Today I have for you all a short story that I wrote during my horrible bout of writer's block for the OTP challenge about my brand new obsession
WINDIIIIGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOSSSSS!!!!!
Now as you all know, Blaise and Vlad is my OTP to end all OTPs and it's canon because I fucking wrote it! lololololol Anyway, so here it is! My first draft! Blaise and Vlad versus the dreaded Windigo!! I hope that you enjoy my Lovelies!
The smell of the
beast was thick in the air that night; even within the confines of the cabin
they could smell it clearly. The sickeningly sweet smell of the rotting flesh,
of decay and the ever lingering death of the man that the creature had once
been, but there was also something else, something unique to the Windigo that
made the disgusting scent appealing in some sort of freakish, supernatural way.
“The Windigo is
getting bolder all the time.” Vlad observed from his seat by the fire. “He must
be if the scent is so strong even here.”
“Aye, or more
desperate.” Blaise replied, his ever present dagger in hand as he stared out
the window, searching for any signs of movement. A pale flash of translucent
skin in the dark night, the telltale rustle of tree branches, a panicked animal
making a mad dash for safety, anything. But there was nothing as the Windigo
was much, much more clever than all of that.
This monster had
a plan for them, he was sure of it. He wondered if the beast sought to make
them into one of his own or if he merely intended to feed on them as he had fed
on Lucian the night before last. It was a valid thought considering the position
that they now found themselves in. Though the notion of such an intelligent
beast had always confused and disturbed him. Did the monster’s intellect vary
in proportion to the intellect of the man it had once been? Or did they have to
learn to hunt anew after they were turned, as if they were babies? Were they
even capable of learning or did they simply make a smart move now and again by
chance? There was always that possibility. A mixture of growing desperation,
hopelessness and Blaise’s acute, finely tuned sense of paranoia could very well
be leading him to believe that the Windigo was smarter than it actually was, that
it was toying with them when in reality the dumb thing was merely stumped
trying to figure out how best to approach the cabin.
Blaise was so
deep in thought that it took him a good minute longer than it should have to
notice a figure coming out of the woods. It looked like… “Lucian!”
In an instant
Vlad was by his side, looking out the window along with him. “By the will of
the Gods, he’s still alive...” His voice trailed off as he watched Lucian
hobble towards the cabin.
When they had
last seen him, he had been struck by the mania that only a Windigo can inspire
and was wielding the fireman’s axe that he carried like a wild man, swinging at
everything that moved as he ran off into the forest. Blaise and Vlad had
mourned their mentor for no one ever returned after their mind had been claimed
by the monster and yet here he was, limping back to camp, using his trusted
fireman’s axe as a crutch to steady himself.
“Blaise…” Lucian
moaned, his soft voice carried to them on the wind. “Blaise...”
“Something’s
wrong…”
“I have to help
him. He needs to get inside before the Windigo sees him.” Blaise declared just
as Lucian’s withered form had crossed over into the modest light of the dying camp
fire outside. He had barely made a move towards the door when Vlad seized his
arm.
“No! There’s
something wrong with him, can’t you see?” He cried. It was impossible to tell
for sure before he’d stepped into the light, but now Vlad could see it clearly.
The mania had only just been the beginning; Lucian had not escaped the beast as
they had dared to hope for their former mentor. His eyes were sunken in and
yellowing, his once dark skin had paled and now hung off his bones like over
large clothing and there was a telltale smudge of red circling his quivering,
shredded lips.
“Of course
there’s something wrong with him!” Blaise shouted back. “He’s been alone in the
woods for hours, terrified. He’s probably freezing to death as well.”
“No! He’s a
Windigo now! Look at his eyes!”
Blaise looked
again at the weakened husk of whatever remained of his friend as it shambled
towards them on rickety legs and winced for he knew Vlad was right. He averted
his eyes for a moment then took a deep breath. “…I’ll take care of him.”
Blaise shrugged
out of Vlad’s hold on him and moved towards the cabin door. His grip on the
dagger in his left hand tightened another notch as he drew the door open that
he may head out into the cold night and kill his mentor, oldest friend and the
closest thing to a father that he would ever know.
Or so he
thought.
But the Windigo
had different plans for Lucian Stormcrow.
The moment that
Blaise opened the door, the beast attacked. Bounding forward in some sort of
grotesque parody of a Wolf’s gait, it closed the gap between them in the span
of a heartbeat. The Windigo pounced Lucian’s frail form, its claws ripping
through the man’s flesh as if it were tissue paper. Blaise was splattered with
Lucian’s blood from head to toe before he could even attempt to pull the door
closed once again.
His partner
screamed at him. “Get away from the door!” Vlad pulled Blaise backwards and
kicked the door shut with a slam.
It was the sort
of jolt that Blaise needed in order to come back to himself. In one swift
motion he seized a chair from the table and jammed it under the door handle.
