.Disclaimer: I own nothing!
Chapter 3
Acid was burning through my veins. Every part of my body felt like it was on fire, but for some reason I didn't pass out. I think my eyes were open. I have a vague memory of seeing people in my peripheral vision, but their shapes were obscured by what could only be my tears. Along with the melting of my body I felt a tearing in my throat, so I must have been screaming. I couldn't hear myself or anything around me, but nobody could go through this pain without screaming.
Slowly my memories faded into the background being burned by the fire in my blood. My childhood was the first to go. Memories of cupboards and Harry Hunting all of it was thrown into the bonfire that was my body, adding to the flames. With every image that I lost the pain increased. My summers at the Dursley's was the next victim of the fire. Nothing escaped the fire, it all turned to smoke in my mind. There, but intangible. I doubted I would ever be able to grab onto these memories again. When the fire tried to take my memories of my friends and family I struggled with everything I had to keep them. Keep anything, even their names if I could have nothing else, but it all became smoke.
I was nothing more than the English I could speak and the few months since I landed in the dentist office, but even that was a bit fuzzy. It was more like a burnt log than smoke. Chard and crumbling, but still something I could grab onto. I still had a piece of myself. Thank Merlin for that.
I didn't have time to be thankful for what the fire left me because when the fire began to dim, the ice took its place. The ice was worse than the fire. It started at my fingertips and toes, killing everything it touched. It climbed my limbs like an army of spiders bringing the feeling of death with it. All to soon the ice wrapped around my heart, squeezing it until it could no longer beat. My heart gave its last feeble beat and the ice invaded. And I was dead.
Nothing in my body moved. No air in my lungs. No blood in my veins. Nothing. I was in a blanket of black velvet, nothing. No sight, sound, taste, smell. If I was laying on something I couldn't feel it.
After what felt like an eternity, something changed. I could feel a tingling in the back of my throat. Soon it felt like I would die of thirst. My mouth watered at the thought of something to drink, but my saliva tasted off. It tasted bitter and smelled a little like bleach. The fact that I could smell my spit was weird enough, but I didn't have the capacity to think any further on it. I had to get something to quench my thirst.
I opened my mouth and sucked in some air, but there was no release like there should be. I tasted something sweet in the air. It was like vanilla on my tongue. As soon as I smelled it I knew that it was all I wanted and I would never want anything more. Just a taste and I would be happy. I opened my eyes, but it was no help in finding the delicious liquid. I was surrounded by gray stones. Cracked and dirty stones, from the looks of it.
And then I could hear it. Two beats like a drum drumming out of time. I was calling me. I lifted my head to look at what was causing the beating and the rate of beating increased. It was by the door of a large circular room. There were people in black and gray cloaks around the edge of the room, but they didn't move and they weren't the source of the wonderful smell.
The sources were two people who seemed to be moving in slow motion. A male and a female. Both were dressed in bright clothes that seemed to be cotton and both had blond hair. The female was crying. The sound she made hurt my ears, but her salty tears and sweat tasted like a fine wine on my parched tongue.
It was then that I realized that the wonderful smell in the air was blood. I could see, feel, and hear the pulse in both their necks. I was beyond reason as I dove for the female. Her mouth was barely open in a silent scream as I drained her dry. It was better than any taste I could remember. Smoother than vanilla, more satisfying than the largest feast, and I wanted more. I sucked every last drop of liquid gold from the blond female.
The beat from the male was teasing me. He was clawing at the door as I tackled him to the ground. The blood on his finger tips and door made me all the more ravenous for his blood. I leaned over his prone figure and drained him like I did the female. The taste was just as good the second time and even as I could feel the blood slide down my throat I was looking forward to the next time I could taste this bliss.
When he was dry I leaned away from the body on my knees. Looking down at myself I could see that I had made a mess. The blood was getting cold, but I still licked as much of it up as I could.
While licking the blood from my left hand I realized the horror of what I had done. I sat there frozen on my knees with my hand raised to my mouth. When I finally did move, I wiped the blood from off my lips with the back of my hand.
I stared at my hands intently, trying to figure out what was going on. My hands were as pale as snow. My fingernails were longer and underneath them I could see bits of human flesh and what I think was bone. I had not fingerprints and, from what I could tell, all of my skin was perfectly smooth. I had changed into a monster. I was a vampire.
Someone started to clap behind me. Turning as fast as I could I saw a man with a black cloak, milky burgundy eyes, and long black hair clapping for me. He was smiling like he had never seen something so entertaining in all his life.
"Such a beautiful performance," he began smiling fondly at me, "I was certainly right in turning you. Such an excellent guard you are going to make."
"Excuse me," I said, my voice flowed like water down a clear steam, "may I ask who you are?" I figured I would start with the basics.
"Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. Where are my manners? Well, my name is Aro and I am one of the leaders of the Volturi. My friends Marcus and Cauis are the other leaders." Aro gestured to the only other two that were in black cloaks and sitting on throne like chairs. They all had the same milky eyes, but one had long white hair rather than black.
I tried to remember how I got to this place. I had flashes of memories; insane asylum, fountain defiling, violet eyes. So, I had escaped from an insane asylum and traveled a bit before coming here to be a snack for some vampires. Who then decided that they would rather I become one of them. I couldn't remember why they wanted me to join them, but it didn't really matter. I was alive enough, even if I had to kill innocent people in order to live.
