Miasma

Chapters

To Escape a Storm
Night Terrors
Rats

To Escape a Storm

Thunder crashed and roared above the city of Manehattan, filling the night air with deafening sounds and flashed of lightning. Rain poured down from the blackened sky like a blinding waterfall, and wandering through it as fast as could be seen was a pony-shaped figure dressed in a yellow raincoat that was shimmering with the wetness enveloping it. Sticking out from the hood covering its head was a single horn.

In a muddled fashion it trotted through the streets under the guiding light of the various lampposts lining the sidewalk. Passing the occasional turn at the ends of the roads, it continued to speed forth until it finally spotted the kind of building it had been searching for.

In bright, glowing neon lights, the word 'HOTEL' was shown, expressed on a sign vertically attached to the side of the building. Upon seeing this, the pony hurriedly entered it through the revolving door sitting in the front like an alluring candle. No sooner had it escaped the storm, the pony found itself in a wide and brightly lit, but empty lobby that seemed utterly devoid of any kind of life.

With a sigh of relief at being out of the rain, the figure pulled the hood down from its head, revealing a unicorn mare bearing a light green coat and light brown mane. Her eyes, shaded in a much darker form of brown, scanned around the lobby of the hotel until they spotted a check-in counter. Pulling her raincoat off and folding its soggy form up neatly with her green-tinted magic, exposing the sapphire-blue backpack she had been wearing underneath, she approached the counter and saw an earth pony stallion of a dull red color on the other side, who was currently napping with his head held in his hoof and glasses crookedly hanging over his short snout.

"Um... Hello?" the unicorn greeted, tapping a hoof on the greeting bell, sending out a small chime that snapped the clerk awake. Snorting as he fixed his glasses, he focused on the new shape standing before him with a grumpy leer that quickly mollified.

"Hmm... how may I assist you?" he asked.

"I would like to rent a room," she spoke, lifting a small pouch from her backpack and placing it in front of the clerk with a metallic jingle coming from within it. Looking into it, he saw there were a few coin bits inside of the pouch.

"A room? Well, that's what we're here for..." he mumbled back in a barely-mustered chuckle, placing the pouch to the side and yawning after he finished the sentence. Setting to work, he lifted a pencil and pulled out a medium-sized notepad. "How long do you wish to stay?"

"One night," was the pony's immediate answer, straightening her posture out in the process.

"You sure?" the clerk inquired. "Just a single night? We serve a full complimentary breakfast in the morning if you schedule for-"

"It's just for the night, thank you," she insisted. slowly nodding his head with a sigh of understanding, the pony behind the counter scribbled something down on a notepad and readjusted his glasses before getting up from his seat and exiting the counter.

"Here's your key," the clerk murmured in his tired voice, handing her the object he spoke of in his hoof. Using her magic to pick up the small object by the long orange tag sticking out from its base, the mare listened as he continued on. "You have room thirty-seven. Just go down the hall, take a left at the stairs, head to the first floor, and it's five doors further on the leftmost wall. I hope you have a good stay here, miss...?"

"Page. Page-Turner," she finished for him. With the directions pointed out, Page also gave him a grateful and polite nod. "Thank you."

"Ring if you want room service," the clerk sighed, returning behind the counter at a snail's pace. Rolling her eyes, but keeping her cheerful smile in the process, Page turned about and began to make her way down the hall, the key and wet raincoat floating behind her, each held in a greenish halo of magic.

By the flickering, pale-yellow light of the bulb resting on the ceiling above, Page-Turner was very busy working on the latest chapter of her latest novel in the room she was given. The only sound to fill the room was that of a feather quill pen scratching on paper, and when it wasn't that, it was the the rattling noise of the young mare sifting her hoof around a nearby bowl of peanuts she poured recently after calling for room service, or a burst of thunder from outside.

Page-Turner was a professional writer by choice and by trade. Her own cutie mark represented an open book with its pages fluttering by; gotten back when she had written her first, amateur book as a filly. And so far, according to the critics at the convention she had attended here in Manehattan, she was fairly talented at her craft. She was quickly gaining recognition in the world for it too, and her last novel was a bestseller that even made it into the newspaper.

She popped another peanut into her mouth and closed her teeth around it. As she slowly ground it into mush and swallowed it, a thought that caused her eyes to widen in excitement and brilliance flooded her mind, erasing any trace of doubt for what she had in store for the dramatic chase scene she was currently creating in her book. Forgetting everything else in her rush to perfect it, her feathered pen turned to a rapid flurry of movement that filled the next few pages in an ocean of words. Brushing her light brown mane back from her eyes with a hoof a scant few moments later, she took a few seconds to examine her handiwork with a proud glare.

