Chapter 2: City life

I sat up off my bed and walked to the large glass wall, which served as a window for me. I looked out onto the vastness of my new home. It was filled with crime, and hatred like all places, but here, if you were completely stronger than your opponent, then you should attack someone your own size. It was what my family failed to do. They attacked innocent defenceless people. Ok, sure with Crespin's men they attacked first, well really Rolfus attacked first, but they asked for a fight. The town of Cherry Spring didn't, they were just a growing society attempting to live peacefully in the middle of a harsh environment. We should have ignored them, or given them mercy. My family should have controlled themselves.

That it why I ran away.

New York is alive with people, everywhere. It isn't a place a vampire would want to stay for a long time. It was too tempting, humans everywhere, vulnerable and in reach. I figured I was the only the vampire in the city so far. No other vampire would have survived so long without a feed, and there hadn't been any major incidents involving murders that went unsolved.

I lived in an apartment, by myself. I had managed to find an abandoned apartment, and moved in comfortably. It was pretty large, but I didn't even use half of the whole thing. I only had a bed in one room, with a mirror on the wall, and a chest of clothes and other necessities under the bed. There were three other rooms. I figured one was supposed to be the kitchen and the other were extra rooms. I used to have a punching bag dangling from the ceiling of one room, but considering my vampiric traits, it didn't last long.

I spent most of my time wandering around the city. Exploring and trying to not act suspicious. Sometimes it would seem odd for a fourteen year old to be out alone in the city, but it at least was possible by human standards. I would wake up around six in the morning, walk around my suburb until lunch, and then eat human food at some random food shop, depending on my location at that time. After lunch I would decide what I would do, whether wander around a new place, visit some public place like a museum or do some activity like swimming. When I mean swimming, I mean swimming in the ocean, and possibly underwater as well. Actually most of the time it was underwater, seeing as swimming in the ocean in the winter and near a city was 'weird' for humans and a magnet for unwanted attention. I usually only swam in the winter, in the summer I wasn't the only occupant in the water.

Dinner most of the time I passed. Occasionally I would go somewhere, but at night kids didn't belong out in the city. So if I decided to eat, then I ordered something. For money, most of the time I found odd valuables and sold them or worked at a shop until they noticed any 'different' qualities about me.

Life here was great. I was lonely, and that was the only bad thing about this place. But besides that, I was living sort of like a human, and it was peaceful and interesting. I tried to hide that hole, which the memories of my family filled, but sometimes, they would come back to me. And everything we ever did, and how I became cursed as one of them would return to haunt me, and my new life.

I looked into the mirror across my room. It was just opposite the large window, and often reflected the city activity. I paced over to look at it closer. It was framed in a metallic silver framing, with leaves and vines patterned around it. In the centre was me. I was averagely tall for a teenager, broad shoulders due to my vampiric strength. I had a fair build, but nothing to boast about. My vulnerability was the mistake of anyone that threatened me, mainly vampires that is.

I had black short hair, and my face was curved slightly. I never knew my heritage, but my skin looked tanned most the time and my blood red eyes hid my true eye colour. I sifted my hand through my hair; it was silky and bended back to the previous position. I never took a shower, unless I had visible dirt over me. And for showers, I swam in a river, pond or ocean. The saltiness of the ocean was much preferred, but occasionally a bad idea for the wandering human eyes.

I flexed my arms and legs, they stretched easily. I shook my head to knock out any frustrating thoughts and turned back around. I looked at the bed, I never really used it. It mainly just served as a necessity expected if someone managed to look into my apartment when I was away. Sometimes I would lean on its softness for support, but mostly it was just a decoration.

I exited out the only door into my apartment. The hallways of the building were pretty run down. There weren't any hired cleaners to service the building, and the actual owners had most likely forgotten this property. There some other residents here, drug smugglers and other hide-aways, but they stuck to themselves. They didn't want to mess around a kid that had survived alone in the big bad city for all this time. They all knew I had a secret, and none of them wanted to find out what it was.

The elevator had never worked since I had moved in. I always used the stairs, as did the others. It was perhaps tiring for humans to walk up and down around forty floors, but not for me. Another quality which amazed the other occupants.

I had reached the bottom and wandered out into New York City. My position was a close walk to various parks and to the ocean as well. It was also close to public transport, not that I needed it.

I wandered down a familiar path towards a park. The park contained a small pond in the centre, and flocks of ducks often inhabited the area. I sat down at a bench and stared at the world around me. The trees swayed in the dawn light, and the pond sparkled with a new start to the day.

I closed my eyes and listened to the world.

A baby was crying in a house a few blocks away, recently born, I could smell the new scent of blushing blood. An old man was giving a boy a lecture in some room about bad behaviour, and two women ran down a street for a fit start to the day. It was after six in the morning, the subway beneath me arrived at this time here.

