Shaye

"I found out while I was searching for other vampires," Elijah continued. "I went to the corporate building and overheard some of the executives talking about you. All of you." He looked from Allen to the other werewolves, then his eyes rested on me.
I thought I had accepted my fate with grace and dignity. I thought I could go out as a martyr and die bravely, but the moment he looked at me like that my whole body grew cold. I hoped it wasn't obvious my body had started trembling.

"Shaye," said Allen. "Can you use your magic to heal him?"
I wanted to say no. Elijah was going to die anyways, either by the flames, or by his own choice. This wouldn't do much good, plus the consequences that could follow aren't worth it.

"I can't necessarily heal him, but I can reverse time on his body to before he got burned I'm the elevator. It won't mend his broken bones, but it'll stop most of his pain."

I closed my eyes and got to work immediately, becoming so engrossed in the effort I didn't hear a response. I could feel my body heating up, a sign of me using magic I didn't have the energy to possess. I was use to the fatigue, but the nausea gets me every time. When I felt like I built up enough energy, I opened my eyes and started at my skin. White sprinkling lights appeared all over my skin , something I hadn't seen since I passed out when I first used magic.

The orbs of light floated away from my eyes. They didn't seem different in any way though. Some were multicolored and changing, while others looked like far away galaxies. I created the maximum amount of orbs that I could, four from reach eye, and they encircled Elijah, eventually flying into him from different angles. His skin started to glow like mine, and for a minute, holographic beams of light shone from him. When they stopped the smell of burning flesh was gone, and his skin had been restored.

Or I should say, the skin that had been burned was restored.

Even after I healed him, we all kept staring at him in disgust and shock. His body was literally rotting away. His jaw had a nasty gash that looked like it would never heal, his fingernails were black and bloody.
His skin was pale, and I'm sure that if he wasn't so close to Isaac's man-made bomb furnace, he'd be cold as ice.

"What the... What happened to you, man?" asked Allen.
Elijah looked at him with contempt, and I wasn't sure if he was actually mad at Allen or his own situation.

"It's happening to everyone. All the vampires, our bodies are dying on us. We've started to look like zombies, and some of us are getting weaker too. Like me."

Elijah looked at his own skinny, emaciated body, then back at us.

"That's what the vampires at the big building are really focused on. They are trying to figure out what's happening to us, and how to stop it."

"Your situation is similar to ours, something is happening to us too." said Jamie.
Elijah's face changed. "I don't see anything wrong with any of y'all, don't try to compare your problems to ours!" He snarled.

"Whoa, whoa wait." Allen stepped in.
"We're multiplying, they're dying. That sounds like a big ass difference to me, Jamie."

"Be that as it may, you can't deny that strange things are happening to both groups." I added.
Did you know this was happening to us?" Elijah said to me. "Did you say anything, or warn any of us it was happening?"

I gave him a small laugh. "Heck no. While I was watching them," I motioned to the others, "Someone else was watching me. If I so much as thought about what the vampires were doing they would've splattered me all over the wall."

He smiled, then immediately winced because of the pain. Donovan tapped the table, trying to get Elijah's attention.

"So, what your saying is, all of the vampires are becoming weak and vulnerable, so it should be fairly simple for someone, some people like us, to take out the leading vampires and reclaim control of the sky?"

Elijah stood on his own two feet and lunged at Donovan. Luckily, Donovan pitied him enough to not engage. He stepped aside and Elijah, who didn't really even have enough strength to stand up longer than 2 seconds, fell to the ground. He screamed again in pain as soon as he hit the ground, then yelled at the ceiling out of frustration. He didn't look at any of us, he just stared at the ceiling, and then the wall next to him.

You're a stupid, two-faced mutt. It's always the same thing with creatures like us. Vampires. Werewolves. A ignorant blood feud sustained by flea-bitten mongrels like you and a bunch of stupid blood suckers picking a fight. I've been a vampire for a few decades now, but I still don't want to pick a side. We're all supernatural creatures that shouldn't exist, and only recently did we figure out how to live among humans without causing a total panic."

Donovan didn't interrupt Elijah, he just watched him and listened quietly. I began to realize that he wasn't listening to Elijah, but to Elijah's heartbeat, which had been getting slower the more he talked.

"I'd like to see how much you cared about killing vampires with a pitchfork up your ass." Elijah continued.

"Everything that you feel, fear and hate, we do too. You guys should've seen the reactions when this began. About a month ago. It got even worse when they came up with a name for it, isolating the vampires who had contracted this mysterious disease. The people that had it, people that had begun to look like me, they started calling them revenants."

Donovan looked at me, then Allen, like he expected us to stop him.
"Can't you see what's happening?" Donovan spoke to me in his mind. "He's dying right now. Reverse time again. He's giving us information. We need to hear everything."

