Die a Hero

Haunting Pasts

That night more of the past came floating to the surface of my mind as I dreamed, and it wasn’t any of the parts of my past I cared to remember. Jackson and his family had lived with us for as long as I can recall, but it wasn’t always a happy history. I loved Jackson like a brother, and his mother, Lily, was like family, too, but I never liked his father. He always seemed mean, and at times even downright cruel. I was 8, going to go visit Jackson one day in one of the workers’ cabins at the back of the house when I heard shouting coming from inside the house. Worried for my friend and his mom, I rushed over, and burst in just in time to see Jackson’s dad plunge a knife into his mother’s gut. I had never seen so much blood before, nor felt such fear and rage. He noticed me and began to approach, and when Lily saw where he was going she screamed out for anyone who could hear to come help. I remember finding it odd that she was more concerned for my safety than her own. I didn’t think that help would arrive in time, so I felt that I had to do something quick or we were both in serious trouble. There was so much blood, and an odd smell filled the air, though it wasn’t unpleasant. Jackson’s dad grew ever closer, and Jackson was still nowhere to be seen, which also had me a bit worried. That man was vile, evil, despicable, foul, I wanted him gone, I wanted him dead. The strange smell grew stronger, and it was making me hungry. I lunged at him with a fury, intending to surprise him and take him down long enough to grab something to defend myself, but then I was on his back. My teeth sank into his neck, and as the blood touched my lips I lost all sense of myself. 
I don’t exactly remember what happened next, but according to my mom, when she found me I was still sucking on his bloodless corpse, trying to get every drop I could out. She left me to it as she rushed over to help Lily, claiming she figured it would be better if I came out of my blood-trance on my own and that Lily’s injuries were a more pressing concern. The former I was unsure about, but the latter I wholeheartedly agreed with, so I bore no ill will towards her for allowing me to continue on doing something so horrid. According to her, she just pulled the knife out and licked the wound and it started to heal right up, though it took a bit more vamp saliva, which apparently had miraculous healing properties, to fully do the trick. Lily also apparently lost a lot of blood, something that vamp saliva couldn’t heal for whatever reason, so despite being physically fine on the outside, she would need a lot of rest and extra sustenance for a while. It was at this point that my mother heard Jackson stirring in the other room, and quickly rushed over and pulled me off his father, wiped all traces of blood off my mouth, and snapped me back to reality. She asked me if I was fine to go watch over Jackson and make sure he didn’t come out to see the gruesome scene in his living room as she helped his mom into the main house to be cleaned up, disposed of the body, and cleaned the scene of blood. I said I was and headed towards Jackson’s door, but my mom stopped me before I got there, telling me very firmly not to tell him what had happened. I nodded and opened the door.
When I entered Jackson’s room, he was still halfway under the bed. “What are you doing under there, silly?” I asked in a tone that felt way too lighthearted considering what I had just done, “Are we playing hide and seek?”
He nodded his head, a look of deep sadness on his face. “Mom and dad are fighting again,” he said grimly, then, as if suddenly realizing my presence was abnormal for the situation, “What are you doing here?”
“My mom heard your mom shout, and so she came to see what was happening and help. I came to keep you company while the adults do whatever it is adults do to solve their problems.”
“Oh?” Jackson asked, seemingly unconvinced at first, but then a moment later, “Your mom should be careful, my dad is dangerous,” revealing he was really just concerned for the wellbeing of a friend.
“My mom will be just fine, she’s super tough and strong,” I assured my friend. At that moment I had an idea, “Hey, why don’t we sneak out through your window and play while the grown-ups do boring grown-up things?” I suggested.
Jackson’s face lit up at the suggestion, but just as quickly fell. “I’ll get in trouble if I go out,” he replied solemnly.
Thinking quick on my feet, I said, “we’ll be back before they even realize we were gone.”
Jackson seemed unsure at first, but my constant pestering finally broke him down, and he gave into peer pressure. We climbed out his bedroom window, leaving open, “so we can climb back in,” I told him, but it was really to let my mother know how we’d left and that we were okay when she came back and found his room empty. I dragged him towards the woods where we loved to play, where our treehouse and secret fort were. My mom later told me that when she discovered we were gone and saw the window was open, she smiled wide at her clever little girl.
Jackson and his mom moved into the main house after that day. My mom took care of bringing over their stuff herself, not wanting us to enter the house and have to again face the horrors that still lived there, when all other life had vacated. 
The few months that followed moved quickly. My mother announced to the household the following week that we would be moving to America. She assured the staff that the house would continue to belong to our family, and that they would all still have employment if they chose to remain. For those who were coming with us, our family still had some matters to attend to to facilitate the move, and our date of departure would be announced later, but she recommended packing our belongings with utmost haste. Jackson, initially bummed at our impending separation, was delighted to learn that his mother and him were coming along with us, though we never let him in on the true reason why. As for his father’s disappearance, my mother simply explained that, after his last fight with his mother, she had asked him to vacate the grounds and never return, under threat of arrest, and that, with the help of a very good lawyer, Jackson and his mother were now free of his violent ways. I think he might’ve resented her a bit for that. Even though he was a monster, he was still his father.
