Insomnia

Prologue

Time for an immortal being is something relative. The sun rises and sets marking one day after the other at an almost unsettling pace. It's uncanny, really. How some days pass slower than others, almost as if life – well, more like death, but still – were in slow-motion. The world around keeps moving, living, busy with everyday life, breathing, and time almost seems like it's never enough. Except Time is a tricky friend to someone who stopped counting minutes long ago. It almost mocks the being stuck in its circle, trapped, destined to lure and watch everyone else perish. And it's unnerving, really, how no one seems to understand how an immortal being is someone to pity rather than hunt. But torches and pitchforks, ruins of ancient mansions, dust born from untamed fires seems to prove empathy is long gone for these creatures being mocked by Time itself.

And yes, sometimes, being blood the only source of nourishment, it happens some newborns might kill a human or two, but mistakes can be condoned. If you are human, at least, it seems. Other creatures are marked as monsters, destroyers of lives, horrors lurking around, waiting for an unsuspecting victim only to take their life away. That's a social construct humans apparently love, but it's still silly. Silly to think where a predator is, a prey isn't. That's the law of Nature. And Nature, more than Time, is fair and square. Humans, after all, hunt animals all the time, so do other beings. But humans, they have to blame someone for their misfortune, some entity. So if one of them dies, even by accident, it was God's fault, or the Devil's. Or the Monster's.

The light from the fire spreading creates a dancing design on the creature's profile as she watches the mob from the main hall's window. It's silly, honestly. A man died by someone's hand and now she has to pay for it. Flames starting to engulf the flowers she carefully planted over the past few years, she scoffs. The fire is climbing the eastern walls of the small mansion she moved into some time ago, she doesn't really remember when. A small fragment of her life is in that house, a part so minuscule she doesn't care if it gets burnt down. Still... A disappointed movement of the head and she moves away from the glass. If the pantomime of a life she's been living for the past centuries has taught her something is that heat can make glass explode when you least expect it. And while it may not kill her, well, it still hurts afterwards.

The nose picks up the ashy smell from afar meaning both the mob and the fire are moving fast. Time seems to be mocking her, smirking and betting she won't have time to get out before they get to her. Before they burn her alive. A resigned sigh leaves her lips. She tried to get along with the villagers. Offered help, disguised her nature by hunting far from them, leaving them unharmed, even the worst ones. Thinking back now, she really should have killed a few. Plucked the bad apples from the tree before the disease spread to everyone else.

The yelling mass is flooding her house unceremoniously, no greetings except for the profanities bleeding from their mouths. And if a moment ago she didn't regret letting them live, she sure does now. Fear is the worst enemy someone could have, it reaches every bit of sanity, devours rationality without mercy, leaving a crowd of scared people looking for the monster who ruined their lives. Allegedly, if they ever cared about that. Mud is decorating the once ivory carpets, almost nothing is left of the sage green curtains. The kitchen is an utter mess where not even her favourite tea set was spared. She reaches for the leather suitcase to stuff some garments inside, a pair of lace boots, essential toiletries. The creature gazes over the small petals of the forget-me-not scattered in the master bedroom's floor, she can't remember if they smelled of anything at all, but they were still her favourites. Ironically, she wishes for the mob to forget her and move on to the next ghost who will hunt their mortal lives.

Something they will never know is that the mansion has secret doors in every room, small corridors where humidity suffocates who stays for long enough. Hidden crevices that allow the person engulfed in the dark coat to pass the angered crowd without even being heard. Complete silence wouldn't help them hear the fast pace she's walking. Some of the walls are warm, a sign the flames are starting to climb them on the outside. She stops before she reaches the ivy clinging to the secret passage leading outside the back of the house. Just a few steps from the woods she so dearly came to love in the past few years. The monster stares behind her for a couple of minutes, echoes of the brief time she impersonated one of them resonating through the stone walls. She sighs with a hint of resignated sadness staining the crimson eyes.

It's time for her to leave.

Again.