Page 29 of Fallen Star

I grab a torch from the wall and Dean lights it. We move slowly, our boots crunching spiders moving underneath the white, haunting layers of webs that surround us on all sides. From a distance it might look like snow, but up close you can see it move, writhing from the many bugs trapped, the many bodies moving around their prey.

With my axe I hack away the webs that block our passage forward, ignoring Levi and my mother who follow, keeping my attention on my work and on Dean. Of the four of us, three of us are archeologists and know more or less what we're doing. That thought gives me some comfort.

I always wanted to go on a dig with my mother, but this isn't how I imagined it.

The reality would break my heart if I let it, so I shove that aside for now and keep my eyes forward. It's all I can do.

I feel the last shard calling me, pulling me to it. It lights a fire in my gut, my heart racing faster, the closer we get.

A thick layer of webs blocks our way, and Dean uses his sword to tear open a section for us to walk through. His body is slick with sweat, and I can tell his shoulder wound still pains him, but he keeps at the work.

When we step through the webs, I suck in my breath, and Dean pauses beside me.

"What's the holdup? Keep moving," Levi shouts, but even he falls silent when he sees what we see.

The hall we took to get here has opened up to a cavern filled with the tiny corpses of children. Dean and I walk through, studying them. They've been buried with stones in their mouths and lead on their eyes. Their bodies are wrapped in cloth. There are hundreds of them, maybe thousands, tunneling through the cavern. "What is this?" I ask. But I know. Because I've seen something similar on earth. "These children were all given vampire burials," I say. "Or a variation of that. I've seen this before. But it's not that common. On earth, vampire children were unearthed from the 5thcentury. They were buried with stones in their mouths to keep them from rising from the dead as vampires and spreading disease. The children mostly died of malaria, or other contagious diseases, and because little was known about the decomposition of bodies, superstition suggested vampires could eat their way out of the graves. Thus, the stone in the mouths. But… why would they be here? Now? Guarded by a door with Inferna Realms on it? And in such numbers?"

Dean's eyes widen and he hangs his head. "I know what this is." He turns to look at me, his eyes full of sorrow. "Superstition isn't just a human failing. Vampires have them too. These are the bodies of children born deformed, of stillbirths, or of children who developed deformities later in life and died in unusual circumstances. The superstition of our world was so strong that the bodies were taken to another world and buried here."

"What did vampires fear would happen if the remains weren't handled this way?" I ask, my inquisitive nature always at the ready for new information about a culture or history of a people.

Dean shrugs. "War, famine, disease, the usual fears."

Having seen and studied so many histories and ways of handling the transitions of birth and death, this news doesn't alarm or shock me. Rather, it's a new piece of information, and another realization that humans and vampires aren't as different as I once imagined. We are both a people filled with dark and light, flaws and redemptive qualities, bloody histories and hope for the future.

Levi finally finds his voice and shoves me forward. "Enough. This isn't what we're here for. Keep moving."

The cavern of dead children takes an unknowable amount of time to cross. With my heightened powers I can see pieces of the lives lost here. "Not all of these children died naturally," I say, my throat constricting. "Many were killed, often violently, for being different."

Dean says nothing, only nods in a sad confirmation of my words.

Why must we all be so terrified of those who are different? It's a question I can answer from a sociological perspective, even a cultural anthropological perspective. But the answers, the knowledge about our natural and ingrained tendencies fall flat when faced with the reality those tendencies create.

We must rise above our base urges to murder and maim out of fear of displacement, out of the primal urge to conform or die as an outcast of our tribe. We cannot rise to the higher calling of our souls if we are forever stuck in the fear-based mindset of our egos.

With a sad sigh I move forward, out of the den of dead children and into another room, where the stone floor is covered in water growing with god knows what and filled with hundreds of different flowers that float atop. The water reaches my ankles, and I step carefully, unable to see to the bottom through the muck and flowers. Across from us is a bend in the stone wall that looks like it might be an opening, so I make my way there, but as Levi and my mother follow Dean and me, a trap is sprung.

I turn and pull out my axe, aiming it at the door we came through that's now grinding to a close. With precision, I throw the axe and it catches the bottom of the door, holding it open the width of the spike.

Dean raises an eyebrow. "Nice throw, Dr. Stone."

I can't help but grin in relief. "Thanks, it might be our only way out."

Just as the words leave my lips, the heavy stone door crushes my axe, closing completely, and the room begins to fill with water, trapping us.

And once again I'm thrust back into the exciting game of how will Alex die today? Drowning, or at the hands of a psychopath vampire bent on destroying all the worlds?

Alex Stone

"The room is a trap," my mother says, stating the obvious.

"Sountrapit," Levi growls.

This man is seriously all charm. *Insert eye roll here.*

I'm not terribly worried about getting us out of here. I've been in worse jams than this, more or less. I mean, the being held hostage by a crazy vampire part is new, but otherwise, this is a fairly standard run-of-the-mill booby trap situation. I just have to find another door.

I continue onward, heading towards the part of the wall that looks promising, when my unflappable optimism takes another hit.