Opening Scars

Charlotte and I follow the pink haired woman to an underground tunnel that soon led to a wide open room. The room itself housed smaller rooms on either side, stretching further for quite a while. All the rooms contained various creatures. Some that had green skin, some with fur, and some with even one eye. They all tried to free themselves by trying to break the bars containing them inside, but no matter how hard they banged, nothing happened.

"Actually, if you could. Could you do this on the goblins, Charlotte? I don't want to risk ones that are difficult to obtain."

"Okay."

"I'll leave you two to it then."

The pink haired woman soon left us on our own as Charlotte led me in front of one of the cells. I could see three small green skinned creatures, all eyeing us up. It seemed like two of them were frightened, but the biggest one out of the three stood in front as if to protect the others.

"What are we doing here?" I voice a question to Charlotte now that the woman is gone.

"I'm sorry about having you do this, Shiro. But we need to understand more regarding your powers." She says while moving behind me, placing both her hands on my shoulders.

"What do you mean?"

"In order for us to live freely, we need you to learn how to control your powers. In order to do that, we need you to be exposed to it in a safe environment." Safe environment? Wait, don't tell me that I'm meant to- "I'm sorry..."

In the next moment, I feel the mask covering my eyes quickly lift up from my eyes as I stare at the goblins in front of me. My body quickly heats up, tensing up out of fear of what's to come.

"N-no!" But before I could shut my eyes, I could see all three of their heads get ripped off from their bodies as I could feel their blood splatter all over me though the bars. "No! Why?!" I yell out words as I keep my eyes shut, but my body refused to calm down, if anything, my body continues to heat up, making it more and more harder to breathe with each passing second. I just killed again! They weren't even doing anything! Yet...

"I'm sorry, Shiro..." Charlotte proceed to lower my mask back over my eyes, securing it in place before moving in front of me. However despite knowing that my mask is there, I keep my eyes firmly shut.

"...Why? They didn't do anything wrong." I barely manage to say the words as I'm too focused on calming down my beating heart.

"I know it might not help much. But the goblins you just killed have done more than enough to warrant their deaths."

"That still doesn't mean it's alright..."

"I know. I'm sorry." She then moves in to hug me from the front, wrapping her arms tightly around me, not bothered one bit about the blood that's over me. Despite my body feeling as though it's on fire, the warmth that Charlotte's giving me somehow sooths it as I feel my eyes gently open up, and in the next moment, I feel my heart beat slowly stabilize. "There~ That's it." She says while gently patting the back of my head with her hand. Suddenly, my vision becomes a blur as I feel my tears slowly glide down my cheek, slipping under the mask. Feeling my body growing weak, I wrap my arms around Charlotte in hopes to keep myself up as she continues to pat me.

"Don't worry. We'll fix this together.

"B-but-!"

"I know. But we'll need to continue like this. I don't want you to go back in that place ever again..." Her words are as clear as day. She's talking about the white room... So then, I need to kill more in order to not go back there? Is that what she's saying? Thinking that, I tighten my grip on Charlottes clothes as we remained in a tight embrace.

"Do I have to kill?"

"I promise that you'll only need to kill when needed. Alright? The goblins you killed just now are quite dangerous. You killing them here means that you've potentially saved someone's life."

"But they were locked up..."

"Yes. It was a selfish request on my part. I'm sorry. But you need to understand what it means to kill. It's not always a bad thing. Understand?"

"...Mm." If Charlotte says so, then I won't argue.

"Good. I'm sorry for suddenly subjecting you to that."

"It's okay. I understand that you did it for my sake..."

"Shiro... Haah~ Don't worry. I'll be here with you every step of the way." She tightens her hold around me as I instinctively do the same.

After a few more moments, we slowly part off from one another as Charlotte gives me a bright smile in return. But I can't help but notice all the blood I got on her. But suddenly, Charlotte miraculously began lifting off all the blood that's on us as I watch all the blood float up into a single ball just above her hand.

"How?"

"Hehehe. It's pretty handy, don't you think?" Is this another power that comes with being a vampire? I watch as Charlotte then proceeds to store the blood into a phial before sealing it. "We'll continue when you're ready, okay."

"O-okay..." And just like that, my mind is back on the the dead goblins... I really didn't want to do that all over again, but... I trust Charlotte...