Chapter One

For as long as I can remember, my purpose in life is to go where I am needed, be what I am needed, and I don't really know why.

I was born in the early 7th century, to the estranged and shunned daughter of the local doctor. My mother, I never knew her name, died giving birth to me, of course, and I never knew who my father was. I can remember everything from the moment of my birth perfectly. The first few weeks were hard, I was so hungry, so thirsty, and there was no one there to help me. I fed on my mothers blood, what little she had left, as she was already dead, her body mangled from where I had ripped myself from her. I don't know if I can die, but those first few weeks ware perhaps the closest I have ever come to it. By the time I was one month old, I had grown large enough to be able to feed myself. I ate what food was in the small shack my mother had been banished to upon discovery of her pregnancy, and I ate whatever animals came close enough to the building. For three months I lived there. My mothers body rotted away, and I left it there, not knowing I should do anything with it. After three months, someone from the town finally came out to see why my mother hadn't been seen recently. The man had barely begun screaming when his life was ended, I had gone crazy with thirst, and I could not resist the warm blood pumping through his veins. Over the four moths following, I killed five more visitors to the house, and between the people, I killed animals from the woods and ate the fruit that grew there. Eventually, the townspeople condemned the house as the place a monster lived, and no one came near it again. My mother had owned books, but I had no knowledge of language at that time, so I could not understand them. I was wild, living off instinct. After three years in the house and woods, I was growing bored with life. At three and a half years of age, I was taller than some of the children who had wandered too close to the shack and had become my dinner.

I knew that I was different from the other ones, though I looked similar to them. I had watched them from afar in the village. They did not drink blood. They cooked their food before eating it. They did not kill each other. I looked like them, but I wasn't one of them. My skin never tore and bled as theirs did. It was smooth and tanned, though I didn't go out in the sun as often as they did. My scent was different, not as warm or soft as theirs, and not as good smelling. My hair, though I never washed it, stayed bright and shiny, unlike theirs, which would slowly turn into dirty ropes of hair if they didn't take care of it. My skin shone in the sunlight, just a little bit. My arms looked like they were glowing, whereas theirs would turn red and sore if they left it in the light too long. I could run much faster than any of them could. I could see farther. I could smell better. And I grew. I grew much faster than any of them. Their children grew as much in a year as I did in a few months. Through watching them, I learned their language, though by now that language is dead and I never learned the name of it.

I left the small village when I had learned as much from them as I could, and wandered in the woods for many years, living off of animals I hunted and plants I could harvest. For many years I wondered alone, watching people in the settlements and learning from them, then moving on. I learned that if I could resist the blood of others, if I could live off their food, I could mingle with them, even talk to some of them. I soon learned that my skin was warmer than theirs, so I avoided touching them. I did not age. After the first eight years of my life, I had not grown again.

By the time fifty years had passed, I returned to the village where I was born, now with the knowledge and restraint to be around the people there. The place where I had been born was gone, new buildings stood there, housing for the ever expanding town. I dressed in mens clothes and cut my hair short and began working with the town doctor, who was my mothers relation, though I did not tell them that. I settled into daily life, rarely speaking to anyone, keeping everything about me secret. I moved from town to town over the years, never going far from my home in the south of Kipchak. Many years passed, and many wars that I avoided. My home town was burnt to the ground, then rebuilt, then destroyed again. I left the area nearly three hundred years after my birth, traveling west, to the big towns of Rome and Paris. There I again dressed as a male, and I attended their schools. I was quicker to learn then they were, I never forgot anything.

It was in Rome that I first felt the pull. It was like a feeling, no, a strong urge, to leave. I followed it north, to the newly named 'city' of London. There were more people there than I had ever seen at one time, and the smells were overwhelming, but I followed my instincts, letting the mysterious feeling pull me to the far northern edge of the city, down a few side roads, and toward a large mansion style house. I hid in the trees around the house for days, watching the people come and go, and listening to their conversations. The urge, the feeling of being needed, came from the youngest child who lived in the house, a small boy, maybe five years of age. I never heard him talk, though his four older sisters never stopped chattering. I needed to get closer. I listened to every conversation, I studied every person. The children had no mother, though I had yet to hear why. The father owned a successful bank in town, where he spent most of his time. There were two maids who cleaned and cooked for the children. No one else visited the house, though the oldest girl, around 16 or so, often went into town with a young man and his family.