And so it went in a similar motion for some time afterword. Dipping the feather pen's tip into the inkwell if it ever went dry, she would hastily return to filling the blank pages of the book with writing, though her movements had become much more sluggish with every passing hour. Unleashing a long, rumbling sigh, she finally decided to look to her silver-tinted pocket watch - a gift she received her father and mother from her last birthday - and flipped it open with her magic to see the time.

One-fifteen a.m.

Page let an exhausted puff of stale air leave her lips as she took in this information with a heavy heart. Regretfully, she pushed her seat back and got up from it, telekinetically placing a plain strip of crimson-colored cloth into the book like a bookmark, and closing it with a mostly-quiet clap. After that was done and over with, she grabbed and devoured one more peanut on the bowl before making her way toward the bed, and practically jumped into its inviting form; quickly squeezing herself underneath its thick covers.

She always admired how fluffy and comfortable hotel beds were, though she never lost her fear of bedbugs lurking in such a place as well. Thankfully, before she had gotten too comfy in this place, she made sure to check it for any sort of problems in that regard; to which she found nothing out of the ordinary.

After using her magic to shut off the light switch, the mare flopped her head onto the large, soft-as-goose-down pillow, and pulled the covers over her horned head. Within a few short minutes she slipped into a deep sleep, blissfully unaware of what lurked in the shadows of the cold outside and the downpour that seemed to continue without end.

And something was lurking in the shadows. Two things, actually.

The pony-shaped figures, both covered in tattered, robe-like jackets of a dark coloration and bearing hoods over their heads that hid any discernible facial features inside under a pair of inky black clouds, simply stood in silence on the sidewalk. Together they looked up at the hotel building they had been lead to through the heavy rain and bellowing thunder, and specifically had their sights set on a certain window with a light coming from within it for the last three hours. When the light finally went out, leaving it appearing as nothing more than another blackened rectangle on the hotel building, both lowered their heads simultaneously.

The slightly taller of the pair looked to the other in a quiet, slow motion. "It's time," were the first words he uttered in a deep, throaty, dragging voice that sounded like something dripping out of a coffin.

"And you're certain that she is the one you want? That she has all of the qualities you seek?" the smaller one asked; his voice much lighter in volume, bearing the personality of an ancient, creaking board that was likely to be found in an attic.

"Most certain," he replied, quite jovial in his tone, despite its dense volume. "And it's not so much what she has, as to what she is, my old servant."

"It might not have been a picnic the whole time I was with you, but all the same... I shall miss you, my master," the shorter one murmured, almost sorrowfully, after a short period of silence came between them. He lifted a hoof up and fixed a scarf-like wrapping of cloth that was spun around his neck from behind the hood before lowering it once more.

"And I shall too, through whatever may happen to me after this is all settled," the taller one sighed, before managing a long-drawn, cracked chuckle. "Now, you know what to do. Farewell."

Nodding, the shorter one began to walk away, leaving a small echo through the rain-soaked air on the cobblestone street with his hoofsteps. Refocusing his attention to the hotel, the other began to walk his cloaked frame forward toward it, fully ready for what was to come.

Night Terrors

As Page-Turner slept on the bed, her once still body began to toss and turn. She couldn't tell just what it was that was rooting itself around in her dreams, but something was urging her to wake up. It was like one of those feelings someone might get that tells them that they had forgotten something, but don't know exactly what.

Begrudgingly obeying these basic instincts, her eyes slowly blinked open. With a groan she rubbed a hoof over her face and let her dark surroundings come into focus, soon discovering the pocket watch she had left on the counter. Picking it up with a lazy sweep of her hoof and squinting her eyes as hard as she could muster, the pony could see it was only some time after two.

"Well, that would explain why there's no sun yet..." she muttered under her breath, before the very act of speaking prompted her to unleash a mighty yawn. After closing the watch with a click and putting it back in its spot, she rolled onto her back, fixed the warm covers over herself better with her hooves, and was about to close her eyes and return to dreamland, but snapped them open wide the moment she recognized something out of the ordinary that sent a chill as cold as ice down her spine.

There was a figure standing at the foot of her bed, next to the only window in the room. With what little light was given off by the rain-shrouded lampposts outside, the queer, deathly silent shape seemed even darker than the shadows sitting at edges of the room. It was clearly hooded and covered in something black as pitch, and its basic form was vaguely pony-like, but with the the fact that there was someone else standing in the same room as her, the only thing Page-Turner could see in this stranger was pure terror.

She remained frozen in utter fear, lying in her bed helplessly while her eyes stretched to the size of dinner plates. When she noticed, ever so subtly as it was, that something long, thin, and (what could only be described as) eel-shaped was slowly inching its way out of its hooded head with a sickening squelching noise, her jaw dropped.

