Libra's Symphony (Alec Volturi x OC)

Gone

For the first time in years, I inhaled deeply and savoured a blissful intake of very fresh air. The sun was still disappearing in the horizon, casting elongated shadows all over the city. The budding evening was nothing like I expected my first night out of the castle to be; it was quiet and empty but not in a comforting way. Its silence was nearly sepulchral, the emptiness of the streets almost post-apocalyptic. There was no buzzing in the distance, no murmurs nearby, nothing that could indicate any type of regular human activity in some other part of the town. I could hear people inside their homes, their footsteps poorly contained by their walls, but outside there were only the four of us up on the rooftops - ominous vigilants, shadows in the night. Looking around, I felt like the final girl in a horror film, right in the scene where she runs from the killer through the deserted suburban streets of the typical american neighbourhood she inhabits; so utterly alone that the suspension of disbelief the situation requires from a spectator is a bit too much.

The unusual state of the world was the only thing allowing me to be out at such a young age, so I couldn't really complain. The pandemic opened the doors of the palazzo for me and for Natalia after only two years of our transformation, letting us explore the place we had been living in for the first time, and with very little watching. Of course, with no one out in the streets, it was a very underwhelming experience for Nat.

"What is the point?" she whined again when we jumped from the roofs to land softly on an alley, "there is no one out anywhere, nothing is happening. There is nothing to see."

I wasn't particularly interested in seeing people anyway, so I was quick to disagree with her.

"Stuff here is older than our country, are you seriously not even curious to see some of it?"

Demetri chuckled from behind us. "Don't even bother. This one has no appreciation for such things."

Nat squinted her eyes at the way he said "this one", but didn't comment on it. She had learnt to keep a lot of her opinions to herself after the transformation unlocked her gift, which made both our lives much easier in Volterra.

"I'm just happy we can be out at all. You kept complaining about claustrophobia the whole time, one would think you would like to be out even if the city is under lockdown."

She huffed. "I meant claustrophobia from always being around the same people. These guys were suffocating me."

"You hurt me, my dear." Felix took a hand to his chest in a dramatic display, prompting Demetri to laugh.

"You do not deserve the honour of our company! What an ungrateful child."

Demetri's over-the-top offended tone made me laugh along with them, making Nat scrunch up her face.

"Ugh, I'm not in the mood to walk around empty streets. It's too morbid, I'm just gonna head back."

"Oh, dear Natalia, you are not seizing your opportunities. We don't have to stay within the city limits, we can venture further away and engage in other types of activity. We have permission, have you forgotten?"

My body tensed. It was obvious that he was referring to the masters allowing the guard to hunt outside of Volterra since Heidi started having trouble gathering tourists. She would still "fish", as they called it, but the ruse of tourism wasn't as efficient to attract enough humans for everyone and not nearly as often as before. She had to adapt her tale to include health purposes, and even then it became significantly more difficult to fly a large number of humans to us. However, with young and healthy people dropping like flies on a daily basis, we were eventually allowed to hunt somewhat close to the city as it wouldn't attract much attention; the death rate was too high at that moment for our feeding to be noticed. A faint memory tried to make its way back to me, a human memory of a film I watched a few times... vampires feeding without preoccupation during the Plague, causes of death not being looked into...