Disturbing Premonition

Steven is the 37th track of The Steampunk Adventures of Sorcerer’s Apprentices.

Tlob received a disturbing vision in her nightmare about the very man whom tormented her in the past, Nefarian Crane, has returned and convert the bully whom she previously given death threat into a monster like him....

Barnes' Residence, Gryphon District, Trostville. 00.05 AM. 13 February 1939
That night, Tlob groaned and whimpered in her sleep due to having a nightmare. In that dream, she was lost in the alley among the old, tall buildings of Warren District during the noon. She didn’t recognize the alley where she was, and it scared and confused her. Worse, stormy rain has fell all over the town and her clothes were very wet because of it.

As she turned around to find the way out, she spots two dark and omnious figures from the end of the valley. Tlob immediately jumped into a nearby trash bin, and take a peek on both figures. She recognized one of them as one of the bully whom she previously threatened for bullying a magus girl and calling her kinds as rats, but unable to recognized the other due to him wore a hood all over his head. While the bully’s outfit consists of grey straightjacket with severed belts with matching pants and shoes, the hooded figure’s outfit was consist of grey hood that obscured his face in darkness, brown coat, black pants, and grey boots. However, something on the hooded man disturbed her.

“I understand why you were disillusioned with their opinions about maguses, Steven”, the hooded man said to the bully. “They said there are still some good maguses out there, but those kind words were only made you feels betrayed, abandoned. They had no idea about the pain from the torment that you had endured from that foolish magus caretaker since when you were toddler. But i do care for you, as we share many things in common: Like you, when i was your age, my caretaker, whom also a magus, tortured me simply for fun. We also have a handful of few individuals whom still care about us, but not truly able to comprehend our pain.”

“Really?”, the bully named Steven asked in disbelief. “But you learned about me from my friends and those cops, not from witnessed it yourself. I don’t believe you. Tell the truth!”

He spoke the last three words on the hooded man with a ringing force that was almost shocking. Tlob could hardly blame him for his tone because the man whom he spoken with was a stranger that unlikely to be trusted. The hooded man could’ve been lied to him, or something worse. Steven's eyes had widened and he was glaring at the hooded man, who made no response until he turned around to ensure that no one seeing them. Suddenly, lightning flashes over the alley, shined the visage of the hooded man that obscured by the darkness under his hood.

Upon the sight of the hooded man's face, Tlob would have screamed, but she couldn’t make a sound nor moved away from the trash bin. The hooded man's face was pale, with a scar that run across his right eye and another that run from his lower lips to his neck. The visage was the terrible sight that immediately caused her to recalled her dreadful past, as by all the appearance, the man is Nefarian Crane!

Crane then removed his hood and predictably, Steven was shocked and back away from him a few steps. “There’s nothing to fear, my boy”, Crane reassured Steven. “My scars are the solid proof of my mistreatment on my former magus caretaker, but these were nothing. When i was seemingly freed from my misery, another ones immediately took me away and turned me into a vampire for the rest of my life. Ironically however, those foolish people create something that they dreaded in me.”

“A vampire? Something that they dreaded?”, Steven repeated, before unexpectedly said, “Well, you see, i have a wish. I want someone to turned me into a vampire. I mean, vampires, they don't take crap from anybody. They live by their own set of rules. I’m sure that you also followed their rules because you’re one of them, do you?”

“I knew and followed their codes, but if you truly wishes to become one, it means you have to leave your friends and whatever was left in your family!”, Crane hastly said, surprised with Steven’s fixation on vampires. ”It’s very depressing. Trust me..”

Steven had no idea on what he could said to convince Crane, before something came up on his mind where he said, “My mom died due to car crash 6 years ago. I absolutely hate my life. Since her death, my father is drunk all the time, abuse me and blame me for what happened. Ultimately, he sold me to an evil magus caretaker whom i stayed with since then, whom even worse than him. I never actually said it before, but it's the truth. I realized that being a vampire like you is what i was meant for."

“What you meant for?”, Crane repeated before smiles. “I don’t know whether i could made your life better by turned you into a vampire, but if it does, it would satisfy both of us as you wished. You see, i’m working on gathering new members of my pack, Utherian Pack, too save this world from the rats that you despised, and you seems to have fullfilled enough requirements to join my pack. However, turned you into vampire through biting your neck was too classic, so...”

Crane briefly suck his clawed index finger before unexpectedly scratch it on Steven’s neck, where the latter suddenly fell to his knees as he explained, “That will do. My saliva can turned you into vampire like me once introduced to your bloodstreams even in small scratch. But the thirst is something that you need to mastered first. Your first prey is inside one of the nearby trash bin in the alley. Not to worry, your sense will guide you.”

Crane’s last few lines echoes on Tlob’s head—it means they have sensed her presence all the time! She knew that she had to escape, but to where? Before she could think about how she would escape, Steven, now a vampire, unexpectedly tear the lid of the trash bin where she hiding at and found her. He roars on her face with his lower jaw that gruesomely split into two, each to the side of his face and revealing his tongue and the flesh of his mouth cavity has morphed into leech-shaped proboscis with sharp teeth. Overwhelmed by fear, Tlob screamed in horror.

At once, Tlob jumped from her bed and hastly survey around her, where she now having herself in her room with her father, Prof. Reminepo and her stepmother Norberta sat on her bed, with worry on their face. Shuddered with the fear from her nightmare, she hugged both of them and crying, “It was so horrible! I don’t understand why i dreamed this again for the last few days!”

