It Was Great Meeting You

As she recollected her past, she could clearly remember the overwhelming feeling of being crushed into smaller pieces. Her whole world had crumbled apart, leaving her in a state of turmoil with no one reaching out to help her out of the abyss of despair.

Oh, she was dead, alright, but it still felt utterly miserable to die on her own, and all she had ever brought with her was the feeling of hatred.

Yearning for that much-needed support, a driving force to help her stand on her feet again, she sought an extension beyond her reach. Someone. Anyone, but no one was here. No one was there, and reality proved far from her expectations as she found herself sinking into an even messier hole.

Darkness finally came to her, pretending it was foe, intending to swallow every part of her whole as she curled away from it. She was initially scared, but when fear becomes daily, you start to become numb about everything else, and nothing can penetrate that secure wall you had decided to surround yourself with.

The shrill noise of suffering engulfed Miha's hearing, hands pulling her deeper as she scampered away from death's laughter and owned the tone of misery as she slowly deteriorated, leaving her nothing but her head and the rapid pounding on her temples.

'Was this all that was left of me?'

And then she heard a light knocking on concrete and the painfully slow beating of her heart.

Light suddenly came closer at the same time her eyes went wide open, a gasp escaping her parched mouth.

"Help," it was the only word she could say with her hoarse voice. The weight on her was crushing her ribcage, making it hard to breathe.

Gazing at the stars, Miha was met with specs of dust circulating the air, the borrowed light of the moon making it look like promising sparkles that provided tranquility amidst the chaos. As the wind decided to answer her with a caress, she started to look around her.

No one else's body was in any of the piles of rubble except her own. But because of how the building fell, it's possible that she was the only one who made it to the surface.

Her teeth chattered as she rivaled at her thoughts. Miha refused to believe she was the lone survivor. She's not eliminating the fact that everyone could've died—is dying right now—but it just can't be that she's the only one who made it out alive.

Suddenly the ground shook as several thuddings could be heard nearby. She remained as she would have been minutes ago; a supposed corpse withering alone in the dark.

"Over there," spoke a man whose face she couldn't see. The man somewhat nodded to his companion the same time Miha's head turned in the direction of his strange voice.

"He couldn't have gone that far."

As her heart pounded with hope the same time Miha's spirits began to lift, believing that these were the rescuers tirelessly roaming the area, searching for survivors. She clung to the glimmer of possibility, longing for the reassuring presence of those who could bring her to safety and bring an end to her terrifying ordeal that she was facing at the moment.

'Was help finally coming?'

"We don't know that," the other replied as he pulled his…

Miha's brows furrowed.

'What is that?'

A large piece of clothing draped their shoulders, concealing their entire back.

Something clicked at the back of her mind, and Miha remembered what it was called.

'A cloak!' her brows furrowed in confusion. 'But why are these people wearing cloaks?' Miha thought despite her injuries.

They are rarely used in the modern-day era, and she was well aware that cloaks would have been part of a TV show at this point in time. She found it strange that anyone would consider wearing them today.

After a satisfactory inspection, Miha held her breath, her attention never leaving these men. Something about them just didn't sit right with her.

In her hazy state, she noticed that besides their odd clothing, these men were also mounted on massive horses with manes that strongly resembled shadows in the dark.

"That man had been locked up in a basement for years. He wouldn't know of the ways beyond it."

The man who seemed to be in charge of the search yanked his reins and drove straight down the path while Miha pretended to be a corpse sandwiched between heaps of enormous wreckage that were already suffocating her to death.

With weariness, she watched them maneuver their horses around the vicinity in urgency, her gaze tailing their every move.

Tears pricked at the end of her eyes. Little did she know that her heart would sink upon doing so. The place that had once been bustling with people was now nothing but rubble on the verge of being forgotten.

Pieces of furniture were covered in ash from the ruined cement, and shattered glassware was all over the now empty space. A vast portion of the stage lights from the ceiling ended up on the floor, liquor from the shelves routing on the crack on the now broken tiles.

A few feet away, the men wore puzzled expressions on their faces, their shoulders tense, their gazes wary of what seemed to come their way, as if they were curious about what they'd come to discover tonight.

One of them picked up the broken lights and inspected it, his look of bewilderment clear upon the moon's light.

Cold sweat traced Miha's forehead, the lump in her throat growing tight. Something's clearly not connecting. Besides their unusual choice of fashion, Miha couldn't ignore the constant irk at the back of her mind that none of this made sense.

