The Sky Was Never Young: Vampire System Apocalypse

"CASSIAN!"

Alissa’s scream tore through her throat, raw and ragged, scraping against the walls of the narrow hallway. She lunged forward, her foot skidding slightly on the polished floorboards. The man at the gate was a complete stranger, his face a mask of blank, unsettling calm as he dead-weighted Cassian over one broad shoulder. Cassian’s head hung back, completely limp, his dark hair matted with sweat.

She didn’t think. Survival instinct completely took over. She grabbed Cassian by his free-falling arm, hauling him across the threshold with a desperate, heavy yank that strained every muscle in her back. In the very same breath, she rammed her palm into the stranger’s chest, shoving him back out into the open air with a burst of adrenaline-fueled strength.

The man stumbled off-balance, his heavy boots skidding violently on the loose gravel outside. Alissa didn’t stick around to watch him fall or see his expression change. She grabbed the edge of the heavy timber door, slammed it shut, and threw the massive iron deadbolt.

Click. Locked.

Every single muscle in her body burned, trembling from the sudden shock. She couldn’t let go of the breath trapped in her lungs as she dragged Cassian toward the ground-floor living room. He was dead weight, his feet trailing the velvet rug. Gasping for air, tears blurring her vision into a smeared mess of colors, she used the absolute last ounce of her strength to hoist him onto the old fabric couch. He sank into the cushions, motionless.

BANG- BANG- BANG-

The wood of the front door ratted violently against its frame. The noise echoed down the hallway like a gunshot, heavy, rhythmic, and relentless.

Alissa’s heart hammered so hard against her ribs it felt bruising. Tears fell continuously, hot and stinging, pooling in the collar of her shirt. She dropped to her knees by the sofa, her hands shaking so violently she could barely grip Cassian’s cold, unresponsive finger. She pressed his palm flat against her own forehead, breathing in the metallic scent of copper and old sweat clinging to him.

"Just a few seconds more... Cass, please. I am yours. You can’t do this to me. You can’t leave me alone here. Hold on. CASS!"

She sobbed into his skin, the dampness of her tears soaking into his knuckles. But the thundering at the door didn’t stop. It was getting louder, the wood groaning under an unnatural amount of pressure. She knew exactly who it was. The two "helpers" from the street.

The sudden, vivid image of the tiny glass vial the woman had offered flashed in her mind. Then came the memory of Cassian’s panicked, static-heavy voice over the phone line just an hour ago, followed by the sickening memory of what that police guard had transformed into right before her eyes. It was the exact same shot. Those things outside weren’t human. They were monsters wearing a familiar skin, and their failed attempt at acting normal was officially over. They knew she knew.

Wiping her face with the back of her sleeve, she scrambled to her feet, vision swimming. Her legs felt like lead weights. In the corridor, she grabbed the edges of a massive, solid-oak accent table that usually held her keys and mail. She pulled. The wood scraped horribly against the floorboards, a screeching sound that mixed with the heavy thumping outside. She wedged it directly under the brass door handle. Not enough. She dragged a heavy ceramic planter next, then a stack of encyclopedia books, anything to create a dense, immovable barricade.

Suddenly, her heel caught on the edge of the rug. She hit the hardwood hard, scraping her knees and palms. She stayed down for a second, sobbing from pure, unadulterated terror, staring at the shaking door. But she forced her shaky legs back up. Cassian was fading in the next room. There was no time to cry.

Then, a sickening realization hit her like a bucket of ice water. Her tote bag. The saline water. The medical supplies. They were all left outside on the porch steps.

Going back out there was an immediate death sentence. The creatures would tear her apart before she could even reach the zipper. Panic rising, she sprinted back to the living room and tore open the drawers of the television cabinet, throwing old papers, tangled cables, and instruction manuals onto the floor. A spare bottle of saline, an old IV line, and a fresh catheter needle she had stashed away months ago. Thank God.

Alissa wasn’t just some helpless, fragile university student. She was an independent, stubborn woman who had spent three years working part-time after learning basic nursing at her friend’s mother’s clinic. She had forced herself to learn it entirely so she could manage her grandmother’s chronic, unpredictable illness at home without waiting hours for an ambulance. She knew the doctors only wrote the scripts; it was the nurses who actually did the heavy lifting and kept people alive. She knew how to find a collapsing vein in the dark if she had to.

