offering him her hand and arm to hold onto. She looked at Zahir again when she was sure that the magician could stand well enough, her frown still there. "I don't, most of the times. My level of pain endurance is extremely high. I don't feel cold or hot either." Curious how she managed to keep her cool and a sort of challenging facade even though she wasn't all that sure of herself. She felt nervous, actually, with all those eyes following her movements.

Zahir frowned, this time. "So you don't feel it at all time. Pain into your body and bones, from being... dead." he growled a bit lowly, as if he was... envious.

Michela shrugged. It wasn't all that of a big deal for her. After all, she was used to it since a very long time. "I can guess that for you, the pain must be quite... something." She looked at the bones sprouting out of his skin, from his back. "I can't feel that. But, well. I can't be touched by the sunlight. I guess that's payback."

Zahir held back a laugh, then looked grim again. "Is there the Mother's Stone in your world as well?"

Michela tilted her head, confused. Mother's what now? Instinctively, she turned her head in the direction she had seen the green stone flying just seconds before. "Are you talking about that green stone that I've seen everywhere since I'm here? Not at all. I don't think it works with me... I've passed the controls without problems." She shrugged again, but she couldn't refrain from asking a question that she had on her tongue since the beginning. "But, what does that stone do exactly?"

"It makes them sick," answered Karl, to the great surprise of Cathy herself. Her robot wasn't supposed to intervene into conversations that way!
Zahir frowned deeper, and hissed a bit at Karl's intervention. "I'll tell you when I'll need your input, tin can." He turned to Michela, and showed her his arm. "The more we find ourself close to the stone under any form, the more our body changes," he said, his voice somewhat softening.

Michela looked at Karl, uncertainty on his face. Then it really didn't make any sense that people were using it for protection, since... well, the equation was easy. Sudden change brought pain, pain brought unstability and thus attacks. She had been right, that stone really had something weird, and not in the good sense of the word. She was in deep thought as she looked at Zahir's arm. "Is there... no cure for this? Does this transformation ever come to an end?" She asked looking both at him and at Cathy, very carefully taking a step forward. She remembered how Karl had said that they felt easily menaced.
Why she even cared for that whole situation was beyond her understanding.

Cathy pressed her lips together and looked down, as Zahir held back a short, joyless laugh. "Take her to your family, she'll understand. But leave the magician here. I've got a few questions for him." His words didn't seem to please Cathy, but she offered her hand to Michela nonetheless, gesturing her to move closer.

Michela didn't look all that pleased to hear that she would've had to leave Neos alone with all those vampires, but she nodded and walked towards Cathy. She looked back at Zahir briefly, a warning glare on her face. "I would prefer my friend there to still be alive and well when I come back. Whatever he may say." She tried her best not to sound menacing. Then she looked again at Cathy, waiting.

Zahir offered her an odd, toothy smile, before he started to talk to Neos in a lower voice.

Cathy took her a bit away from Zahir and the others. Karl followed them, not too far behind. "I'm... sorry you have to witness all of this. But I think you should leave as soon as you can. That is, if you can go back to your world, or another."

Michela raised an eyebrow at Cathy, following her swiftly. "I have absolutely no intention of going back to my world." She smiled darkly, thinking of the persecution she had to face in her own homeland, the segregation, the torture almost. "Why should I", she asked then, flatly.

"Well... I think you shouldn't stay there. First, because your body is too similar to one of a vampire, you might get the same sickness," explained Cathy as she walked her a bit inside the forest. "Second... IF you don't get it, the others might want me to do tests on you. To see if we could... use you to heal them, or at least end them."

Michela's frown deepened, but her grim smile stayed on her face. "Oh, that would be too bad. I'd have to kill you, if you try to get your hands on me without my permission", she said nonchalantly. "Don't think this is the first time I get threatened to be experimented on." She barely contained her bitterness though, walking at her side, distractingly looking around. Sometimes, she glanced back at Karl to see if he was still following them.

"Hey, I didn't say I wanted to do this," protested Cathy, clearly wounded. "If there was an easy way to cure them, and if they weren't pressuring me, I'd still be looking for a way to transfer them to artificial bodies!" She said as she stopped walking, and pointed at Karl.

"Pressuring you? Woah." Michela looked at Cathy, stopping near her. "I wouldn't like to be pressured by those people, that's for sure." She glanced at Karl. "Wait, you... don't mean transferring someone to his body in particular, right? Because by now, he very much is a person on his own." She threw that affirmation carelessly. But she already had new questions by then. "Do you know how this illness infects people, by the way?"

Cathy looked pretty desperate at that point. She even... didn't dare to look at Karl when Michela mentionned him. "I... It's in your genes. The stone is pretty toxic in itself. Some people are built to tolerate it, others die young, and the unfortunate... are bound to endless suffering."

"I see..." Michela scratched her chin, mumbling to herself. Lost in her thoughts once again. "I guess you're one of those who tolerates it. So it would be like radioactivity? Modifying genes? That's some crazy stuff. We would've called them mutants, back in my world." She lifted her gaze from the ground, looking at Cathy, but not really focusing on her. 'I really can't imagine what would happen if I can get infected, what with my basic incapacity of feeling pain and my healing factor...' She shook her head then, concentrating on the present. "What about your family? What did Zahir mean when he said I would've understood?"

Cathy opened her mouth, then pressed her lips together once more. And just took a few more steps to show her a figure in the shadows, that sat on the ground. "This is my grandfather," she said in a shaking voice.
The creature was nothing like a human being anymore. Heck, the little flesh it still had was holding all of that bone structure it was made of together. A few organs remained, and were even visible in between the two many ribs it had. Like Zahir, the man had grown wings, except they were two pairs. At first, it even seemed dead, since it wasn't moving an inch. But it slowly turned its head towards the newcomers, and opened its mouth.

Michela instinctively took a step back, unable to hide her horrified expression. How could that... that thing still move? She had to quickly review her definition of 'inhuman'. Because hell, what she was seeing was quite something. "... in... over two hundred years of life... I've never seen something like this", she murmured quietly, voice almost trembling, feeling wary as the creature Cathy was calling grandfather opened his mouth.

Cathy had a sorry smile, and came closer to the creature, gently patting its head, in the middle of horns that had grown here and there. "He was the first one to show signs of infection, when the stones were introduced. And, well... He's the proof you cannot die because of it."

Karl gently placed himself by Michela's side, and put an arm on her shoulder. "We should step away, if the sigh is too much for you to bear."

Michela took a second to reflect, then she shook her head. "It's ok. It... he doesn't seem to be dangerous...", she tried, looking Cathy patting the creature's head.
Then she made an indignant sound. "But if it is all the stone's fault, why don't you all just destroy it? What is up with that?" She suspected it was all about their 'church' though, but she preferred to ask anyways.

"That would mean standing against the Church. The priests. The guards. The whole population." Cathy sighed, looking exhausted. "Many see these stones as a blessing. After all... they're the only thing keeping the vampires away from town", she said with a sad smile.