3461 death, even more wounded. This is what this stupid insurrection led to. Nothing more, noting less. Or in Lucinda´s words, a massive waste of human resources. Wives, or now widows, would miss their husbands, children their fathers and the whole northern region needed to get restructured under different rulers. I couldn’t allow these three families to do as they pleased, their actions needed to have consequences. And their punishment would be to banish those that took part in the rebellion.

My army was already marching north to regain control of the region and to find anything helpful that determined who else was behind this insurrection. The other ones who wouldn’t be punished were allowed to keep their titles, although I would have a tighter grip on them in the future.

“And you think that’s enough?” Lucinda asked as if she could read my mind. She laid on the couch on her belly, had her eyes closed because of the sun that shone into the room and hugged her favourite pillow. She looked a bit too innocent to advocate for the death of a few individuals, at least in my opinion.

“There will be a lot of animosity if I go further than this. Have you read the ‘Circle of Hate’ by ‘Wash Ink Ton’ ?” I asked. If I would sentence these nobles to death, which was my right, their descendants could only look at me with hatred. This way, we at least had a chance to reconcile.

“Yeah, that was the guy who proclaimed there is never an end to hatred, wasn’t he? If you murder one, another one will come for your throat, or so he claimed. I honestly … forget it.” Determined, I picked up the quill and signed the document stating their punishment. If I knew of a better way, I wouldn’t rely on Lucinda, that was for sure. She didn’t finish her sentence because she knew it wouldn’t help. She didn’t see any problems with this circle of hate that kept going around the world over and over again until there was nothing left of it. But I did. And I would be damned if I sat around, doing nothing, until she lost control over her own circle of hatred.

“Hate can be stopped.” I claimed and placed my chin on my interlocked hands.

“Uff, the last people on Solaris … okay the last two individuals with the same gender would probably bash their heads.” Lucinda said nonchalantly, grabbed into a nearby bowl on a low table and fished a chocolate cookie out of it.

“I remember this quote slightly differently.” I said while observing how she placed the cookie into her mouth and chewed on it with an expression of bliss.

“And so do I, but have you seen two of them ever going at it? That was kind of disgusting, but honestly fun in its own way. I never imagined two humans behaving like dogs willingly without any training whatsoever. Maybe, just maybe, they would stop hating each other.” She said and licked her fingers clean. I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the stark difference between the appearance of this cookie obsessed, cute little girl and her words.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Me? Oh, in a brothel. I thought one of the pieces I used wanted to rebel against me with this whore … I was probably wrong though… and then I kind of saw them fucking. The man p-“

“LUCINDA!” She apparently had no problems with sexuality, but that didn’t mean she should spy on others or even talk about it, especially not in this bored, slightly disgusted tone. Her hand, just moving towards the bowl again, froze and slowly went back underneath the soft blanket. She pouted unhappily and drew the blanket above her head.

“Stop behaving like I child.” I said, even though I knew she wouldn’t take it well. Her reaction was a bit over the top though. She threw the blanket to the side, harmlessly thew her pillow at my desk and jumped up, wearing an angry expression.

“I´m not a- huh?” She failed to step onto the couch with her left feet  and simply fell over to the side. Surprised, she waved her arms through the air, but failed to keep her balance miserably. I yelped in surprise as she hit her head at the table and slumped to the ground in between the couch and the table. I quickly stood up and ran towards her in concern.

“I´m fine.” She said nonchalantly while blood flowed down her temple in larger quantities. She was already grabbing onto the couch again as I pushed the table to the side and knelt down in front of her.

“Hey, you are bleeding.” Only then did she realize that she was indeed hurt. She placed her hand on her head and frowned slightly.

“Oops.” She burst out into laughter as if she enjoyed how she hurt herself. It wasn’t of the healthy kind though, it was pure madness. Even she balled her bloodied hand into a fist and turned away from me with a pained expression.

“Lucinda?” I asked concerned about her state of mind, which worsened it even further apparently. Tears dropped down her cheeks as she leaned closer to the couch and trembled considerably.

“I don’t like pain. I don’t like pain. I DON´T LIKE PAIN!” She screamed with a happy expression, grabbed beneath her pillow and retrieved a dagger she must have placed there. With one swift motion, she stabbed into her shoulder before I could grab her arm. She winced as the dagger struck into her flesh and her giggling finally stopped.

“Fuck, yeah. I don’t like pain.” She pressed out underneath her breath and collapsed forwards, right onto my chest. At first, I didn’t know how to react at all and held her shoulders to support her, at least until I snapped out of my shock. She was completely unresponsive and limp. I carefully laid her down on the ground, pushed the table further away and stood up swiftly. At first, I closed the door so that nobody would find her like this. After this, I moved to the closet where I kept all kinds of stuff and retrieved a bandage after a minute of searching.

