Alrightoz ladies and gentlemen, chapter 11! Woooooo hooooo. I am glad some
people enjoy my crappy writing. *sigh* Anywhoz, thank you to all those who
reviewed. We are nearing the end ..... dun dun dun! Anywhoz once again,
enjoy!
~*~*Chapter eleven~*~*
I don't recall how long I kneeled there at my grave, weeping like a lost child. In a way I am lost, if you take time to think about it. For years I have fought the painful, pointless battle of staying connected with my old world. Grasping for my humanity, my mortality, my human, needlessly. In the end I turn out like a mutant, an insane beast. An immortal creature born from the breath of night, who must survive on the blood of others, but has the innocent mind of a human.
No longer do I wish to fight the battle. I refuse to feel the pain of bloodlust each waking moment and taste the ambrosia of blood in my dreams.
Slowly I raise my head to meet the setting sun. The perfect mixture of purple and pale rose reminds me of a sunrise. All vampires prefer sunsets, or at least the ones that I know of.
Just in front of me, ruining the scene, is my damned gravestone. The rose lies so innocently on the top. I slowly pick it off the stone, and a sharp thorn pricks my slender finger. Jerking away from my own hand, I glare at the rose of many colors. One moment it was lavender, the color of humanity, and then it slowly faded to black.
"Weird rose isn't it?" For a brief moment I almost turned around, but I didn't. I recognized the voice behind me. And I'm sure Risika could acknowledge the golden eyes and blonde hair that I knew stood behind me, crying. The scent of tears was in the air, and although I knew I had been crying, this scent is fresh. Hmm at least Risika should be able to acknowledge him. Alexander is her brother after all, or had been 300 years ago.
I remember talking to him during the fight briefly. He seemed to accept me because I did not kill. At least back then I hadn't. "Guess it is," I replied carefully, not sure why a Triste witch was speaking willingly to me. They were called the perfect vampire hunters for a reason.
"I know what you did." His voice echoed in my ears as I continued to glance at the rose. "And I wanted to tell you that Rabe is doing fine." I laughed softly. I had forgotten that she had been the whole cause of this. Not as if it was her fault. Humans can't really protect themselves.
"And it seems," Alexander continued, sounding a bit careful himself, "That you came back here to your origin to weep for your humanity. Risika would never do such a thing. She doesn't cry often." What was he trying to do? Make me want to rip out his throat? I wasn't really sure if it was working or not.
"Make your point." I stated bluntly. I did not ask, nor did I want to.
"You come here to mourn the loss of your humanity but you must have humanity left in you if you come to weep for it. You haven't lost it yet, Cairbre. As long as you can cry, humanity lies within your soul." The last thing he said made me turn and look at him. Both our cheeks were tear stained, but our eyes now shined with shock and acknowledgement; the shock coming from me. I was so stupid as to not remember him from before.
"Remember that. You have not forgotten it over the years but you must never forget it." And with that, he was gone. Which left me to remember my past. I knew that Alexander had been familiar during Risika's fight, but now it all came back like a ton of bricks.
**********************
May 18, 1963
I stood there in the art gallery, smirking at the other artists brag to others about their work. All of the others were colorful and full of life. The goodness in life that is. Yellows, whites, pinks, all the colors that I shunned in work were suffocating my painting. I never named my paintings, out loud of course. The painting that I did the night that girl came hung in the very corner of the room, its sadness and depression darkening the space that it occupied. No one really looked at it while I was here, but I heard many talk about it behind my back.
Now there were two people looking intently at it. The young woman who had interrupted my painting session and unnerved me was standing there; her extremely seductive outfit making me wonder who she was. And there was a younger man with her. Both seemed to be engaged in deep conversation with another. They could at least be respectful and talk elsewhere. . . .
"Is that your painting?" I turned to see a young couple, arms linked, standing behind me. The young man was about a year younger than me, maybe 17 or so. His golden eyes somewhat intrigued me and I had to blink before I could notice the young woman on his arm. She looked just about as old as he, an inch or two shorter with long tightly curled brown hair. Both had a look in their eyes, but I could not exactly place it.
"That it is," I replied, and the woman noticed the paint flakes in my hair. "The closest to dying my hair that I can get," I told her and she smiled. Despite the fact that the man was clearly her boyfriend, I couldn't help but feel drawn to her somehow. Just her BEING there made me feel important, but I could not explain why.
