I had cautiously approached the gate that had once offered a safe passage between Eastern Zone and the haven that was the Central Zone. My previous visit with Adrienne had filled me with a nauseating fear; the knowing glares from the guards were almost enough to scare us off, and now, with everything that was happening, I had to think this time would be far worse.

I needn't have worried about making my way inside, however. The gate had a unique scent of death long before I had even stepped inside, the doorway having been forcibly removed for ease of access.

I put the pieces together quickly, as the bodies in front of me filled any gaps in my knowledge. The senior guard within the gate was hanging limp, completely null of life. I hadn't spent time getting to know this man, and wouldn't be able to identify the species he originated from - he'd been working in this gate since Eternity had been created, and now, as it was nearing its implosion, his life had ended. All I could tell at this moment was that he was physically pulled through the thick glass pane that separated the two areas and had his throat ripped open - the gushing blood from that wound had long dried up, but the mass of red below him was enough of an indication of its severity.

I swallowed hard as I narrowed my gaze into the room behind him; the other guards had received the same hollow treatment, each species guard ripped to shreds and thrown against the walls. There was no hope of survival for any of these souls - they were well and truly disposed of.

Even the room had received a thorough bashing, the chairs broken apart, the desk cracked in the centre, and paperwork ripped and strewn across the carpeted floor; someone or a group of people with a glorified vendetta had certainly gotten to work here, leaving blood splatters over each wall, and stains deep in the carpet - when this was over, it'd be a nightmare to clean up.

I was forced to jump through the gap created in the glass, easing past the body carefully and edging myself over the blood pooling off of the desk on the other side. I had to contain my anger as I pushed the silver button, this was already too much for me to mentally compartmentalise, and I hadn't gotten to the actual violence and bloodshed yet. The violence and bloodshed that was just beyond the door that was only a push of a button away.

As the doorway inched away from the metal floor beneath it, the noise erupted through what I had now realised was a soundproof room; it had never occurred to me - Central was usually a relatively peaceful zone only briefly filled with commuters. It had eased me into the chaos that I was about to view within Central, a sight I could only sourly behold.

Most of the outer buildings were currently on fire, pillars of smoke rising into the sky from broken windows, and large chunks had been ripped into the sides of buildings, the dust still raining down onto the ground below.

Even now, explosive devices were still being thrown towards those large towers, some only reaching the sky directly above from where they'd been thrown before exploding. They'd clearly been made in a hurry, but the kind of hurry that someone who was expecting this outcome would have; mildly prepared but not quite enough time.

Despite the explosions roaring through the zone, the long line of defence in front of the main building barely flinched at each one. This, at the very least, was surprising, considering that the line of defence was mainly official workers who were desperately pleading with the enraged zone inhabitants to calm down; barely being kept alive by the line of soldiers behind them.

Those soldiers were doing a terrible job at keeping people alive, from what I could see, anyway. Even as I stepped through the entrance and was met with an even stronger aroma of death and blood mixed together with violent passion, all I could consider were the crushed bodies at the entrances to the zones. Those bodies belonged to vampires, werewolves, and humans alike, each with so much to live for, yet here they were, lifeless and empty of all hope of survival.

I couldn't help but focus on the little body in amongst them; the body of a small human boy who even in death was clutching desperately to the golden teddy bear in his arms adorned with a blue polka dot handkerchief around its neck - I had hoped it had been the force of bodies that had hurt this little boy, but the large chunk of skin bitten away from his shoulder told me that I was being optimistic. This little boy, one so undeserving of it, had been murdered. He had to have been thrown to the ground afterwards too, a wound forming on the back of his skull and pooling blood underneath.

Killed. Wiped away like it was nothing.

While the two species were still attacking each other in the back of the crowd, many at the front had focused their energy on the officials, screeches and cries could be heard all around as people fought for their lives. Those pleas were falling on deaf ears it seemed, as claws tore through arms and guts like soft butter.

I couldn't help but think of the first war as the sounds echoed around my head and ate into my ears. The horrifying screams of people that were too weak to defend themselves, the screams of people that hadn't known of our existence and didn't have any idea of what we could possibly do to them. There was no way to protect yourself from something you had no understanding of. How can you fathom protecting your life when something so strong, and so unfazed was willing to physically pick you up and throw you to the ground; all to feast on you?

I remember the first time. Now that I could see all of this in front of me, the memory charm that Nora had blessed me with had vanished, the memories that were already breaking through too much for the charm to handle. And it was all coming back to me now. The night that had changed me completely.

A group of us had gone to the surface, and after a while of roaming around and passing by reasonable snacks, we'd smelt something so divine and pungent; it had to have drawn us in all night, subtly pulling us to the complete opposite side of the city, Barewood, as it was called then. We'd broken into that house and forced our way through it, collecting the people inside and gathering them in the small living area they had.

I had been crazed. Even then, blood was such a delicacy to me. Every ounce of it I enjoyed mercilessly, gulping down every drop I could with little worry about the consequences. So when that small boy had stood in front of me with blood so pure, so fragrant, and so untouched, I couldn't help but lunge at him. My fangs had broken into his skin before the group had time to even fathom torturing this family; draining almost every drop from his small frame before I dropped him to the ground.

As I broke free, it didn't take me long to realise what I had done. Even with the way I was, I didn't touch children. Even now, I didn't have a reason why I had gotten so out of control; I wanted to say it was just excessive hunger from all the years underground, but I had no faith in that as a reason. I had stepped back and slid down the wall, watching the boy heave on the ground, pale, with his life slowly leaving him.

That small, small child.

He was so small.

I wanted to leave it at that. He could have been saved if it had stayed at that.

But it didn't.

