The Burning

Characters, Meetings, and Motives

Part One

"Black-Haired Angel"

I can feel this, today, and for that I am grateful. Last night I thought that I would die. Today I see the sky, see the deep hue, and it comforts me, wraps around me like the biggest, bluest security blanket any child could have. I can feel this soft grass, I can smell the heavy scent in the air of honeysuckle, I can touch the silky fur of Phyre, my great yellow cat. He sits beside me, purring contentedly, as if nothing is different from yesterday, or the days before and before and before. As if I haven’t been changed.

Yesterday was. . . Yesterday is gone now, though. I can only look to the future, for now. A long future at that.

I'm not sure how it happened, exactly. I remember running for a long time. Running from him, that bastard that changed me. I never asked for it.

But I couldn't run fast enough, I know that. He played with me, I think, wearing me out and tearing me down and eating me alive. And he couldn't let me die, oh no, he had to bring me back and take me again, over and over, until he passed out from the wicked pleasure that both he and I were eventually feeling.

The first time it hurt so badly. And the second, and the third. By the fourth time, I'd been infused with his blood enough to not be dying as he took it again, and the tugging sensation at my heart, the caress of his lips on my neck, it felt almost like sex. Almost, but not quite. I wasn't aroused at all, I felt only the pleasure and disgust. I finally realized, somewhere around the sixth or seventh time, that he wasn't going to kill me and I was becoming like him.

And so when he passed out, I drank from him. And left him, pale and empty. That bastard.

But that was yesterday, and now I can sit here in this field of soft grass and bluebells and beauty, and watch the sun set and the stars rise.

To think that I could be dead is hard. I feel so much more alive than I did when I actually was alive. I can see so much farther, hear more, taste and touch and simply feel so much more acutely.

I can't help wondering, though, when do I die?

Every time someone talks about a vampire, or tells a story about them, they're immortal. I suppose it's because they're 'dead'. I don't feel dead.

I touch my face, checking to see if my skin is cold and clammy. It isn't. It's not warm exactly, but cool, and soft. Very smooth, but my face has always been smooth. I never even got a beard. In school, everyone made fun of me for looking like a girl. I even shaved my legs. Still do, in fact. But that's beside the point. My hair is still silky, my mouth is still warm and damp, and. . . I'm not sure if I still work down there. I'll have to find out sometime, but not now.

I frown slightly, and wonder if my soul is gone. I still feel like Alik, I'm fairly sure that I still look like Alik, so am I still Alik? I can remember my life (all twenty two years of it, anyway) and I don't think I've forgotten anything. Although, if I had, I wouldn't remember that I'd forgotten. . . ?

I think that I've left my old life behind, though. I'll miss Katarina, my fellow barkeep at the Underground, and Seifer, my lover, but I don't think that they'll accept me as I am now. They would probably be horrified at what I see myself as now. They might even try to "put me out my misery". That wouldn't do at all.

No, it's time for me to find a new life somewhere else. Time to leave Seifer Almasy and California behind, perhaps to get a purpose. If I'm going to live a long time, I may as well start building up some karma, for when I do die. I need something to counter the killing that I will inevitably have to do. I refuse to become like that deranged vampire that made me. I will not kill innocents.

From now on, I'm going to be the best person I can be. It's too bad I had to die to learn this. . .

This story is copyright Samantha Styers 2003. This will be edited and published at a later, undefined date. Penalty of theft will be severe.