I watched the boy, choosing a tree near his bedroom window to sleep in at night. I could hear him cry out in his sleep, and it hurt me, it made my chest burn, and my heard break. I felt the need to protect this child, to help him. And I knew instinctually that he needed me too. Thats why I was there, to help him. The only time I heard him talk was when he played alone in his room. I listened to him, noticing what he pretended, and what he said, and then suddenly, I could feel myself changing.

I don't know why it happens, or how, but I have since learned to control it. And I have guessed, that it is directly related to whoever I am next meant to help. I become exactly what they need.

This little boy, more than anything else, needed a friend. And I became one. I shrunk in height until I matched his own. My hair became light brown rather than its usual deep red color. I was younger, almost five myself I would guess. At first I left the area, worrying about what was happening to me, but the tug grew stronger and stronger each day. As the seasons changed and the air grew warmer, the boy began to spend his time outside in the large back yard.

I presented myself to him then. I became his imaginary friend. We played, and talked, and laughed. And I grew to love him, I grew to love all people, though before I had merely tolerated them. I was his imaginary friend. I could do things that no one else could do. I could run so fast, and jump so high, there was no way I could be real. And I could disappear if someone was coming.

I grew older as he did. When the season grew cold again, I played with him in his room, using the window to come in and out when he called for me. He turned into a happy young person, smiling much more than he had when I met him. As he grew older, he called for me less and less, though I continued to age at his pace. I continued to spend every night in the dark trees outside the house, waiting for him to call for me again. The last time we played was when he was nine years old, but I stayed, knowing it wasn't time to leave yet. I still held the image he needed of me. When he was nearly an adult, with all his sisters married, and his father passed away, and he the only one in the large house, he called for me.

"Sophia," he called, his voice soft, the same way he used to call for me when we were children. The wind carried the word to my ears, where I waited in the forest. I lifted my head, not daring to believe what I had heard. In the split second it took me to recover from my shock, he had begun to turn back to the house. I was in front of him when he had faced the door a second later, and he gasped and took a step back. I stood completely still, my heart racing in my chest, but my face was smooth, emotionless. He didn't speak, though his eyes were wide and I could hear his heart racing as well. It was clear that he hadn't expected me to appear. And why would I? I was simply a delusion he'd had as a child.

He reached a hand out toward me slowly, and I let him. This was why I had stayed, why I was still in this form. This was the last time he would need me, I could feel it. His hand touched my cheek lightly, and I didn't flinch, I didn't even blink. He seemed surprised that I was tangible, something that could be touched. His hand brushed along my face, feeling cool to me, though I knew this was because of my warm skin. He pushed my hair over my shoulder, then ran his hand down my arm, taking my hand in his own slowly. I didn't move. He held my eyes for a few second, then he dropped my hand and stepped forward, wrapping his arms around my shoulders and leaning his face into my neck.

"I know you are not real," he said, and I smiled, though he couldn't see my face. "But I wanted to thank you. You were the only person who listened to me when I was young." I moved slowly, wrapping my arms around his waste to return the hug. And then I felt another sudden need. My time here was done. He pulled away from me, standing away now, and I knew it was time to go, though it hurt to do so. As he blinked, I darted forward to press my warm lips against his cheek.

"Goodbye," I whispered. I was gone before he opened his eyes, back in the forest. And I changed again, becoming the self I had been before he had needed me.

And I cried.

It was only a few short months of wandering in the forest before I felt the pull again. This time, it led me south, to somewhere in Spain. I stayed there for only four year, before moving on to somewhere in the east of what is now Russia, though it had been part of China then.