Like a sick perversion of a proboscis from a butterfly, it crawled further from its mouth, revealing two strips of loose flesh lining its tip akin to a forked tongue, and a tiny, needle-sized projection just between where they separated. Shooting forward in a sudden move that was faster than she could flinch, the forked appendages on either side of its tip wrapped around the base of her throat, centering on Page's collarbone. The moment the pointed tip stuck into her neck was like a prick from a syringe, but it stung like the bite of a spider.

All Page could do was let out a muted cry of pain. She tried to scream, to let someone, anyone within earshot know of her plight, but all she was able to accomplish was a high-pitched gasp as she felt that stinger's noxious venom enter her bloodstream. She felt numb, weak and excruciatingly tired, as if something of her own was leaving her body in the process, and only faintly realized that the thing had let her go and pulled its 'tongue' away after her ears picked up the sound of the being's footsteps tapping on the floor, and up to the front of the bed. With barely enough strength to open her eyes, the pony witnessed the creature looming its head over her own. Even being this close to it, she still couldn't make out any features in the blackness that were hidden within so well.

Though she still could not see its face through the darkness, without warning, the figure suddenly pressed its dry-feeling mouth over her own, which was already wide open with pure shock. It wasn't in a manner that conveyed forced lust of any sort, but in a way that felt very unemotional and almost... robotic. While she struggled as much as her unresponsive body would allow against this 'kiss', which was accomplishing absolutely nothing, Page felt something extremely warm begin to exit the stranger's mouth and enter down her throat in a long, inexorable motion. Right off she sensed that it had a thick, unbearably metallic taste to it that made every fiber of her being want to gag in revulsion. To her horror, she quickly realized what it was.

Blood. Ichor of a most foul design, and she was uncontrollably swallowing every drop that entered her mouth.

After a scant minute, which felt more like a hellish eternity to Page, the being finally pulled its concealed head away from her own in a brief motion. Page retched and coughed and hacked several times as she tried to recover from what revolting, utterly vomitous deed had just been brought upon her, but her lungs, and chest for that matter, felt as if they had just been set aflame like a torch to a bonfire. She spasmed and twitched on her bed from the unbearable pain that quickly overtook her, still unable to move completely, and when her crazed, bloodshot eyes finally managed to refocus on the creature that had done this to her, it was standing a few feet away from her once more, in baleful silence.

Slinking its snakelike 'tongue' out from under the hood, the dark appendage previously used shot from its mouth once again like the crack of a whip, and reattached itself snugly to the front of her neck. It once more pricked her with its barb-like stinger, reopening the small hole in her flesh it had made originally. Then Page began to feel weakness envelope her as its venom was pumped into her veins again.

Her focus dwindling with every passing second, but her abject terror bright and filling her brain with numbed alarm, Page-Turner's eyes rolled into the back of her head before finally closing. Her senses dulled to the point of nonexistence, she eventually succumbed to the spell she had been placed under, and slipped back into the darkness that awaited her.

And she knew no more.

Awakening sometime very the next morning in a thick enough sweat to rival a waterfall, Page-Turner found herself wholly bedridden.

"Sleep paralysis... it was just sleep paralysis... J-just a crazy dream..." those were the words she continued to remind herself with like a mindless chant as the day stretched long and her thoughts shifted to the night before. Hours would at times feel like minutes, but at other intervals, those meager minutes seemed like hours. And all of it was spent in searing agony, for her pain-wracked body felt as though it was submerged in molten lava.

Of course, in this state, Page was forced to extend her time here at the hotel when a maid who was due to clean the room found the ill unicorn lying in it. Since she was unable to do it herself, Page instructed the maid to pay for her prolonged stay with the bits she was keeping in her bag, and when asked if she should call the nearest hospital or a doctor, Page blatantly refused, stating in a strained voice that all she was suffering through was a fever she must have caught earlier the day before.

It had to be a fever, and Page practically brainwashed herself into believing that theory with those six words. Before originally setting off, the mare told her parents that she was going to return from her trip within a week of it finishing, and she couldn't allow a doctor to hold her here in Manehattan over something she knew had to be trivial. But the longer she tried to wait through her malady, to let a period of vigor come by, when she would actually be able to move on her own, the worse it got for her, and the more such a moment of improvement appeared to be in vain.

What hurt worst of all was what went on in her chest. It was as if something inside her was contorting and rearranging itself into something else. Something unnatural. She felt like she wanted to vomit because of it, and that vision of what unspeakable liquid she ingested, still fresh in her memory, encouraged her to do so. But even with the memory of that sickening dream, Page was unable to. She unleashed a great many screams and earsplitting cries of uncontainable torment, and in an effort to silence herself, as to not let someone here call for the hospital, muffled the tortured shrieks under her pillow and sheets, which she hadn't even noticed were beginning to tear and rip under the gripping pressure of her hooves and grinding teeth.

