Chapter Text
He was surrounded by infinite darkness, which was abnormal.
Dio could see everything, big or small, living or not, in the complete absence of light. Nothing could escape his vampiric sight even from a far distance. However this time, he saw nothing, like he was in a void space. A faint, erratic sound of breathing caught his ear and the vampire immediately turned to its direction, eyes widened a bit at the sight in front of him.
There was someone lying on the ground, a few feet in front of him. Dio strode towards the unknown person, who moved at the same time, his tiny frame, wrapped in a clean, white grown, shaking uncontrollably as he struggled to prop himself up by the elbows. Dio met his eyes as their distance drew in. It was a boy. His hair was long and curly with a lustrous golden hue like his own. Messy blond strands scattered around his shoulder, some lying flat against the outline of his young, tender and beautiful face that lacked colour. The pump lips were pale as paper and the way they quivered spoke of the boy’s unwellness. The garment he wore seemed to be from a hospital. Dio was momentarily tranced by the pair of clear, cerulean blue eyes that were staring right into his - a bizarre connection that he’d never felt before.
The boy’s lips slowly parted, eyes beaming in plea “Please…help me.”
Under normal circumstances, the sheer fear and vulnerability exhibited by prey, would have greatly excited the vampire and turned his amber eyes into a frightening crimson in no time. The way that this boy pleaded, however, evoked a different, more prominent feeling other than arousal, a feeling that he’d never experienced before and never imagined him being capable of having - concern. Dio concerned and pitied no one, until now. The beauty and distress radiated by the boy had aroused him but the excitement was soon waned by those foreign feelings. Dio closed in and studied the blonde boy’s features intriguingly. The boy looked small, roughly aged around 15 at most.
“Who are you?” the vampire’s deep voice echoed in the dark. He felt like he had seen this juvenile face somewhere, long before they met. The boy seemed vividly close to him yet at the same time, different to him. Before the vampire could press on, the boy’s clothes vanished in an instant and what was hidden underneath the white fabric stretched his eyes wider. There were countless, freshly cut wounds, varied in size, all over the slender body. The cuts were so fresh that most of them were seeping red liquid. Some cuts were long and even deep enough to be lethal to humans. What really had drawn the attention from the vampire was a different and more dreadful bloody mess situated on the boy’s lower right abdomen. The wound was a lot deeper with a shape that resembled a bullet shot and was dripping out blood from the injured, vital organ, spilling the deserted darkness with a pungent smell. The disturbing view baffled the vampire. Through innumerable kills, Dio was certain that an injury as bad as that in that part of the human body would faint and even kill its owner in a few minutes if no immediate action was taken, yet he saw no signs of fading out, only a more helpless, anguish expression on the colourless face.
“Help me…..” The boy pleaded. This time it pulled out another feeling from the century-old vampire - sadness. The feeling was so immense and dominant that Dio unknowingly lowered himself until he was almost eye-level with the agonized boy. It was only in this close proximity did Dio catch an unusual, inconspicuous scent from the boy’s blood.
“I won’t hurt you.” The words darted out his mouth before he knew it. Dio tentatively reached out his hand until the pulp of his index finger lightly landed on the fresh blood near the boy’s most severe wound. He was being extra careful not to let his sharp claw touch the skin. The vampire licked the red droplet off his fingertip, eye immediately flared up in red, pupils dilating. Things started to unriddle and stringed themselves together as he swallowed down, the emotional turmoil, the scent and the unspeakable closedness…..
Dio stared at the boy in awe. Just as he reached out his hands again, an unknown force suddenly pulled the boy away with a speed faster than the vampire’s reflex. The boy only managed to let out a short scream before he got sucked into an enormous, vague, ominous shadow that appeared to be a tall building. Then a dead silence ensued.
Dio violently rose up from his bed, sharp amber eyes quickly re-scanning his surroundings. The grand master bedroom was dark as usual yet completely visible. Judging by the obscure sound of birds chirping from the distance, the sun was already hanging high in the sky. The vampire rubbed his throbbing temple and touched what felt like cold sweats. His broad chest heaved indignantly for he found it hard to believe that he, Dio, just had a nightmare and was stirred by it. He would call it a nightmare as the appalling sight of the boy’s suffering was insidiously eating him from the inside merely moments ago. The boy’s face, scent and voice still lingered in his head with an intoxicating effect. He could still hear the feeble pleas echoing, calling out to him.
Calling….Dio suddenly remembered the shocking revelation in his dream. No, that was no dream. That was the boy, in grave despair, still alive somewhere, calling out for him.
That boy belonged to him.
Dio didn’t know how but he knew he couldn’t be wrong. Instead of wasting any seconds on reflecting on all the possible causes, the vampire stormed out the room, searching for his most faithful servant that could walk under the sun.
For the first time in the long river of immortality, Dio truly cursed the sun.
To be continued