Immortal Memory (Iris' Atlantis 1)

3: Home

Timothy

I watched out the train window. I would soon arrive to Dale. It didn't seem to be raining.

I didn't really think he would kill me.

I bent to move the laptop from the table and put it back into my backpack.

It wasn't that Blizzard couldn't, I had actually seen him kill a human being. But to my knowledge he had no reason to do so. In that respect many a vampire resembled a wild animal, a cat maybe. It wouldn't attack, unless clearly provoked.

And I really didn't think I could provoke Blizzard even close to a point where my life would be in any danger. No, I would walk out the dojo on Tuesday with my own feet.

But would I walk out with my own free will? Now that was a bit more complex a question.

I pondered this as I stepped onto the platform and started my way to my parents' house. It was a Sunday morning. Twelve. My family would be at the the only church in town. As Atlantis wasn't really a Christian country, the Christian temples were few and far between. The oldest one was here in Dale and I more than suspected it was the reason for why my parents had wanted to settle here, intead of in the capital where they already owned a house.

My father wasn't really that religious. But my sister and mother were. And usually he felt like accompanying them. I didn't really get along with my mother, Sage. She had some clear ideas of what kind of a relationship a person should have with the divine. And I had disagreed since I was thirteen, old enough to actually miss any divine presence in my life.

"I think there are three types of people in this life," Blizzard said.

I looked up at the huge vampire. The night was late. Grass had gathered a layer of white frost that glistened under street lamps as we walked. My breath misted in pale clouds.

"There are people that have found a divine path to suit them, people that are preoccupied by other things... And then there are the lost ones, the ones that still hunger for something they have never experienced."

The memory stopped me in my tracks. And for the first time in over a year, I let myself feel the bang of loss. Blizzard had been... He hadn't been really like a father or a friend either. Maybe more like a big brother I respected greatly but with whom I could talk. Someone that had had time for just me.

I had met him at the start of high-school, when my father had temporarily moved to France for his work and the big house had been left for just Mimosa and me. I had been forced to learn to cook then.

At first Blizzard had seemed divine. Beautiful, powerful, and gentle beyond my comprehension. He had been substituting a teacher for an optional taiji course in the evening. The intended teacher had simply broken a leg in a less than graceful fall in the slippery time of winter.

I had taken the course for some extra credits, accompanied by three other students and a curious janitor.

Only later I had met Mo, the tribe leader of Breasinghae vampires. And that encounter had put Blizzard to perspective, immortal perspective. And Mo still came the closest I had ever been to anything I would classify as a god.

I furrowed my brow in thought and stopped to admire the autumn coloring by the river banks I was walking. Some leaves dropped to the water and were swallowed under the surface by the strong current.

I had met a man, an alchemist that could make a new body to one that had been without. Wasn't that now scarily close to creating life?

Before long I arrived to a nice neighborhood of wooden houses with big yards that were separated by green fences. I found the one I was looking for, with its two stories and gray green paint. I had done my share in repainting the house over the summer. My house in Breasinghae was of white tile. The wooden façade of my parents' current home needed much more frequent care. Fortunately wood was easy enough to paint. I wouldn't have known what to do if the mortar started falling at home.