Reclusion is (c) Anberlin
Reclusion
As I zigzag through the forest, I know my life is over. I don't even know why I'm running. But that's what I've always done, isn't it? I've always run. I guess, buried under years of cold skin, deception, murder, and general sin, some shred of pathetic human self-preservation instinct was just showing itself. As I run, waiting for the end, I reflect on my life. Did I deserve to die?
The answer rings in my head, as clear as the human girl's scent was to me in the clearing.
Yes. I deserve to die.
I was born in 1698 to a slave woman. I had no idea who she was, but the old slave men who raised me told me she worked for my master. I never knew when she died.
As I grew up, my superiors noted I had a strong knack for escape. To them, it would seem that I would be in the room one moment, and gone the next. My master, though I never saw him watching me, also noticed, and planned.
When I turned twenty, the white servant who ran the household handed me a piece of paper, and threatened me with a whipping should he find out that I hadn't delivered it to the indicated address my noon. It was eleven o'clock, and the address was across London. I ran the whole way, and didn't have time to open and read the letter (sealing it back perfectly, of course) as I'd done with servants' messages before. This letter was sealed with black wax, stamped with my master's dragon insignia. It was rumored among the slaves that the symbol was cursed, so I dared not touch it.
I arrived, about to collapse, just as the big church clock began to chime the hour. All I remember about the recipient was he looked papery, and somehow glittered when the sunlight hit him through the crack he'd opened in the door. Then the door was shut in my face.
Unknowingly, I'd just assisted in the attempted assassination of a being much different from anything I'd ever dreamed of.
When I was twenty-five, my master decided he needed someone else to run errands for him in the sun. He needed me to slip past London authorities. So, he took me into his study, and changed me into someone like himself.
Someone more powerful than any human being.
Someone who glittered in the sunlight.
Someone equipped for assassinating vampires.
Very powerful vampires, actually. My job was to assassinate the members of the Volturi. My master somehow knew that my knack for hiding and escaping would be amplified in the next life. He thought he could control me, use me to his own advantage. He was wrong.
Three days after my transformation, I watched his pieces burn in his own fireplace. As I watched, I knew I'd have to run.
So I ran to Italy, where I found another coven of vampires anxious to see the demise of the Volturi. The enemy was much closer, now, and I joined the coven for the safety the numbers offered. I was careful to keep my true powers hidden, however, so that no one would try to control me again. We stayed for a time right outside of Florence, where we preyed on travelers who wouldn't be missed soon.
I think it was during this time I developed my taste for the young human female. Call it a flavor, a difference in preference, whatever. The blood of a teenage or young-adult girl was my delicacy, my drug, my steroid. It made me stronger than the blood of male humans did. This preference became my demise later.
Our coven was not quite strong enough to actually take on the Volturi when we were discovered. The Volturi guards mercilessly slaughtered all of them.
Except me.
They had observed me since I had been a "newborn" in London. They knew of my talent, and wanted to use it to their own advantages. I swiftly agreed to their terms, eager only to stay alive.
I killed five of the guards in my escape, and fled to America, where the Volturi influence was not quite so strong. They didn't have Dimitri in their ranks yet, or else I would have been dead a long time ago. I got to America in the late 1800's, after the American Civil War. I was a rarity back then, a black vampire, and so was avoided even by my own kind. At first, that was fine with me, but after a few years of solitude I began to get lonely.
I met James when he was tracking the same human female I was hunting. To avoid conflict, I let him have the kill. I was a coward at heart, and used my gifts to satiate my own cowardice.
As I wandered America, watching it change and develop over the years, I grew lonelier and lonelier. The longing was so strong that I considered luring a human off to change (I was too frightened of the Volturi learning of my whereabouts to join a coven), but I knew I wouldn't have the self-control necessary. My thirst was too great, my heart not strong enough. I wouldn't care enough about that person to stop feeding once the process had begun. I was in all ways a monster.
Once, however, I tried. It was 1871. I was walking through a Massachusetts town on a rainy day to buy clothing (using money taken from a recent meal) when I saw her. Victoria Marie Laseter. She was good-looking as far as humans went, but her smell was unlike anything I'd ever dreamed of. It was a sensual, delicious smell, and it drove my senses crazy. I decided right then and there that I would take her.
I caught her walking home from church alone, and took my chance. She tasted infinitely better than she smelled, and I knew I wouldn't be able to stop.