My mother made the decision to rent out the property to a lovely family of four, who had just come into a vast fortune due to the discovery of some rare or highly sought after resource on their farm. I was too young to care much about the specifics, but I do remember that not long after that there started a bit of construction behind the house, as structures to house animals were built and the animals themselves moved in. My mom claimed it was so the animals could get used to their new home, and the staff who would remain behind could get used to them and their needs. I was pretty sure this was all so she had a fool-proof way of getting rid of the body. She had since buried it so she could burn down the cabin it had occupied before putting the estate up for lease, but it unsettled me that it could still be found, and I think it unsettled her, too. Sure enough, pigs were one of the first animals to arrive, and their slop seemed extra chunky the first week. 
I’d learned that pigs would eat anything when I was about 5 and I decided I wanted one as a pet after seeing a particularly cute one at the zoo. My mom flat out refused, and when I asked why, her response was, “They eat everything, they’d destroy the house. Plus, things that eat anything are unclassy and disgusting.” That last part felt like a slightly offensive dig, but at what I had no idea.
My mother insisted on taking care of our move to America all by herself, leaving my father only to find himself suitable employment once we settled there. She found and purchased a house with a sizable amount of land surrounding it, and had construction on any necessary staff accommodations started immediately. She booked passage for every member of the departing company to arrive on the day after all the preparations were to be finished, leaving nothing left to do than to pack and prepare for the move. And, of course, talk about how I’d completely drained a man of blood in almost no time flat.
My mom sat me down in a room in the house that I had previously been forbidden from entering and told me all the things about herself she had tried to keep from me up until then. She explained how she was a vampire who had been alive for centuries, turned in early Roman times. How she met my dad and fell in love, and he found out and loved her anyways. How they’d had me, their little miracle child, thinking  they couldn’t have kids. She told me that she didn’t know how much of me was her and how much of me was my father, with human-vampire hybrids being so rare. She explained that, when turned while they’re still young, vampires can have an extremely difficult time controlling themselves when feeding, and asked me to refrain from feeding until I was older and she could teach me how to do it properly. I enthusiastically agreed to this, despite the fact that my taste of blood had left me wanting more, as I did not want to do what I did to Jackson’s father to anyone else. What I did made me afraid of myself, and that’s a feeling I was not fond of in the slightest. 
The scene changed, and I was sitting at the table in our house in America, 13 years old now. My mother has a guest over, a smooth talking gentleman trying to sell my mother on some new business venture. I don’t like him, and by the look on my mother’s face she’s not a fan, either. She stares at the man with glassy eyes as he drones on, and suddenly perks up when an idea crosses her mind.
“Raven, you’re 13 now, yes?” she asks me, cutting the gentleman off mid-sentence. He seems confused, and I am not less so.
“Yes,” I replied hastily.
“Ah, perfect, many turned 13-year-olds have no problem controlling themselves when they feed. I think now is the perfect time to start your training,” she exclaimed excitedly. The gentleman seemed no less confused, but my mouth started to water at the thought of the sweet substance that had plagued my mind for the past many years.
“Okay,” I replied eagerly, and rushed to the side of the gentleman, desperately itching for a bite.
“Now slow down,” my mother said, trying to calm me down, “first thing’s first.” She pulled up a seat behind me and I sat down. She grabbed the arm of the gentleman that was directly next to me and placed his forearm in my hand. He protested at first, but fell silent when my mother told him not to worry. She then walked to the other side of the table and sat directly opposite me.
“Now, focus. Focus on what you can see, hear, smell, feel, and when you feel like you’re starting to lose yourself, stop. Most importantly, though, never take your eyes off of mine,” she instructed, before giving me the go-ahead to start feeding.
I was hesitant at first, but I focused on what she said and put his wrist up to my mouth. My teeth pierced his skin, and I was able to hold on for only a split second before I lost myself. Release echoed through my mind and I let go. I did it, I thought, before realizing a split second later that it was my mother’s voice that had brought me back to my senses. She sighed, looking slightly disappointed but unsurprised. She looked the man in the eyes before telling him to forget he was ever here and to never return. I watched incredulously as he left, and my mother turned to me.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“Basic hypnosis,” she replied, “some vampires have abilities, hypnosis is one of the most common, but by no means the only one. It’s a pretty useful skill, considering I could’ve gotten nothing like the dude who turned me. I was just lucky, I guess.”
“Will I be able to do that?” I asked.
“Don’t know, it’s all pretty random, and it’s not like there’s a way to test this stuff.” Her response disappointed me, having a cool ability like hypnosis could come in handy.