"What did you name it?" She asked me, her soft yet strong tone somewhat shocking me. There was no teenager awkwardness in her voice like the other kids at school. They never really talked to ME but I heard the conversations of breakups, love whispering, and arguments echo in my ears in the hallways of that Hell. "I didn't see a title when Alexander and I went to look at it."
"I don't really name them." I answered somewhat awkwardly, not sure what was making me act this way. "But I personally refer it to as 'My Last Shred of Mortality'." That seemed to knock them a blow. Both of them exchanged glances before Alexander put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a long stare.
"Remember, as long as you love, as long as you can cry, humanity lies within your soul." Then he walked away, leaving me in a daze of unknown feelings. What was he talking about? For the second time in the past days, I was completely unnerved.
"Don't mind Alexander," the girl sighed when she saw my expression. Her pale green eyes seemed to bore into my soul and I couldn't fight it back. "Here, I must be going now, but I want you to have this." She put her hand in one of her flare jean pockets and pulled out an odd necklace. The chain was silver and the pendant was an odd twist of metal, but as I put it closer to my face I saw that there was a small black cross beneath all of the twisted metal wire.
"Than-" When I went to thank the girl, she was gone. I had no idea who she was, but I put on the necklace nonetheless. Somehow it felt as if it warmed the skin it touched. Maybe because it was in her pocket.
"Cairbre..." Someone purred behind me and I flinched as I felt two ice cold hands wrap around my chest and slide under my shirt. In an instant I gripped the hands and pulled them away, then turned to see the woman from several nights before.
"You." I was not in the mood to talk to her, not in the least. And she seemed to get suddenly angry when her eyes saw my necklace. What I learned later on in my 3rd year as a vampire was that Triste witches use that symbol to show what humans they protect from the vampires.
"Nice necklace," she purred, although I could hear the anger slithering through.
"I know." I snapped as I turned away. She let me do so. I even got as far as outside the building where the young man she was with gripped my shirt and pinned me to a tree. He used such force that the wind was knocked out of me and spots danced in front of my eyes when my neck snapped back and my head collided with the unforgiving bark of the tree.
"Where do you think you're going?" He asked me, a sadistic smile creeping across his lips. My arms were free and I slammed my fist into his jaw. I was rewarded with a punch of my own. My vision went black for a moment.
Quickly I reached up and grabbed a branch in each hand, then lifted myself up and kicked him in the chest, sending him staggering back a foot or two. When he didn't even seem hurt over the kick that would usually keep a guy down for a good minute or two, I knew something wasn't right with him.
Right then my eyes met his, just for a moment. I couldn't move when my eyes met his black orbs. There was a feeling deep inside me that screamed out at me 'Run Cairbre!!' but my mind and body stood still. "Stupid human." He growled as he was suddenly in front of me, his iron grip on my neck. I couldn't breath. This man wasn't normal, not to my standards at least. I have gotten into my share of fights and I have never felt such strength crushing my windpipe.
Suddenly I was on my knees, gasping for air like a fish. For the moment I did not know how I had gotten free, but it was clearer to me when I felt someone trying to pull me up. "Come on Cairbre," the voice begged and I forced myself to my feet although my vision went fuzzy for a brief moment.
"Get him out of here!" Came another voice and the next thing I knew, I was elsewhere. In the woods perhaps, leaning against somebody. When I turned to see who it was, I went to say something, but just moving my jaw now made tears form in my eyes.
"Cairbre, don't move from here," the girl from the art exhibit ordered me as she set me down against a tree trunk.
What the Hell? I thought to myself as I tried seeing straight. There was only the girl there one moment and Alexander next to her after I blinked. I managed a laugh, although it came out more like a groan of pain. I really was losing my mind.
"Kaleo and Kendra should be here any minute." He told the girl, who pulled out a dagger the next second. I was so confused. Who were Kaleo and Kendra? And what were they?
"I'm taking Cairbre back to his house," Alexander whispered although I could hear it. But the odd thing was, his lips didn't move. Ok, I was officially losing my mind. "Can you handle them till I get back?"
"No problem, just make sure he gets some sleep for pity's sake. Then find out why they want him so bad. He is just another artist." Alexander nodded and went over to me. I felt so stupid, being delirious by just one blow from a guy no older than me.
The next thing I knew, I was in my bed, and Alexander was watching me with an odd gleam in his eyes. "What?" I asked him, not knowing why he had carried me home. Or at least I think he had carried me home. But how else would he have gotten here? A car? No, I would have remembered a car.
