The False Vampire

The morning air pressed into my face, cool and crisp. The temperature dipped to a level as such that I felt my nose freezing. The cold air could be accounted for something though, and that mainly, was the fresh snowfall that swept through the previous afternoon. Cold, white and wet, the snow fell in only one place from the tree I was currently sitting under – on me.

I had sworn this once before, no, numerous times before, but I swore the heavens hated me. It wasn’t as if I went out of my way, a universal screw you sign flashing on my forehead, I honestly tried to keep my head low and not stick out like a sore thumb – most of the time. I was beginning to think I would have to start dolling out the human sacrifices, the Celtic way. It seemed the only way to stem the ongoing misfortunes that seemed to plague me. First a leg on my bed would break, then the neighbours cat would die. Of course it was too hard to blame the cat on wondering out on the road, no, it was I who had the blame. I totally spent my time running over the neighbourhood cats with my non-existent drivers licence.

As the thoughts of human sacrifices swept through my body, it left me feeling cold, shuddering. It was not something I could do, or that I believed any sane person could go through. However, it wasn’t like you didn’t hear something similar on the news or in the papers everyday, the world was full of loonies. Then again, it wasn’t like most of the human population took notice of them anyways. It wasn’t affecting them, so it didn’t matter.

A patch of more snow plonked onto my head, quickly melting and running down my cheeks. I twisted my head and glared at the tree, almost treating it like it would respond to me. I could imagine a conversation with it now.

‘How dare you drop snow on me tree!’

‘Yeah, like I would like it on me any better! Silly human. I’m just a tree. Now hop along and finish scowling’

Yes, the tree would totally talk to me, and I would back. It was one of the fastest ways to end up in an insane asylum you know. However, sitting on the old gnarled roots of the tree, I did have to contemplate. The old tree, thick enough I couldn’t wrap my arms around, provided a small sanctuary for me, ever since I was a young girl. My fingers trailed down it, following the curves, ridges and depressions in its bark. I lifted my head to the sky, marvelling at the symphony of colours that were dashed across the sky. It reminded me of an errant child, finger painting clumsily and meshing all the colours on its palette together.

I knew the emerging colours would mean that I would have to depart soon, to escape back to the small, dark room nestled beneath the house. I knew with the rising of the sun, I would be dead to the world, to all worlds except my own, asleep under the worn floral patterns of my quilt.

The inability to experience a world with sun frustrated me, made me anxious and angry. I felt like a child. Those around me treated me as such. I was to have a curfew, to be coddled and protected from all outside threats, god forbid something happened in this sleepy little town of snoozeville. Curfews, if one could tell, immediately realised that they weren’t my “thing”. Then again, even the shelter lifestyle I had would be able to tell you that people didn’t like curfews, or at least, teenagers didn’t like curfews.

I suppose that for me, the curfews were a good thing, and weren’t imposed on by my parents, but he sun itself. I knew this from childhood experience. I was told that as a baby, the day my parents exited the hospital in the morning sunlight, I began to burn. They tell it doesn’t burden their lives, that it never did. I couldn’t imagine that to be the truth, not at all. I had no memories of the sun. I’ve never felt the brilliant rays upon my skin. I’ve never experienced a tan, or freckles. Just burns after burns. I liked to experiment when I was little, push the boundaries. These experiments only proved that after mere minutes with a shaft on sunlight, I would begin to redden, and then, if left long enough, blister. The few friends I possessed as a child, always teased me, and called me a vampire. It wasn’t long before I began to tell myself that. I was a vampire. What else was allergic to the sunlight?

For all my life, I have longed to play in the sun. Without the fear of being burned, and just that of having fun. Those few, precious memories of having friends, smiling faces weren’t enough. They were never enough. The concept of having me as a friend became impossible at the age of five, when they all learnt the realities of my inability. I believe now that I am forgotten, a faceless girl who couldn’t stand the sunlight.

As I grew older, I learnt to accept the facts that were laid in front of me, that I would never be considered a normal child. It was a part of who I was. As I watched the sky, the colours began to shift, signalling the approaching sunrise. My parent’s began to call my name, as if intoning that I would forget. No, I would never forget the boundaries placed on me.

A long sigh escaped me, I knew that this was making me upset, this old argument that I had with myself. This was a part of me too, now considered normal. It was what happened when you lacked companionship, friends, new faces. I had given up on a life that was currently the only one available to me. It was never changing, always the same.

I picked my sluggish body off the cold ground, toting limbs that were weighed by lead, forged in the exhaustion that had claimed me. I wanted to see the sun rise into the sky, the bright blue sky, endless and undiscovered. Perhaps with white wisps of clouds, teasing, free. I didn’t want to be in my room whilst the other children were exploring outside, eating, living, and learning. My pace was slow towards the small white house, burnished with rusted steel and water stains from floods in the past century. My mother, standing just outside the doorway, smiled tiredly at me, of which I returned. Following the hallway that I travelled for as long as I remembered, I descended the steps into the basement.

The basement, better known as my bedroom, could only be accessed by the squeaky narrow stairs. I had to remember which ones, armed with previous knowledge that the sound they admitted was the sounds they made when close to snapping. They desperately needed to be fixed. The locked wooden door also squeaked as it swung open, revealing a plain room. Its contents were meagre, a single bed pushed in a corner, a desk that supported a laptop, and a single door closet. The small closet contained every scrap of clothing I owned, which wasn’t much, but provided what I needed as I pulled out comfortable shorts and a shirt. My long, red hair that had previously been tickling my waist, was twisted into a tight bun on the top of my head.

The bathroom, was only a few steps from the stairs to my room, which I quickly travelled up. Preparing for bed, I followed my routine of washing my face and brushing my teeth. In the mirror was my reflection, of which caught my eyes for many long moments. My blue eyes were bloodshot, ringed heavily in dark bruises, mimicking my utter exhaustion. I scoffed at my reflection, it would be much easier to sleep if everything weren’t so loud, if I wasn’t aware of the footsteps and activities that took place only metres from my resting place. The dark bruises highlighted my pale skin, and from that, I noticed my old scar.

Pale silver, it stretched from my temple to my collarbone. Its appearance wasn’t something I hated, but yet, I wasn’t happy about it. I didn’t remember how I received it. I imagine it had something to do with my childhood fondness of climbing trees. It was another of my quirks I had just learnt to accept.

I stared in the mirror, at my tired reflection. My blue eyes intense as I stared into their mirror image, whispering the words ‘you’re such a bloody vampire’ again and again, observing the pale girls mouth mimic my own.