However, I was forced to when something huge and solid slammed into me, knocking me away from the girl. I jumped up, ready to defend myself, but the attacker was kneeling next to her. It was James.
"You would dare let her go to waste?" he growled at me, gathering the girl into his arms.
I didn't answer, and he took my prize from me, disappearing into the night.
I didn't meet them again until 1964, when I had resigned myself to my lonely fate. I was stalking a young hippie girl when I saw a familiar face far off. It was James, and he was beckoning to me.
Reluctantly, I left the meal none the wiser of her impending death.
James wanted to bargain with me. He thought that my talents in escaping and running would be useful to him, and he wanted me to join his coven. James was powerful, and I never wanted to be on his bad side, so I agreed. His terms were simple, but included not telling Victoria (whom he had taught about our ways and taken as a mate) of her creation. She had become even more beautiful in her afterlife, but had lost her appetizing smell.
I was while I was with James' coven when I found out about the "other" kind of vampire. Victoria, James and I had caught wind of a large coven, and had wanted to investigate. We found the family in a large clearing, playing baseball. They stopped when they saw us, but greeted us fairly warmly. We were going to go our way when, suddenly, the wind changed.
A most delightful scent reached me then, but James' reaction would have deterred me from feeding on the human girl even without her vampire mate, who had taken up a defensive stance. James was not someone you picked a fight with, and this strange vampire's reaction only encouraged James' instinct for a challenge. Even as I ran north to Denali, abandoning James and Victoria, I knew the animal-eating vampires stood no chance of protecting the human girl from my coven leader.
I was nervous as I approached the second of such strange "vegetarian" covens. I smelled four other vampires in the family, and I was alone, without James' protection. However, I was welcomed when I mentioned Carlisle's coven, in particular by Tanya and her sister, Irina. They were nice, I guess.
Irina developed a particular liking to me while I was there. For a while, I entertained the idea of taking her as my mate, but it wasn't long before I learned of James's death. That threw me for a loop. I'd never heard of anyone being strong enough to take on my coven leader, or even be a challenge to him. And yet this strange coven had completely annihilated him. All other thoughts left my mind, and Irina was very much put out by my sudden lack of interest in her.
Then Victoria found me, hunting one day. I had grown bored with the loosely-termed "vegetarian" diet of these strange vampires, and was stalking a rather attractive young female when I sensed Victoria coming toward me. My instinct for running told me to escape, but I had grown attached to her after being the one who changed her, and spending so much time with her in James's coven. I stayed, and listened to her plan. She wanted to take down that delectable-smelling female that had caused the problems between James's coven and the strange one we'd found in the Olympic Peninsula. I agreed, though I'm not sure why. Later, I wondered whether she had a talent for being particularly seductive to convince people to do what she wanted.
So I returned to Forks, and stumbled on the human girl quiet on accident. She smelled quite as lovely as before, and I made up my mind while we conversed to take her then. It would be much more kind than what Victoria had in store for her.
What I didn't plan on were the wolves. Monster werewolves, the likes of which I'd never seen, but I recognized as every vampire's nightmare. I didn't know why they were bothering protecting the mate of a vampire, but as I saw my life's end approaching, I really didn't care. As I ran, I remembered the song I'd heard playing on my last meal's radio. I don't know why it stuck with me, but it came to me as my life drew to a close.
There's someone inside me that softly kills everyone around
They don't know they're dead to me cause intent never makes a sound
All along they found I strangled lovers who've learned from slower hands
With these eleven minutes I could teach you what I am
You're sick, sick as all the
Secrets that you deny
Sins like skeletons are so very hard to hide
You're sick, sick as all the
Secrets that you deny
Sins like skeletons are so very hard to hide
There's an art in seclusion. Production in depression
if a stranger turns up missing, this song is my confession
Tell the tales of the trail of dead, lovers learn from slower hands
Losing self in myself, inner demons make demands
You're sick, sick as all the
Secrets that you deny
Sins like skeletons are so very hard to hide
You're sick, sick as all the
Secrets that you deny
Sins like skeletons are so very hard to hide
You're suffocating me, so very hard to breathe
My mask is growing heavy but I've forgotten who's beneath
You're sick, sick as all the
Secrets that you deny
Sins like skeletons are so very hard to hide
You're sick, sick as all the
Secrets that you deny
Sins like skeletons are so very hard to hide
As my reflections end, so does my life. I turn and face the large black werewolf.