Then he and Vlad dived behind the bar and waited for the Windigo to finish with
Lucian and come for them. For nearly five minutes the only sounds that reached
their ears were the sounds of death. They listened in silence to the wet sound
of powerful jaws snapping closed, the moans of a dying man, or what had once
been a man and the tearing sounds of flesh being ripped from the bone, until
the monster had finished his meal.
When the noise
stopped and the eerie silence of the forest returned the boys braced
themselves, tightening their grip on their respective weapons and readying
themselves for the fight that they both knew was coming. In the quiet of the cabin
they waited for the door to splinter under a mighty blow from the monster, they
waited for the glass to shatter in the windows, they waited for the beast to
tear its way into the cabin and come for them, but nothing happened.
Blaise and Vlad,
being as close as it was possible for two people to be, were masters of
communicating without speaking a single word and exchanged a meaningful look
before cautiously rising to their feet. Clutching his gun in his right hand
Vlad moved from window to window slowly, watching for any sign of the creature
outside, while Blaise checked the door and then the cabin itself on the off
chance that the beast had somehow managed to get in without making a sound.
“I don’t see it
outside.”
“It’s not in
here either.”
Vlad was
suddenly exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally, and he couldn’t handle
this shit anymore. “Then where the fuck is it?!” He shouted his soft voice shattering
along with his resolve as tears flooded his eyes and slid down his dusty cheeks
in waves. “Oh Gods, this is hopeless! Why doesn’t it just kill us already? It’s
been days, this blasted cabin was our last hope! We can’t escape, we have
nowhere to go! Why is it still toying with us Blaise? Why can’t it just kill us
and get it over with?!”
Blaise’s heart
broke at the sight of Vlad looking so defeated. Vlad, who was his soul mate,
his lover and his best friend. Vlad, who’s smile was to this day the most
beautiful thing that he had ever seen. Blaise wished that there was something
he could do, but as he felt the same way deep down in his soul, he knew that there
was nothing that he could say to fix this for Vlad, so he didn’t speak. Laying
his knife down on the bar, Blaise wrapped his strong arms around Vlad, held him
tight and just let him cry.
Vlad clutched at
Blaise with white knuckles, holding him as though he feared that he would be
ripped away from his lover’s embrace at any second and it was like this that
they stood together in silence for quite some time before either of them broke
the silence.
The Windigo’s
voice called to them in the dark, its soft tone carried on the winds from deep
within the forest. The sound of it caused the boy’s hearts to leap, shivers racing
down their frozen spines, but neither moved nor did they acknowledge the voice.
“…What are we
going to do Blaise?”
“I don’t know.”
Blaise replied in earnest, staring vaguely off into the forest beyond the
window pane as he stroked Vlad’s golden hair. It wasn’t much, but he couldn’t
think of anything else that he could do to comfort his lover.
Vlad buried his
face in Blaise’s tattered jacket, his voice coming out as nothing more than a
muffled whisper. “I don’t want to run anymore.”
“Then we won’t.”
“What?” Vlad
looked up at him with confusion in his eyes as green as beach glass. His
expression, his sweet face, it almost made Blaise want to hold his tongue for
he knew what he would suggest would only cause Vlad pain, but then, he had been
thinking a lot since they lost Lucian in the woods and he could not bring
himself to kill Vlad, even if it was for his own good which only left one
option.
“I think I can
kill it… I want to go into the woods and-”
Vlad pulled away
from him. “You want to fight the Windigo?”
“I’m tired of
running too Vlad! I’m tired of being hunted, I think that it’s time that I go
out there and hunt it!” Blaise reached out to Vlad and held his shoulders in
his hand. “Look, you can stay here, no more running. I’ll take the gun and-”
“No!” Vlad
shouted, knocking his lover’s hands away. “I am not letting you leave me here
alone! If you want to go out there and get yourself killed, fine then I’m going
with you.”
“No, Vlad-”
“No.” Vlad
snapped, his voice sharp and angry. “I am not dying here alone, Blaise. I want
to be with you.”
“You don’t have
to die at all that’s what I’m telling you, I’m not going to let you die! If you
just stay here then you’ll be safe! I promise!” Vlad opened his mouth to
respond but Blaise cut him off, shouting. “Just let me protect you dammit!”
Tears anew began
to slide down Vlad’s pale cheeks. “You can’t protect me Blaise.” He said
softly. “Don’t you see that? It’s not going to let either of us out of here
alive and even if by some miracle we do manage to escape, it’ll take us at
least three days to get anywhere. Don’t you understand? Even if we do get out
of this god forsaken forest, we’ll never be the same, we’ll go mad! Please
Blaise; if I’m going to die anyway, I want to die with you…”
“Vlad,” For the
second time tonight, Blaise felt his heart breaking inside his chest. There was
no escaping it, Vlad was right. Hard as he tried, Blaise had failed him in the
end. The realization stung him and if by some chance they managed to survive
the night, it would surely eat at him until the end of his days, but right now
the only thought in his head was Vlad. And for the second time that night,
Blaise flung his arms around Vlad and hugged him tightly to his chest.