I stayed in the park until around lunchtime for the humans. I often got stares of wonder at my presence alone around here. Anything too suspicious to my safety was glared at back.

I especially got the looks on school days, but there were other homeless kids in the city as well, I wasn't the only one. Once an old lady had offered to take me to a child shelter, I refused but she insisted stubbornly. It was too bad she was old; otherwise she might have caught up to me as I ran away. The last I heard of her, was the shrieking complains of the hag as she screamed in protest. Luckily there weren't many witnesses, or anyone energetic enough to catch me back then.

It was the afternoon, the one-thirty five subway beneath me rumbled my delicate ears. It was good to have excellent hearing, but if you heard to well, then you heard too much of the wrong things. It was best to able to tune into only what you wanted to hear. Another trait of the damned.

I walked to a nearby fish and chips shop. It looked run down from the outside, and the only thing satisfying from it was the pale blue paint on the roof. The sign advertising the shop had dropped off a long time ago. The Chinese owners knew me as a popular customer, and once questioned my age and lack of a home. It was the last time they ever talked to me about something rather than food. They tended to be satisfied with the fact that I gave them business and didn't complain about anything, after their interrogation. I never ordered too much, only enough that I could manage to eat without getting too sick. I particularly liked food which didn't have any taste to it, that's why I went to this particular food shop. No one else went there, because of the food, so I was the mainly the only person giving them business to survive on.

It grew dark, and after walking around a familiar suburb I headed back to my apartment. Along the way a police car siren pounded past me, I looked back as it past me, something had happened further down the street. I could hear the bloodcurdling screams.

I reached my apartment building, the worn down walls from the outside warded off any nosy humans that liked to be adventurous. I climbed the steps slowly, up ahead I could hear a group of rogue kids talking outside their room. I heard the mention of death, and paused.

I climbed closer, not making any sounds with my footsteps.

"Are you sure he's dead?" A girl murmured in the background.

"I'm very sure, I just walked in and there was blood everywhere," A boy shuddered on the last words. He sounded like he was about to vomit.

"Do you know who did it?" Another male voice entered the conversation, his voice sounded deeper than the rest, but not deep enough to pass as an adult.

"No, he was just there, with cuts and blood, and a sword impaled through his face." I could smell the fresh scent now, the glorious smell that made vampires go wild. Blood. It was a recent kill, and the scent was just starting to flow down the building, I would have smelt it downstairs otherwise.

"Someone got John, someone got him bad,"

"But why?"

"I don't know, but we aren't safe here anymore, we have to leave," The deep voiced boy was the obvious leader of the group. The other children were his responsibility.

There some murmurs of protest and then I heard something new.

"He was only our age, why would someone want him dead so early?"

The kids were slightly older than me, excepting the girl which actually sounded younger. Someone had brutally murdered a boy like me, someone my age, killed out of cold blood. The crimes committed in this world and city had no limits. The police would be here later, someone more responsible would call them, and then it would be another case, like the screams down the street.

The run-away kids started to descend the stairs quickly. They moved at a pace so quick, it was like they felt they were being hunted right now. They raced past me, as I hid in the shadows of a corner. I would examine the scene myself. It obviously wasn't a vampire who killed the boy; the vampire wouldn't have been so careless and wouldn't have left so much blood. Besides, there were easier targets for vampires around here.

I reached the floor, it was only below mine. The kids had left the door open, I creaked inside. It was dark; the lights didn't seem to work. It must have been really spooky for the kid that saw the body first.

I didn't have far to walk. This apartment was more furnished than the rest, and in the middle of one room was a blood stained couch. On the floor was exactly what the scarred boy had described. Another boy, with a tinge of blonde hair was lying on his back, his legs ripped with metal blades and one of his arms missing. Blood stains and scars lined his body. But the most obvious part was the face. It was no longer recognisable; a long sword had been shoved right into the centre of the face. It was a gruesome sight for any humans, not something you could stare at for too long. The sword was easily a Japanese katana blade, and the handle was marked with the initials O.C. Someone was killing kids or had murdered this boy in particular to spread a message. I looked around once more; the murder had been done well, with only the floor and couch stained. The rest of the apartment was untouched. O.C would be hunted down. Hopefully soon, he left his mark for a reason.

I would leave that for the police to investigate, it was their job after all.

The police arrived late at night, around ten pm. Considering this was the time that one of my neighbour's usually went to sleep, his snoring could be heard from any place in the city. The police were pretty loud in their investigations, I guess they didn't know anyone else lived in the building, or even cared if they did.

I spent the rest of the night wandering around my expansive apartment, thinking of ideas and memories. But mostly I listened below to the police and their case.