Chapter 80-The dark forest (4)

Chapter 80: 80-The dark forest (4)

Maisa ignored the comment. She took in her surrounded quietly before she asked, "Where are we?"

His amusement vanished immediately. It was the first time he found someone asking that in the dark forest.

"You don’t know?" He asked, getting a strange feeling.

"No."

He studied her carefully. There was no sign that Maisa was lying to him, which made the situation even more strange. Because vampires don’t just stumble into the forbidden grounds.

"You’re in the forbidden dark forest, dear," he informed her.

Maisa frowned. The word "forbidden" in that statement was enough to send shivers down her spine. "And that means?"

"The vampire prison," he uttered. "The place where they send the criminals of the nation to reform."

Her blood ran cold. ’Prison?’ She thought it made sense that her vampirism didn’t work there. Initially , the chances of getting out would be high, and the purpose of a prison would be lost.

The boy gestured around them. "This forest was created by Zissa herself. The first vampires used it to contain vampires who had committed crimes severe enough to warrant imprisonment but couldn’t simply be killed."

Maisa stared at the trees. There was a tough suffocating pressure coming from the trees, earth, and air around her.

"Why?"

"Because vampirism doesn’t work here, and that is the first torture."

Her stomach dropped. Having immortality and spending every day being hunted, that was true punishment.

"What?"

"You heard me. The forest suppresses it completely. Strength, speed, healing, elemental abilities... all of it disappears."

Maisa looked down at her scratched hands, her wounded ribs, her bloody body, and suddenly everything made sense.

"But vampires can’t die here?" The boy continued, getting her up to speed with how the dark forest works. He shook his head. "Not naturally. You’re still immortal and can’t die, but that just means that you have eternity to endure being hunted and wounded again and again."

The fact that she can’t die there should have comforted her. It didn’t. Being able to live forever just to endure suffering every day wasn’t her idea of immortality.

"Then what happens to prisoners?" she asked.

His expression darkened. "The beasts... like the sanguine-shadow panther you just fought..." he let out.

Maisa glanced at the dead panther. Her skin crawled at the memory of that fight. Pushing herself forward to fight was a last-minute choice, and she was relieved she lived or that would’ve been a horrible way to go.

"The creatures here were created to make imprisonment unbearable. They’re bloodbound, which makes them a nightmare. You can hurt them. You can even kill them temporarily," he pointed toward the fallen animal. "But they come back."

Maisa’s face went pale. "What?" Her scalp nearly exploded. After that fight and winning, the boy was telling that the panther was going to come back to life? She couldn’t believe it.

"They continue hunting from where they left off and only leave when you have one breath left. I’m your lungs... they return once you’ll recovered your energy and can fight," he added.

The silence that followed felt enormous. Maisa stared at the dead sanguine-shadow panther and the rod in her hands. She wanted to scream until there wasn’t any strength left in her lungs.

She wished to curse Zissa, the original whiteblood vampire, which was demented to have thought out a prison like that. And to bring it to life and have vampires suffering for eternity was beyond any level of sanity. She wanted to find that vampire and tell her to grow a heart, and then she realized that Zissa was long dead and those in power now wouldn’t listen to a redblood.

Her words would enter one ear and leave through the other, and that was the only truth. She had no true value or true voice. She was simply an unwanted outcast.

The boy looked at her curiously. "So what did you do?"

"What?"

"To end up here... what crime landed you here?" He asked, curious to know what a baddie like Maisa could’ve done to warrant being sent to the dark forest.

Maisa shook her head, "I didn’t," she answered honestly. She truly hadn’t committed any sins, and she wasn’t a criminal.

Her only crime was falling for the trick that Kriza and her friends played on her. Had she not been naive on the vampire nation, she wouldn’t have ended up in that predicament.

He frowned. That wasn’t right, I shouldn’t. Innocent vampires didn’t end up in the dark forest. Only the worst of the worst who’ve spilt blood and have posed a danger to the vampire nation.

"I came here on a school trip to Old Scaris," she explained.

"That doesn’t explain why you’re in prison. There’s no way you lost your way and ended up here, right?" The chances of that happening to any vampire were close to none.

"I was tricked," Maisa’s voice tightened, hatred blooming in her heart. "Three vampires brought me here. Sophia Thornheart, Jane Vonderheide, and Kriza. They tricked me into entering the forest and then fled away."

The boy’s eyebrows rose. "They intentionally brought you inside?"

Maisa nodded. "They told me Lumi was waiting for me... and like a fool, I believed them and followed them here."

He stared at her for a long moment. Then something like pity crossed his face. It was sad to see someone who didn’t actually belong there be tricked like that, but a part of him remained cautious. Criminals were notorious liars and good at acting innocent, so he couldn’t let himself be swayed by her story.

"How long have you been a vampire?" He went along and asked.

"Two weeks," Maisa didn’t hide the truth from him.

His expression changed immediately. "Two weeks?" That got his cold stone heart awakening with anger for her.

Maisa nodded. It had truly been two weeks, even though the eventful nights made it seem longer. She hadn’t even attended one class at the academy, and already she had been stripped of that life forever.

It was hard to accept how unfair the hand life keeps serving her was. Not only had she been turned into a vampire at the most unfortunate time of her life, but she had paired with four mates who seem to have deep wounds in their hearts carved by her family.

And now, before she made her way around that, she was already transported into another nightmare. It was tragic, to say the least.

He slowly shook his head. That was indeed too small a time for a vampire to hate her so much that they would outright trick her into serving a permanent sentence in the dark forest.

"That’s terrible. Those vampires must truly hate you."

"I know... and they better pray that I never make it out of here or else...I would make their lives..."

"No. I don’t think you understand." He looked toward the forest. "New vampires are supposed to be informed about this place by the Blood Council. It is mandatory required. If you’re enrolled in an academy immediately after you turn, then the student council is supposed to make sure you receive proper orientation and inform you about all the forbidden zones in vampire nation on your arrival."

Maisa’s head felt as though it had been hit with a hammer. Everything the boy said was news to him. ’How was I supposed to know?’