Changeling
I was only seventeen when I was changed, and it wasn't all that long ago that it happened. It was barely a year ago when I took the last breath that my body would depend on. Although I was, and still am, young, I am strong. The history of my people has always run deep within my blood, even before I took the final step and became one of them.
I had never met my father before the night I was changed. I never even knew his name, and if my mother did, she never told me. They had known each other solely by passing glance, so she told me, until the night he forced himself on her. Then he disappeared and never returned, until that night. I owe him not only my existence in this world, but the fact that I am still in this world to tell my story is also thanks to him. I would be dead along with my mother. Instead I was kept alive, at his request. But I was naïve. I fought.
I was never a religious girl. The darkness always fascinated me, but the light held me strong. Originally, I did not want to become like my father. I struggled against them, with fists and knives, with sweat and tears. But they had an endurance that I had not. Blood would not pour from them; their wounds healed instantly and bruises faded the moment they were given. Bloody and broken, I was forced to submit. I was dying from the loss of my own blood. I was faced with two choices: to refuse my father's offer and die, or to accept and live a half-life as one of his kind.
It was a painful night. I struggled to stay away, fearing that I would die despite what he said. When my body died my mind was still awake. It was pain that no living mortal body could have tolerated. But I am stronger for it. After all, you know what they say: the more pain, the more gain. Specifically, the more pain that is endured before and during the change, the more power the fledgling receives by it.
When I awoke, I knew something had changed. My senses we heightened. My sight was sharper, my hearing more acute, and my sense of smell more accurate. I could taste things on the wind, and feel every movement of the air around me on my skin. I could also sense something that mortals can't - aura, the sixth sense. It is the sense of the mind, something few can sense and even fewer understand.
He came to me, in that room with no windows, and although it was dark I could see him perfectly. It was then that he finally introduced himself to me as my father. His name felt strange on my lips - Khalid. He was one of the oldest, mortally born in Egypt, during the building of the Great Pyramids. I'd felt his name before, in my dreams and my nightmares. The power invoked by the name alone was alien to me. And then he told me the story of my past, the stories my mother had never told me but I'd always known existed.
He'd fallen in love with my mother, a mortal, and asked her to join him. But she refused hi blood and his life. Angry and, if possible, heartbroken, he got her with child and disappeared out of her life. He'd intended to return and use me to force her to accept. But it took seventeen years before he remembered his plan, and returned with a few of his allies in the middle of the night, ready to kill me.
My mother loved me far too much to let me go, even if it meant sacrificing herself in my place. By sheer accident, or maybe because of jealousy, Deime - a lover and ally of Khalid - killed my mother. She and the others drank her dry, and then, drawn by bloodlust, came after me.
One of them held the others back. His name was...Blake. He's a fledgling of his younger blood-sister, Kathryn. It was he who sensed a bit of Khalid on my aura and bounded back to speak with him. It was a strange event and worth taking notice of, and a bit scary. Blake had never met a mortal with a tint to their aura like mine. It happens once in a thousand years, I'm told. Blake says I should mention that he came with Khalid to help tell the story. I would have thought you could have figured that out on your own. They tell me I'm getting off topic.
Normally when a child is born, its original aura takes its form from the auras of its parents. Auras work a bit like DNA that way - they identify you. Of course, they also display emotion and life, but that's on a higher level of the aura. Now, my aura should have rightfully been almost identical to my mother's. But it wasn't. According to Blake, my aura was nearly twenty percent tainted. Even Khalid has never felt a mortal aura more than ten percent dark. Mortal women who bear the children of our kind normally die in childbirth, and often the child turns out as a miscarriage or dies soon after birth. I was a living miracle.
Blake brought Khalid up to the room in which I slept quickly, before the others could attack. He examined my aura as Blake had done and was shocked by the taint. He realized then that I was a perfect fledgling for him - those of our kind always have a touch of loyalty to our blood-parents, and mine to him would be even more because of the biological connection.
The two of them approached me with the looks of a group of hunters closing in on their prey. This is know because I had awoken, terrified. Along with the others they had brought from the beginning, they attacked. But the simple mortal weapons I had - a knife, or fingernails - were not powerful enough to create lasting injuries. I was soon tired and bloody while they looked fresh. I collapsed from blood loss and tiredness. That was when he offered me his blood. I accepted, realizing they would do the same to me as they did to my mother.
