Chapter 4
Visions
As I ran I thought of the summers just like this one, glorious in the greenery of the forest and the warmth of the sun. I did not keep track of how many of them there were. If winter did not come with such regularity I would not have even thought that time passed at all. Nothing in my existence ever changed, until now that is. I thought of the lion hunting in the depth of the woods and the young girl dreaming of her wedding day in a tiny room, they were nothing like each other and they were nothing like me and yet about both of them I thought that they were exactly like me, in their own ways. Were we really alike? The thought bothered me immensely and I struggled to find evidence in my memory to either confirm or disprove this idea, thinking back to that first fall. How many years was it, seven, ten? I was not sure. A long time, certainly, and only now I was beginning to pay attention to the creatures around me. I was suddenly angry with myself. How could I get so lost in my hunting and visions of hunting that I did not notice anything else, that I have completely forgotten to even think about finding out what happened back at the cemetery, to discover how I ended up there, to find my Jasper. The thought of his name thrilled me as it always did and for an instant softened the rage I felt towards myself. It was a good thing I did not appear to age, I thought bitterly. But what if he was not going to be looking for me anymore? I panicked and tried to remember the last time I had a vision of him. It wasn't too long ago, I thought with relief as I recalled the mildly distorted images from the first to the very last one, as I have done so many times. I would call them to mind in a continuous sequence any time I began to worry about the future or simply wanted to see him again, one precious bead of memory after another, as if running a finger over a priceless necklace time and time again.
I closed my eyes and replayed them all, first his beautiful face and the sounds of the river, then the stuffy diner and him smiling at me cautiously. These two were the most precious, the very first ones, the ones I came back to over and over again until the new ones were added to them.
In the next vision I saw him in the desert, he was a leader of a group of others and equal only to a diminutive dark-haired female, who he respected and esteemed, even loved. I felt a pang of jealousy over that vision every time I remembered it – he was with another. But he was not happy, I could see it in his crimson eyes, in the furrow of his brow, in the determination to endure that came through all too clearly in the set of his jaw. I saw him and another male, dark haired and burly but not as tall as the blond, they talked and there seemed to be something of a camaraderie between them. The dark-haired one called my blond dream Jasper.
A memory of another vision flooded in. It was night again and they were hunting, him and the female. He called her Maria but I did not like putting a name to that face. It made me feel things that were unlike the desire to kill my prey, I wanted to destroy her and this odd reaction was as powerful as the joy I felt at the mere thought of Jasper. They ran thru the empty streets of a dusty city devoid of trees or street lights, with ugly, squat building and not even a cat's mew or noise of a dog rummaging through the garbage disturbing the silence. This was not a regular hunt, they came to find new humans to join their coven and when they found one he left the female with the prey and retreated to keep watch. The image froze for a moment and when I saw them together again he was carrying an unconscious body in his arms, the small one's eyes burning with a crimson fire.
That picture faded and a new one took its place. It was night again but this time Jasper was with the burly one, returning from the desert to some ruins outside of town. They entered the crumbling structure and Jasper called out a name, Charlotte, at the sound of which his dark-haired companion jerked as if electrocuted. Jasper looked at him attentively, contemplating something I couldn't see with a wary look on his face, his stance becoming defensive, but then a dark-haired female came into view and the guarded expression on his face was replaced with a look of surprise.
"Peter?!" he whispered, gazing at his companion in astonishment and then at Charlotte, her gaze locked on Peter, and there was tenderness in her scarlet eyes.
"Run!" Peter yelled and when she took off almost flying he bolted after her. They disappeared in the dusty darkness and Jasper stared after them until not even a glimmer of white skin could be seen in the black night. When they were gone he turned around and resolutely peering into the depths of the building called out another name.
His deep, velvet voice was still ringing in my ears when a new vision replaced the one before it. He was in a cave this time, sitting on the rock floor with his arms on his knees, black eyes staring at the silver orb of the moon behind the cover of clouds in the starless sky. The expression on his face was almost pained and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists, as if trying to grasp something out of his reach. A few steps away, against the wall, there were Peter and Charlotte, they looked at him expectantly. They had asked him a question and were waiting for his answer. Finally he turned his head to face them and nodded slowly. Just as slowly they nodded in return and moving without a sound the three of them left the cave and fled across the empty desert, leaving behind the mountain ridge and Maria with her coven.
I stood there for a moment until the last echo of the memory faded away, not wanting to let go of it, hoping that there would be a new one soon, and finally opened my eyes to the night of my own. The still air was full of the warm scent of fir and moss and wet dirt and summer rain and I enjoyed every damp breath as the scents filled my lungs. It was very quiet and I could hear the raindrops splatter on the leaves nearby. Suddenly I wanted to leave, go as far away from this place as I could get, away from the rain and the forest and the human girl who in one instant made my life so difficult and destroyed whatever cold and unemotional peace I had with myself. All of a sudden I cared about my human prey and for the life of me could not figure out how to deal with that. And so I took off running, choosing my direction to be the opposite of the way I've always gone before, away from the rising sun and the rain and the humans who I could still smell.