EAST BROOKLAND GRAVEYARD:

~SHWAAAA~

It was already past evening. The rain was pouring down quite hard and with each passing minute, it was increasing its velocity further. The intense rumbling sounds emerging out from the dark veil of clouds, surrounding all over the murky sky were frightening the entire field with lightning thunderbolts.

However, it wasn’t any ordinary grass field, to begin with. Countless marble polished memorial tombs were standing tall before several graves that were buried all around the ground. It seemed as that heavy rain was washing up all the grief and mournings for those people who had to leave their beloved ones early enough and to head into those coffins placed down below those tombs...

Amidst that giant graveyard, getting drenched up in that intensified rainfall, Ethan was standing absolutely still, facing a large marble polished tomb situated over a grave, holding a blank gaze embedded in his dark bereaved eyes. On his right arm, he was holding a bouquet of beautiful white lilies, soaked in that shower. Breathing heavily and slowly, his dismal gaze was fixed upon that name that was elegantly engraved over the tomb.

LYDIA ARNOLD…

As his eyes were painfully gazing at that name sculptured over the tomb, even within that drenched rain, his extended dark black eyes were swelled up in tears. Holding a wretched, bereaved look on his pale white grimace, he clenched the bouquet in his arms as if he was fighting his inner turmoils all silently, alone.

After a few seconds of palpitation, slowly Ethan kneeled down on the ground before that grave, with his miserable tears dripping down his gaunt cheeks. Placing that rain-soaked flowers over the grave, his hands trembled a little. As soon as he put those flowers, a painful small smile carved on his grimace and caressed the tomb with the tip of his broad fingers.

“Lydia, look...I have brought lilies for you. You always used to demand beautiful flowers from me on your birthdays, isn’t it? I have plucked these fresh flowers with my own hands to give them to you. Aren’t they beautiful?

Ha-Happy birthday...my dear...sister… I...I should have given them to you...when you were…” His trembling voice trailed off with a suffocating sensation choking his insides, making it hard for him to breathe.

Lowering his grimace down, he tried to bite his lower lip to stop himself from wailing out aloud, but couldn’t resist his wrecked emotions building inside him.

“I...I still can’t forgive myself, Lydia…It’s been 3 years already, but still... I can’t watch you lying all alone down there in the cold when I knew how much you despised staying alone. You know, every day… Every fuckin’ day, I am dying little by little with guilt and regret…

I… I should have stopped you. I should have never allowed you to jump into the fiery pit whom...you had considered as love…

Your love left us broken… You were our pride… You were our happiness…But...it’s...It’s all because of me…

I should have stopped you from the very beginning! I knew… a werewolf and a vampire can never dream of a happy future together but...fuck...I should have stopped you…Hic...” Lowering his face down, he sobbed bitterly uttering those painful guilt-stricken words that were wrecking his insides deep down.

The rain started pouring even more vehemently with a loud thunderbolt lightening up the entire veiled sky. The roaring clouds and heavy rain indicated as watching him in such a wrecked state, perhaps, nature was mourning hard too.

After a moment of silence, slowly after keeping his bereaved gaze fixed at the ground, he lifted his chin up and mumbled in a sad, low voice, "Lydia… It's getting suffocating for me to keep living up here with all those painful memories shattering me from inside. I am the last straw of hope of our entire pack and I can’t let them down. I am already a sinner and I need to atone for my sins to provide a better future for my clan.

I…I have to become the strongest alpha to lead our pack.

Lydia, on that night, it was raining like this too… When I was bidding you my final goodbye...I had sworn my pledge to avenge those Balkan Vampires who...dared to snatch you away from us…

Since that day, no matter who...but I have considered every member bearing the Balkan blood, as my eternal enemy… I...won’t forgive them...Not even…Elena and her betrayal...”

I have resented her so much since all these years that I don’t even want to see her face... will...never forgive...the way...she had deceived me…

The Elena...I knew once before… I will consider her as dead...forever...” His somber, low voice trembled a little as he uttered out the name sorely along with a deep sigh.