It wasn't until the early 1500's that I met someone of my kind. Well, nearly my kind. The man attacked me, hunting me like I used to hunt animals in the woods. I defended myself for as long as I could, but he was far stronger than I, pinning me down easily. Then suddenly, he had jumped away, a curious look on his face as I panted, trying to catch my breath. He spoke a language I did not know, but he seemed so urgent to tell me something. After I had calmed down enough from his attack to realize he was no longer trying to kill me, I began to pay attention. I memorized his words so that I could figure them out later, and when I nodded to him, he turned and left. I returned to London, to their large libraries and schools, and began to study books on languages, trying to discover that the man had said. Finally, I found one familiar word, one word I recognized from what he said, in one of the books I read. Brazil. It was not a person as I had thought, but a place, across the seas. I left immediately, having nothing else to do. I took a ship across the waters to America with the first wave of settlers, posing as an English woman, going to meet her husband in the new colonies, as many of the other women aboard were doing. Once the ship settled, I disappeared immediately, following what I remembered of the maps I had studied.

I ran for two weeks, stopping to sleep each night, then rising to run through the forests again at sunrise. Brazil had just been discovered a few years earlier, and was now inhabited by people from Portugal, a country I had never visited, but had been near to many times. The people there spoke the same strange language the man who had attacked me used, and I wasted no time in learning it. It only took a couple months for me to become fluent and able to read and write the language. I wrote out the words the man had told me, translating as I went, my eyes widening with every word.

'I am Duarte' had been repeated a few times. along with the words 'I am a vampire' which I had guessed about myself many decades ago. Though, if the man was a vampire, I must not be one, as he had been as different from me as the humans had been. 'You are special, I have met your kind before' he had said. By this point in my translating I was repeating his words so quickly in my mind that they became a blur, and I had to take in a deep breath to calm myself enough to continue. The word 'Brazil' had been repeated many times, followed by what seemed like instructions. 'Go to Brazil, then to the unexplored west, you will find your kind there'.

I left immediately, not bothering to say goodbye to the few people here who had taught me Portuguese. I traveled until I hit the coast line, then I went back again, running in a zig zag line up and down the coast for days, trying to find what I was looking for. Finally, they found me. There were four of them. Two of the women were vampires, as the man had been, but the other three girls were like me. All of them looked like adults, all of them had darker skin than the pale white of the vampires.

When I had convinced them I did not mean them harm, and mentioned that I had been sent there by a man called Duarte, they calmed and let me explain my story to them. In turn, they explained to me what I was and how I was made, then how the three girls like me had come to be. I wondered briefly if the vampire who fathered them had also fathered me, but it seemed unlikely as they were new to this like, and I was nearing my 1000th birthday. I stayed with them for a very long time. One of the girls like me was destroyed by a passing vampire only ten years after I had met her, and we all mourned her death. Duarte returned, one of the female vampires left us, and the humans evolved, slowly letting go of the myths of us, and turning to their more civilized world. They created cars and roads, and they expanded their cities, making our little group of five move farther and farther into the wilderness.

It has been nearly 500 years since I left my home land, and I have stayed, for the most part, with my adoptive family, keeping ourselves hidden from others. Duarte had told us that they would destroy us all if they knew what we were, and I believed him. I would leave the group for a few years at a time, as some of them also did, whenever I got the feeling that I was needed elsewhere. I learned to control the things I can do, I can change my appearance at will now.

I had never felt lonely, until I came to Brazil. But I could see the way that Duarte, whom the other two girls saw as a father figure, loved the female vampire they saw as a mother. And I developed a longing for that. I couldn't help but love those who needed me, but it was different. I wanted someone who would love me for me, not for someone else.

It has been nearly forty years since my last calling. But I can feel it beginning again. It is not strong enough that I can tell where I am going yet, but soon, I will have a purpose again.

Hello everyone :) I hope you enjoyed this story so far, the next chapter will finally begin the plot.

I'd just like to let you all know that, if you are bored a lot of the time, as I am, and like Harry Potter, as I do, there is this great RP site called Accio Nox, and I would really love it if you guys would come join, it's a lot of fun :)