They were supposed to be well-prepared disaster rescuers, but to her surprise, they appeared more like medieval men patrolling the area instead of actively searching for survivors. Miha's hopeful anticipation of rescue teams turned into confusion as she saw them dressed in attire from another era. Instead of the expected tools and equipment, their appearance gave the scene a strange and surreal feeling, leaving her uncertain about their intentions and the help they could offer.

The cloaked men shuffled through a cluster of trees in calculated movements the same time pain surged through her chest, proving her unable to breathe even a single mouthful of air in the open space.

"What do you think?" gestured one of them. "How far could he have gone?"

"He isn't," the other one said. "He's around here somewhere, hiding himself."

"He deserves credit for getting it right."

Miha's heart nearly leaps out of her chest.

She followed the voice with a slow turn of her head and was greeted with a man lying on his stomach next to her, his chin resting on his crossed arm, the wreckage on top of her providing enough coverage that obscured him at an advantage.

Despite his gorgeous appearance, Miha stared at him in sheer horror.

He had the palest blonde of hair she had set eyes on, and it was cropped short. Its brilliant gold threads were hardly visible when illuminated, his skin the pallid color of someone on the point of death. Miha felt an instinctive shudder travel through every inch of her body when he turned to look at her.

She held her breath and realized he was ethereal.

A pair of crimson orbs pierced her dark ones as though digging further into the depths of her soul.

It was so terrifyingly beautiful that she couldn't decide which one of the words she described she preferred over the other.

"I suppose I startled you," he admitted in reverent whispers, the richness of his voice resonating in her head like a hollowed echo.

Miha could only faintly nod when she realized he was waiting for her reply.

"Excellent," he said, his pearly white teeth shining bright, sharp canines protruding from the corners of his seemingly perfect lips. "It just goes to show that I'm still the monster they thought I was."

She believed him.

"Help!" Miha hollered, the hooves of horses halting the minute she let out that one phrase that she had no idea that would forever define her fate.

Suddenly, the piece of cement that had been on top of her flew away, as if propelled by an unseen force. She didn't have time to react as the man quickly grabbed her frail neck, squeezing it tight with his huge, yet bonny hands.

"I've mistaken you for a cat that didn't know how to make a sound," he chuckled. "It turns out you're a tiger that roared the moment they sensed danger."

Etched in terror, Miha clawed her way at his wrist. She no longer noticed the soreness in her entire body as she fiercely trashed her limbs and battled the way she imagined would free her from his hold.

"Constantine," it was the familiar authoritative voice from earlier.

The man didn't say a word, but this eventually led Miha to believe she was paying double for this inconvenience she'd caused him.

The galloping horses surrounded them in an instant, and the man remained stony as he lowered her to the ground, his grip shifting from her neck down her waist. He pressed his body as hard as he could against her, molding his shape to her already broken one.

She felt the beat of both of their hearts, the ends of her hair standing as he lowered his mouth on the curve of her ear, his breathing sending warm terror trails through her skin.

The man started inhaling through her neck. Miha watched in silence and was frightened by the way his pupils constricted as the surrounding crimson of his eyes shifted from a dark shade to a stark vermilion that held her captive.

An unreadable emotion appeared on his face. It swept through his entirety, and he finally revealed it by fixing his gaze directly onto her.

"Don't," the familiar man's voice from earlier pleaded, his face stricken with unexplained horror.

The lack of a response from the man called Constantine weighed heavily on the already uneasy atmosphere around them.

"Constantine," the man eventually said again, his voice dropping. "You wouldn't want such a thing to happen to you. You've been well without it for the past years that went by."

"Wouldn't that depend?" Constantine spoke as his voice tickled her neck. Miha had no idea what he was talking about, but she frantically shook her head.

Suddenly, he reached out and pulled the clump of hair that was obscured her neck, his tongue sliding toward the first visible vein he could find.

"What are you doing?" Miha remarked gravely.

"It was great meeting you," he replied in pure delight, her eyes brimming with dread as he plunged his mouth into her neck.

Her grip went to his arm as she felt two sharp teeth burrow deeper into her flesh while she let out a piercing cry of anguish. This went on for an eternity: the sucking, the blood loss, and the monster latching on to her, feeding on her existence.

Miha's eyes drifted close as she lost all remaining strength, darkness closing in on her once and for all.

Miha's last lingering thoughts settled on a somber realization: he truly was the devil.