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SOUTH BALKAN GRAVEYARD:

Amidst the damp shower and the clacking sound of thunder reverberating as a sharp resonance in the entire giant graveyard, a tall, slender young woman, with an ethereally beautiful appearance and wearing a chiffon silk white gown was heading at a slow pace towards a specific tomb at the extreme south of the graveyard. She was carrying a bunch of white daisies in her arms and drenched wet in that heavy shower from head to toe as she wasn’t carrying an umbrella with her. Her brown silky hair was braided into a loose hair bun yet those soft hair bangs on her forehead were soaked in rain. Her big rolled blue eyes had a dark, dismal look embedded within them. From her facial eloquence, she seemed like a walking corpse completely devoid of any minimal amount of bliss.

Soon enough, she the marble polished large burial tomb and stopped before it. Facing the tomb, her dark-rolled gaze locked upon the name that was engraved over it as she painfully read it inside her mind.

“IN THE LOVING MEMORY OF AUGUSTUS BALKAN, HERE, RESTING IN PEACE FOREVER…”

Unable to contain herself anymore with the wave of sadness filling her from inside, her legs gave upon the strength, and all of a sudden, she stooped down on the muddy ground, sobbing bitterly.

“Brother… I am sorry…But I can’t watch you like this anymore… My heart breaks every time I come here...Hic...I...I have always wanted to see you happy...but why did you have to sleep here all alone? First...Mom left me alone in this world after giving birth to me…After that... I had believed in living a happy future with you and dad but then... why? Why did everything fall apart? Our happiness...our dreams… You were chosen to become our Future Elder… The entire Balkans had believed and waited for you to lead us forward…

Then how could you leave us all so soon? Why...Why did you have to go and fall in love? I regret...I regret it so bad for not stopping you… I am the one to be blamed… I am the one who didn’t stop you from heading towards that void of sin...I can’t forgive myself, brother…Hic…” She whimpered, clenching those soft flowers in her trembling hands.

All of a sudden, after a moment of emotional breakdown, she slowly lifted her chin up and stared at the tomb with a resentful look on her face. “But not I am the one to be blamed...I will never forgive those Burjahs for taking you away from us… I will never let them go away with their sin…

I won’t forgive those traitors… Not even...Ethan…” Her husky voice quivered a little as she whispered that name in a bereaved, sorrowful tone. “He betrayed my feelings… He made me realize that I should have never trusted him from the very beginning… And now, I will never

forgive him. I will never forgive those Burjahs for snatching you away from me…and only vengeance would calm my burning wrath down…”

Slowly, she placed those daisies before the tomb and folded her arms praying for his soul. After a moment of anticipated silence, she stood up from the ground and stared at the grave with a blank gaze in her eyes.

“I, Elena Balkan...am swearing my pledge to you brother that I will avenge your death, no matter what. I will become the best Elder to lead our Clan forward instead of you…I am moving afar for the time being now but I promise...I will come back and fulfill all the duties that you have left unfinished. Till then...wait for me here...”

She caressed the tomb with her frail white fingertips, uttering in a firm, resolute voice with her dark rolled eyeballs transforming into brilliant red in color as she swore her oath before him.

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“Lydia, before I leave...I want to convey something...” Tossing his low-pitched mumble, all of a sudden Ethan took out a small knife from the pocket of his coat and in the blink of an eye, carved a giant cut on his cold palm. Immediately thick gore red blood started dripping down from the sliced portion and with his blood-soaked palm, he stroked the tomb of his sister’s grave gently a few times, leaving smears there.

Slowly, he stood up from the ground and emitted a heavy sigh off. Blood drops were dripping down his hand making the drip-drop sound as he fixed his blank stare at the blood smear that he intently rubbed on her grave.

“In the name of our sacred Wolf blood, I, Ethan Arnold, your brother and the future of our Burjah clan... pledge to you...I won’t stop my vengeance until I punish and eliminate the existence of those Balkans. I will return the pain a thousand times more brutally to them which you had to suffer in your last moments. I... I definitely won’t stop...till I watch them soaked in blood and remorse…

Till then...keep supporting me. I will return...as the strongest brother you could ever have…”

He clenched his fist as he conversed those words in a heavy-hearted tone. Moreover, as prepared to leave, turning his neck around he sneaked a small glance at the tomb for one last time before walking away at a slow pace, all alone in that heavy rain.

Marching a few steps ahead, in the blink of an eye, he disappeared into the shower radiating a red flame of the fiery blaze.