Blake now explains to me why they had to do that, rather than just ask from the beginning. Supposedly in the beginning, all those they would change fought, fearing their gods or the damnation of their souls. Everyone eventually submitted, but Chaos, our ruling entity, gave them an ironic punishment for causing trouble to his children. The more they had fought, the more completely they would turn, the more power they would have, the sharper the senses, the stronger the bloodlust, the greater the damnation. It was both a gift and a curse. If they resisted their new forms and tried to continue on as they had, they would die of it. If they accepted the gift given to them by their Lord and changed their way of being, they would become some of the most powerful.
Now Khalid interjects. He says that's what happened to Uzi, our eldest ancestor, a direct fledgling of Drake himself. Drake is The First, the greatest and most powerful of our kind. Khalid says that because of the extremely dark taint in my aura and the power I gained through fear and fighting, I have the potential to become as great as Uzi is today.
Blake laughs. He reminds us that Uzi is a Hebrew name; it means 'power'. Drake knew what he was doing when he gave Uzi his name. This startles me. I asked him how Drake named Uzi if he was already an adult when he was changed. Khalid tells me that when a mortal is changed, they leave behind their old name for a different one. Usually the blood-parent tells them their new name first, before they can remember anything else of their mortal life. But I needed to know my past to accept the strength, and he waited until I had properly come to.
Now he gives me a sidelong glance, and asks if I want to keep my name or if I want to be given a new one. I consider it for a moment before telling him to give me a new one. I don't want to break tradition, and I hate my name anyway. Khalid and Blake then move away, to confer with each other about my name. At last Khalid steps forward. He tells me my name.
Leila. My name is to be Leila. Blake whispers in my ear. It is a variant on 'Layla', an Arabic name meaning 'night'. I grin. It's a fitting name for any of us, but more so for me, as the night has ruled my mortal life as well as my newly begun one.
I can still see the fuzzy outline of my reflection in the mirror. I still visit my old friends every once and a while. Very few of them know what I have become. I can still stand the hot sun burning on my skin as I walk the streets in daylight. I am still mostly mortal, physically. It will take many years for me to reach my full power. But I have the time. Our kind does not die. We have all the time in eternity, to walk among the living and sleep among the dead. We are no longer truly alive, yet nor are we dead. My heart does not beat, and my blood sits still in my veins.
We are the greatest of all predators. Chaos is our mother, and Night our mother. We are not born, nor do we die. We are eternity. Indeed, child, we are the vampires.
I was only seventeen when I was changed, and it wasn't all that long ago that it happened. It was barely a year ago when I took the last breath that my body would depend on. Although I was, and still am, young, I am strong. The history of my people has always run deep within my blood, even before I took the final step and became one of them.
I had never met my father before the night I was changed. I never even knew his name, and if my mother did, she never told me. They had known each other solely by passing glance, so she told me, until the night he forced himself on her. Then he disappeared and never returned, until that night. I owe him not only my existence in this world, but the fact that I am still in this world to tell my story is also thanks to him. I would be dead along with my mother. Instead I was kept alive, at his request. But I was naïve. I fought.
I was never a religious girl. The darkness always fascinated me, but the light held me strong. Originally, I did not want to become like my father. I struggled against them, with fists and knives, with sweat and tears. But they had an endurance that I had not. Blood would not pour from them; their wounds healed instantly and bruises faded the moment they were given. Bloody and broken, I was forced to submit. I was dying from the loss of my own blood. I was faced with two choices: to refuse my father's offer and die, or to accept and live a half-life as one of his kind.
It was a painful night. I struggled to stay away, fearing that I would die despite what he said. When my body died my mind was still awake. It was pain that no living mortal body could have tolerated. But I am stronger for it. After all, you know what they say: the more pain, the more gain. Specifically, the more pain that is endured before and during the change, the more power the fledgling receives by it.
When I awoke, I knew something had changed. My senses we heightened. My sight was sharper, my hearing more acute, and my sense of smell more accurate. I could taste things on the wind, and feel every movement of the air around me on my skin. I could also sense something that mortals can't - aura, the sixth sense. It is the sense of the mind, something few can sense and even fewer understand.
He came to me, in that room with no windows, and although it was dark I could see him perfectly. It was then that he finally introduced himself to me as my father. His name felt strange on my lips - Khalid. He was one of the oldest, mortally born in Egypt, during the building of the Great Pyramids. I'd felt his name before, in my dreams and my nightmares. The power invoked by the name alone was alien to me. And then he told me the story of my past, the stories my mother had never told me but I'd always known existed.
He'd fallen in love with my mother, a mortal, and asked her to join him. But she refused hi blood and his life. Angry and, if possible, heartbroken, he got her with child and disappeared out of her life. He'd intended to return and use me to force her to accept. But it took seventeen years before he remembered his plan, and returned with a few of his allies in the middle of the night, ready to kill me.
