Desire of the Soul

Brian Haner Jr woke up after a night of partying, with his band mates, totally disorientated. Looking around the room the dark haired guitarist realised this wasn’t his bedroom or even one of his friend’s rooms. He proceeded to get dressed in his clothes from last night, only to notice his white, V-neck was stained with blood, confused Brian walked into the en suite bathroom attached to the bedroom, in just his dark jeans, and looked into the mirror in front of him. After seeing no noticeable marks on him, Brian started to wonder what the hell had happened last night.

Brian made his way down stairs and looked around the house trying to remember anything that would help him to understand whose blood covered his shirt and how it happened. Walking into the kitchen he noticed that everything was spotless, as if there hadn’t been a party here last night. He didn’t recognise anything on the ground floor of the house, sighing he stepped outside into the morning sun. As soon as the light touched his skin he hissed and stepped back into the shaded area of the back porch. The guitarist looked down at his bare chest to see it was a slight shade of red, he cautiously stretched his left hand out towards the edge of the porch where the sunlight reached. He watched as the sun covered his finger tips for a second before biting down on his lip in pain, as much as he wanted to pull his hand back to the safety of the shade he didn’t. He just watched in agony as his hand slowly blistered, at that point the pain had gotten too much, so Brian brought his hand back into the shade and observed as the blisters went away and how his hand now had the same shade of red that his chest had moments before.

Something serious had happened last night but somehow Brian could not remember a single thing? Apart from a party at his house for Halloween.

‘It wasn’t like I got absolutely shit faced with the guys last night, but I somehow have no memory, I’m in a strange house, my clothes had blood on them and now I can’t step into the sun without feeling an immense pain.’ Brian thought to himself as he walked back into the house and pulled his hoodie on along with his boots and sunglasses before putting his hood up and stepping out the front door, he noticed how it hurt a little to walk in the sun but the clothes on his muscular body protected him enough to make it bearable to walk back to his own home where he hoped there would be some answers.

Brian walked into his beach house and noticed that there wasn’t a mess of bottles all over the living room floor, but this was where they had the party last night so how the fuck did he end up at someone else’s house? Shaking his head, he made his way into the kitchen only to find his best friend and drummer, Jimmy passed out on the table. Chuckling to himself he walked to the fridge to get a bottle of water out, he looked over his shoulder at Jimmy before unscrewing the cap of the bottle and taking a sip of it.

So if Jimmy was here still surely the other guys must be. The guitarist made his way up the stairs and checked each of the rooms looking for the guys only to find them all asleep in his room. Smirking he took his phone out to take a picture of them all. Brian shook his head at them all and made his way into his bathroom so he could shower and change into some clothes had didn’t have blood on them.

By the time he was finished, and changed into a black sleeveless shirt and some shorts, the guys were all awake downstairs and looking at him like they’d just seen a ghost.

“Brian?” Matt, the singer for their band, was the first one to speak.

“No, I’m the cookie monster,” Brian just stared at them.

“Hey I’m the sarcastic one Synyster Gates,” Jimmy shouted before throwing a marshmallow at his best friend.

Brian just chuckled at him and looked around the room, “What the hell happened last night?” Syn pulled himself up on the kitchen counter.

“Brian it’s the 7thNovember. You’ve been missing since Halloween; you don’t remember?” this time it was Zacky that spoke up.

“Wouldn’t be asking if I remembered. Wait I’m missing a whole week of my life?” Brian jumped off the counter and started pacing along the kitchen, “please explain what happened.”

“Well we had our Halloween party here, on October 31stand it got a little crazy,” Johnny explained.


~Halloween Night~


The Avenged guys were throwing their annual Halloween party and this year it was being held at Brian’s house. They’d invited as many people as they possibly could think off and everything was going great. There was beer pong, a table full of different shots and alcohol, Brian had even hired a bunch of people as bar tenders and servers.

Brian, himself had dressed up as a vampire with fake fangs, was sat at a table with the rest of the guys talking about how fun the party was, when a woman with long red hair walked up to them all.

“I’m looking for a Mr Haner Jr?” she softly spoke; she was dressed up as a witch.

“You’ve found him what can I do for you?” Brian looked the woman up and down before smiling at her.

“I have a gift for you it’s inside if you’d like to follow me,” the red headed witch winked at him before heading back into Brian’s house.

All the guys whistled and smirked as Brian followed after the woman.

The woman handed Brian a cup filled with beer, he took it and drank some of it before he looked into her bright green eyes.

“So what’s this gift you have?” Brian continued to drink the beer she’d given him.

“You’ll see shortly I promise Mr Haner,” she smiled at him before walking off, confused Brian headed back outside and shook his head.

“So what did she want?” Jimmy spoke up.

“She just gave me a beer and told me I’d find out soon. Whatever that means,” Brian spent the next hour drinking with the guys before he started to feel sick.

“Gates you okay? You look pale,” Matt spoke up looking at his brown-eyed friend.

Shaking his head Brian stumbled through his garden and up the stairs before collapsing in the main bathroom. Groaning he tried to sit up, knowing he was going to throw up. Just as he sat up he saw the red head from earlier stood in the doorway.

“Oh dear are you not feeling well Mr Haner?” she walked into the bathroom before closing the door and locking it.

“What d-did you do?” Brian mumbled while trying to focus on her, but his vision kept blurring.

“You see, I was sent by someone you hurt to get revenge on you, and what better way than making you live your life alone forever?” the witch smirked at the man below her. She knelt down and whispered in his ear, “You’ll watch everyone around you grow old and die while you stay this young forever,” before she allowed her fangs to elongate and pierce into Brian’s neck, she drank some of his sweet blood before injecting her venom into his blood stream.

