Malaysia, 1910
The night was silent, the air still. A figure stood hunched over a watering hole. There was a groan nearby. The figure moved.
"Please, don't hurt me."
The figure laughed, a hauntingly chilling sound that resonated fear throughout the jungle. Shahrul shuddered violently as he saw the creature running towards him. He knew he was going to die. He had always thought he would die from old age. He closed his eyes and started to pray loudly in Malay.
However, the creature never did touch him. He opened his eyes and saw that he was alone.
A grunt.
Shahrul jumped and yelped. He looked around and saw silhouettes of two people fighting. A split second later he realized that those were not two people. At least one of them was not. It was clearly the pontianak that attacked him, fighting a man. He sighed in relief, thinking that his family had sent out a search party for him.
However, the feeling did not last as the pontianak gave a vicious uppercut to the man that sent him flying backwards. Right into Shahrul. Shahrul had enough presence of mind to duck out of harm's way. The man crashed into a tree and landed on his face. Shahrul went to check up on him.
"Azril?"
Azril was already on his feet, holding a piece of sharpened wood in his left hand. The pontianak came rushing at them, making that awful laughing noise again. Shahrul took Azril's hand and tried to move him.
"Come on!"
Azril stood his ground and shook off Shahrul's grip. With steely determination in his eyes, Azril took two steps forward. Shahrul thought he was going to faint because they were in the moonlight now and he saw the creature for the first time now.
It looked like a female, with long jet-black hair and billowy white cape that was torn in all the wrong places and stained with blood. Her face was contorted with blood lust and menacing lines, her sharp fangs glistened in the moonlight. And his best friend was right in the path of this killer beast.
He looked at Azril and saw him smiling. It frightened Shahrul because Azril's expression was no different from the pontianak that was about to kill them.
The creature was almost upon them and yet none of them were moving. Before he could try to do something heroic, he saw Azril dropping forward to the ground, landing on his right hand. When the vampire woman came at them, he saw Azril flipped his body up, bringing his feet straight into the face of the vampire while balancing on his right hand. Shahrul could have sworn he heard something popped. The vampire woman staggered backwards before falling down on her butt, clutching her mouth.
Azril finished the flip by landing back on his feet. In one blink of an eye, Azril shoved the wood in his left hand into the chest of the creature. She screamed for a second, and then there was nothing left of her except dust. Shahrul was still shocked by what transpired, and he only broke out of his trance when he heard Azril moaned. Apparently Azril had been wounded as well.
"Are you okay?"
"No, I'm not."
"You could have been killed."
"I know," Azril said. "My sister would have killed that thing easily."
"Azura?" Shahrul asked, looking straight into Azril's eyes. "Azril, you have to start telling what's been going on. How did you find me?"
"I was passing through."
"Passing through? Are you leaving again?"
Azril did not answer.
"Please don't push me away again."
"You won't understand."
"Give me a chance to understand, let me in, please."
"My sister was a Vampire Killer."
"What?"
"Remember last year?"
Shahrul nodded solemnly.
"We were in the forest, bringing down Normah."
"The crazy witch?"
"Yeah, Callia used Normah as bait for us to leave the village and she killed everyone while we were gone."
"You knew about her and you never warned anybody?"
"I could not."
"You could have warned me and my family."
"What good will that do? They'd just laugh it off. You would too, and don't you dare deny it."
Shahrul nodded in agreement and put his hand on Azril's shoulder in an attempt to silently apologizing. Azril took the hint and put his hand on Shahrul's hand.
"Everything makes sense now," Shahrul said. "The weird occurrences, the fighting, the deaths, the blood stains on your clothes."
Azril burst into tears, surprising Shahrul. All these years, he had known Azril as a stubborn and tough young man. Shahrul took Azril into his arms, embracing him, trying to soothe him.
"She should not have gone to challenge the Fanged King."
Shahrul's heart went out to Azril.
"Neither should you."
Azril looked up, straight into Shahrul's eyes.
"Your sister was the most excellent warrior this village had ever known."
Azril rested his head in resignation on Shahrul's shoulder.
"I don’t want to lose you too."