They ran.
The ground cracked behind them as the eye unleashed another furious pulse, vaporizing stone and boiling fog into screaming spirals.
"AAARGHH!!! Save me!!!"
Vesper noticed a cadet trip on the debris, he contemplated on whether he should swiftly move in and save him.
He didn't.
Because… before his line of thought could be broken, a ray of fire razed the cadet to ash merging with the debris.
So Vesper ran. His movements a little too inhumane and clumsy at times but whatever helped to dodge the oncoming debris.
Soon… he activated the theatre of illusions… as it shimmered around him, helping him camouflage into the dense fog.
Time passed and the air screeched until the wails of the crying eye began settling down.
Unnerved by this, Vesper looked back only onetime, not out of fear but just to get one last look of the flying entity that had made all of them run with tails stuck between their legs.
…and what he saw left him with dread.
The eye was furious, rampaging across the storm… razing everything in its way… blasts of heat colored the murky atmosphere similar to lightning.
Then suddenly as if the fog had thickened, the light of the eye vanished. The screeching of the air… dead until one last shriek in the distance.
Vesper's undead blood went cold as he registered the scream with his vampyre senses.
It howled unlike any creature and the emotion in it was filled with absolute terror.
It was at that moment that Vesper saw them… the pair of eyes he saw once before glowing amidst the darkness.
His body threatened to pause but he he quickly looked away in case the creature made eye contact with his own…
Swiftly Vesper increased his speed to catch up with Danisque, the leader and the other three remaining members of the cohort.
'That terrifying monster seems to be on our trail… the eye… whatever happened to it, we would not have been able to defeat it… but to that monster, it was nothing more than an unappetizing breakfast snack.'
"Lets make camp here." Vesper heard the leader say. The cadets nodded at his command, all of them tired from the running.
"Here." The leader tossed a pill of energon. A simple capsule that would help one regain all of their lost strength.
"Thats the last one we got. Energon is expensive and since we are being treated as soldiers in this simulation… its De facto that we would get comparable rations. Though in our circumstance, to battle harden us its even less than the army."
Vesper nodded. Vampyre or not... he didn't possess infinite energy. He had already consumed his ration of energon on the second day… the surprising revelation that it helps keep the blood sucking urges came to him with it.
Truth was that Vesper had still not tasted blood.
'There could be massive changes in my physiology the moment I do.'
"Thanks."
The cohort leader nodded,
"Jimeneus Impala. Call me Jim. Since you are a part of our entourage, I expect decency and disciple from you… Public Enemy Number One."
Vesper raised an eyebrow, surprised by the leader's words. He showed a small smirk and saluted the man.
"Aye."
Jim nodded acknowledging the young vamp. Then he diverted his attention to the other cohort members.
"Did any of you plunder any rations from the corpses?"
A girl from amongst the members nodded, she showed a handful of confections and some nutrition pastes.
The leader nodded, "Good." He grabbed a candy and put it on his tongue letting it slowly melt.
"Sweet." He glanced at the rations and then the other members. "Recover your energy. Rest. We leave in an hour. Not a second late."
Then he glanced at one of the other cohort members, "Adam. Come with me into my tent. The storm's messing with the geosync. Help me chart a course, you are the only navigator among us."
The cadet Adam nodded as Jim threw a pebble on the ground that formed a small cave made out of rubble, a tent in reality but camouflaging with the environment of Viablentis.
The cadets stared at each other. Vesper and Danique stood side by side with the other two opposite to them.
The girl spoke first. "Amanda Hollie." She didn't outstretch her hand to Vesper but did not outright ignore him as well. There was however a slight disgust in her voice.
The other cadet then spoke up. He was a head taller than the other boys and bit more muscular as well.
"Knoncan Derfod."
Vesper nodded at both of them. Danique beside him smiled, "You know me already."
Vesper grinned back, "Heh. Rock or Country?"
Danique raised an eyebrow… "Rock."
"Black Sabbath?"
"Oooooh Ancient Earthern Classic. War Pigs definitely."
"Paranoid for me."
"Hell Yeah! I fuck with that."
Both of them were quiet for a moment then a grinned form on both of them as they stuck their tongues out and shook their head in a frenzy with forming the signature rock and roll symbol with their fingers.
"Hell yeah, dude." Danisque said. "Not many rock listeners these days. They more into electronic trance."
Vesper sighed, "Times change." He looked into the distance, the faint horizon covered by the apocalyptic dust.
"Rock never dies though."
Danisque chuckled.
"Type shit brother. Type shit. They say in the legends that it was rock that revived the human race. It's a bedtime story but I fuck with it hard."
Vesper swallowed the pill of energon and looked at Danisque from the corner of his eye.
"Really?"
"Yup. At least that's what my family instructor told me."
Vesper raised an eyebrow, "A bastard learning from a family instructor?"
Peals of laughter escaped the boy's mouth.
"Hell no. I only observed. Never learned from him directly. I'm way better than the legitimates though. Guess what? I'm one of the scholarship students here… none of the nepotism bullshit."
Vesper raised an eyebrow and chuckled in acknowledgmentment raising his palm to dap the homeboy.
Danisque was surprised but did the same.
*Pap!*
A clean sound of a perfect dap resounded across Viablentis. Vesper pointed at Danisque.
"I fuck with you."
Danisque grinned, pointing back.
"Hehe… I fuck with you, homeboy."
The shared moment broke as Amanda Hollie loudly unwrapped a nutrition paste, her eyes were cold as she assessed the young vamp from top to bottom.
"You got the last energon pill... lucky you. Public Enemy."
Vesper met her gaze, reading the calculation there.
Resources were scarce, trust was thinner, and he was the unknown variable.
'The real threat may not be the monsters in the fog honestly. Humans are way more dangerous. Especially the hungry ones.'
Vesper's face grimaced slightly.
'…and Hungry Vampyres… even worse.'