A/N: Here's another chappy. Pretty short, but that's because it's just, well, a short chapter. Review and tell me your thoughts. Flames welcomed, but please be a lil nice. Not too mean. :)

†Chapter III†

Ralis Apartment Complex

New York City

The sun begins to creep into my world and I step into my dark closet and see my coffin waiting for me. Some vampires choose to sleep in beds, as the humans do, but I've chosen to sleep in a coffin...because it comforts me and it has become almost a part of me. When I was a young vampire, just changed, I remember searching in the libraries and books for information on "my kind". And behold, I found dozens upon dozens of descriptions of a vampire's coffin. Ever since then, I have found a wonder and amusement of sleeping in a coffin. Why sleep in a bed as humans do? I am not human, nor will I ever be again. I sleep in a coffin, because it is a part of being a vampire. When I sleep inside it, I feel as if I am a part of something. I belong.

Yet as I sleep in my coffin this day, I do not feel comforted. I cannot even sleep because my thoughts are poisoning me. All I can hear in my mind are the words that Blase has spoken to me. I know, his voice haunts in my mind. I still picture him in front of me, looking at me with his dark piercing eyes and telling me that the stone is his. He had used his mind against me and made my head throb in pain. "I shall return when the sun leaves the sky," he had whispered in my ear before he left me. "And Colette," he said, "Do not make me kill you." When he left, he whipped the air and disappeared. For a moment, I could hear his laughter around me...as it slowly faded away.

I know that Blase will take the stone from me. Fear begins to overcome me as I lay in the darkness of my coffin. I also realize that I cannot let him have it. When I was still a human being, I knew that it held power, yet I knew nothing of what it was...how it came to be. The Witch Stone, it was called by many who knew of it. The stone of destruction. And Blase wanted it.

With terror, I push up the cover of my coffin and throw it onto the dusty floor of my apartment. I will not let him have it, I think in my mind, and I crawl out of my closet as quick as I can.

The sun is the biggest fear of a vampire. Stay far away...or death shall overcome you, we are told by our Makers. And as I step out of my closet and into my apartment, the apartment that had always been dark to me, I feel my terror rising inside of me. There is no darkness in my apartment; no cover. All I see in front of me is an empty room, with the light of the sun filling the entire of it. The only shadow of the room is the one I am standing in. For once I feel I see the door across the room watching me...waiting to see what the vampire-the beast-will do. My anger grows and I slam my hand into the wall beside me. "Goddamn," I swear...and as I lift my hand to slam it into the wall once more, I stop and smile in realization. The stone is warm on my chest.

Quickly, I take the stone off my neck and hold it in my hands. It glow and as I lift my hands, immediately the rusted shutters of the windows close at my will and I am in darkness. As I walk to the door, it opens for me.

"Well," the apartment owner, Mr. Thacker, exclaims as he sees me in the dark hall. He has never seen me in the day before and he stares at me strangely. I nod and walk briskly past him, my mind a thousand miles away, because I have to think of a way to escape my apartment. I listen to Mr. Thacker's thoughts as I leave him and I almost smile when I hear him think, What in hell is she doing here? Dear God I need a drink. But before I smile, any notion of it leaves my mind because I begin to think I have no chance of an escape. The sun's light is everywhere.

Hundreds of humans are walking the street and the noise is almost unbearable to me. In the night, it as if people respect the darkness and they do not yell and scream at each other as in the daylight. The only loud noises of the night are the traffic and the constant shuffling of people. Such has been the music to my ears every night. But as I stand against the front door of the apartment complex and am watching the outside world from the small window, I feel like screaming. The thoughts and fears and screams of the humans are drilling into my mind. I'm so goddamn lateI hear an older woman thinking; Why isn't he going any faster?! a man screams in his mind at his taxi driver; Oh shit, not HIM again echoes in my head...the thought of one of the many humans walking out in the daylight.

My fear gains as the seconds pass, and I ponder of what to do. I am terrified of the sun, as any vampire, yet I know I must leave. I cannot stay. My finger touches the glass of the window and begins to burn. "Damn,' I curse as I whip it away. The tip of my pale finger is black as night...the flesh melted away. This is what will become of me if I step out there...into the sun. I will burn away into nothing, just ashes blowing in the wind.

"What a fine day it is," I hear a woman saying behind me. I turn around and see a plump old woman staring at me, her face old and wrinkled. I am in her way. She smiles and pushes her way past me, opening the door and stepping out into the sun. She turns back and looks at me strangely, the same way the Mr. Thacker did, and then goes on her way. I do not care what she thinks of me, though. Her voice still echoes in my head saying what a fine day it is. I begin to think what it would be like if the day was not fine. What if the day was terrible. Dark and murky...the sun vanished from the sky...hidden behind dark angered clouds. I imagine the rain pouring down in sheets on the crowd of humans, and the lightning striking the ground in fury. The sky as dark as night.

Just as I think it, such things become. I hear the crowd of humans running under cover, their clothes soaked from the rain pouring from the sky and drenching them. I look up in the sky and see dark clouds appearing, floating across the sky and covering the sun completely. The world grows dark so suddenly. I begin to remember the Bible story, when Moses foresaw the sky of Egypt turning pitch black...the sun disappearing for three days. The sky reminds me of what it had been for the Egyptians when they watched the darkness overcoming the light...and the sun just...disappearing. I watch in amazement.

"What in the hell is happening?" I hear Mr. Thacker remarking behind me. He is looking out the window as I and shaking his head. "Just two damn minutes ago there weren't not a cloud in the sky." I smile and turn to him.

"Well, I must be going," I say. He looks at me as I open the door and step out into the immense storm that has appeared. The door slams behind me, and for once I feel free. My skin feels hot even though the sun is hidden, but the chilling rain pours on it and I feel nothing but alive. I open my arms out and feel the rain and the air of day. For Four hundred years I have not stepped foot outside during the day, but here I am...and I feel free. Blase enters my mind again, but I do not feel fear. By the time the night returns, I shall be gone.