Darkness

Chapter 3

Full and content from my meals, Henry and the anonymous girl, I decided to take a nap in the tallest tree I could find. It was a nice thick tree with long, chunky branches so I could easily spread out and get comfortable.
I scaled the tree and got settled on indeed one of those branches.
I sat with my back to the trunk and streched my legs out in front of me. I smoothed my hands over my blood crusted dress and started flicking the dried flakes off. I'll need a new dress, I thought.

Leaning my head back, and looking up at the sky, I watched the soft, white clouds flowing swiftly through the great blue heavens above.
Of course, I would never get to go to heaven, my soul was damned to hell. Well I didn't know that for sure, but I had committed some pretty gruesome sins in my time. My 414 years 6 months and 22 days to be precise.

Being a vampire meant you had to feed, obviously, so your target would be a human, and once you start feeding any good intentions you had of letting them live just gets pushed to the back of your mind and forgotten. So in the end you killed someone, an innocent someone, whether you planned to or not.

As I continued watching the clouds move freely in the sky, I heard rustling, a sound of movement, that wants to be noticed, in the tree next to me. I turned my head, craning my neck, to see what the sound was.
Due to the fact that it was so dark I couldn't see what the cause of the sound was properly, but calling upon my distinguished senses, my vision cleared and I could see into the shadows. There was a silloheuete of a tall, broad figure. The figure moved swiftly and gracefully, easily jumping down from the high branches and landing on the, mossy, sodden ground with a tiny thud. I knew that whatever or whoever it was wasn't a normal human.
I listened closely, there was no heartbeat, and judging from the way this silloheuete seemed to move, there was no doubt there was another vampire here with me.
Normally I would be able to sense other vampires, and who they were, but not this one, this one seemed to familiar.

Like I should already know who it was.

The shadow moved again, standing at the base of my tree, looking up at me. Whatever or whoever it was was wearing a cloak with a hood, pulled up, that covered most of their face, so I, couldn't make out who it was.

I shimmied myself up and gracefully balanced myself on the branch before jumping up onto a higher branch and swinging around to the other side of the thick trunk. I heard the shadow climb up the tree and heard one of the flimsy branches creaking.

I wanted to know what their intentions were. If it was a fellow vampire, which I'm pretty certain it was, what did they want with me? Was I on their territory?

When you're a vampire, you have a certain amount of space, called your 'territory' where you, and only you, can feed on humans and kill them. If another vampire, or anyone else for that matter, killed a human on a vampires' territory it meant...well death. Feeding or killing on a vampires territory without their permission will most likely get you hung or staked, if caught. The only way you could get out of being hung or staked was if the vampire owner that owned the territory didn't meet the certain requirements. Meaning you have to mark your territory by nailing a symbol to a tree or pitching up a board saying something like;

Trespassers will be prosecuted... and killed. Something to warn people of, but not make it too obvious so we get found out. But if you didn't officially mark your territory then anyone was free to do as they pleased.

But looking around there wasn't any sign of another's territory. So I couldn't be trespassing illegally.
I felt the mysterious persons' presence drawing nearer to me, and I still had that awful feeling of familiarity, like I knew who this stranger was but couldnt quite put my finger on it. I was still standing still, balancing effortlessly on the thin branch. When I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I immediately grabbed the hand off of my shoulder, and tugged on it sending the vampire falling and landing flat on the floor with a small grunt of annoyance.

I knew it wasn't a grunt of pain, because us vampires heal rather quickly, we heal even faster with blood in our systems, but say a vampire broke a bone, it would probably take two minutes to heal and mend again. And it probably wouldn't even hurt when it was broken. But, even better still, being 414 years 6 months and 22 days old like I am, makes you heal even faster. Because over that amount of time, one would've probably experienced their fair share of injuries, so a vampire body learns to become immune to them. So you have a huge, bloody gash, burn or broken bone, or any other other serious injury, yes of course it hurts at first but a few seconds later, one has forgotten all about it and is thinking about something else. Probably their next victim. Or plotting some kind of revenge on someone.

The vampire that I threw on the ground, made another sound as he stood up and said,
"Owchie" in a mock baby voice. Of course he wasn't actually in pain, he was just trying to be funny or being theatrical. To me he was just annoying, following me around like some stalker, probably without a reason, and I didn't even know him or what he wanted! I came to the conclusion that he was a he because of his build, and height.

I jumped down from my stance on the flimsy branch and landed behind him. I kicked him in the back of both of his knees, with all my vampire strength. And because it was sudden, and he wasn't prepared for it, he fell down again, face first this time.
That was funny.

I put my bare foot on his back forcefully, digging my heel in, and he tried to lift his head to speak but I wouldn't let him, as I moved my foot from his back, to his head and pushed down on the back of it so he face-planted the floor again.

" No, I speak; you answer." I demanded my voice laced with authority, as he grunted his confirmation into the sodden ground.
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
I asked angrily, I eased the pressure I was putting on his head with my foot, so he could speak, "Oh thank god, I couldn't breath down there!" He said,
"Just answer the question," I all but snarled at him.
He chuckled, "Please, if you knew who I was you'd be hugging me, not making my eat the damn floor!"
" Just answer me!" I spat.
"OK, OK, bossy boots," he put the hands that were bracing himself up in the air in a surrender.
" Maybe if you stop smushing my face in the earth and let yourself see what gorgeous creature you're somewhat standing on, you'd be surprised."

I was getting bored, angry and impatient now, so I listened and took my foot off of the back of his head, to let him roll over.
"Thank you, sis." He said rolling over. Sis, I thought, what's he on about, I've only ever been a sister to one person and he died centuries ago. I was confused, he had confused me.

He rolled over so he was lying on his back, and I was looking down at him. He reached up and pulled his hood up from covering his face. I don't know what face I was pulling but it felt wierd, like it didn't sit right on my face, as I looked down at him, my eyes locked with two emerald green eyes, the same colour as my own. No, it can't be, I thought. I sucked in a sharp breath when the man lying casually, with one hand behind his head, on the floor said,
"Hello sis, remember me?"