Chapter 1. Before.

Before I changed, before I became so much more powerful, I had lived in Italy, on the outskirts of Volterra. Of course, my memories are brief and quite blurry, as most human memories are.

My family was poor and did not have much money to spend on the eleven children. My father got drunk often, and would spend that little money we had, on his alcohol. He beat my mother. That was the worst. I hated seeing her cry, covered in bruises from that horrendous man. None-the-less, I wound up pick pocketing for my family, so we wouldn't be as bad off, a wasted effort as my father always took the money.

When I grew older, and got into my adolescent years, I began following people, tracking them, if you will. It led me to the homes of vastly rich people, and I got more and more money out of it. My family was better off. But that meant my father had more money to spend. My mother got weaker.

I continued to follow and track people into my adulthood. On my last, human tracking, when I was around 25, I ran into a pale man. He perplexed me, his eyes flared red, his sleek black hair reached his shoulders, he was so physically beautiful, I was stunned. He glared at me, for I had, actually, run right into him. But his moment of anger quickly, for some reason I could not explain, turned to a sort of glee. His lips broadened over a pure white set of teeth.

"Hello," he said. No, that would be an understatement. He purred. Like a liquefied version of a very romantic word. I was unbelievably mesmerized by this odd man. "It is so nice to have run into you," This confused me. Why would he be so elated to see me? I was just an average man. Yet I was immediately confident in myself that I was the finest thing this man had ever come across.

"Why, yes, I suppose it is," I had replied in my most luxurious voice, which was nowhere near as voluptuous as his.

"Would you like to accompany me for dinner?" As some people may agree, if a man who you do not know in any way at all invites you to dinner, your answer is "No. Not a chance, that would be insane." But my answer was nothing like that.

"Oh, that would be splendid. I would enjoy that," I said this because that man, that unexplainably wonderful man, was so—oh there are no words for it—beautiful, that I instantly agreed.

And we went. We traveled to his mansion, or castle rather, and walked under the marvelous arches and the magnificent domes. And this man was not alone. He had two other men with him, both remarkably like him, although one had white hair rather than black. But they all had that pale skin and those bright crimson eyes.

My body started to shake, then, and I didn't immediately understand why. Then I noticed that the three men were looking at me as though they would like to eat me, and I grew very wary and concerned for my well-being.

"Oh isn't he splendid?" The man who brought me spoke first. "Caius, what do you think?" He spoke to the other black-haired man.

"Well, I don't see anything remarkably special about him, Aro. Though, he does look tasty." I shivered, a cold ripple went down my spine.

Aro, the one who brought me, spoke again, "No, you don't see his potential. This is the one who was sneaking into people's houses and following others without being noticed!" But I had been noticed, if this Aro was able to see me.

"Ah," spoke the white-haired man, "So this is the one you had spoken about." My back pushed against a cold, stone wall. I had subconsciously been backing up the entire time. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

And they advanced on me. They moved so quickly that I could not be sure what happened. A searing pain ripped through me, starting at my neck, like someone had put an iron on my throat and left it there, only much, much worse. I fell to the floor and writhed on the ground in pain, unable to put that fire out. It traveled quickly through my body, infecting every available space. It raged in me for what felt like centuries, but it was only three days.

Then I was strong.