Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

The sun was shining down on her neck. Vaera felt the heat of it touching her skin, and the pulse of her heart... She was human. She was standing near a bridge surrounded by water. She sat on the edge, soaking her feet in the stream below as a group of tadpoles scattered among the rocks. She remembered this place. In her mind she knew it wasn't real, but she never wanted it to end. It had been more than three hundred and forty seven years since she had been able to see the sun... to be a human... She envied those who could walk around freely. The ones who could live without biting other's necks just to survive. The nearby trees gave shade, but she didn't want to be in the darkness. Her mind was only set on her surroundings and memories of the life she once knew to be hers. Suddenly it all turned dark, and she found herself lost... All alone in complete darkness. It seemed like an old friend though, because it was the only friend she knew, and it remained that way. She looked down at her hands, sensing the warm, dark substance that she knew oh so well. Blood.

She awoke. Vaera could feel the cold sweat running down her back. Her nerves ached for the dream to be real, but she knew it wasn't. It never could be. She sat up, trying to remember her dream. Her thoughs were set on the past, but her mind always seen her future. What was in front of her, and what was to come. "Why am I torchured with these dreams?" She sat in silence for a moment before hearing a familiar voice.

"Perhaps it is just what your heart wants to see," A voice came from behind her.

"Narcissa, I didn't know you were..." Vaera said, turning to face her sister that also shared the darkness with her.

"I know. What did you dream about, sister? It seemed as though you were enjoying it until just a minute ago," Narcissa said, slightly smiling at Vaera with a look of curiosity in her eyes.

"I was... I was alive. Human. And then it all just... died." Narcissa laughed softly at Vaera's reply.

"Ah... Yes, i've had dreams like those before. It gets a bit depressing after being a vamp for more than eight hundred years.." Vaera's eyes widened. In the grey streeks from the sunlight, she could see her sister's complection. Vampires didn't age, so she still looked as though she was twenty or so. But the longer you go without blood, the more you look like a vampire, so she didn't look much like a human because they didn't feed often. Her eyes were dark, almost black. There was very little color in them. Her cheek bones were sunken in and her complection was pale from not being able to go out in sunlight. Her hair was a long, satin blonde, almost brown, and she always had it tucked behind her ears. Narcissa was up against the wall of the room, knees tucked under her chest. She was one of the few vampires who wore jeans. It was odd for them to. But she and Vaera did, because they were alike in many ways, and both missed the feeling of the sun on thier skin.

She went to sit by her sister. "Eight hundred years is a long time, Narcissa. You never told me." They sat in silence for a while longer, gazing at the streeks of light seeping in from the cracks in the wood.

"Maybe one day someone will change how things work with vamps and humans...," Narcissa said quietly. Outside they could hear the sound of crickets, and the last of the bird's chirps filling the evening air as the sun setted on the abandoned grounds of the dead. Vaera reached for her mp3 player, shuffling through her songs. Vaera was addicted to rock and heavy metal, and always thought that anything else was simply retarded. Vaera looked down at her mp3 player and stopped on a band's song that her friend got her addicted to when she was a human. Vaera was a deep thinker, and was usually found listening to music and thinking her time away. She paused her music and looked at Narcissa.

"So why have you been awake, my sister?" Vaera asked, looking up at Narcissa's tired face.

"I'm just thinking... Don't worry. I'll be going to rest soon. You, however, better get some rest, Vaera. It will be time to feed, tonight," said Narcissa. Vaera nodded, because she knew the wisdom that Narcissa had gained throughout the years of being a vampire, and admired at how much knowledge she had.

"Yes... of course. Goodnight sister. I will see you when I awake again," And with that, Vaera turned her mp3 player back on and went to sleep once more.

When she found herself awake again, moonlight was now filling the cracks of the wood. Narcissa had already left her bed, and was probably downstairs with her brothers of darkness. She hadn't had any other dreams that day. She rarely gets a dream, and any time she does it's as vivid and clear as real life. And so is the pain, but it dies away when she wakes up. Most of the time when she's sleeping, it's just the same old darkness that shes used to. Her mp3 player was dead. She had accidently left it on all day while she was sleeping. "Great, now I need new batteries," She thought to herself. She stood and walked into the living room of the abandoned house, leaving her mp3 player on her bed.

"Hello, sister. Are you ready?" said Narcissa, sitting at the table next to Vaera's master and two other brothers of darkness, Baerien and Sage. They weren't their real names, but sometimes it's better to forget your past as human and the people you once knew and loved. Once a vampire, you have to let all of that go. Nodding her head to Narcissa's question slightly, she went to the table to join them. They were talking about where they would be going tonight. Baerien was always the quiet one, and only talked when he had something useful to say. He usually just kept to himself in the dark, sleeping his time away. He was only fourteen when he was bitten, so he has always been quiet in a sort of hypnotized way.

"Yes, sister. Where shall we be going tonight?" She was remembering back to the time when she had biten her first victim. The taste of the blood in her mouth was so satisfying... it scared her at first, but she soon began to like it. After a while her conscious was gone all together. It was how she lived, and how they perished or survived to be a vamp themselves. Sometimes, a human would be indenial that they weren't a vampire, and try to walk into the light. But the result was always the same, and they always died, if not helped right away. There's little you can do for another vampire, though, that is out in sunlight. Unless you want to burst into flames as well, of course.