Then it stopped. An incalculable amount of time after it began, all the pain, agony, torment and burning suddenly stopped.

Page had no idea if a day or two, or three, or ten had passed her by while she just sat there, but she didn't care. She just wanted to embrace this sweet, merciful release from her suffering. And then, as if all life had just left her, Page's once-twisting and writhing body went still on what little remained of the bed.

"Well, I'm off, Zeff," Ebonwind said as he made his way to the apartment's door. "I'll be sure to get you the right donuts this time. You said you wanted a cappuccino too, right?"

"I hate coffee," Zeffith, the aged zebra whom he spoke to, mumbled back in a thin, but clearly grumpy voice that begat fragility in his already gaunt shape, which was sitting in a chair by one of the windows. "You know that, Ebonwind."

"Just asking..." the pegasus shrugged with a small, playful grin. The old zebra he was now leaving was colored in black-and-white stripes like any other zebra, but wore a thick trench coat over his hunched frame to keep him warm against the early autumn morning air, and had a medium-sized beard of a plain white color hanging from his chin. His mane, bearing the same texture, hung loosely from his head in a tangled mess of long locks. Ebonwind himself was a young pegasus with a dark grey coat of fur lining his body, while his mane was fully black.

As he trotted along the sidewalk, happy that the rain that had been plaguing the city for the past few days had finally made room for the sun and a lovely, near-cloudless blue sky, he passed a great many ponies that he greeted heartily, one-by-one, until he reached his destination - a cozy little café he visited more frequently with every passing day, called the Manehattan Mocha.

He walked into the coffee shop, bought what he was looking for, said hi to a recently-made friend who worked there, and returned back to the apartment with the bag of donuts balanced over his back, and cup of hot, steaming coffee held in one of his front hooves. He placed his cup down briefly to turn the knob on the door and open it, and once he picked it back up and was inside, closed the door with one of his back feet.

Taking no more than five steps forward, he came across Zeffith once more, who still sitting in the spot where he last remembered seeing him, but now the zebra was wearing his wide-brimmed hat over his head, despite being indoors, and held what looked like a dirty scrap of paper in his hooves. This boded rather poorly for the pegasus, who took notice right off.

"Is something wrong, Zeffith?" Ebonwind's tone sounded concerned and without his usual sarcasm or snideness. When he set the bag on the table with his wing, the zebra nodded, his silver eyes narrowing into slits. Crunching the paper into a ball in his hooves, he tossed it into the wastebasket he was sitting near in a single toss.

"I received a peculiar message when I went to collect the mail after you left. And you'll never guess what oversized mosquito sent it..."

Ebonwind's expression went blank in immediate realization. "Was-"

"Alder. It was Alder," Zebediah interrupted purposefully, and seriously. "Surprising, considering the bastard probably hasn't written anything on paper in at least a hundred years, judging from the outdated text he littered his message with..."

The zebra let his pony friend walk up by his side; the coffee and donuts completely forgotten at that point. "What did he write?" he asked. "Is it about another victim of his? Is he taunting us?"

"No. He wants us to meet him tonight, just under the Bell Gate Bridge. Something about settling the score once and for all," Zeffith continued on without pause, before letting a crooked smile come over his face. "Everything about this screams 'trap'! But I know him almost as well as he know himself, and that alone has given me other ideas. Call me crazy, but I think he wants to honor these words. Even he, in all of his ageless cunning, should know that such a brawl would be suicide for him."

Ebonwind didn't look very convinced. "He's the last strigoi. Why would he want to just give up and die? After all these years we've spent tracking him?"

"I can think of several reasons, but one is that he's also old, mind you," Zeffith huffed, standing from his seat with a wretched crackling of his ancient bones. "Older than you, older than I, and, if my suspicions are correct, he's old enough to start losing care for anything."

"And you know that... how?"

"His movements have gotten more sluggish over the last two years alone. Do you recall what happened in that little encounter we had the last time we saw him? Back at that old abandoned canning factory in Baltimare where he had made his hideout at that time?"

Ebonwind nodded. "Yes. He just stood there as I was coming up to him and... let me thrust my sword through his chest. It didn't kill him and he still managed to escape, but..."

Zeffith flicked his hoof up and pushed up the tip of the brim of his hat. "Yes, precisely. Let's also not forget that his list of servants has dropped down to one, and he hasn't seemed to have been in the mood for recruitment."

"That sounds ludicrous," the pony sighed skeptically. "But still... what do you propose?"

"It's best if we prepare. What happens tonight may be a trap, may be a fateful duel, may even be nothing for all we know, but either way it could give us the chance we've been waiting for."