Anxiously, I knelt down beside Lucinda again. She was still bleeding from her head and shoulder. Luckily, the dagger was still inside her and stopped the blood flow, at least a bit. Even more scared, I pulled the dagger out of her wound, only to see even more blood gushing out of her wound.

“Why isn´t it healing at all?” At least the wound on her head should have stopped to bleed by now and I was panicking as I may have made things worse. With trembling hands, I cut her dress open with the dagger, took the bandage and tried to close the wound by putting enough pressure on it. The blood was still seeping out of the wound and soon painted the bandage completely red.

Quickly, I stood up, thinking strangely clear and retrieved needle and yarn from the closet. I undid her bandage quickly, wrapped it around her head where I hoped it would help a bit and fiddled the yarn through the needle. It didn’t work right away as my hands were slippery and trembled quite a bit as I knew exactly what I had to do after that. I winced as the nail pierced through her flesh for the first time. I was just short of throwing up as the needle exited her skin again and as I stuck the needle in again, I puked towards my side.

“Was the food I made so bad?” Lucinda sat up against the couch, her eyes still closed and her head falling to the side from time to time. Just by being awake, she gave me the shock of my life. Blood still gushed out of her wound, although it was a lot less than previously, but now, it all ran down her whole upper body, making it look like it was way worse … not that it didn’t look horrible in the first place.

“How can I help?” I asked while struggling to look at her.

“Uhm, throw a few blankets over me … maybe?” Maybe? How was that going to help? After a second of staring at her in utter confusion, I realized that a few blankets would dim the light and she could … stab herself again? I didn’t know, but swiftly carefully placed the few blankets Lucinda bought with her over her head.

“Oh, how convenient.” She said and moved her hands underneath the blankets. She hummed a song for children as she stitched herself up, seemingly ignoring all the pain like it was nothing. Even though she was covered, I still had a hard time looking at the growing puddle of blood around her. Just like last time, the carpet soaked up whatever the blankets didn’t. As she finished, she pushed the blankets off her and smiled happily.

“Well … seems like I´m going to die.” She didn’t stop bleeding at all. Even though she stitched everything together tightly, blood still flowed out of the two wounds and even the places the needle pierced through. “Just kidding, do you have something to press onto this wound? That should be enough to keep me alive.”

“Why aren’t your wounds healing?” I asked after I stood up, ran towards the clothed to retrieve another bandage.

“It´s daytime and apparently, I´m not healing at all if the sun is above the horizon. My blood doesn’t even have the ability to coagulate.” That’s why the wound on her head was still bleeding as well. A human would have formed a crust by now, but vampires apparently relied too much on their healing abilities that were blocked during the daytime.

“Lift up your arms.” I said and wanted to wrap the bandage around her armpit.

“Well…” Her right arm was already up in the air, but she had trouble lifting up her other arm. Not even slightly fazed by this, she simply grabbed her wrist and lifted it high up. Amazed by her pain tolerance, I began to bandage her. This time, the blood didn’t seep through the fabric right away, but took some time to wet her bandage completely. Gently, I grabbed her hand after I finished and placed it above her wound. She understood what to do and pressed against the bandage, stopping the blood flow even more. Afterwards, I bandaged her head tightly which seemed to work somewhat as well.

Exhausted, I sat down on the ground and exhaled loudly.

“Why did you stab yourself?” I asked concerned.

“Oh, I needed to check if I am a masochist or not.” She said nonchalantly.

“And?” I couldn’t believe this was the whole reason. It just couldn’t be.

“I´m not?” She answered as if it was obvious.

“That’s not what I meant! Was this really your only intention?” I asked a bit louder than usual.

“Yup.” She said and nodded happily.

“You could have died.” I stated while she grabbed the knife that laid at her legs. I should have thrown this damn thing away straight away. At least she didn’t make any moves to stab herself again.

“Nah, I´m immortal.” She said and chuckled slightly.

“Quit joking.” I said, finally fed up with her strange behaviour.

“I´m not? Want to bet?” She asked happily.

“As if I ever would bet on something like this!”

“What a pity. Can you give me some blood when the sun goes down?” She asked and licked the blade of the dagger. She contorted her face in disgust even more than when she drank animal blood.

“… where is that coming from?” I asked, slightly concerned by her actions.

“Just a question.” She said and smiled innocently. Lucinda even took the dagger away from her face and held it near the ground, incentivising me to believe her somewhat.

“Alright, I do that. Will you stop hurting yourse-“ I stopped speaking, not because Lucinda was too loud for me to continue, but rather because of what she did.

After she got my confirmation, she simply lifted the dagger up again and rammed it through her throat into her brain without hesitation. The dagger only stopped as the blade was fully inside her head and she collapsed completely with a smile still on her lips. Blood ran down the hilt after Lucinda´s hand fell onto the floor, completely limp.

I blinked three times, struggling to grasp what happened in front of me … and then I screamed in terror.