"If I kill you now, you won't become one of them." He told me as he twirled a dagger in his hands. I was suddenly nervous. What was he talking about? "But if you become one of us . . ." I didn't want to hear this. I was too tired and too creeped out.
"I assume you aren't planning for me to live long now are you?" I mutter to myself, surprised to find that my jaw did not hurt anymore. He seemed shocked by the question but responded nonetheless.
"No, not as a human anyway."
"Get out," I hissed. I had planned to end my life anyway tomorrow night, but I did not like the way this boy was telling me I was going to die so bluntly.
"Don't let them get to you." Was the last thing he told me before he was suddenly gone. I stared at where he was for at least ten minutes. He had just disappeared. I lost my mind. I knew that there was no way that he could have just left.
The whole night must have been a hallucination. To my surprise, there was a dagger on the desk where my illusion Alexander had sat. Without hesitation, I picked it up. If this night was my mind telling me to end my life, then I would not argue. But if Alexander was real then . . . .
I would not let anyone get to me. This is the only solution. Not even bothering to write a suicide note, I slit my left wrist. I wondered at the sudden river that was flowing out of me, but I forced the thought out of my mind and slit my other wrist.
Tonight I was going to die. But what I did not know was that the grim reaper would share her blood with me and make me one of the night.
********************
"No!!!" I screamed at myself for no apparent reason. I had just remembered the one piece of information that I had never remembered over my years as a vampire. I knew that I had planned to kill myself, but what made me do it that night had been a wonder to me. And now I knew. Alexander and the still nameless young Triste.
Where was that necklace? I knew that I had not had it when I woke up after I was changed, but had Kendra taken it? I personally doubt it, it was probably in my room when my parents found my bed and rug bloody.
My heart panged. My parents. I haven't even thought of them for awhile. Like deep down thought about. "No," I said again, trying to convince myself that visiting my parents was a very bad idea. How would they react if they saw me? Personally I think my mother would pull out her bible and try to convert me on the spot and my father would pull out his rifle and order me out. Did my parents even live here anymore?
I thought to myself for a moment. No one at school would recognize me. The teachers would think me familiar but the ones that I had had in school would probably be dead or would not remember me. Running my fingers through my hair, sighing, I brought myself to my old school.
~*~*Chapter eleven~*~*
I don't recall how long I kneeled there at my grave, weeping like a lost child. In a way I am lost, if you take time to think about it. For years I have fought the painful, pointless battle of staying connected with my old world. Grasping for my humanity, my mortality, my human, needlessly. In the end I turn out like a mutant, an insane beast. An immortal creature born from the breath of night, who must survive on the blood of others, but has the innocent mind of a human.
No longer do I wish to fight the battle. I refuse to feel the pain of bloodlust each waking moment and taste the ambrosia of blood in my dreams.
Slowly I raise my head to meet the setting sun. The perfect mixture of purple and pale rose reminds me of a sunrise. All vampires prefer sunsets, or at least the ones that I know of.
Just in front of me, ruining the scene, is my damned gravestone. The rose lies so innocently on the top. I slowly pick it off the stone, and a sharp thorn pricks my slender finger. Jerking away from my own hand, I glare at the rose of many colors. One moment it was lavender, the color of humanity, and then it slowly faded to black.
"Weird rose isn't it?" For a brief moment I almost turned around, but I didn't. I recognized the voice behind me. And I'm sure Risika could acknowledge the golden eyes and blonde hair that I knew stood behind me, crying. The scent of tears was in the air, and although I knew I had been crying, this scent is fresh. Hmm at least Risika should be able to acknowledge him. Alexander is her brother after all, or had been 300 years ago.
I remember talking to him during the fight briefly. He seemed to accept me because I did not kill. At least back then I hadn't. "Guess it is," I replied carefully, not sure why a Triste witch was speaking willingly to me. They were called the perfect vampire hunters for a reason.
"I know what you did." His voice echoed in my ears as I continued to glance at the rose. "And I wanted to tell you that Rabe is doing fine." I laughed softly. I had forgotten that she had been the whole cause of this. Not as if it was her fault. Humans can't really protect themselves.
"And it seems," Alexander continued, sounding a bit careful himself, "That you came back here to your origin to weep for your humanity. Risika would never do such a thing. She doesn't cry often." What was he trying to do? Make me want to rip out his throat? I wasn't really sure if it was working or not.