“I’m so sorry
Baby,” A single tear slipped down Blaise’s cheek, wetting the collar of his
shirt, it was all he would allow himself before he pulled away and forced an
arrogant smile. “Come on then, let’s go do something incredibly stupid
together.” He couldn’t save Vlad but he sure as hell could be strong for him
and by the will of the gods he would die fighting for him.
Vlad laughed, a
small, dry, crackling sound, and smile back at him. “I love you Blaise.”
“I love you
too.”
“Let’s go kill
us a Windigo!”
“Or die trying.”
On their way out
the door, Blaise paused beside Lucian’s remains to pry his mentor’s lifeless fingers
from the handle of the axe and offer up a silent prayer for the man’s soul.
When he was finished, he handed his knife to Vlad for when the pistol ran out
of bullets.
“Let’s do this.”
The monster’s
eerie calls stopped the moment that Blaise and Vlad entered the woods, as if
the Windigo knew or perhaps sensed somehow that they were coming to it and needn’t
bother any longer. They walked on in silence for some time. Vlad clutching the
revolver tightly in his right hand, Blaise’s knife at his hip and Blaise
resting the old fireman’s axe on his left shoulder, his knuckles white on the
handle. They walked close together and as quietly as humanly possible, there
was no light and the shadows were playing tricks with their eyes.
The Windigo
always seemed to be lurking just outside of their line of sight, but when they
turned, that flash of white or a hulking figure lurking in their peripheral
always turned out to be a boulder or a splash of moonlight. It was rather
bothersome to be jumping at every turn but to never find your mark, though it
kept their hearts racing and their blood filled with adrenaline.
When the ghostly
calls of “Blaise…” and “Vlad…” suddenly resumed the boys knew that they must be
close to where the creature was hiding, to where it wanted them to be. The wind
had picked up a bit since they’d left the cabin, the creaking and swishing of
old trees moving in the wind filled the air here and Blaise had the sneaking
suspicion that the Windigo was using the sound to disguise his own movements.
Vlad must have been thinking the same thing, for he kept lifting his eyes to
scan the trees rather than watching the path in front of him.
It couldn’t be
explained how, but somehow Blaise and Vlad knew when they had passed the
Windigo and his hiding spot high above their heads in the branches of a tree.
It was as if they could feel his ravenous yellow eyed gaze on them as they
walked by. The creature waited but a second after they’d passed it to jump
down, its landing was all but silent despite the great distance it fell. The
boys froze when they heard it.
“Remember; don’t
look directly into its eyes.” Vlad whispered, raising the gun.
Blaise nodded.
“Aim for the heart.”
They turned
together to face this mighty foe that had run them ragged, chased them to the
end of their wits and cornered them in this god forsaken forest, the Windigo.
The creature was inhumanly tall, easily three feet taller than Blaise was, its
skin was as pale as death and stretched tightly over its jagged bones. It wore
only the tatters of what had once been clothing, the only remaining shreds of
its previous life and humanity. The monster’s filthy maw was coated in a thick
coat of fresh blood and gore which dribbled down its pointed chin in a
grotesque fashion. But its eyes, its eyes were by far the worst feature in the
face of this particular atrocity.
A Windigo’s eyes
are glassy, like doll’s eyes, milky and expressionless. They’re yellow in
color, bloodshot and dilated with fever and madness. The Windigo’s eyes burn
with a primitive fire, fueled only by their desire to kill and gorge themselves
on their prey’s flesh. It is a haunting sight, to look directly into a
Windigo’s eyes is to condemn oneself to madness and death and in some cases to
become a Windigo yourself. Vlad knew this, he knew better than to look directly
into the Windigo’s eyes and directed his gaze downward to the monster’s
scarred, boney chest, but in his peripheral he could still see them, blazing in
the darkness like demented stars.
For a long time nothing moved. They had
determined that their best shot of surviving this battle was not to charge in
without thinking, they had to remain calm and if at all possible remain in
control, so Blaise and Vlad held their ground, waiting until the creature
started towards them on spindly legs to attack.
Leaves crunched
underfoot, tree branches snapped and cracked, gun shots rang out through the
forest and a single scream pierced the silence of the night. What happened to
Blaise and Vlad that night is a mystery for if they survived they never
returned home to their old lives in Boston. Their bodies were never found, not
even so much as a human bone was ever discovered outside of the camp ground and
the ones discovered inside of the camp ground all belonged to their former
mentor Lucian.
The Windigo also
disappeared that night, never to be heard of in those parts again. With the
exception of ghost stories of course. Now, whether this is because Blaise and
Vlad were successful in killing the beast or if the creature simply decided it
was time to move on to terrorize a new place in the world, we will never know.
But sometimes on
nights when the sky is clear and the moon is full, you can still hear the
Windigo’s voice on the winds and the sound of a struggle between man and beast
deep within the trees.