With trembling but practiced hands, she hooked the saline bag onto a rolling bookshelf, wheeling it tight against the head of the couch. She prepared the rubber line, flicked the tube to tap the air bubbles out, and guided the sharp needle cleanly into the prominent vein on the back of Cassian’s hand.

Time bled away drop by drop. The clear fluid began to slowly clear the toxins from his system.

Alissa sank heavily to the floor, her forehead resting against the edge of the sofa cushions. Her skin felt entirely molten. The fever she had been fighting all evening was spiking again, turning her vision grainy, dark, and dizzy. She couldn’t keep her eyelids open, her body demanding rest she couldn’t afford to give it.

"Aliss-"

The faint, gravelly whisper made her snap her eyes open. She forced her heavy head up, her neck stiff. Cassian’s eyelids fluttered, crunkled at the corners. He was looking right at her, a weak, impossibly fragile smile touching his pale lips despite the tears tracking down his temples into his hair.

"How am I... supposed to survive... if you go and die on me, Alissa?"

"Cassian, you absolute idiot," she choked out, her voice cracking into a quavering, broken pitch. She brought her fist down in a pathetic, weak strike against his stomach, then immediately grabbed his hand again, pressing it tightly to her lips to muffle her sudden sobbing. "You scared the absolute hell out of me."

He let out a weak, breathy laugh that turned into a rough wheeze. "You’ve got a cure for everything... except your own fever... Stupid. You’re supposed to be the one who lives."

"How am I supposed to care about a stupid fever when you’re looking like a corpse?" She argued, wiping her nose with a trembling finger. "Dying is easy. It’s peace. Being the one left behind hurts deep inside. Do you even know what that feels like? It’s torture."

"Please," Cassian muttered, his tone suddenly dropping into something deadly serious, his dark eyes locking onto hers. "Eat the medicine."

Alissa nodded blindly, trying to push herself up using the edge of the coffee table. But her knees completely buckled halfway through the motion. The sheer exhaustion took over, and she collapsed back onto the rug with a soft, helpless gasp, her muscles refusing to obey.

"Watch it!"

Cassian suddenly bolted upright, the violent movement causing the rolling bookshelf to clatter against the wall. He swung his legs over the side of the couch, his face deathly pale but completely determined.

"Stay down... you’re the scemo here," Alissa muttered through gritted eyes, using the Italian insult her grandmother always used when someone was being foolish.

He ignored her entirely. Steadying his shaking frame against the wheeled shelf, he took a few faltering, heavy steps across the rug toward the TV stand. "Where is it?" his voice was rough, commanding.

"Cabinet drawer. Left side," replied Alissa in a lowered voice.

Cassian rummaged through the clutter she had thrown on the floor until his fingers snagged a crumpled foil blister pack. One single pill left. He grabbed a lukewarm bottle of water from the center table and sank down to his knees on the floor beside her. Pop. He pushed the white tablet directly against her dry lips. She took it from his fingertips, swallowing hard as he carefully tipped the plastic water bottle into her mouth to help it go down without her choking.

He frowned deeply at the empty plastic packaging, his jaw clenching. "Only one left. What if the fever comes back tonight? I’ll have to go out and find an open pharmacy once this IV bag runs dry. You stay here and wait."

Alissa lunged forward, her fingers locking around his wrist with a sudden burst of panic. "No! You don’t understand. When you fainted out there, two people came up to me. A man and a woman. The second she touched my face, she tried to force the same glass shot down my throat- the exact one you warned me about over the phone. I barely got us inside. They’re still out there, Cass. They aren’t human anymore. They are just waiting. They will kill-"

She broke off, her chest heaving violently as she began to hyperventilate from the sheer, suffocating stress of the memory.

Cassian’s expression softened, the hard edge vanishing from his eyes. He slipped his strong hand under her arm, gently hoisting her off the floorboards and guiding her up to the safety of the soft cushions. He placed a warm, steady palm against her flushed, burning cheek, his voice dropped to a low, soothing murmur that grounded her.

"Hey. Look at me. Whatever this nightmare is, we’re in it together, na? I’m never leaving you behind again. That’s a promise."

He stood up slowly, using the rolling bookshelf as a makeshift crutch to keep his balance, and moved toward the large living room window. Very carefully, using just two fingers, he pinched the edge of the heavy velvet curtain, peering through the tiny gap toward the dark driveway.

The color instantly drained from his face, leaving him ghostly white. His feet felt completely glued to the floorboards.

"M-Mom?" his voice fumbled, a horrific, broken stammer cracking through the silent room. "Dad?"

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