"Make your point." I stated bluntly. I did not ask, nor did I want to.
"You come here to mourn the loss of your humanity but you must have humanity left in you if you come to weep for it. You haven't lost it yet, Cairbre. As long as you can cry, humanity lies within your soul." The last thing he said made me turn and look at him. Both our cheeks were tear stained, but our eyes now shined with shock and acknowledgement; the shock coming from me. I was so stupid as to not remember him from before.
"Remember that. You have not forgotten it over the years but you must never forget it." And with that, he was gone. Which left me to remember my past. I knew that Alexander had been familiar during Risika's fight, but now it all came back like a ton of bricks.
**********************
May 18, 1963
I stood there in the art gallery, smirking at the other artists brag to others about their work. All of the others were colorful and full of life. The goodness in life that is. Yellows, whites, pinks, all the colors that I shunned in work were suffocating my painting. I never named my paintings, out loud of course. The painting that I did the night that girl came hung in the very corner of the room, its sadness and depression darkening the space that it occupied. No one really looked at it while I was here, but I heard many talk about it behind my back.
Now there were two people looking intently at it. The young woman who had interrupted my painting session and unnerved me was standing there; her extremely seductive outfit making me wonder who she was. And there was a younger man with her. Both seemed to be engaged in deep conversation with another. They could at least be respectful and talk elsewhere. . . .
"Is that your painting?" I turned to see a young couple, arms linked, standing behind me. The young man was about a year younger than me, maybe 17 or so. His golden eyes somewhat intrigued me and I had to blink before I could notice the young woman on his arm. She looked just about as old as he, an inch or two shorter with long tightly curled brown hair. Both had a look in their eyes, but I could not exactly place it.
"That it is," I replied, and the woman noticed the paint flakes in my hair. "The closest to dying my hair that I can get," I told her and she smiled. Despite the fact that the man was clearly her boyfriend, I couldn't help but feel drawn to her somehow. Just her BEING there made me feel important, but I could not explain why.
"What did you name it?" She asked me, her soft yet strong tone somewhat shocking me. There was no teenager awkwardness in her voice like the other kids at school. They never really talked to ME but I heard the conversations of breakups, love whispering, and arguments echo in my ears in the hallways of that Hell. "I didn't see a title when Alexander and I went to look at it."
"I don't really name them." I answered somewhat awkwardly, not sure what was making me act this way. "But I personally refer it to as 'My Last Shred of Mortality'." That seemed to knock them a blow. Both of them exchanged glances before Alexander put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a long stare.
"Remember, as long as you love, as long as you can cry, humanity lies within your soul." Then he walked away, leaving me in a daze of unknown feelings. What was he talking about? For the second time in the past days, I was completely unnerved.
"Don't mind Alexander," the girl sighed when she saw my expression. Her pale green eyes seemed to bore into my soul and I couldn't fight it back. "Here, I must be going now, but I want you to have this." She put her hand in one of her flare jean pockets and pulled out an odd necklace. The chain was silver and the pendant was an odd twist of metal, but as I put it closer to my face I saw that there was a small black cross beneath all of the twisted metal wire.
"Than-" When I went to thank the girl, she was gone. I had no idea who she was, but I put on the necklace nonetheless. Somehow it felt as if it warmed the skin it touched. Maybe because it was in her pocket.
"Cairbre..." Someone purred behind me and I flinched as I felt two ice cold hands wrap around my chest and slide under my shirt. In an instant I gripped the hands and pulled them away, then turned to see the woman from several nights before.
"You." I was not in the mood to talk to her, not in the least. And she seemed to get suddenly angry when her eyes saw my necklace. What I learned later on in my 3rd year as a vampire was that Triste witches use that symbol to show what humans they protect from the vampires.
"Nice necklace," she purred, although I could hear the anger slithering through.
"I know." I snapped as I turned away. She let me do so. I even got as far as outside the building where the young man she was with gripped my shirt and pinned me to a tree. He used such force that the wind was knocked out of me and spots danced in front of my eyes when my neck snapped back and my head collided with the unforgiving bark of the tree.
"Where do you think you're going?" He asked me, a sadistic smile creeping across his lips. My arms were free and I slammed my fist into his jaw. I was rewarded with a punch of my own. My vision went black for a moment.