He reached for the long, black, silver-tipped cane he left leaning against a cupboard in the kitchen. "Call an old stallion like me cocky, but I've been waiting for a chance like this since I was practically your age, Ebonwind. Every turn I've made against Alder has lead to nothing but him slipping through my hooves. You understand why I can't simply pass up this opportunity."

"Of course I do, sir," Ebonwind agreed. "I'm just worried that you might get a little bit... well, reckless if you let what's in your head get the better of you."

"I am anything but reckless, you foal," he chuckled, pacing up to the pegasus. "And you should know that trusting what's in your head is what will keep you alive. After all, look at me. I've trusted my senses for most of my life, and I still feel as young as a colt and as strong as ox."

Ebonwind let out a puff of air and sighed as he fluffed his wings out, grinning at his mentor's sureness. "Yes sir, I can see that."

"No you can't," Zeffith replied, detecting his deadpanned humor. "Now, cut the jokes and get your gear ready. Tonight I plan on taking another evil off of the face of this good earth."

Rats

As the crescent moon's current position signaled that the night was to end soon, Alder, wrapped in his typical long, dark cloak, stood alone on the grassy terrain lurking beneath Bell Gate Bridge as he had been doing since the night started. The only sound to go about in the background was that of rushing water flowing on in the river behind him, where the bridge stretched over. The strigoi himself was still contemplating his decision to do this, but no matter what, he was dead set on facing the hunters and their weapons of slaughter.

Hearing a rustling of grass, he turned around slowly to see the two, familiar shapes he was hoping to see were now standing before him. They both looked as though they were dressed in thick brown trench coats of some sort, with high collars that concealed all but their eyes. Sitting on either's head was a wide-brimmed hat that helped to conceal themselves further, matching the coat's color and function. By far the most distinguishing feature of the pair was the swords of silver they each held on specially-made bracers attached to one of their front hooves

"It took you both longer than expected," Alder spoke to them both, clicking his teeth together in a loud, rapid chitter.

"What's this about, Alder?" Zeffith demanded to know. "You never had the guts to face us in person before. All you've ever done is run from us or sent your minions to attack."

"I've lived a hundred lifetimes. I've made and lost innumerable friends and allies. I've seen sickness and death, much of which was caused by my own hooves. You can see where my words are going, can you not? We all know that no matter what, someday my life will come to its conclusion, and I thought you two deserved a fighting chance to claim it for yourselves."

"Where's your moroi?" Ebonwind instantly inquired, taking a single step forward. "The short one with the scarf?"

"I've... relieved him of his duties." The words left the creature's hidden mouth with a slight roll, as he lifted a hoof and began to push his hood down, revealing what lied beneath. "He is of no more use to me."

Though obviously equine in origin, Alder's pale white, hairless face looked horrendously mutilated and disfigured, to the point of showing bits of bare skull in some parts, and Ebonwind couldn't help but flinch slightly at just how hideously rotted and corpselike it was. His eyes, nothing more than a pair of bloodshot spheres with veins covering their once-white forms like a bed of crimson vines, looked at his opponents unblinkingly, and his ears, both torn enough to having tips that resembled jagged points, flicked about in the wind with anticipation.

"Now, shall we begin?" he spoke, showing the misshapen teeth that littered his jaw. Clearly visible on it as well, as with all strigoi, moroi and their ilk, was a long, vertical scar that started at his chin and ended at the base of his throat. Zeffith, nodding quickly to Ebonwind, dashed forth and obliged him.

Waving his sword downward, Zeffith missed by scant inches when his enemy sidestepped to the right at a supernatural speed. Ebonwind joined in and thrust his own weapon forward, but that missed as well. With the two hunters attacking simultaneously, all Alder could do was dodge them for a good few seconds in the hope of tiring them out, before suddenly jumping several feet back.

Flapping his feathered wings, Ebonwind lunged at the strigoi with the intention of landing a hit before he could get comfy with the distance he put between them, but Alder was ready for him. Just after Ebonwind made a single swing that missed by an inch, Alder ducked to the left and raised his arm. Bringing it down, he backhanded his hoof against Ebonwind's side with strength greater than the average pony, tossing him away. Soaring through the air, the pegasus impacted against the side of the concrete, graffiti-strewn wall connected to the bridge's base with a loud clatter, and fell to the ground with a cry. Forgetting all else, Zeffith immediately rushed to his student and helped him up.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yes," Ebonwind coughed, slowly getting onto his hooves. "Just got the wind knocked out of me, that's all."