“W-what the fuck?” Brian had become so disorientated at this point his mind could focus on anything but the pain going through his whole body.

The woman laughed as she left Brian withering in pain on the bathroom floor, she made her way back downstairs to the party, waiting for the moment he came back down. So she could watch the carnage that was sure to unfold as soon as he reappeared.

The guys were too engrossed in their conversation that they didn’t pay attention to the screams that came from the house. The rest of the guys were slowly growing concerned for the lead guitarist, they kept looking towards the house every so often before they all saw him walk out of the backdoor looking a lot less drunk than he was an hour before. As Brian got closer they started to notice that he had reapplied the fake blood dripping down his chin.

“Yo Gates you feeling better?” Matt looked up at him. Brian just nodded his head before sitting down and sipping from his bottle of beer.

Johnny walked into the house, to get another beer, and stopped dead in the doorway. There was blood everywhere, it was like someone had gone on a killing spree but there were no bodies, well not anymore. Johnny picked the case of beer up and heading back out to his friends.

“So I see someone decided to redecorate the house, there’s fake blood everywhere,” Johnny told them all while he passed everyone another beer, Brian tensed up for a moment before shrugging.

“We’ll clean it up later,” he smiled at the guys.

The remaining people at the party, the ones who’d survived, slowly started heading home talking about how great the night was and all the fake blood that had appeared out of nowhere. Brian looked around, as the guys had headed upstairs, and saw the red head again. He made his way over to her and grabbed her by her neck.

“What the hell happened,” he growled in her face.

“Calm down your friends are still here. You wouldn’t want to harm them would you?” she smirked as Brian released his grip on her neck. She wrapped her hand around his neck and applied enough pressure with her shape nails to draw thick black blood from Brian’s neck. The two vampires didn’t notice that Matt and Zack were stood in the doorway with Jimmy and Johnny close behind them.

Brian pushed her off him before he snapped her neck, he didn’t bother turning around he just headed out the patio door and off into the night.


~Back to the Present~


Brian looked at them all, “no way that never happened. I’d remember the red head biting me if that was true.”

“Then how do you explain the blood covered clothes, we spent the whole night cleaning the blood from out of the kitchen and I can promise you it wasn’t fake.” Matt looked at one of his best friends.

“But I don’t feel the urge to bite any of you guys, so that’s a lie then,” Brian looked up from picking at his jeans.

“You wouldn’t though,” Jimmy smiled at him.

“What? Why? Because I apparently killed people last night and I don’t even remember it!” Brian yelled at them, he didn’t realise his eyes had a slight red colour on the iris.

Matt sighed, “calm down man and we’ll explain.”

“So after you walked out a week ago we started cleaning the kitchen up when the red head got up and cracked her neck like you hadn’t just snapped it like a twig.”


~Back to Halloween~


The red head stared at the four guys stood in the kitchen and smiled, “sorry about that, you weren’t meant to see.”

Shaking his head Matt looked around, “what just happened between you and our best friend?”

“Ah yeah, how do I put it without freaking you all out,” the woman paused, “okay there isn’t a way so I’ll just be straight with you all, I turned him, into a vampire, last night and he’s not taking it very well. He’s sort of throwing a little tantrum, but I’ll keep an eye on him and keep him safe. His first week will be the hardest and he won’t remember it when the new born feeling fades. You’ll have to explain it to him.”

“Why won’t he remember?” Zack looked up at her.

“Each new born takes to it differently, Brian just happens to take it really hard so he’ll block it all out.”

The guys nodded and carried on cleaning, “I can help you with that.”

The red head snapped her fingers and the whole house was spotless, instantly.

“How will we be able to be around him?” Johnny spoke up while grabbing a coke from the fridge.

“Two options, I turn you willingly, you wouldn’t forget about all this, or I can give you enchanted jewellery, of any kind, so it’s totally up to you,” she sat down and looked at each of the guys in turn as they all thought about the options they had.

“If we went with the first one, how do we...?” Matt spoke up.

“Survive? Ah it’s simple, there’s a few different ways, and animal blood isn’t an option. You can take blood from people and kill them, take just enough that they feel faint, this way you’d have to put them in a trance so they don’t remember, or take from blood banks. I personally choose blood banks, less mess and it’s easier.”

The guys all looked at each other before looking back at the red head.

“Okay we’ll do it,” all the guys said at once.

“Perfect, oh I also will have something for all of you, Brian included. They’ll allow you to go out in the day, without burning or being in pain,” Smiling she held five simple silver rings, “Put them on after you turn.”

She went over to the fridge and pulled out four beers. She turned her back to the and bit into her wrist and put a few drops in each beer. Once she was done she turned back towards the guys and handed them each a beer, “Drink this and I’ll be back, I need to check on Brian.”

With that the red head disappeared leaving the four guys looking at each other before they drank the beer she’d given them.


~Present Day~

“So you guys all turned too? Why?” Brian looked at them confused.

“There was no way in hell we were going to let you be on your own forever man. We’re family, we stick together. Forever and Always.” Matt smiled at Brian before they all joined in a group hug.

Vanessa, the red head, smiled from the end of the garden at the new group of Vampires. She knew she’d be seeing more of them, after all she had a specific reason for turning Brian in the first play. He was hers even if he didn’t know it yet. He would one day. Until that day she’d observe them silently and only intervene if necessary.

Notes