That thought really rubbed me the wrong way. I looked down at my two victims and my dead heart hurt for them. They were just like me once. They had friends and family and I took that away from them. I couldn't live like this. Taking another's life in order for me to live. The guilt was crushing me and I could feel a burning around my eyes. Like I wanted to cry, but was unable to. It was one of the worst feelings I could remember, not that I remembered much.
"I'm sorry," I said, "but I can't do this. I don't want to hurt people. Please, kill me. I don't want to live like this." My voice cracked, but I stood tall to face the wall of black and gray cloaks.
"Why is it always the powerful ones that have morals." Aro muttered to himself, "well as I see it, you are under my command until you can control your bloodlust. And I command that you do not kill yourself. See, problem solved."
"So, once I can be around people without killing them I am free to go?"
"That is the idea."
"But that still means that I am going to be killing people. I can't do that."
"You already have." Aro said with a chuckle. I looked again to the two lifeless bodies I had created and knew it was the last time I would allow myself to do such a thing. I would kill myself if it was the last thing I did.
"Now I can't have one of my guards doing anything life threatening," Aro said. Obviously I still wore my emotions on my sleeve. I didn't remember why it was important, but I knew that it once was. "Felix," Aro gestured to one of the men I had knocked down. The large one with short black hair, "please take Harry to his new quarters and explain to him the basics of being a vampire and a Volturi guard. I hope you enjoy your time here and don't do anything rash."
Felix and I walked up to my room in silence. I learned that the rooms on the main floor, the floor with the 'dinning room' as it's called, is were most of the business and work related equipment is located. The second floor was used for entertainment purposes, the third floor was dedicated to a library, on the fourth floor were the guards rooms, and on the fifth floor the Volturi lived. Each male claiming one of the four towers as his own. The final tower was connected to the guards living quarts and used for who knows what.
Felix was a talkative guy and easy to get along with, but unfortunately for him I had just learned that I was a monster and was busy planning my death. So I wasn't much of a talker. Jumping off of the tower seemed like a good option right now. Or maybe I could just stand out on the tower until the sun came up. That is assuming that vampires turn to dust in the sun.
"Well, here's your room," said Felix. He opened the heavy wooden door to a large room with a simple clean design. The walls were white and the furniture was made of expensive looking dark wood. There was a large four-poster bed and a view of the countryside from the medieval window. "The bathroom is the three doors down and on the right hand side," he gestured to the left. "Not really of much use, but if you want to take a shower," he looked at my blood stained clothes and hands, "you're welcome to it."
I sat on the white comforter, carefully so as to keep the blood off of it. I wondered how long I would have to wait until they all went to sleep before I could try and throw myself off the tower.
"The bed's not really going to be of much use to you yet. Seeing as how you can no longer sleep," well that just threw off my plan, "but I'm sure once you find a mate for yourself you'll find a use for it." Felix winked at me, as if the innuendo was not obvious.
"I guess I should start with the basics of vampirism," suggested Felix. He had yet to sit and I was pretty sure the only thing that moved on his body was his mouth. He was like a talking statue. I wondered if I was like that. "I guess that the one rule of being a vampire is to not get caught. Being found out by a human is an automatic death sentence by the Volturi. If a human does find out our secret you can always change them. I don't suggest that you change anyone for a good long time. It is difficult having a newborn around. I guess you'll find that out soon enough. But, if you have to change someone in an emergency all you have to do is bite them and suck out some of there blood, but not kill them.
"Vampires have venom in there teeth. You probably tasted it when you woke up…" I nodded my head. I thought my spit had tasted off. "Well, you'll get mouthfuls of it whenever you're around humans or happen to be thirsty. You'll get thirsty about every two days while your new and the time between when you need to feed will lengthen the older you get. You probably wont be able to be around humans without instantly killing them for a year, so you're going to be stuck in here. Umm, you also never age and you'll look this age forever. When you finally do get to go out you'll see that humans are afraid of us, but oddly attracted. If that makes any sense.
"Ooh, now the cool stuff. For the first year you're going to be super strong. Even for a vampire. Most vampires could probably break a humans bones with the twitch of there finger, so that is no competition. You're much faster than a human. Really, much faster than anything. Except maybe a jet plane. You probably noticed that when you looked at the humans in the dinning room, they looked like they were moving in slow motion." I hated the way he kept bringing up the two people I killed. As if I didn't feel guilty enough. "You can also see and hear a lot better than a human. It will probably take a while to get used to seeing and hearing everything this clearly. Right now, if a human was in the room, they wouldn't be able to tell what I'm saying. As you can probably guess, it is really hard to interact with humans, but every member of the guard has to learn how to do it.
"There aren't many ways to kill a vampire. To kill one you have to rip them apart and burn them. Only things that can do that are another vampire or a werewolf. The myths of sunlight, crosses, and garlic are absolutely ridiculous. Well, the sunlight will expose you, but that is because we sort of glitter in it. If that makes sense. Not really sure there is much else to it. If there is, you'll learn it along the way. I'll give you a day to yourself and then Aro is probably going to want to start your training." I still hadn't given him any acknowledgement that I had heard any of it, but I did. I heard all of it. The only way for me to die would be to get another vampire to do it. I would have to break the one rule in order for the Volturi to do it. It was my only option considering I didn't know any other vampires and didn't know how to find one.
"Well, good night. And don't forget to shower up. I think there are some temporary clothes in the dresser. I'm pretty sure that the girls will have a whole knew wardrobe for you in no time. So, yeah… Good night."
I don't know how long it was that I sat there thinking about my options. This was no life for me. I had already decided to kill myself and there was nothing anybody could do to stop me.