“In the future you have to remember not to lose yourself in the taste of the blood or how good it feels when it hits your lips,” she started lecturing. I hung my head, disappointed in myself and regretful that I had messed up so bad. At this rate, mother would never let me touch blood again. I perked up, however, when she continued, “we’ll have to train more often now that you’re getting older, you need to learn some time.”
I began training to control myself when I feed whenever I got injured or if we had an unwanted guest stop by. All the faces of the people who nourished me, some strangers, some familiar and comforting, started mixing together, melting. My mother’s voice, “Release, release, release,” echoing every time I failed to get myself under control. Her intense eyes, hypnotizing every one of my would-be victims to forget what I’d done to them, hypnotizing me to behave. I felt suddenly unsure of myself. I began to lose myself in a different way, one a simple hypnotic command couldn’t bring me back from. I felt like a beast, out of control but trapped in a cage. I see Jackson’s face the first time he accidentally saw me feeding. He was so scared, I am released from my trance not by my mother that time, but by my friend. I hurried after him, desperate to explain. Suddenly I’m in front of him and he screams, and I scream because I’m confused at what just happened, and just as scared. My mother’s there, telling him to forget, but I don’t want him to forget. It happens again, he always screams, I learn not to. I don’t want him to forget. He’s my best friend, he’s like my brother, I don’t want to keep secrets. I don’t have a choice, I never have a choice. I want to scream again, this time out of frustration. I’m a beast, dangerous, and he can never know or else I’ll seem dangerous to him, even though I don’t want to hurt anybody. I want to tear off my skin, be somebody else, but as the layers peel away I appear more and more fearsome. I cry and scream out, I try to make myself bleed, but every scar I try to make heals up just as fast. I’m not human anymore, I want to be human again, please.
I’m shaken awake, glad to be released from that nightmare. I look up at my savior, and see Charlie's face, full of concern and fear. The moment I recognized the fear I sprang back, desperate to get away so I dodn't hurt him, but his expression melts to surprise, worry, and mild agitation as soon as I do.
“You’re bleeding all over my bed,” he announces, a hint of exasperation in his voice.
I look down and notice I’d torn out some of my stitches, and that blood was oozing out of the wounds they had been helping to keep shut. I apologize profusely and he leads me downstairs to his office, which smells considerably nicer than it did when he carried me through it the night before. The time on the clock read nearly noon, and tiny rays of sunlight filtered through windows I had only ever had brief glimpses of before last night. He sat me down on the bed, but instead of preparing to stitch me up again, he swabbed all of my wounds and applied gauze over the ones that were bleeding. 
He then disappeared into the other room and left me alone, unsupervised and unrestricted for about 15 minutes. The blood soaked through the gauze, and I looked in the drawer where he had taken it from for some more. Sure enough, there was an ample supply, and I replaced the ones already on my wounds as needed until he returned. When he did, he walked over to the fridge, unlocked it, and pulled out a bag of blood before attempting to hand it to me. I recoiled, and a look of surprise crossed his face.
“It’s perfectly safe, I’ve been running tests to monitor to see if you have any more of what you call ‘vamp poison’ in your system, and the tests showed up completely clean for the first time yesterday. I was going to wait a few more days just to be safe, but, after double checking the results just now, it seems as good a time as any to start speeding up your healing process. What, now that it’s finally ‘safe’ for you to have it you don’t want it anymore, Mr.‘Vampire’?” he said, mockingly chuckling to himself before continuing, “You know, you had me believing there for a minute, but when it came down to it you just couldn’t seal the deal. That was quite the story you told me last night, by the way. Props for historical accuracy, from what I could tell.”
I didn’t care if he believed me or not about being a vampire, but having what I’d been through mocked after the nightmare I’d just had set me off. I angrily swiped the bag from his hand and started drinking. I downed the whole bag in an instant, before noticing the satisfied smirk on his face. I threw the empty bag at him and glared intensely.
“Good boy, would you like another?” he asked as if I were a dog who’d just done an impressive trick and was getting a treat as a reward.
“I’m not in the mood,” I scowled, before getting up to storm off somewhere and running smack into an ice wall. “Ow.”
“Sorry, but I can’t have you go roaming around unsupervised, you might hurt yourself, as you’ve shown a habit of doing. Besides, if you’re not going to heal yourself, I’m going to have to stitch you up again.” He had a point, as annoying as it was.
“Fine,” I said reluctantly, and sat back down on the bed.
He was silent for a while as he concentrated on his work. “You know, it can be helpful to talk about it,” he finally said.
“Not now,” I replied tiredly.
He finished stitching me up in silence, before getting up to leave the room and giving me a, “I’m here if you ever need or even just want to talk about anything.” The ice wall didn’t go back up as he disappeared into the living room. I laid back down and looked at the ceiling, thinking for a while. As much as I didn’t want it, that bag of blood felt good. Finally, despite my best efforts, sleep took me again, though this time the dreams were blissfully unmemorable.