Death is only the beginning. At least, that's what they whispered in our ears as we drifted into the black abyss. If I had known what I would become after death, I would have fought harder to stay alive. Still, I can barely remember my life, and the memories are flashes: a face, a phrase, a song. Death is only the beginning. They weren't lying. It's been three hundred years since I died. I can still remember my first moments after death; the pain was excruciating and I can still hear their calming words. "Relax and breath, you're only dead, nothing more."
I hated them for killing me. I hated the circumstances that left me, alone and feverish, in the back streets of some god-forsaken city. I can't remember their names, their faces, or even where to find them. They left me, abandoned me in those same streets, like a fledgling forced from the nest. Had it not been for Esme, I would have gone insane the first hours of my new existence. She took me in, taught me how to deal with my death. Like me, she had been killed by the mysterious "them".
"Edward Mason!" Esme's voice shattered my thoughts. Her name for me tended to change every ten years or so, and I hated the current one immensely. I looked down to see her in the garden, her face set into a scowl. My eyes shifted to the basket she held against her this waist. She raised one finger and pointed toward the clothes' lines strung around the yard. "Help me, won't you?" she asked sweetly. I caught the threatening undertone in her voice and leapt from my perch on the roof.
My leg broke on impact. It didn't hurt and I didn't feel anything except the numbness that accompanies the resetting of my bones. According to Esme, it is damn near impossible to kill myself again. After listening to the horror stories from others like me, I decided it wasn't worth finding out whether I could actually die. I took the basket from Esme and listened to the sickening snap as my leg reset itself bit by bit. I moved slowly, hanging the laundry out to dry.
"Edward, why do you insist on breaking yourself?" Esme asked calmly as she walked beside me. "We're dead, but we can still break as easily as a living, breathing human."
"You've told me," I replied roughly. The sound of my voice still surprises me after all these years. It is hollow. Ilene continued to shadow me, making me remember her tutoring in the early years. She had always been there, instructing me how to act like a normal human when all I wanted to do was hide. She followed me, watching for any flaw in the laundry as I hung it to dry. "Is there something else you want, Esme?" I asked as I hung the last piece.
She snatched the basket from my hands faster than I thought possible. She was my elder by a few hundred years, but her talents never ceased to amaze me. Like many in our race, she had gained speed and power, but at the cost of her humanity. Unlike me, she couldn't go into the nearby villages to get supplies. Her skin was deathly pale and barely hid the sinew and muscle underneath. Her eyes were pitch black and stared uneasily out from red-rimmed sockets. Her dark hair was pulled back in a tight bun, revealing the thin scars that marked her neck. "They" had marked her early in her existence, and to this day, she was considered an outcast among our kind.