"Then you'd best take a breather. I'll take it from here," the zebra ordered, turning to face his foe once more. Alder simply stood there and watched the two, as if patiently waiting for them to recover. Pointing his sword at the creature, Zeffith left the pegasus' side and began to walk to him at a slow pace that picked up into a full run. With a roar of rage he swung his sword with all of his might, but Alder simply raised his hoof, catching Zeffith's wrist in it, stopping the weapon, and proceeded to throw his other hoof at the zebra's chest with most of his might behind the attack.

It hit well, but Zeffith, despite his advanced age, endured the blow with a gritting of his teeth. Holding onto the creature's leg the moment it hit him, he quickly grabbed something in his pocket with his spare hoof, and flung what appeared to be a glittering cloud of silver dust at Alder's leering face. The metallic particles hitting the desired location fully, Alder broke off from the zebra's grip and winced away several dozen feet, pawing at his eyes with his hooves, screeching in agony as the stuff burned right through his flesh like acid. Just as he finished and seemed to recover from the blow, he let out a gasp just as he made out the sight of Zeffith's figure coming upon him with his brandished sword flashing in the moonlight, successfully impaling it in the location of his heart. Alder looked shocked for a second or two, but before long, a wide smile that stretched from ear-to-ear spread across his jaw.

"You know how to slay my kind well. But tell me, old friend, how shall you pierce my second heart?" the strigoi asked with a wretched smile, grabbing the sword and pulling it in deeper with a sickening noise of flesh. "How is it that such a feat can be accomplished now?"

"Like this!" a voice shouted from behind. Alder only had time to widen his eyes before he felt an incredible burst of agony break out on the left side of his body. Crying out again, he looked down to spot the sight of a second silver blade protruding out of his chest, stabbed directly through his second heart from his back with deadly precision.

"How did... you recover so fast?" he asked in a wheeze, trying desperately to turn his head enough to stare at the pegasus behind him.

"I'm a fast flyer," Ebonwind growled. Alder stumbled about, both swords implanted in his chest and their wielders connected to them, before deciding to stop and just stand where he was.

"So... this is how... it ends?" the strigoi asked in a small and surprising intimate voice to the zebra, a stream of red falling from his dry, deformed lips as he looked at both the blades embedded within him. Moving his head slightly, his eyes soon met Zeffith's, and the pair stared at each other in silence for the next few seconds.

"This is for my wife and son," Zeffith muttered in a calm, but fury-filled voice. "You took them from me all those years ago. You turned them into feral, mindless beasts with your fatal bite, and I had to put them down for good myself. No one, pony, zebra, deer or otherwise deserves to do that to those they hold dear."

"I suppose I may have done... such a d-deed. There are so many I have wronged in the ages I've been cursed with... this," Alder mumbled, sinking to his knees. He let his tired head go limp onto Zeffith's shoulder with another round of click-esque chittering of his teeth, and rested it there for some time, taking in several pained gasps as he struggled for air. "Forgive me, if you may," he then whispered into his longtime foe's ear. "It's... the nature of my kind. I cannot help it, that those who die to my bite transform into those savage mullo."

"The only comfort I find in your words is that they're your last," the zebra murmured. "Your plague ends with you."

"So it might, so it might not..." the strigoi coughed, still smiling crookedly. Ebonwind, who still held his blade firmly, looked visibly confused at these words from behind his coat's collar. Looking over the creature's shoulder to Zeffith, he saw his mentor nod to him, and instantly understood what it meant. With a grim look on his face, he tore his sword from its resting place in Alder's hide, and Zeffith did the same with his own. Unleashing a sigh that seemed to ripple through the air the moment the weapons were removed from him, Alder toppled to his side and burst aflame before he even landed on the ground.

The two hunters shielded their eyes with their coat sleeves as the bright glow illuminated their surroundings, soon dying down and fading away into nothing. Finally able to witness clearly what became of him, the pair could see that all that remained of their adversary was nothing but ash and parts of a charred skeleton, before that crumpled to dust as well. The cloak he was wearing, or what little was left of it from the blaze, fluttered away like a kite in the wind, where it sailed into the river nearby.

Ebonwind stared at the smoldering pile long and hard, and didn't realize how just long and hard he was doing so until he heard the sound of hooves slowly walking away from him. He looked up and saw Zeffith had started to wander off along the shoreline of the river, where he eventually found a rock and plopped himself against it in a tired fashion.

Tossing his sword to the ground, folding the collar down from his neck and tugging his hat from his head, he let out a mighty exhalation of air and stared up at the dark sky and the stars littering it that were slowly disappearing as the sun prepared to emerge from the horizon. From the young pegasus' perception, it looked as though his zebra friend had just lifted an enormous weight from his chest, and more than understood just how incredulously heavy that weight was.

"It's done," were his first, choked words as he saw Ebonwind approach from the corner of his eye. "It's finally done. Fifty-seven years I've waited for this moment, and it's over in less than a handful of minutes. It's done."

