Dark alleyways, all the same.
Dark everything really.
I missed the sun more than I cared to remember.
I reached my apartment block and entered.
Up the stairs, and into my apartment.
What an empty existance I led.
As I sat in my chair, picking up the glass of wine I was enjoying before I left to eat before the sun came up, I reflected on my life.
What had been.
My oldest memories re-surfaced, the way they always did when I was in a melancholy mood like this.
Feasts...beheadings. Truly, life had been great.
But I, a child then, no more, had wanted MORE.
His face came into my consiousness.
My body tensed, just in the memory of him.
Of the love I'd felt for him.
My mind seemed almost disattached to my body, as I let it wonder back to the old days.
To him.
I recalled his hands, caressing my face.
Calling me his sweet.
His darling.
His eyes, they'd always burnt straight through me, into my soul.
They did now, though they were no more than a memory.
The memory of that life changing night, came into my mind again.
The part of me that knew the pain this memory would bring called to me to stop.
I couldn't though.
My mind wandered down memory lane.
The street became clearest first, and the smell.
The smell that was always around then.
Of sewage, and burning, and animals.
Then the feelings.
The chill of the cold on my bare arms.
The butterflies within my stomach, flapping and fluttering away.
After the feelings, came the thoughts.
What I'd been thinking as I stood on the street.
My feelings of love for him.
My feelings of excitement.
My feelings of nervousness.
My feelings of terror.
They threatened to overwhelm me, even now.
So much time had passed.
They should be a hazy memory.
They weren't though.
Nor would they ever be.
Nothing to do with him would ever fade.
It would all be burnt into my minds eye, for the rest of my days.
I remembered looking down the street, though it was smoke filled.
Hazy dark shapes passed.
Everytime one did, my heart leapt, hoping it was him.
It never was.
I must have waited an hour.
More than an hour even.
I don't know.
I don't suppose I'll ever know, really.
Then he came.
My heart leapt into my chest and stayed there.
I was almost frightened to breath.
Thats what he did to me.
And then he was there, holding me in his arms, kissing me.
I've never felt that feeling since.
As my mind traversed these lanes of memory I unconsiously got up, to answer the doorbell that had rung.
'Oh, I missed you,' I said softly.
'And I you,' he muttered to me.
'Don't leave me,' I moaned, feeling as though I could cry at the thought of having to leave his arms.
'I must. Unless I change you,' he said, bringing the subject which scared me and intirgued me at once.
'I cannot consent till you tell me more of it. You say you love me. Prove it by trusting me,' I said quietly, praying he would confirm his love.
'I cannot gift you with knowledge unless you change. And my love for you is true, always true. But prove yours to me. Change,' he said, so convincingly I wanted to assent right there and then.
My feet continued to carry me through my apartment.
I sighed slightly, as I breathed in his smell.
His smell.
I could remember it, even still now.
Soap and ale.
He'd have been the tavern that night of course.
He always did.
He'd kept me waiting so he could go to the tavern.
I didn't care.
I would have forgiven him anything.
I still would forgive him anything, that I could see him once more.
'Annabelle, you say you trust me, you say you want to prove it to me. Trust me that the change is good, trust in me,' he said more insistantly.
I realised that he was drunk.
He was never this forceful while sober.
Feeling torn, I nodded.
'Let the change come upon me by your hand by love,' I whispered.
His eyes grew hungry.
My hand touched the doorknob.
He pushed my head to one side.
I twisted the doorknob.
He bent his head.
I felt his breathe on my neck.
I pulled the door open.
He sank his teeth into me and drank.
The door revealed a man, who I looked at for a moment through unseeing eyes as the memories of my old life clouded them.
My eyes focused, and the man came into focus.
I dropped my wineglass.
I gasped outloud.
Henry Fitzroy entered my apartment, and kissed me, the way he had in those London streets, all those years ago on the night he made me a child of the dark.