[Sera]

“Omma…?”

I pushed the door to my parents’ room, praying that nothing I didn’t want to see was happening, as a creak alerted my mother to my presence.

“Sera!” My ever-smiling mother brightened up instantly the moment her eyes rested on me, her arms extending towards me and I padded over to her, fitting myself onto her chopstick-thin thighs. Her arms wrapped around me and I willed myself to not fidget as her bones prodded me like knives slicing meat. “Sweetheart, what brings you here today? Don’t you have a date with Yixing?”

I blushed, shaking my head at her ridiculous assumption. “Omma…”

“I was only kidding, my daughter.” She ruffled my hair softly, nose nuzzling my cheek. I could feel her affections for me as I nestled deeper into her embrace, nevermind that her stick-like arms felt like blades on my skin. “You just want to spend time with your dear mother, right?”

I nodded, resting my cheek on her shoulder, ignoring the pain that her protruding shoulder blades were causing me.

“Stay as long as you like, sweetheart.” Her hand patted my head gently, lulling me to sleep with her voice that sounded so melodic, so warm to my soul.

“Stay with me.”

“OMMA!”

Patting her cheek lightly, I waited with bated breath for her eyes to flutter open and a weak smile formed on her face. Her orbs stared up at me, the focus in them wavering and blankness seemed to be taking over. Her eyelids began to shut and I had to slap her cheeks lightly once more to get them to stay open.

“Stay with me, omma. Stay with me.” Her head began to slide off my lap and I had to pull it back up. “Stay with me, please.”

As though time had slowed down, I watched her eyelids flutter shut, flutter open; mouth parting, mouth closing; chest moving down, chest moving up. My ears registered the background voices of people shouting my mother's name like a broken record, but I didn’t pay attention to them. I only had my eyes on her, the woman who was dying slowly.

Time resumed, and a pair of arms entered my peripheral vision to snatch my mother from me. Or that was what I thought. I snarled, hands scrabbling at the person until another pair of arms came around me, pulling me backwards, eliciting screams of refusal from me.

“-ra! Sera!” A familiar voice caught my attention, and my tantrum waned. My hands lay limply in my lap, the focus returning to my eyes and for the first time since I watched my mother crumpling down onto the floor, I finally saw.

My father had my mother in his arms, his face so blotched and swollen with tears and snot that I could barely recognise him. Next to him was Uncle Hanxi, whose hands were glowing and he had them placed on my mother’s chest. Perspiration dotted his forehead as he worked in full concentration.

“Aunt Lia will be fine,” The familiar voice spoke, a bout of warmth fanning my ear. “She’ll be okay. She’ll be alright, Sera.”

At the mention of my name, I relaxed, my mind recognising the identity of the voice’s owner. I let myself go limp, leaning into his embrace as his arms tightened his grip around my body. My head fell back, resting against his shoulder.

I might have calmed down. I might look calm. But on the inside, a storm continued to rage. It was as though my brother had called upon the largest, the most infuriating tempest with his ability.

Yixing-oppa’s chest rose and fell rhythmically, and it wasn’t hard to fall into sync with his breathing. I gradually slackened my grip on his hands, never realising that they had somehow found their way to his hands in the chaos. My sight returned to me, and the first thing that I laid eyes on was the alarming amount of red on the front of my mother’s gown.

Or what was left of her gown.

My eyes had seen the fireball. I had seen it flying at me, its golden-yellow, orange swirls that surrounded the orb itself. For a moment, it mesmerised me; it reminded me of Chanyeol-oppa's beautiful ability to conjure up such gorgeous orbs of flames, of life itself.

Yet, in the next moment, the swirls turned dark, the golden-yellow vanishing and black, hissing swirls replaced them instead. Warning bells rang in my head, and I could hear pleas and wails for me to dodge the incoming ball of doom. But I couldn't, I just couldn't move at all.

Then, everything went out of whack. I was pushed aside, my palms skidding against the carpeted floor, the skin scraping against the friction and they seared. A howl echoed chillingly in the room as the floor rose towards me, and my face met with the softness of the carpet.

"She's not responding to my treatment," Uncle Hanxi's worried voice snapped me back to reality, and no matter how reluctant I was to come back, I had to. "Jaehoon, nothing's working."

The ominous presence never left the Room. He was only biding his time, having released his hold over my father, my brother, Uncle Hanxi, and his son. It felt as though he enjoyed watching us squirm, watching us play out this doomed family drama where the Matriarch dies.

Yes, my mother is dying.

The bleeding had clotted on its own, the fireball, having hit her front, leaving in its wake a terrible, gruesome wound that would have sent mere humans to oblivion for glancing at it. But for us, Vampires, this was nothing.

Yet, I, a vampire through and through, fought the urge to hurl as my eyes transfixed themselves on the mess of flesh and dried blood that peeked out of the remnants of her gown.

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