After a few seconds of checking around, Ebonwind found a spot and sat next to his mentor. "How do you feel, old-timer?" he asked, placing a hoof on his shoulder.

"How do I feel? Joyful... ecstatic... a little empty too, but that's just because all I've wished for is now complete..." he mumbled something to himself before allowing a small smile to come onto his black-tipped snout. "...And I guess my chest hurts a fair bit from that punch I received, and my leg's a little sore as well, but it's always felt like that."

"Cracking jokes, are we?" the pony chuckled, patting his back. "I never thought I'd see the day."

Zeffith smirked. "You know, what happened tonight may just put a spring in my step, Ebonwind."

Ebonwind joined in on the small bit of laughter the zebra began to let out, and then a lengthy, peaceful silence came between them. Ebonwind's happy expression started to turn solemn as he used the time to think. "What do you think he meant by those last words of his?" the pegasus asked next, remembering the strigoi's enigmatic final sentence.

Zeffith hummed to himself, entering a few moments worth of deep thought. "Of that, I do not know," he said. "But what I do know is that we still have one last scarf-wearing bloodsucker on the loose. And he's most likely still somewhere in the city."

"And your plan?"

Zeffith took in a deep breath. "We wait for him to make a mistake."

Page-Turner awoke on her own as the morning progressed from the night. Slowly she allowed her eyes to open, and discovered that she was looking at the mattress. Picking her head out of where it lied face-down on the bed, she pushed her mane out of her face and looked around.

The shades to the window were down, but through them the translucent glow of the sun could be seen. Other than through the cracks that the drapes didn't cover, there was little light in the room, which filled the pony with a good deal of comfort at not being immediately blinded. Deciding to see what time it was, her fogged, groggy memory soon remembered the pocket watch she had left on the counter next to the bedside. Without hesitation, she reached for the silver object through the desecrated remains of the covers that were sitting over her once-sleeping body.

The moment her hoof touched it, she let out a small grunt and retracted her limb as she felt a terrible burning sensation hit it. Confused, but also curious, she stretched her hoof forward and placed it on the watch again. Once more, she sharply pulled it back as a hot feeling stung her hoof. It was as if the thing had been sitting in a forge's fire for an hour.

"Why does my watch feel so hot?" she wondered to herself in a murky whisper. Rubbing a hoof through her disheveled mane, she let out a huff as her stomach let out a noise of its own, a reverberating rumble, and only then did she just realize how unbelievably hungry she was. It felt like a thousand ravenous rats were gnawing at her stomach in unison, drilling it into a desolate pit.

She clutched it and moaned both hungrily, and tiredly. She stayed in a sitting position like that for some time, until the sound of the door to her room opening with a creak took her mind off of the cramps. The door clicked shut, and Page could see a figure appear before her - a purple-furred earth pony - dressed in a maid uniform. In one hoof she held a plastic basket, carrying something inside of it.

The unicorn soon recognized it was the maid she had seen while suffering from the effects of those aches and pains. The same, helpful one that helped her pay for her stay here.

"My, my..." the pony said in a light tone, upon laying her eyes on Page-Turner. "You're up."

"Heh... that I am," she chuckled back, her voice hoarse and sore. "I guess I pulled through after all..."

"I'm exceptionally happy that you're okay," the maid spoke again with a cheery smile, setting her basket down to the side. "You sounded like a dying cat for almost two days, for lack of a better term."

"I was... I was like that for... two days?" Page inquired, as her stomach began to rumble in a cacophony of vibrations once more.

"Pretty much. You slept completely through the third one without a sound," the maid answered. You looked so weary that the manager decided to keep anypony from disturbing you. But, since you're awake now, might I be able to change those covers of yours?"

Page looked back to what shredded remains of the sheets lying on her bed over her, and lowered her horned head dejectedly. "Of course. Sorry that I tore them up..." she apologized. "I was in so much pain that I guess I... did that."

"There's no need fret over it. We'll just replace them. That's why I brought these," the mare smiled warmly, motioning to her basket. Giving a smaller grin back, Page began to crawl out of her bed at a snail's pace, her mane, tail, and posture low in a droopy fashion. Humming an earworm to herself, the maid began to work on the bed.

As Page moved about, her joints felt stiff and weak as they supported her body on the ground. She was only walking around for a few seconds before the maid took notice and turned her head slightly from the bed after she successfully de-sheeted it.

"You look as though you can barely move, your eyes are bloodshot, and you're as pale as death," she spoke, her eyes slanted with worry. "Don't worry, I'll just fix these new blankets right up, and you can rest yourself once more."