One of the others had stepped in quickly, ripping his fangs through his own wrist before picking the fragile little body up and forcing him to ingest the blood that was slowly dripping from the wound. He'd done this right in front of the mother, who another was gripping onto tightly and forcing to watch - he'd effectively turned her son into a monster right before her eyes.

That was barely anything in comparison to the war.

The war had gotten so much worse. After the police had found that house and found the survivors, they had enough pieces to put it all together. They'd eventually found out about our existence and planned to hunt us down.

When I think about it, I wonder if they regretted that decision. Unleashing the vampire population on themselves, causing the bodies that piled high in the street, causing the food that was usually transported into the city to be cut off, and causing us, vampires, to start patrolling their alleyways looking for the next source of blood and prey to toy with. It took years for the vampires to agree to any terms, and that only occurred because the witches demanded it.

When Nora found out about what I had done to that little boy and what part I'd played at the start of it she had completely closed off. She was on my side because her heart couldn't switch off the love no matter how hard she had tried, but she'd stepped back from me, breaking off all contact until the witches had agreed to take us all on. That was when she came back and blessed me, knowing I'd be alone.

I suspected she worried I'd eat away at myself in guilt and pity if she didn't ease my mind in those final hours. She was probably right about that. I was prone to self-destruction when I remembered what I did. I was only lucky she'd pulled most of the memories from my head, erasing all of the details, no matter how minute - even now, the finer details were still gone.

As I broke through the crowd and avoided the violence between the back of the zone and the main building, I could hear the loud, evoking tones of the leaders, just beyond the back of their front line. Alaric and Rudhairi were attempting, with little success, to gain control of their own kind. Speaking with such gushing tones it was a wonder they could take themselves seriously.

I forced myself to listen closely, blurring the fighting sounds in my head to focus. Rudhairi was speaking tearfully, clearly feeling completely powerless in this situation and trying his best to stay diplomatic, "We understand this is a difficult time, but you must stay calm. We mustn't allow this temporary circumstance to destroy us permanently. The actions you are taking are inconsistent with how you really feel; this is not what you wanted ten days ago."

His words were being ignored, not a single soul seemed to pay attention to his outcrying tones. It felt odd how they were standing; how the female leaders didn't seem to be helping at all - Alaric, at the very least, was trying to appease those at the front, glaring down at them but shouting out appealing words, "This isn't productive," and "You're not murderers, stop making yourselves them."

That wasn't the oddest part. It was the way they were standing; Alaric and Rudhairi were positioned at the forefront of the front steps, with full access to their own kinds with purified passion in every word. Their feet were firmly on the marble steps below them as they crouched down and tried to gain some form of control.

Malka and Aubrey on the other hand, had their arms behind their backs, swaying to the sounds of chants near the doors to Central's main building. Their delicate necks were pulled back, heads tilted up to look towards the darkening sky. It was a sensational sight that shot trepidation right into my heart; an ill-judged move that could only be interpreted as an outcry of rage.

The riot had become a free for all of blood and violence - claws and limbs thrown in any direction that seemed necessary without a second thought about where they would land. I had barely caught the wrist of someone from the Fourth bloodline; eyes shimmering red with hot rage. Those eyes had calmed as soon as my skin had taken a tight grip around them, relief flooding their face.

Something had gone terribly wrong; I could only presume some form of witchcraft had taken a firm hold of the city; a spell frightfully powerful. That had confused me, there wasn't a witch down there that would be willing to side with any of the revolutionary parties.

I watched as Rudhairi's collected expression had twisted into frustration. He had risen from the ground and pushed his hands into his hips as he bellowed from deep inside his core, "Stand still!"

It was a powerful sentence - in the sense that not only did the three leaders physically tremble as it was spoken, but each and every vampire in the zone had suddenly stopped, compelled to obey the command without question.

I released a breath of relief; with the vampires awake enough to understand what was occurring, they had the sense to stop the werewolves from attacking by holding onto them tightly, rather than attacking back.

I wasn't allowed to be pleased by this sudden calm. I should have listened to that old expression; it would have alerted me to the two women sooner. It was the look on their faces that had given it away. It was the look on their faces that had caused a surge of energy to run through my body and straight into my bones. It was a morphed look of confusion and resentment and a warped sense of guilt - they hadn't expected him to manage this.

In a moment, they'd raised their hands from their backs to reveal two perfectly crafted silver blades that I recognized even from here - they were part of an esteemed collection of rare knives some of the original vampires had collated in their lifetime; each embellished with royal jewels that shone in any light. They were the type of item your eyes were drawn to and afraid to part with, yet I was forced to at this moment as bodies of friend and foe lunged at me in a heated frenzy.

What I thought was a sign of power and a token of the shared trust we'd had in each other were now being held to the throats of Alaric and Rudhairi. There was no time to react as the blades were forced back into the skin and through their necks. The tight grip they'd had on their hair had meant the heads had stayed firmly in their hands as their bodies fell to the ground.

Everything goes silent; a faint buzzing barely audible as everything seems to rush around me. The only thing that seemed to make it through to me was an anguished cry from a familiar blonde who was rushing through the crowd in complete agony.

As her screams rang through my head I couldn't help but stay frozen to the ground, my eyes glued to the now dying eyes of my dear friend. A man that had been by my side for years; and the man that had kept me grounded when no one else possibly could. The man that could rest his hand on my shoulder and that would be enough to keep me calm.

The man that had sat and talked through my guilt and pain, and understood my decisions and what I'd done; the same man that had gotten me to the place where I was now; able to stand tall, and have faith in the love I held for people.

He was now a head.

A head being gripped alone.

Dead.

Rudhairi was dead.