[CENTER]
[img]https://www.myclickmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/seattle-skyline-night-photography.jpg[/img]
[b][u]Seattle[/u][/b]
[b][b][u]Washington State Psychiatric Hospital[/u][/b][/b]
[/CENTER]

[i]Drip

Drip

Drip
[/i]

There was something beyond grime which made the hallway an unpleasant experience. It hung in the air like the stench of damp decay which shared the same space, a true foulness that could never be cleansed. The pain had been too great and for too long. There were few things which could surprise the long-discarded humanity of his soul, but every now and then the cold pragmatism of these modern nights stirred something in him that was almost revulsion. Cruelty was an art, there was no art here, simply the grinding cogs of the machine slick with the blood of the damned.

Considering how important this site had become for the Camarilla of the City, the fullness was notable. This was not a place for comfort, even for visitors, no matter how great or grand they may be. Seattle had remained a shining beacon of the Ivory Tower in a sea of Anarch revolution and Sabbat Crusades. It was a beacon built on the bones of those who would bring the Tower down, and here he stood among them, the skeletons of the past. He could sense them shying away from him, their conditions would not allow them to run. They could not even see him for now, not until he wished it, but they knew he was there, knew there was a monster among them quite unlike the host of monsters who had chained them.

"Do not fear, I am not here to feast." His voice did not sound loud, but it carried down the hallways, to each and every cell. To each and every guard who finally became aware that the one place most important to their masters was no longer quite as sacrosanct as they had promised. There would be no blaring of alarms, no panic of kine activity. This was the heart of Camarilla rule and the knives would be drawing close. They would be too late, they were too late the moment he set foot on this forsaken, savage continent.

"I am here to give you what you have believed to be impossible, to remind you of what you are." His voice was building, the power of blood behind it as it touched each and every twisted soul within the confines of the hospital. Every captive, every guard. Any guest as well, should any have chosen an unfortunate evening to sake their first, he had not bothered to monitor the movements of the City's grandest this night. Their presence was irrelevant to his success. They were irrelevant by nature of his being.

"I am here to set you free, Blood of Caine, Hunt, Kill, Fuck, Do what it is you were born to do. Give praise and seek absolution." A thunderous clank followed the honeyed words, the clank of a thousand locks breaking, a thousand spells shattering. In the vacuum of noise that followed only the dripping of tainted water remained.

"Caine wakes. Remind them of their folly." The final words of his command rang out, and once again silence was King. It lasted a few moments, before it was broken by panicked shouting. The meat was free. Then the howling began, howls of unrestrained rage, howls of hunger, of desperation. The howl became a scream of bloody murder, and then the tide broke.

The Toreador and Malkavians of the Seattle Camarilla had long used the state hospital as a prison for the political failures of Seattle. Anarchs, Sabbat, the followers of failed Camarilla coups, they had all ended up here. This was the Elders of Seattle's solution to these Final Nights. A hospital had become a prison, had become a blood bank. But now the Cattle were free, two centuries of entrapped anger and violence released all at once. No matter how you broke a Kindred, you could never break the Beast, and the Beast knew only hunger, only vengeance. There should have been nothing which unified the Freed. Before their imprisonment, whether they were from the founding of Seattle or imprisoned short months ago, they came from different clans, different sects. They had been tortured and turned into drips to be fed from, until no personality remained. Hidden among each and every mind, however, was the spark of the being which had freed them, reminding them of who the true enemy was. Not each other, but the guards, the guests, and then those who had shut them away for so long. Tonight they would all die, they would pursue them until the Dawn broke and seared them away to ash.

He had waited for too long for this night. The Masquerade could not be broken so openly, even for one such as him. The seeds had to be sown in the Kine world as well, driving the schisms in their petty little societies to breaking point. Protests had become Riots, had become a furnace of violence. His tide of maddened Kindred would just be another drop in a city wide torrent of hatred. Tonight Seattle would burn, and the Ivory Tower would fall.

Lubbock would rule over ash and ruin.