DISCLAIMER: I do not own Twilight
Alive
The last thing I remember about my life is wet, cold earth under my hands and agonizing pain… everywhere. I felt the Death craving under my skin, boiling my blood, sticking knives into my bones… I wanted to scream but only hoarse sounds came out of my dry mouth. I was dying and I felt it with every cell of my body. And it was absolutely unfair. I was so young, too young to be dead. Nevertheless, my life as a human was over. When I opened my eyes the next time the world was different to me.
But these memories lead me nowhere; they are pointless, as every day of my existence. I don't feel anything now but thirst, which is burning my throat, create buzzing sounds in my head and reminds me that Death is my only companion in this life, which wasn't chosen by me but by someone else. Someone, whose face is forever erased from my life.
To make this painful thirst stop I seek the only thing that helps me – pure life force which is flowing through veins and its taste is divine. As if life itself comes back to me, making me almost happy, if there is such thing as a happy vampire. Usually I seek for men in dark, dirty streets where only lost souls can be found. I feel bitterness of cheap alcohol on my tongue mixed with deep copper of blood. It's been like that since I remember. Times change but human beings… Not so much. Although for the last century I feel the winds have changed. People became so fast and tense, their intuition developed even though they barely sense it. Thinking million thoughts, doing million things at the same time. I try to hide from them so they don't discover me for who I really am. Human beings have dangerous minds, therefore it's better to stay quiet.
It's been usual evening of fast streets of New York. Big, noisy city where people are so wrapped in their problems that hardly ever notice anything strange. In New York City everything can happen. And murder won't be considered as something beyond normal life of this enormous mechanism. That is why I've been living here for fifty years, although my type of existence unlikely can be considered as living.
I am barefoot, as always when I go hunting. The dress doesn't even cover my knees but it's better for movements. I still prefer clothes covering my arms and legs – this tradition, like a ghost from the past, is still in my mind. I found yet another perfect place to hunt – it's far from the place I've been to last week and no one there has ever been sober. The movement in black darkness of the backstreet caught my attention. Sharp smell of cheap vodka betrayed my new victim's life. Another homeless, broken creature with lost eyes and hollow look – it doesn't matter to him that he is still alive. And it doesn't matter to me. I come closer to him. He's a man of late forties, lying on a pile of garbage with his head leaned against brick wall. I brush off his dirty hands when the homeless man reaches them to me as if he is a small child. I forcefully tilt his head to the side and the man lets out a drunken groan. I kneel before him and look for the better spot to drink. The vein in his red neck is big and blue, and so inviting to bite. He doesn't have any consciousness to resist as my fangs become longer and pierce through the salty skin. The burning in my throat disappears when precious liquid fills my mouth. The man's pulse slows down and stops with his last heartbeat on the Earth.
I stand in front of the lifeless body wiping my red lips. My eyes also have the color of thick blood, a daily reminder about my victims. I need to leave as fast as I can but I hear steps next to the fence which blocks the backstreet. I freeze and look around – there's nowhere to hide, I am trapped, the only exit is through the gates of the fence. It's a man; I hear his breathing, his fast pulse, blood that rushes through his veins and every sigh, the smallest motion he makes: like the way he licks lips with his tongue and wipes sweat from his forehead. He struggles with the gate which has a padlock hanging on an iron chain. But then he gets through the gap in the fence and I can see him. I don't move – he still hasn't notice neither me nor the body.
The man is young, twenty seven or twenty eight years old, his heart beats steadily, yet he looks worn out with his dark hair stuck together with sweat, his wrinkled white shirt. His hands are shaking and in the right one he holds a gun. I can still slip past him if I move carefully and fast. The gun doesn't scare me. But then I see something that makes me stay where I stand: he loads his gun with silver bullets. I would never confuse silver with anything in the world. Silver is my weakness, the most frightening thing I can imagine. Or should I say the only frightening thing for me, and the mere thought of touching silver is a torture.
Suddenly a loud masculine voice brakes ringing silence and multitude of thoughts inside my head. "C'mon, little one, don't be so shy. I know you're here." This man has a powerful voice with the tone dictating to obey. He is well-built and tall, moving with grace of a cat, or even a vampire. And I can't help thinking that he knows exactly who I am. The silver bullets in his gun waiting to be shot are not just a coincidence. I quietly take a step to the wall at my left and make a desperate leap on it. My nails are strong enough to dig between the bricks, yet I see that the wall itself is not strong enough to hold me, and red bricks are old and keep crushing under my hands. But if I fall the man in a white shirt most likely will shoot me down. I try to climb the wall with little hope to get to the roof without making a lot of noises. Meanwhile, the man's voice continues to speak and I know that he is standing next to the dead body which lies at the opposite wall. "I've killed thousands of your kind with silver bullets." I feel how he raises his hand and points the gun in my back. My only thought is that I don't want to die again, I won't be able to go through this agony once more, and I already feel the Death watching me through the gunpoint. Then the brick I've been holding to crushes under my nails, my other hand lets go the wall and I am falling the exact same moment as the gun fires. Bullet hits the wall and some more bricks crush covering my hair with red dust and I run away from there, through the same gap in the fence, away from my murder and possible murderer. I realize this is the first time in my timeless existence I've been scared to death by a human. And I've never felt more alive.