Quickly I reached up and grabbed a branch in each hand, then lifted myself up and kicked him in the chest, sending him staggering back a foot or two. When he didn't even seem hurt over the kick that would usually keep a guy down for a good minute or two, I knew something wasn't right with him.
Right then my eyes met his, just for a moment. I couldn't move when my eyes met his black orbs. There was a feeling deep inside me that screamed out at me 'Run Cairbre!!' but my mind and body stood still. "Stupid human." He growled as he was suddenly in front of me, his iron grip on my neck. I couldn't breath. This man wasn't normal, not to my standards at least. I have gotten into my share of fights and I have never felt such strength crushing my windpipe.
Suddenly I was on my knees, gasping for air like a fish. For the moment I did not know how I had gotten free, but it was clearer to me when I felt someone trying to pull me up. "Come on Cairbre," the voice begged and I forced myself to my feet although my vision went fuzzy for a brief moment.
"Get him out of here!" Came another voice and the next thing I knew, I was elsewhere. In the woods perhaps, leaning against somebody. When I turned to see who it was, I went to say something, but just moving my jaw now made tears form in my eyes.
"Cairbre, don't move from here," the girl from the art exhibit ordered me as she set me down against a tree trunk.
What the Hell? I thought to myself as I tried seeing straight. There was only the girl there one moment and Alexander next to her after I blinked. I managed a laugh, although it came out more like a groan of pain. I really was losing my mind.
"Kaleo and Kendra should be here any minute." He told the girl, who pulled out a dagger the next second. I was so confused. Who were Kaleo and Kendra? And what were they?
"I'm taking Cairbre back to his house," Alexander whispered although I could hear it. But the odd thing was, his lips didn't move. Ok, I was officially losing my mind. "Can you handle them till I get back?"
"No problem, just make sure he gets some sleep for pity's sake. Then find out why they want him so bad. He is just another artist." Alexander nodded and went over to me. I felt so stupid, being delirious by just one blow from a guy no older than me.
The next thing I knew, I was in my bed, and Alexander was watching me with an odd gleam in his eyes. "What?" I asked him, not knowing why he had carried me home. Or at least I think he had carried me home. But how else would he have gotten here? A car? No, I would have remembered a car.
"If I kill you now, you won't become one of them." He told me as he twirled a dagger in his hands. I was suddenly nervous. What was he talking about? "But if you become one of us . . ." I didn't want to hear this. I was too tired and too creeped out.
"I assume you aren't planning for me to live long now are you?" I mutter to myself, surprised to find that my jaw did not hurt anymore. He seemed shocked by the question but responded nonetheless.
"No, not as a human anyway."
"Get out," I hissed. I had planned to end my life anyway tomorrow night, but I did not like the way this boy was telling me I was going to die so bluntly.
"Don't let them get to you." Was the last thing he told me before he was suddenly gone. I stared at where he was for at least ten minutes. He had just disappeared. I lost my mind. I knew that there was no way that he could have just left.
The whole night must have been a hallucination. To my surprise, there was a dagger on the desk where my illusion Alexander had sat. Without hesitation, I picked it up. If this night was my mind telling me to end my life, then I would not argue. But if Alexander was real then . . . .
I would not let anyone get to me. This is the only solution. Not even bothering to write a suicide note, I slit my left wrist. I wondered at the sudden river that was flowing out of me, but I forced the thought out of my mind and slit my other wrist.
Tonight I was going to die. But what I did not know was that the grim reaper would share her blood with me and make me one of the night.
********************
"No!!!" I screamed at myself for no apparent reason. I had just remembered the one piece of information that I had never remembered over my years as a vampire. I knew that I had planned to kill myself, but what made me do it that night had been a wonder to me. And now I knew. Alexander and the still nameless young Triste.
Where was that necklace? I knew that I had not had it when I woke up after I was changed, but had Kendra taken it? I personally doubt it, it was probably in my room when my parents found my bed and rug bloody.
My heart panged. My parents. I haven't even thought of them for awhile. Like deep down thought about. "No," I said again, trying to convince myself that visiting my parents was a very bad idea. How would they react if they saw me? Personally I think my mother would pull out her bible and try to convert me on the spot and my father would pull out his rifle and order me out. Did my parents even live here anymore?
I thought to myself for a moment. No one at school would recognize me. The teachers would think me familiar but the ones that I had had in school would probably be dead or would not remember me. Running my fingers through my hair, sighing, I brought myself to my old school.