CHAPTER FINALE: THE END
Raziel was dumbstruck as he watched Melissa flung backwards and onto the solid ground by the leader’s shot. The hollow of her throat was squirting out blood and her eyes were widened in disbelief as she struggled to breathe through her punctured throat. Her chest rose and fell abruptly as she painfully tried to breathe, the blood oozing out every time she drew a breath into her lungs.
Raziel roared and broke the chains that bind his wrists. He had never felt so infuriated before. It was as if he was consumed by the fire of hate, burning and raging through his heart like a thousand flames. He threw off the scarf that wrapped across his face, revealing his jawless mouth and his vampiric fangs. He jumped into the crowd and clawed at everyone in sight. It was like a huge thunderstorm happening in the middle of the abandoned air force plain. Bodies of hunters flew at every direction and blood flowed like rain, staining the place red, drenching Raziel’s body and clothes. If he were the traditional vampire, this amount of blood would have been a great feast for him. But he sucked souls, and those souls were like candy to him. He slashed a hunter to death and the next split second the unfortunate soul of the hunter went down his gut.
Everything was like a storm. Raziel crashed through the crowd, slashing and throwing away hunters that were in his path. His eyes were focusing on the leader. He was bent to kill and rip his throat off his body. The leader noticed him incoming and aimed the gun at Raziel. He fired a few shots onto him. Raziel’s body suddenly ached, like a dozen pieces of incantation strips planted into his body. He fell onto the ground, trying to hold on to the pain and get up, to no avail.
“You think it is easy for you to even touch a hair on my body, you villainous vampire?” the leader came forward and smirked. “Think again. I’ve been around long enough to know that beings like you have a certain protection against attacks, so I loaded this gun with bullets made out of incantation scroll ashes and ashes of a very powerful evil witch, whom the founders of this hunter clan have taken care of years ago. You can never defeat us. No creation of the Devil can withstand us who fight for the righteousness of the human race.”
“If you think…this is the way of…fighting for humans’ righteousness…” Raziel slowly tried to stand up. The leader tried to boot him back to the ground but was caught by Raziel’s three-fingered claw. He gripped his foot so tight that the leader was screaming like hell. As Raziel stood up, he tugged at the leader’s foot with such force that he actually ripped it off its socket. Needless to say, the leader felt more than just scorching pain.
“If you think this is the way of fighting for humans’ righteousness,” Raziel repeated as he clenched his claws onto his chest and concentrated, “you are going to be so disappointed.”
So saying, he let out a loud roar as he propelled the bullets out of his body, hitting some of the hunters who were charging towards him. Raziel caught his breath and glared at the leader who was trying to crawl his way from the eyes of Raziel who were bent on killing. He wriggled away too late; Raziel grabbed his neck and glared venomously at the pathetic leader who was begging for his life.
“Let me go! Let me go, you vampire! Please let me go, sir!!”
“You’re not as strong as you were before,” Raziel’s voice had a hint of mockery.
“Please, I beg you, spare my life! Please!!”
“Your life is not worth to be begged of.”
And for the first time in his life, Raziel started sucking the soul out of that man alive without the usual ‘kill first, suck later’ routine. The leader let out a bloodcurdling scream as his whitish soul was sucked out through his eyes and mouth. He began to vomit blood and more blood came out of his ears and nose as the soul was forced out of his body inch by inch by Raziel’s great sucking motion. More hunters tried to charge towards the Soul Reaver to release and save their leader but somehow, their legs became weak and the fear of ending up the same way like their leader crossed through their minds. They could only fall on their knees and watch as their leader got closer and closer to death. Raziel was the centre of the occasion. He stood like a fearless being among the people, indestructible and full of power.
