I felt Hope
By ZoFran
I woke alone.
I opened my eyes to find myself staring up at a canopy of leaves, with the light of dawn shining through them.
For a time I lay motionless on my back, mesmerised.
I could see everything, hear everything, smell everything.
Wet forest earth, dry bark, a wind gently blowing making the forest shiver and sigh. Every sense was attuned to these things and so much more.
It all seemed so unfamiliar, being able to see a ladybug walk along a leaf which grew from the top of the tallest tree.
But when I tried to remember what I felt before there was nothing.
My mind was an empty hole of darkness.
I tried to remember family, friends, anything! The colour of my hair, the sound of my voice.
Everything I ever was, was gone.
My name?
That I searched for the most, but like everything else it eluded me.
/
After a time I sat up and looked around. Trees were the only thing I saw but I could hear activity far off to my right. The faint sound of automobiles, and swift footsteps on a hard ground.
I looked down at my legs lying in front of me. They were bared from the knee where the peculiar white sack-like dress I wore ended. My calves seemed very skinny and very, very white. Was that natural? It didn't seem like it, but I couldn't recall anything different.
Long straight black hair fell over my shoulders. Its length annoyed me for some reason I couldn't define. Something about the way it covered my face and smothered my neck.
Abruptly I stood up and began to walk toward the sounds of other people. There was this most delicious smell that got stronger and stronger as I got closer to the sounds.
It made me salivate and grow exited at the thought of eating it. What was it? It smelt so good...
I had just started to run, the hunger for this delicious smell making me hungrier and more desperate to have it. My body felt so powerful, so fast, I could do anything...
Then suddenly there was a flash of something in my head and I almost tripped. I stood motionless, looking around trying to determine what exactly I saw.
I was about to follow the smells again when it came again, stronger and more vivid.
A boy, no a man. Blonde, with red eyes. Sitting in some sort of restaurant looking at me and smiling. Then the same man, this time surrounded by two woman and three men, all terribly beautiful, all with amber eyes looking at me and smiling. The man turns to me and holds out his hand. His eyes when they smiled...some emotion shone in them that I couldn't quite identify. Was it joy, happiness? I didn't know, all I knew was that it made me smile and look at him in the exact same way...
Then it was gone and I was just standing in the forest alone. I knew I couldn't go toward the smell. Everything in me screamed that I must follow, must have that which made the smell, that I have to feed, that i have to...kill?
No, something deep inside me said. Walk away, go deeper into the forest, do not bow to this hunger. Images flashed across my mind again. This time of death. Through my own eyes I saw a girl I knew was myself, pale and beautiful but with shocking red eyes grab a screaming man by the neck and bite into him, holding him effortlessly as he struggled, my mouth clamped at his throat and drinking, his blood staining my white dress, his screams and struggles weakening...
It was hard, so hard I whimpered in pain. But after what seemed like forever I turned and ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction. My feet making hardly a sound as they touched the forest floor and the trees whipping by faster than I knew was possible.
And I also knew that what I was, who I was, was not human. I was something more, something deadly.
Not if you don't want to be.
The thought came unbidden into my head and images flashed again, this time of me drinking from the neck of dead deer, and I looked up and my eyes were amber, just like those people I saw I my head only a minute ago.
And I knew that I had to find those people. They were like me, and we would be part of them, the man and I. Him I had to find first. Sitting in the restaurant, smiling and saying "I sorry, maam."
Him leaning on the rail of a boat, looking out at the water. Him sitting next to me in a car as he drove. Him in the sunlight, his skin sparkling like diamonds. Him reaching for me in a dark room, his face intense, his eyes, not amber, and looking at me with such...
And I still couldn't identify the emotion.
But that didn't matter. All I needed to know, and did know was that someday, someday twenty eight years from now, he would be in that restaurant and I would find him, and together we found find the family with the amber eyes.
And we would always be that.
Together.