I took my eyes off Elijah, who has started coughing loudly. It was a raspy, violent cough and it shook his slender frame.

"You only want him alive to hear what he has to say... I assure you nothing he says will help you in any way. If your looking for answers, he has none. I couldn't help even if I wanted to, I just don't have the strength."

I stared directly at Donovan, making sure he understood me. He shook his head once, and looked back at Elijah, who was staring at blood he just coughed out. He closed his fist and his eyes, then banged it on the floor.

"As I was saying, the vampires that didn't have it yet began to think it was contagious and stayed away from the vampires, or revenants, that did.
Families were barely hanging on by a thread, and alot revenants took the cowards way out."

"Suicide." said Marissa.
"Yes." Elijah agreed.
"How does a vampire kill himself?" asked Donovan, imagining Elijah stabbing himself with a pencil.
"Fire." croaked Elijah. "They used fire."

Elijah kept staring at the wall, not moving, but everyone else looked at Isaac.

I couldn't tell if he felt guilty or not, but when I tapped into his mind I heard him say to the others: "Don't blame​ me because my invention was successful."

"Most revenants don't let it get this far. In fact, I was on the verge of suicide myself, when I met Allen."

Now all eyes focused on Allen.

"He told us about the witch, he told us how he survived. The witch had taken my brother with her and gotten him killed, so I saw this as my one chance, my one opportunity to make things right before I go out. Little did​ I know that Allen had developed​ a soft spot for the chick and decided to protect her."

Now everyone was looking at random things trying to avoid eye contact, except Marissa. She's stared at him so intensely I was glad I couldn't read her mind.

"I agreed to help him get information, so I went to the big vampire base looking for answers. I didn't do it just for that, I wanted to see if they had a cure, something to stop the disease. They didn't, but I heard plenty about you all. They would've used me as a pawn to get close to Allen, but there was too much damage to my body, they decided I was useless.

I didn't started to feel that way till days later. I don't know how, or why, but the next time I not into someone... It disgusted me. Me, a vampire, getting sick from blood. Not only that, I started forcing myself to feed on people, but I couldn't regain any strength, I just kept getting weaker. I killed twenty seven people in my effort to survive, and no matter how much I drank, the result was the same. I was almost content with dying in that elevator but I remembered​ I had a message to deliver. If you knew... the effort it took to climb out.." he coughed again, harsher than before.

"I went blind. I haven't able to see anything since you opened the doors." He laughed, but stopped midway because it almost made him cough again. It's kind of ironic how fast I adapted to it though. My body following your voices and breathing patterns when I had already given up on everything.
Allen.."

"What?" Allen answered.
"What happened to the witch?"
"Uhh..." Allen looked around the room with a shocked expression on his face.

"She's fine!" I yelled at him in my mind. "But tell him she's dead, it'll make him happy."

"She died, Elijah." The curse came back and destroyed her completely. Not a trace."

Elijah stopped looking at the wall and looked in the direction of Allen's voice.
"Good. She got what she deserved." He closed his eyes and exhaled for the last time.

I looked at the others. Jocelyn was crying, and Marissa had picked her up. Everyone else seemed fine.
I thought it was kind of ironic that Allen said the curse would come back... He had no idea just how plausible that remark could be.

I looked at Allen. "He didn't know much. It's clear to that if you want answers to Jacobs death, you'll have to go to the vampire's base and speak to the leader."

"He won't do it, not without us." said Marissa.
"All of us." Isaac joined in. "I know I was reluctant at first, but maybe, I can help both sides. What's the point of war if both sides are already dead?"

I don't think anyone has the energy to argue his logic. I noticed Allen glance at Elijah, and I decided to say something. "Isaac, what are you going to do about...him?" I said, trying not to say the won't thing in front of Jocelyn.

I heard a humming sound and felt a wave of heat, and suddenly the girl from upstairs appeared at my side. Why she teleported so close to me, I don't know, but she gave everyone a shock.

"What are you doing?" Isaac demanded.
"Just watching." She replied.
"Jocelyn said you were spying on that guy." said Donovan, pointing towards Elijah.

She looked confused."What? No. I let him through because he looked too weak to be a threat. And I wasn't spying, I didn't even decide to pay attention until after that guy healed him."
She looked at me.

"Speaking of that, is he-"

"Look, this is alot to deal with right now," Jamie interrupted her, for Jocelyn's sake.
"Why don't we all rest and figure everything out in the morning? There's a hotel nearby."

"Thanks but no thanks," said Allen. "I'm going to the bar. He walked to the elevator, then remembered it was broken. Isaac pointed to the left wall and a secret elevator opened up.
Allen promptly left, without saying goodbye to anyone.

Marissa caught an attitude. "Well, goodnight to you too then."