“It’s okay, sweetheart”, Reminepo said to his daughter. “We’re here. It’s just the nightmare, dear. Just a nightmare.”

“No, you’re not understand”, Tlob argued as she wipe out her tears. “This dream, i repeatedly had it since few days ago and it scares me. I even can't get these dreams out of my head.”

“This isn’t the first time you had this nightmare, sweety?”, Norberta asked. “That’s odd. I never heard about someone whom repeatedly have the same nightmare whenever they sleep?”

“I doubt that it was ordinary nightmare”, Reminepo said. “In some case of those whom possesses gift of magic, some of them repeatedly had the same dream, and those dreams were not ordinary ones: Some said that those dreams are propechies, a fact which remained debatable to the day. There’s a chance that whatever Tlob saw in her dream were events that would happened.”

Reminepo then turned on her daughter and asked, “Tlob, what did you see in that dream?”

“W-well”, Tlob hastly said, trying to maintain her composure. “Nefarian Crane, the horrible man whom framed me and killed Tommy, is back! I mean... he’s here, in this town! And he turned someone into a vampire like him, and that someone was a boy whom i threatened for bullying a girl from my school. I don’t even know whether that would be imminent or not.”

“Tlob, you must be careful. What you saw in your dreams may not be all that it seemed”, Reminepo warned. “The chance that it would happened were 50:50.”

"So i do nothing?", Tlob asked.

"There is nothing to suggest that what you saw is imminent, is there? ", Reminepo gently said.

"No", Tlob said.

"Well, in case if you had another nightmare, it's best that we now sleeping with you and you talk to Mr. Blake about this tomorrow", Norberta said. "I can't stand to hear you screaming in your sleep due to your nightmares, can i?"

"What?!", Tlob exclaimed in surprise. "But i'm not a kid anymore! There's no way that i still sleep with—"

Norberta has fall asleep beside her before she could finish her line. “That’s okay, dear”, Reminepo insisted. “I also can’t stand hearing you screaming because of your nightmare, can i?”

With her parents has fall asleep on her sides, Tlob couldn’t help but smiles and decided to sleep again for the night.

Trostville Police Department, Morpork District, Trostville. 05.30 PM. 13 February 1939
The next day was not the good day for Raido and Tlob: While on their way back home, they had an incident where Raido was injured from the fight with one of human bullies whom tries to kill someone’s puppy. At that moment, they saw one of the bullies held the said puppy while his gang members held the puppy’s owner, a magus girl from their school, to forced her to watch him killing her puppy by beating it with a broken bottle. Fortunately, before that bully able to hit the poor puppy with the said broken bottle, Raido snatch the puppy away while Tlob beat the others so the magus girl and her puppy able to escape. However, things went wrong once the bully’s leader unexpectedly brandished a meat cleaver that he used to nearly sliced Raido’s right arm off. The said bully also blinds Raido’s left eye with the same knife and would have killed him had Mr. Blake and Emily not interfered.

Not long afterwards, the bully whom attacking Raido with a meat cleaver for defending the magus girl and her puppy eventually arrested by the police. While still horrified upon learned the circumstances of the incident that happened to his son, Inspector Jacques nevertheless happy that Raido survived, but still disturbed with the bully’s unexpected violent and sadistic tendencies when tormenting magus kids. Worse, the said bully was the same one that Tlob previously threatened to killed for insulting magus race by calling them rats few days ago.

Now the Inspector, Raido, and Officer Felix are observing the bully’s interrogation session where the officers had the bully wore enchanted straighjacket and manacles on his feet. The Prime Merlinean had his right arm covered by a cast that hung over his neck with a white cloth and bandages that covered his left eye. Thanks to his magus heritage, his wounds were actually still in healing process behind those bandages and cast and it's just the matter of time before he could move his arm and see through his left eye once again.

“Steve Nolan, age fourteen. Ran away from home and his abusive magus caretaker. Started with vandalism on Trostville CrossMages Academy building, bullying and tormenting magus kids, ended up attempt murder”, Jacques read the report regarding the bully’s past and crime records. “He indeed some kind of magus-hater, does he? He's lucky i am the law enforcer in this town. If not, he would've drop dead already.”

“Bullying, vandalism, tormenting, and attempt murder?”, Officer Felix asked. “Isn't it the other way?”

“No, the report's right”, the Inspector said in disdain. “He looks cute, but he's a magus-hating psycho. I could've killed him already for what he has done.”

“Perhaps magus-hating sociopath is more accurate”, Raido argued. “I mean, i heard Steven had disturbing past where since his mother’s death due to the car crash, his father reduced into a crippled drunkard whom constantly blaming him for what happened, and eventually sold him to an evil magus caretaker that abused him for fun for 6 years. I myself doubt whether this was true, but it appeared that whatever happened in his past has caused him to developed sadistic personality disorder where he mostly focused his sadism on maguses. Had i knew that he was more dangerous than he looks, i wouldn’t wind up injured like this, dad.”

“But the bright side is, that girl and her puppy were not injured, were they?”, the Inspector said to comfort Raido with a weak smile, before sighted, “This is gonna be a big deal for Steven, but at least his disorders can be easily treatable due to his young age. I mean, with proper mental hospital environment, the proper psychologists, he might have had a shot at rehabilitation. But i still questioned whether he still have redeeming qualities.”

“I hope that it worked out than incarceration”, Raido nodded. “I found his lack of remorse disturbing.”