Insomnia

Act I

Vampire POV

The round aroma of the caramel was spreading around the kitchen, left alone on the counter the mug was long forgotten. As the timid morning sun peeked through the light sage curtains, a figure walked past one of the wooden stools to grab a raisin biscuit. It really was a misconception that some peculiar creatures couldn't eat normal food and drink normal drinks. She couldn't gain nutrients from them, but that didn't mean she would stop enjoying them altogether just because she was, as a matter of fact, dead. It helped hiding in the crowd, so no one, along the centuries, had ever bothered to correct said belief. Along with many others.

The soft couch puffed as the creature landed on it without any grace, emerald tracksuit hugging her cold body, slim fingers holding the book she was reading earlier. As a daughter of the night, she found peace in reading as many books as she could and, not ever really feeling tired, Time helped her expanding the collection. She learned of societies, of how humans changed throughout the years, languages evolving and her, well, adapting along with them. She wasn't the kind young lady who lived in a perhaps too old mansion, planting flowers in her garden, shopping at the town market, being chased by fire and torches. She conformed to the customs of the year she was passing through, much like a chameleon, but vanishing just before someone could notice the youth never abandoning her.

And if a couple hundred years prior Time mocked her by passing agonizingly slow, now it was a race she didn't really have the will to run, unlike mortals. A smile crept in her soft lips as she picked up the story where she left it. The comforting sensation of the paper on the fingertips, woody perfume of the pages dancing with the caramel tea that still lingered around, the beverage now cold as her pale skin. It was early in the morning so the building was relatively quiet, the far away jingle of house keys signaling maybe a couple of black suits had to abandon the warmth of the bed to go to the office. Almost anguished huffs and puffs and groaning bouncing through the staircase. Humans' daily routine was quite interesting to listen to, witnessing the changes in habits throughout the centuries. And it gave her ideas on how to better blend in, on what to do with her own days and nights.

Growing old, so to say, she picked up jobs here and there when the times allowed her. So she went from pretending to be a wealthy heiress to writing for journals, correcting manuscripts and collaborating with publishing groups. She enjoyed spending some of her infinite time surrounded by written words, furthermore having a job created for her and those she encountered, a sense of reality. As if she was still human. Alive. She could work at night, reducing the occasions to leave the house at daytime to the bone. She even had a studio at home so she could hold meetings with particularly demanding clients, one of them being the man she was expecting that afternoon. 

As the day progressed she had managed to correct a couple of chapters from a new book, answer a few emails and sneak in a break to take a relaxing bath. For creatures like Edith night and day blended so perfectly that her routine started before the break of dawn. Alas that also meant that some days were perceived as longer than others, making her grow restless from time to time, hunger peeking through the brain and trying to get itself known. Sometimes it was manageable, she could easily ignore it and go on with her routine, but today... Today, the fact that she had to guest one of the authors working for her publishing house and that Thomas, her boss, described him in the worst way possible and had asked her several times whether she was confident on meeting him alone at her place, it only made her anxious. Throughout the years she had met several men with awful personalities or convinced that God gave them life to bring light onto this world. She managed to defend herself without excessively harming them, only a couple of times actually killing one or two. Unfortunately, as Time passed and humans evolved, killing a man was not an option anymore, especially if she didn't want to disappear again. So she knew it was for the best to hold it in, maybe she could have gone hunting that night, sipping on a couple of people with no real harm for them other than a headache in the morning and maybe some nausea. So, right now, she just had to hold it in. Ignore that voice screaming to be fed.