"Don't come looking for me, Alice."
It seemed like a good idea at the time. Leaving would clear the innocent blood from their name.
The innocent blood that I had spilled.
"Everyone has lapses, Jasper."
That's what she had told me when I ran to her, blood on my shirt due to the struggle that came with this particular prey. For animals, it was a way of life. Humans, on the other hand, amazed me. They're incredibly persistent to hold onto what time they still have left, it's almost selfish.
Her life had ended so quickly that her screams still echoed in the air when I drank and drank, her warm blood running down my throat, putting out the fire - my thirst. This human was naively jogging in the woods.
Promising to never drink human blood again is a bit like promising to stay pure until marriage.
All it takes is one little slip… and you're broken, tainted, filthy, a monster…
And, in a sense, it's a gamble. You think you can redeem yourself once you've lost it all but the guilt remains.
By now I had drained the girl dry and was pulling myself away from her. She couldn't have been older than twenty-five years. Her hair - blonde and curly - was now clumped together as the stands dried in her blood. It was her eyes that had drawn me in. What were once so hopeful had been relinquished, reluctantly surrendering to a painful death… and on her hand lay a wedding ring. She'd had a family and love and I took it all away from her! I'm a monster, I don't deserve this second life I have at all.
I'm a monster.
I tried to stand but my own guilt was weighing down on me, as if she was dragging me beside her, making me remember every ounce of pain I had put her through. Of course, it wasn't punishment enough but it didn't subside the torture - my deserved torture - as I tearlessly wept for this girl, my own victim.
And that's when she found me.
"Jasper," Alice whimpered, struggling to hold her emotions together, failing as she did so.
Shock, sadness, disappointment… fear… or maybe it was just me that was the frightened one.
I could feel her eyes on my blood-stained hands - the hands I used to tear open the girl's flesh, as the blood continued to surge out of her body. When you're attacking, no other thoughts go through your mind. There's just a deep desire for the blood you're hunting. Your senses become overwhelmed.
Seeing the victim - her sweat that had run down her body and then watching her pull her final expression, before it was all over.
Touching the victim - her skin so incredibly soft around her neck, so weak and venerable. My hands pressed tightly around it as I lunged my teeth, penetrating her delicate skin, tasting her - the sweet bitterness running over my lips and into my own body, just enough to satisfy me over the sounds of her pleading screams and pathetic attempts to push me off her.
Alice stepped out of the shadows and cautiously walked a few steps towards me. She wasn't afraid. She was just careful, rightfully so. Her skin sparkled as ours always did upon entering the sunlight… but it didn't get rid of the tense atmosphere that seemed to be almost suffocating.
"I thought I might have stopped you in time," Alice's voice broke as she froze still, unable to move any closer towards me - the murdering part of me that she continuingly tried to forgot in order to forgive.
Silly really.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" I was screaming now, cries of anguish over the girl. Apologising to the bloody mess on the frozen muddy ground, apologising to Alice, who once had faith in me and apologising to myself, in a pitiable effort to be forgiven by at least one thing. That wasn't going to happen.
You can only call a slip-up a mistake for a small amount of times. Then what does it become?
I slammed my fists into the ground, forming dents in the earth and stood up. It was then I dragged my ashamed body towards Alice, speeding up until I collapsed into her arms as she held me tightly.
"Everyone has lapses, Jasper."