<div align="center">(https://i.imgur.com/Mq5lawg.png)<br/>(https://i.imgur.com/c7iqLoB.png)</div><br/><div class="floatleft">(https://i.imgur.com/vDaanjW.png)</div><br/><div style="text-align: justify;">The undead wasn't surprised to see the newly acquired servant lose consciousness so quickly. Even the psyche of a ghoul was still affected by what must have been such an horrendous trauma to experience without even the inkling of an explanation. Problems of the mind were something that the blood was unable to heal. Delicately she scooped the girl in her arms, lifting her from the tar roof. The ashes of the monster had already been scattered by the wind. Nothing out of the ordinary could be seen, nothing that would suggest a supernatural event that mortals weren't supposed to discover.<br/><br/>At blazing speed she ran away, hopping from roof to roof with such alien grace and precision, her dark figure silhouetted in the night sky with each jump she executed. The girl safely secured in her embrace was a rare beauty. As she moved with such unfathomable celerity and agility, the undead couldn't help but cast glances on the ghoul's fair visage from time to time. A long learning process lay ahead. The girl would have been introduced to a world of darkness that she couldn't even imagine. On her part, the undead hadn't kept ghoul servants in at least twenty years. While she was aware of the challenges of having a human girl as a permanent fixture in her unlife, she also recognized the strategic value that a ghoul certainly offered.<br/><br/>The girl was expendable. A pawn on a chessboard that she would have never fully studied and comprehended.<br/><br/>Sabbat vampires loathed such secretive machinations; at least the rank-and-file of the sect surely did. It was one of the main reasons as to why the never ending Jihad against the Camarilla took place every night, in a great many cities around the Western World. Mortals represented a different case. Mortals were insects. Monkeys. Walking blood bags. Food. Even holes to be fucked, for those who still engaged in such activities. A human didn't stop to talk to the ants crawling in the yard. In the same manner, Sabbat members saw mortals as filthy cattle. Those in the Sabbat had no problems playing games and using mortals as they saw fit, which perhaps was a touch hypocritical, considering the accusations constantly leveled at the cronies in the Camarilla.<br/><br/>Proxima was no different. A mortal girl had been trapped in a web from which she would have never escaped from. The undead would have employed the new ghoul to forward her agenda, no matter what would have eventually happened to her. Such was her mindset as she landed on the roof of an apartment complex in Santa Monica. In a matter of few minutes, she had crossed an entire city to reach the ocean due west of Los Angeles proper. Walking towards the edge, she cast an attentive look down in the dark alley just behind the building. No homeless people or anybody else in sight, which allowed the undead to jump down without worries, silently bending on her toned legs when her boots impacted the ground.<br/><br/>The heavy steel manhole nearby was her intended target. She had to place the girl on the ground for a few moments, while she grabbed the unbolted, round cover and pulled it away as if it was made of lightweight plastic. With the ghoul back in her arms, she proceed to jump down the access point. The tunnel she landed in was a pitch black one, but her supernatural gaze easily allowed her to see in such darkness as if it was lit by a ghostly light without an apparent point of origin. The only sound that could be heard was that of flowing of water. <br/><br/>It smelled in a manner that no living or undead creatures would have liked, but such was the life of a crusading Black Hand member. Secrecy before anything else. Safety before anything else. Even if that meant taking refuge in the sewers. She knew that no Camarilla nosferatus made their home in that section of the drainage system. In addition, concealed mystical sigils had been inscribed in strategic choke-points to ensure that the area would have been constantly monitored. The blood magic was intelligent enough to recognize who was an ally and who was a potential foe.<br/><br/>The unbearable odor of rotten eggs mixed to urine and excrements tormented her nose. Fortunately for her, the dead had no need to breathe. She stopped doing so as she advanced through the dark tunnels, which were nothing short of a maze under the city of Santa Monica. Remembering the correct path was easy for her, but would have surely confounded less attentive creatures, which was exactly why hiding in the sewers was a sound strategic choice. She eventually reached a red door etched in the wall of discolored bricks. She produced a key from the pocket of her coat, and used it to unlock the entrance.<br/><br/>The old management room had been transmuted into a comfortable communal haven hidden beneath the ground of Santa Monica. The place looked like a small studio flat, albeit one without a kitchen. A large table of glass was placed in the center of the room, upon which maps and blueprints of Los Angeles were placed. On the right side, a small area had been arranged as a sort of living room, with  sofas of black leather facing a modern TV set affixed to the wall. On the other side, four ominous black coffins had been positioned in a cross shape on the gray floor. The door leading to the small bathroom was on the wall at the far end of the room. Enough space was there to host a shower, a sink and an immaculate toilet bowl that no undead would have ever used.<br/><br/>Without a proper bed, the ghoul was carefully rested inside one of the empty coffins; the one that belonged to Proxima. The others were for the other members of the pack, who hadn't yet arrived in the Los Angeles area. Seeing as the girl was still unconscious, the undead decided to go buy human food and beverages at the nearest avenue open at night. Upon her return to the haven, she found the ghoul finally awake. Without saying a word, she folded the plans on the table and put them away, in one of the drawers of a desk placed against the wall in the living room area.<br/><br/>"This is for you, if you are famished." The undead pointed at the plastic bags resting on table's transparent surface. "I am certain you have a plethora of questions to ask. Please, do  not interrupt me for now. Allow me to indulge you and answer the most obvious queries you might have. Yes, this is not a joke or a dream. Yes, what you saw earlier was real. Yes, you were about to die. Yes, my blood saved you and what you feel right now is a connection to me, simply because you have ingested my blood, or vitae, as some of us prefer to call what sustains those of our kind."<br/><br/>The undead paused, her glacial eyes fixed on the beautiful visage of the ghoul. "Yes, I am a vampire; a real one. And yes, you are not the same any longer. You are what we call a ghoul. I am confident you can already tell something in you isn't quite what it used to be. You are better now. Much better than you could even dream of. You are stronger, faster, more agile, and better prepared to deal with sudden occurrences. And you should also be blessed with one of my special abilities, shall we say. Probably the best part? You are immortal. You have stopped aging and you will not age for as long as you will remain a ghoul in my service. My name is Proxima. I am your savior and your mistress. I own you; you belong to me."<br/><br/>With the initial speech out of the way, the ancient undead went to seat on one of the posh sofas. Her pale hand moved to grab the remote and turn on the TV, although she immediately muted the news channel that had appeared on the flat screen. A quick glance at the watch fastened around her left wrist revealed that it was past four in the morning already. She didn't have much time. In less than two hours, she would have fallen in torpor like all vampires did. She hoped to use that time productively, so that the ghoul would have learned something useful before she would have been left to her own devices throughout daylight.</div><br/><div align="center">(https://i.imgur.com/c7iqLoB.png)<br/>Words: 1439 | Proxima's Attire (https://i.imgur.com/ypgm7hY.png)</div>