Nina’s Dream

If Nina had been alive she would have awoken with a cold sweat. Since she was of the undead persuasion, she simply bolted up into the dark with the typical chill and pallor of any other vampire. But what was atypical for this sudden, startled waking was the distinctive taste in her mouth.

What was this flavor? How long since it had graced her mouth?

Tom.

She could remember now that she had also drank the blood of the elder vampire, Alphaerus, that night. His potency and the accompanying vision had overpowered the taste and even memory of having taken Tom’s blood.

She had been so rash that night. Survive. Keep going and make it to the next moment. It was all she had taken into consideration for so long. Becoming a vampire had taken away the possibility of a normal death and led to a new array of dangers, but with death no longer a part of her calculations she had been making more and more strange and bold decisions. Especially after she had taken Tom’s wrist that night.

Daredevil.

She was was taking more risks, certainly.

Daredevil!

Ah, no, that wasn’t her conscious thought at all. It was a memory. A memory she could now see forming before her mind’s eye as the taste of Tom’s blood washed over her and everything else went black.

When she came to, her hands were smudged with charcoal and a drawing lay before her on the floor of her boarding house room. How many times had she woke up from sleep like this a mortal? She’d honestly lost count.

But this was the third vision since she had turned and it was clear to her now what she needed to continue seeing whatever this images were. Blood.

“What the hell?”

If only the visions made any semblance of sense.

In the lower left corner of the page was a small ring, like a flea circus, with a biplane in flight. Beneath the plane was a banner reading “Richthofen’s Rip-Roaring Rivals.” Looming above this miniature scene was a massive magnifying lens that took up almost the entire page. The hand gripping the handle was missing it’s pinky and ring finger.

Nina stared blankly at her work for a long time. Her first instinct was to hang it on the wall, give herself more time to mull it over. But the impression of Tom’s blood still remained in her mouth and she began rolling up the drawing.

I suppose it can’t hurt to let him see for himself.