My mother loved me far too much to let me go, even if it meant sacrificing herself in my place. By sheer accident, or maybe because of jealousy, Deime - a lover and ally of Khalid - killed my mother. She and the others drank her dry, and then, drawn by bloodlust, came after me.
One of them held the others back. His name was...Blake. He's a fledgling of his younger blood-sister, Kathryn. It was he who sensed a bit of Khalid on my aura and bounded back to speak with him. It was a strange event and worth taking notice of, and a bit scary. Blake had never met a mortal with a tint to their aura like mine. It happens once in a thousand years, I'm told. Blake says I should mention that he came with Khalid to help tell the story. I would have thought you could have figured that out on your own. They tell me I'm getting off topic.
Normally when a child is born, its original aura takes its form from the auras of its parents. Auras work a bit like DNA that way - they identify you. Of course, they also display emotion and life, but that's on a higher level of the aura. Now, my aura should have rightfully been almost identical to my mother's. But it wasn't. According to Blake, my aura was nearly twenty percent tainted. Even Khalid has never felt a mortal aura more than ten percent dark. Mortal women who bear the children of our kind normally die in childbirth, and often the child turns out as a miscarriage or dies soon after birth. I was a living miracle.
Blake brought Khalid up to the room in which I slept quickly, before the others could attack. He examined my aura as Blake had done and was shocked by the taint. He realized then that I was a perfect fledgling for him - those of our kind always have a touch of loyalty to our blood-parents, and mine to him would be even more because of the biological connection.
The two of them approached me with the looks of a group of hunters closing in on their prey. This is know because I had awoken, terrified. Along with the others they had brought from the beginning, they attacked. But the simple mortal weapons I had - a knife, or fingernails - were not powerful enough to create lasting injuries. I was soon tired and bloody while they looked fresh. I collapsed from blood loss and tiredness. That was when he offered me his blood. I accepted, realizing they would do the same to me as they did to my mother.
Blake now explains to me why they had to do that, rather than just ask from the beginning. Supposedly in the beginning, all those they would change fought, fearing their gods or the damnation of their souls. Everyone eventually submitted, but Chaos, our ruling entity, gave them an ironic punishment for causing trouble to his children. The more they had fought, the more completely they would turn, the more power they would have, the sharper the senses, the stronger the bloodlust, the greater the damnation. It was both a gift and a curse. If they resisted their new forms and tried to continue on as they had, they would die of it. If they accepted the gift given to them by their Lord and changed their way of being, they would become some of the most powerful.
Now Khalid interjects. He says that's what happened to Uzi, our eldest ancestor, a direct fledgling of Drake himself. Drake is The First, the greatest and most powerful of our kind. Khalid says that because of the extremely dark taint in my aura and the power I gained through fear and fighting, I have the potential to become as great as Uzi is today.
Blake laughs. He reminds us that Uzi is a Hebrew name; it means 'power'. Drake knew what he was doing when he gave Uzi his name. This startles me. I asked him how Drake named Uzi if he was already an adult when he was changed. Khalid tells me that when a mortal is changed, they leave behind their old name for a different one. Usually the blood-parent tells them their new name first, before they can remember anything else of their mortal life. But I needed to know my past to accept the strength, and he waited until I had properly come to.
Now he gives me a sidelong glance, and asks if I want to keep my name or if I want to be given a new one. I consider it for a moment before telling him to give me a new one. I don't want to break tradition, and I hate my name anyway. Khalid and Blake then move away, to confer with each other about my name. At last Khalid steps forward. He tells me my name.
Leila. My name is to be Leila. Blake whispers in my ear. It is a variant on 'Layla', an Arabic name meaning 'night'. I grin. It's a fitting name for any of us, but more so for me, as the night has ruled my mortal life as well as my newly begun one.
I can still see the fuzzy outline of my reflection in the mirror. I still visit my old friends every once and a while. Very few of them know what I have become. I can still stand the hot sun burning on my skin as I walk the streets in daylight. I am still mostly mortal, physically. It will take many years for me to reach my full power. But I have the time. Our kind does not die. We have all the time in eternity, to walk among the living and sleep among the dead. We are no longer truly alive, yet nor are we dead. My heart does not beat, and my blood sits still in my veins.
We are the greatest of all predators. Chaos is our mother, and Night our mother. We are not born, nor do we die. We are eternity. Indeed, child, we are the vampires.