A Cold Loveless Life

Roma-England-same time period

There was one human heart beat that came from the barn. I slipped inside, using the shadows to remain hidden. As I slipped into a stall and calmed the cow that I was planning on drinking from I saw the farmer. He was bent over, fixing something. It was then the scent of human blood hit me. I felt my fangs sharpen, cutting my lower lip. I tasted the warm blood, and felt my eyes grow bright silver. Ignoring the animals, I silently made my way behind the farmer. He was an old man, but that didn’t matter to me. On reflexes I attacked, breaking his neck before I bit into his neck. The warm blood flowed into my mouth, I closed my eyes and drunk to my heart’s content.
****
I sat on top of a crumbling castle, my feet dangling over the edge with my hair blowing in the breeze. I had killed that man and when his wife had come to check on him, I had killed her. I looked over across the rubble, and into the forest line. I could see every blade of grass, every leaf, and twig. I could taste the summer air, all thanks to my vampiric senses. None of these amazing things I could do made me feel better about what I had just done.

I was the one who wanted to stop drinking human blood, to stop killing, but here I was, back in my birth place and was killing poor farmer’s and their wives. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the loud screaming I heard, coming from down in the valley. The small village had caught wind of what had happened and was now on a hunt for the monster.

I opened my eyes before standing, I jumped and landed softly on the grass and ran to the small cottage that had belonged to my family all those years ago; just before we moved to Romania. I pulled the old wooden door open and allowed it to bang shut behind me, once I had entered the small place.

I walked around, not bothering with lighting a bunch of candles. Instead I lit one and set it in the window seal, as I have done for the past three nights. The single candle allowed whoever passed by to know that I was grieving and should not be disturbed. It was a tradition that I was thankful for. I walked over and sat on the old lumpy mattress and thought about what Irie would be doing.

Knowing her she would be walking around where ever she was, trying to find a good place to relax. But that was just Irie for you. She was always looking for a nice place to sit and watch humans pass by, or if she was feeling up to it, listening to live bands. It was one thing I could safely say me, and her along with Zeph all shared an equal love for. We all loved music and as time passed music seemed to be the only thing that changed yet remained the same, just like us.

Thinking of Zeph made me angry, why couldn’t she be more like me or Irie? Zeph loved toying with humans, and although she wasn’t always like that, it made me angry. We were all once human before, even if it had been ages ago, and we had nearly forgotten what it was like, we had still been human. That was one thing that had helped me from killing, I was human and it was wrong for humans to kill other humans.

But that ended, I was no longer human, so I could kill as I wanted, but just because I had the power to do so, didn’t mean I enjoyed it. I marveled at how long Irie could go without feeding, but that was nothing new, her being the oldest of us three. But I also felt sorry for Irie, although being the oldest came with a lot more experience, it also came with the most pain. I turned and laid down, my hair fluttering and spreading out around my head, covering my pillow. I closed my eyes as flashes of the poor man and woman entered my mind.

And a question Irie had asked me popped into my head, What if we only existed on the side we were cursed with? I opened my eyes as I whispered into the silence, “then we wouldn’t exist at all.” I closed my eyes once more; it was an answer we had agreed on. But only because we could find no other right answer to the strange question she had thought of.