Sheila woke up amidst the sound of the city guards marching above them. A sense of fear immediately griped her heart.
This was a rare occurrence, the vampires rarely interact with humans unless it was time to collect the monthly blood tax.
Them being here could only mean one thing;
There was a rogue vampire on the loose.
"Jake," Sheila said "We have to go", her voice was trembling slightly.
if they were discover the guards would certainly not let them go with a simple slap on the wrist, the stakes were too high.
there was only one certain outcome if they were found; Death
"Get up" Sheila said to jake's sleeping figure.
No response.
Her heart was beginning to start thumping hard in her chest, this only made her fear worse as some vampires were known to sense the heartbeats of other creatures.
Seeing that jake hadn't moved an inch she choose to shake him gently, finally, he had woken up. she put a finger to his lips, prompting him to be quiet. she removed her finger from his lips after receiving a nod of understanding from him.
They moved through the moist, slightly glowing walls of the tunnels with a practiced familiarity, they moved quickly but silently, no words were exchanged between them, the tunnels was their domain.
Very few people knew about the existence of tunnels under the city, an even smaller percentage of people were as experienced at navigating the maze-like tunnels as sheila and jake.
the tunnels were full of secret passage ways and doors disguised as walls, this made it very easy for them to get away from any pursuers.
They stopped at an intersection between four paths.
" i don't think they were here for us" Jake said to Sheila
"nevertheless," Sheila said, taking a pause to adjust her hair "You can never be too safe".
"if they weren't here for us then why were they here" Jake said with a puzzled look on his face.
"I'm about to go find out," Sheila said, her hand on her chin, seemingly contemplating something.
"wait here," Sheila said before walking deeper into the tunnels.
Jake watched her departing back as she walked away.
after she was out of sight jake made his way back to the where they were sleeping before the were rudely woken from their slumber.
...
Jake looked at the stone slab he and his mother shared as a bed, it was one of the only comforts he knew.
"I wonder how mom would react if I told her what I found", Jake said to himself as he pushed a seemingly random brick.
It moved back into the wall with a click, the stone wall rumbled as it opened to reveal a flight of stairs that led downwards to a different part of the tunnels
Jake walked down into the unknown with almost no hesitation while humming an unknown song to himself.
As soon a jake stepped of the stairs the tunnels lit up on their own.
"Woah!, that scared me" jake said seemingly, unaware he was the only one here. he had developed a habit of talking to himself due to him being alone most of the time, it was his own way of combating the boredom of being alone.
jake looked at the strange colored flames that were produced by the torches on the walls. They were red; red like the color of blood.
"Weird, these don't give off any heat," Jake said, he stretched his hand toward to the flames and felt nothing.
His observation went against his reasoning, the flames didn't 'burn' in the natural sense, it didn't produce any smoke and it burned without the slightest sound.
Jake withdrew his hand from the strange flames and continue to walked forward into the unknown.
...
Above the tunnels
Sheila made her way to the the only inn their stratum where she worked as a waitress, it was the most optimal job for gathering information, customers are often chatty and gossip when drunk on mushroom beer. Although the mushroom beer tasted like dirt it still got them drunk so they didn't mind and even if they did, there was nothing they could do to change it.