It was like eternity when he finally had the leader’s soul into his body. The leader’s body shrank like a mummy and was a real frightful sight. Raziel threw him away like a piece of rubbish and glared at all the hunters that were on the floor, full of fear and terror over this vampire they have never encounter before in their days of services in the clan. Raziel materialized the sword from his palm and brandished it in front of their eyes. With a gleam in his eyes, another ‘thunderstorm’ broke, sending bodies all over the place, and this time, the Soul Reaver made sure that every last one of those hunters’ blood stained his sword…
When Raziel finally came back to his senses, the whole place was quiet. So quiet you could hear a sewing pin drop. He panted and surveyed the plains. No more incoming hunters. No more incoming dangers. Just bodies of everyone that had did Melissa and Judith wrong. Raziel finally noticed Melissa and rushed towards her, drawing the scarf across his face as he went to her. The children finally came out of their hiding place, with Kent carrying Judith’s body in his arms.
Raziel knelt beside Melissa, who was still struggled to breathe through her punctured throat. He laid her head on his lap and tried to block the bleeding hole on the hollow of her throat. She shifted her blank gaze towards Raziel and smiled.
“Guess I…really took my force field…for granted…”
“Don’t speak. You need medical human help. I can’t remove the foreign thing in your throat. I…” Raziel’s words were stopped by Melissa’s trembling hand.
“Forget it…I’m dying anyway…”
Raziel’s eyes widened. She was dying—he could see it—but surprisingly, he didn’t feel any happier than he should.
“Looks like…you’re gonna get my soul…after all…”
“Don’t say that, woman. You’re not going to die. You are going to live. I have not killed you with my bare hands yet, you are not allowed to die!”
“Then kill me now…”
Raziel didn’t want to admit it. He fought with the truth that was itching in his mouth and his pride, but finally he whispered painfully, “I cannot. I can’t do it…”
Melissa wasn’t surprised. She smiled and touched his cold, clammy cheek and said, “I guess human life…has taken a…toll on you…”
Raziel remained silent, but his heart was burning with sorrow and pain. He couldn’t understand it. She was finally going to die. Her soul was finally going to be in him. Why was he not happy? Why couldn’t he find the satisfaction of her death? Why was he feeling sorry for her and wanting her to live? Why? Why?
“My soul is yours…” Melissa was closing to death now. Her life was beginning to slip. Raziel could feel it. “Promise me…you will keep…my soul in you…forever…”
Raziel didn’t reply. He didn’t want to make that promise. He wanted Melissa to live. He didn’t want her to die.
“I…I love you…Raziel…”
Love? That word suddenly clicked in him, the word he had long since forgotten ever since he became a vampire. Love? Is that what’s all about? Is that the drive that made him hesitant to kill? Is that the drive that influenced him to save her every time she was in trouble? Was it because he…loved her? Was it because he actually fell…in love with her? When he turned to face her, she was no more. She had closed her eyes for eternity. Raziel’s heart sank like a stone into the bottom of the ocean.
Slowly, he saw Melissa’s soul sitting up out of her body. She was a glowing entity, a beautiful angelic masterpiece of heaven and earth. She looked into Raziel’s eyes and smiled. Her whole body was white, including her hair, but she was nowhere old. She was something so beautiful and precious that Raziel has never seen for a very, very long time. She outstretched her arms in an embrace. Raziel embraced her back and laid his forehead against hers. Melissa smiled some more and brought her lips close to his jawless mouth. Raziel lowered his scarf and closed his eyes, feeling her cotton-soft lips on his…
When Raziel opened his eyes, he found himself kneeling on a tall cliff facing the sky with its unnatural colour. A murky river was miles below his feet and the outskirts of the valley was as sinister and as cold and dark as he recognized it. It was all too familiar for him. It was the Spectral Realm, the place he had called home ever since the Elder God gave him the Soul Reaver identity. He was finally home. Melissa’s soul was really the key to his return to the Spectral Realm.
As he stared across the sinister valley before him from the cliff he was standing, he found no comfort. He wasn’t happy at all that he had returned to the Spectral Realm. He wasn’t glad that he was back to his routine of being his free-lance Soul Reaver and escaping from the Elder God and battling Kain, whom he was yet to come across. None of them did his aching heart any good than it should.
“I love you, Raziel…”
“Melissa…” Raziel sat abruptly onto the solid ground of the cliff and buried his face in his arms. It was a bitter feeling to come back. It was so bitter, it cut him like a knife.
For the first time in centuries, Raziel cried…
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