"Thank you," Page whispered, sitting herself down on a nearby wooden chair. As the maid returned what she was doing, pulling covers from her basket; nice, neat ones bearing a flowery smell, and casually tossing the old ones into it, Page used her magic, illuminating from her horn in a rather sickly glow, to lift her book and a select few other objects around the room. Bringing them up to herself and her backpack one-by-one, she began to pack all of her things away into it in slow succession. She planned on leaving the moment she was fit enough. By the looks of it, to her glee, that time would come soon.

Then the rats began to gnaw again.

Placing the last object, her feathered quill, into the bag, Page suddenly grabbed at her entire body, from her chest to her waist, in visible pain. It was as if something inside of her was trying to push its way out, begging to be released. Begging to be fed.

The maid had just finished her duty and tossed the last of in the nearby basket when she heard Page's long groan. "Are you alright, deary?" she asked, clearly concerned.

"Ugh... yes. Just hungry... very, very hungry..." Page responded. She looked up from the chair, a small bead of sweat falling from her horned forehead, and when she looked at the maid's busy form, a smell entered her nose. It was a scent that bore a metallic texture, but one that brought a positively delicious sensation in its wake. Not only was this smell suddenly intriguing, but Page now swore she could hear the crisp sound of the mare's heartbeat. And it sounded... lovely.

"Um... excuse me miss, but why are you... looking at me like that?" The words of the maid tore the pony out of her trance-like state, and she sighed.

"I-I'm sorry..." Page quickly apologized ashamedly, turning her face away, before inevitably turning it back with her jaw slightly ajar, drool beginning to bubble at the base of her mouth as her widened eyes scanned over the mare once more. "I-it's just that... you smell rather good. Like... like a... nice, juicy hayburger."

The maid looked extremely uncomfortable when she heard the "compliment", and only snapped out of her awkward glance when she coughed into her hoof. "Well then, I'd best not stand here and dawdle," she spoke hurriedly with a skittish chuckle, spinning about to leave with the basket of ragged sheets in hoof. "I'll just go and let you be. When I'm done cleaning the other rooms in this shift, I'll bring back something good for you to e-"

The last thing the earth pony remembered before eternal darkness took hold of her was a vividly sharp prick in the back of the neck. With a shocked look painted on her face, the sheets fell from her grasp and she collapsed to the floor below with them. Sticking out from where she had been struck, bearing a blackish-red color, was a long, thin, tongue-like appendage. Where it had emerged from was Page's open mouth, and her lower jaw, which had completely split open in a bright red, upside-down triangular display to allow such an object to pass through, was lined with jagged, hook-shaped fangs at its left and right edges, and webbed flesh was what appeared to be the only thing that held it together, starting at the base of her windpipe. On her face, flashing like a siren light, was a grim glare only a predatory creature would put on.

As soon as Page regained her wits and her grimace disappeared, the projection snapped back from its resting place and retracted back into her mouth, where it vanished back into her body. Her split jaw slowly clamped shut, returning to the plainness it was originally, and all was silent. The only thing that remained permanent and visible was a thin, light scar that ran from the tip of her bottom lip, over her chin, and traveled to the bottom of her throat, just above her collarbone.

To say Page was both surprised and horrified by what she had done was a great understatement. With shaking hooves, she touched her mouth, feeling around inside for what she just unleashed, but found nothing. She was left speechless even after checking herself out.

Then a new scent hit her nose, and like a magic spell her expression changed, and her attention was stolen away. The unicorn looked back to the maid and watched as a small speck of blood began to trickle from the tiny wound she had inflicted on her, and like a moth to a flame, Page began to pace up to her. Upon realizing what damning thoughts were starting to circulate through her head, Page struggled to stop in her tracks. Clutching at her mane with her hooves and pulling on her hair, Page tried to tear her reddened eyes away from the mare's prone body, trembling with pure and utter disbelief at the understanding of what was happening to her. However, with her begging, whining stomach causing her to inch closer with every shaky second, she was soon standing directly over her victim's unmoving form, and fell onto it without a choice.

"I... I can't... Your blood is so... so... I'm sorry..." she whimpered profusely and incoherently, large tears streaming from her semi-closed eyes in a river of sorrow and unkempt starvation. With no control over her actions any longer, now driven solely by the urge of appeasing the unrelenting hunger screaming like an indigent child in her ear to be sated, Page quietly placed her hooves on the pony's body, pressed her mouth over the wound she inflicted in her neck, and began to drink deeply from it. She could feel an intense, searing pleasure the likes of which she had never before experienced the moment the crimson ichor graced her lips and rolled over her tongue. But as the horrific realization dawned upon her, that something truly unnatural and abhorrent had been done to her, she also felt an intense, disturbed, hate-filled loathing of herself for succumbing to its influence. Either way, one fact was abundantly clear as she started to drain every last drop of life-sustaining blood from the helpless pony.

There were no more rats.