"We are," Vaera's master said, "going our seperate ways tonight. If we all take victims in the same place, people will start to find out the truth. We mustn't let that happen. People will not understand how we must live, and they will hunt us, and kill us. Vaera, you will be going to a small town in the east by a lake called Nerntelav. Sage, go with Vaera. I will go to Masquinarde with Narcissa. It is a very large city in the south surrounded by tall grass. Baerien shall go alone, for his assignment isn't hard. He will simply be targeting a lone old man who lives out in a cabin by himself, with nothing but remourse and grief to look forward to. His wife died four weeks ago, you see. He has nothing to live for. He will be welcomed as a brother of darkness, if you see fit to spare some of his blood. But he will have to live eternaly with himself, and that would not be a good thing for me or him."

As they walked across the mist covered cemetary grounds that was abandoned long ago, a faint noise made Vaera stop in her tracks. She suddenly set course in a different direction, following the noise she had heard. She broke into a run, chasing a figure that she could barely see while dodging trees and roots that stuck out from the ground. The chase continued into the forest as she got closer to whatever it was that she's chasing. She knew it couldn't be a human, for it was running way too fast. Humans can't run fast at all compared to a vampire.

Vaera tackled it to the ground. Him to the ground. They both tumbled to the ground, her hands on his wrists. His veins were as cold as ice, just like hers. Suddenly realizing what she caught, she loostened her grip on his wrists, still taking caution. His teeth were as sharp as blades, seeming as though they were meant to bite necks. His eyes were dark gray, almost black, and they had a silverish glow to the outside of them. He wasn't a human, he was a vampire.

"You're... a vampire," Vaera whispered, still in shock to have tackled one of her own in such a way, so close to biting his already-biten neck. He had already endured the familiar pain she knew when she was biten.

"And so are you. I wasn't expecting that..." He said in a normal voice tone, rubbing the back of his neck. Like hers, his dark, black hair covered half of his face. He didn't resemble a vampire as much as she, though, because he fed often. Vaera stood, helping him up as well.

"Autrien," He said, smiling in a friendly, yet sarcastic way.

"Vaera..." She said, having tons of questions fill the border line of her mind. She had seen him somewhere before.

"What were you doing around our living grounds?"

"I was looking for easy victims, then I spotted you and... whoever else was with you, and thought you to be human, though i'm not sure what a human would be doing out here. That's when I learned you weren't." He laughed a bit at himself, looking from his shoes to Vaera's jeans, smirking a bit.

"Well, if you don't mind me interrupting you while staring at me, I have to go back. My master is waiting," Autrien said, bowing slightly, still with a sarcastic smile. "Goodbye."

"Yeah... bye." And with that he left, leaving Vaera completely confused.

"Where have I seen him before...?" She had never met Autrien before in her whole life, but she had seen him somewhere. Somewhere...

In a few minutes Vaera was back with Narcissa and her master, Daemion, explaining where she had gone. Since she was a lower rank vampire and had not as much experience, she had to tell about her absenses and why she was gone. All vampires were accounted for and looked after by thier master. If he failed to keep them safe and another vampire perished without an honorable reason, he would be seen as an unfit master and be sent into the sun to burn to death by the master of all master vampires. Some say he's been around ever since the dawn of the Imperials, and that he was the very first vampire. Some even say the master's a girl.

Vampires, or at least Veara's family of darkness, don't feed often, so it's likely that they take all the blood from one's body. Baerien hadn't spared the old man, but it was for the best. He was planning on commiting suicide later that day anyways. He wasn't the only one not to spare someone though. Everyone else had taken all the blood from thier victims too, or at least they thought they did. Vaera's victim was a young teenager girl with long brown hair and blue oval eyes. Vaera had taken her blood while she was alone, walking on a path by a lake. Vaera would have felt guilty for taking such a young girl's life, but her conscious was long gone, so she didn't have much sypathy. Sage shared Veara's victim so they didn't have to kill two people. Narcissa and Daemion shared thier's too, because suspicion was very limited, and they have to be careful not to give people the idea that vampires really do exist.

After a few hours they were all back at the abandoned house by the grave yard. They were all discussing what had happened. Sage looked at Vaera, seeing her eyes wandering in thought. "What was his name again? Maybe you just heard of the name before and think that you've met him," Vaera glared up at her brother's face. His long brown hair was parted slightly, hanging in front of his face. He looked away, sensing he had been wrong to say her judgement wasn't correct.

"His name is Autrien," Vaera said in a plain voice.

"So Veara, you say you have seen him before? It is not likely, unless you met him when he was a human," Narcissa said, looking out into the forestry with curious eyes.

Daemion looked from Narcissa to Vaera with a very stern face. "If you have seen him before like you say you have, then where would you have seen him if not when you were human or vamp?

"Its not like that, love. It's like..." Vaera suddenly stopped in the middle of her sentence, having a flashback.

~end of chapter three