Can I believe in dreams I
might have one day. I walk alone in the darkness even amongst my brethren, but I
knew before I met even the first one, that I'd never want to be like them.
They wallow in fear. They swallow it, alone, forbidden. They feed on loneliness.
But it can't be that simple. Not to me.
No big surprise that I find myself alone. Now is it?
So I follow her from the top of the roof quite aware of the quiet truce between
us.
I don't come down. I'm not her prey.
It works for me.
She hunts our kind, their kind. I hunt her.
Neither of us ever that long obsessed.
Maybe it's the death cry inside of her that calls out to me, the way it does to
the others. Maybe I can taste that hunger for death. But unlike them I won't
answer it, never again.
We're both lost, lost in life, but unwilling to die easy.
Unable to find the songs I need before I go.
Why?
I don't care.
I haven't cared in a long long time.
I can hear them as they move up from the darkness, she can't. They're waiting
for her, ready, prepared to take her on. Her eyes accept her fate, it's so easy
to loose isn't it?
To slip up.
They're too young or too stupid to see it. But the soulless ones usually are.
I rise up, ready to see, to feel.
Then I dive down and pull two of them away from her. They stare up at me in
surprise. I know the fools hadn't even known I was around before I showed
myself. And my back is turned to her as they stare into golden eyes and fangs
that gleam in the dirty lantern light.
Her voice sounds almost accusing.
"If you let go. So will I."
She stares at me in shock.
Why?
I don't know.
My house, my town, cause I said so …
There is no reason.
What I've just done goes in against everything I've been taught. Against every
rule of my existence.
Yet here I sit, ready to die at her hands. She lifts her stake and I close my
eyes, waiting for the wood to sink in. And I wait and wait … when I open my
eyes she's walking away. Her back is turned to me. I wonder why she trusts me
so. And I will go after her, in a few moments. When I'm ready. Ready to face
her.
Even knowing that neither of us will talk.
But she's still standing there at the edge of the alley, heading back to the
street. I get up and go meet her there.
"I'm Clarice."
"Xander." I say.
Neither of us speaks. We just walk on, together.
The night after I'm waiting for her.
She smiles as she becomes aware of me. Then she moves.
How can she feel so safe, knowing that I'm here. Maybe cause she doesn't need to
feel safe. It's still in her that urge to die, that gleam of hopelessness. That
feeling she's seen everything there is to see in life.
As if this is all there is to feel and it isn't worth it, so why bother.
I jump down, landing right behind her.
She doesn't even startle.
I walk beside her and take her to an ice-cream parlor. She's so much younger
when she smiles, her lips covered in chocolate. She wants to offer me a bite and
I pull back, instantly startled. I just look at her.
We're old the two of us. Older than our years.
Me because of the beast inside of me, because of what it makes me.
She because she's seen what no man, or woman is ever supposed to see.
Too much I reckon.
"So why don't you just kill me?"
I nearly choke at the bluntness. It reminds me of another lady of crude honesty
and for a second I forget I don't need to breathe.
"Don't worry, you don't have to answer."
I nod.
I should kill her. It's what I should have done the moment I found out what she
was. A Slayer, a hunter of my kind. Yet I can't find it inside myself to do so.
It's so unreal, the two of us. And for a moment, for the first time since a
long time, the things I feel are not a joke. It's so unreal to just sit here
with her and I love the things I feel.
Maybe it's just as simple as that. Feeling, caring, knowing I can sense life
again.
And I owe her for that. Pure and simple.