My Second Life chapter 4

Bree POV

Time passed.

I was surprised to find that as a vampire, time didn't mean so much to me. I vaguely recalled waiting for something as a human, and being so frustrated with the waiting. As a human, I had often felt like waiting five minutes should have really been fifteen or twenty minutes. Now, I could curl up in a corner and stay like that for hours, barely noticing the time passing. Maybe that happened with being a vampire and, because of being a vampire, immortal. When you had forever, time meant nothing.

Mostly, I stayed hidden in a corner. I left occasionally to feed, not liking the others enough to spend a lot of time around them. When I did feed, I tried to go off on my own. If I absolutely had to go out in a group, I tried to keep quiet and let someone else lead. My intent to keep my head down was working: the others rarely noticed me, when feeding or otherwise. Inside the house, there was an endless cycle of vampires killing each other, then Riley would bring home replacements. Things were always getting smashed to pieces, and I was sometimes surprised that the house hadn't been torn to pieces. Some nights, when I was coming back from hunting, I expected to see broken glass and rubble in the place where the house had been.

One thing that surprised me about being a vampire was the clarity of memory I had. I could remember every night since I'd become a vampire, and it was all perfectly clear. Faces stood out, every feature perfectly clear. In contrast, the few human memories I had left were becoming dimmer and dimmer, and the faces I recalled were now blurry and unfocused.

There was really no way to tell the passing of time, as there were no calendars or anything that would mark time around the house. In a house where the residents were stronger than anything on the planet, there was no point in having something like a calendar around. I found a way to count time passing. With my perfect memory, I recalled all the times I'd been hunting, and all the nights that had gone. I did the calculations, pleasantly startled at how quickly my brain got the answer, and figured out that I'd been here for about eight weeks.

It felt like forever since I'd been a vampire. Already, I was well accustomed to the life, and had my routine.

As time passed further, I learnt how to steal things from shops. Books, mainly. Clothes weren't a major concern for me, and of course, I had no need for food. As a vampire, makeup wasn't necessary either. We were already beautiful: some kind of mechanism that attracted our prey to us and made the hunt easier. I wasn't even sure if vampires could wear makeup, but as a human, I never had. I'd been too busy trying to survive. It was easy, to crush the locks beneath my bare fingers, slip into the bookstore, grab an armload of books and be gone before the alarms even kicked into gear. Speed was one of my favourite things about being a vampire: it enabled me to swipe a dozen books and race off. No one would be any the wiser: humans had poor eyesight and slow reflexes. Even if anyone did catch me taking something, I could still snap their neck and get away from the scene before emergency services were called.

I wasn't the only vampire in the house who preferred to be alone. There was Fred, who seemed older than the newer vampires. Whenever I tried to talk to him, I found myself repulsed. I couldn't bear to be around him, and it seemed none of the others could. I noticed that Riley treated him slightly differently to the rest of us. While Riley seemed indifferent to us, he always stopped to talk to Fred for at least a few minutes. He didn't seem to feel repulsed by Fred, and I couldn't figure it out.

One night I'd just returned from hunting, when something occurred to me. Maybe vampires could do more than just the basics. Maybe some had powers, and maybe Fred was one of them. I thought about it more, considering how most people steered clear of him, and how he always seemed to let Riley talk to him, at least for a few minutes. It seemed to me Fred could turn his repulsiveness on and off at will.

What other powers were out there, I wondered. Could I do anything? How did someone know if they were talented? Riley wasn't often around, so I couldn't ask him. Nor could I ask anyone else: they probably didn't know anymore than I did.

Spider-Man, who I'd found out later was actually named Kevin, must have a power. And that power would be extreme idiocy. He had, after all, ripped my arm off. When the person you're fighting against is stronger than you are, that kind of thing really isn't a good idea. It only inconveniences the other person slightly, and then once they get it fixed, they're going to be angrier and likelier to rip your head off.

Why hadn't I thought of that then? It would be a service to everyone in the house.

After I'd been a vampire for ten weeks, Riley announced that we were moving to a new house, closer to Seattle. What was the point of that? Well, I supposed the house was falling down a bit. Still, why Seattle? Maybe soon we'd get to a purpose. Better yet, we'd get to go somewhere and actually do something. I didn't know about the others, but I was getting annoyed with this. Every day, I had to hide away in a corner to try to stay alive, and some nights I went out to feed. It was all getting very repetitive and very boring. I had no problems with feeding, as I'd tried going without blood for about four days and by the evening of that fourth day, my throat felt so on fire that I thought there would actually be flames. Needless to say, I hunted that evening, feeding more than I usually did.

Riley called us all together, saying that he wanted to tell us all something.

Bored, I listened occasionally. I wanted to hunt, but I didn't dare slip out the back. From what I could tell, there were vampires in Seattle, or near to it, and they were taking up all the blood. We were, apparently, supposed to go there, fight them for it, and claim Seattle as ours. How stupid, I thought. Why not go to some other big city? What was so great about Seattle? Maybe the blood in Seattle was designer, high-class blood. Or more nutritious. Of course, vampires didn't need nutrition-not in the form of vitamins or minerals anyway.

Finally, Riley finished droning on and I hurried outside, keen to get a start on my hunting before anyone could stop me. I took off running, ignoring the sounds of a riot beginning in the house behind me. Someone was pontificating about how we had to defend what was rightfully ours, and I was tempted to go back and point out that we had never actually had the blood in Seattle to begin with.

Finally, I caught a scent and crouched, prepared to spring on my prey.

Once I'd finished, I dealt with the bodies expertly. In the back of my mind, I considered how long it had taken me to get used to this, and how little guilt I felt. Then again, humans killed animals when they ate meat, and I was sure not too many of them felt guilty. I struggled to remember when I was still at home, and occasionally getting something to eat. I was sure that I'd never given it a second thought as to where my food had come from. It seemed as if that had carried over into my vampire life.

Eventually I got up and returned home, not all that surprised to see a piece of the roof flying up and landing on the pavement with a crash.

I wasn't sure when we would be moving, but I had to pity Riley. He had to try to organize twenty-odd young vampires into something resembling order. He also had to make sure we were moving continuously and not running off. We weren't to draw any attention to ourselves, and somehow he had to sort it so that we moved from here to our new house during the night. The day was still evil, as far as we were concerned. None of us especially wanted to step into daylight and instantly become a pile of dust and ashes.

It made me wonder how Riley was going to make it all work.

A/N: still don't own anything but the storyline. I was going to do this occasionally referring to the Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, but I loaned my copy to a friend who still hasn't returned it, so I'm just going to do it my way. I'm going to try to stick to the bones of the story (ie she meets Diego, the plan to go and claim Seattle etc) but my way will have to be different. So, yeah… that's about all.

One other thing: I check my story stats regularly. The reviews I'm getting is not matching up to the hits I'm getting. This applies to all my stories, and I would love reviews. I only get a few per story. I'm the first to admit I don't publish too often, but the lack of internet I have is the biggest problem. So yeah, please review. It makes me happy and then I'm more likely to write more, so I can update more.

Let me know if you like it J

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