Echo

Birthing a Beast

New Orleans, Louisiana - May 20,
1973

"Cara," the boy would say. "Cara. It is such a pretty name don't you think?"

"Pete, can't you just shut up?" I would sigh. He would roll over and play with my hair and be silent for a few minutes before kissing my neck, to get me to take my shirt off.

"Maybe tonight," I would always say.

"Maybe now?" He would suggest, pulling on the clasp of my bra. I would always let him get that far before sighing and putting a shirt on and going to bed.

There was one morning when I woke up and Peter wasn't laying next to me. I could sort of hear his faint heartbeat, so I thought maybe he was making breakfast or watching TV or getting ready to work. But the smell of the gas from the stove wasn't there, the noise of a stupid action movie wasn't blaring, and it was a Sunday. Peter never worked on Sundays.

"Hey Pete? You home, babe!?" I called. No reply.

"Peter!" I got out of bed and pulled my sleeves over my hands.

"PETE!!" I screamed when the faint heartbeat stopped. I ran down the steps and around the house.

"Car-Cara." Someone whispered.

"Peter," I shook when I saw him laying on the tile floor.

"Car, is that even your real name," he choked. I fell to his side and rubbed his cheeks shaking my head.

"Shhh, don't try and talk you'll only make it worse."

"Cara, is that your--your real name." I cried a little and kissed his forehead.

"I told you that I would tell you when you were all old and wrinkly and dying. Not now, you are so young. A baby still in his diapers. It's not your time."

"Please, you told me your deepest secret. You--you told me your lust, your--" he stopped talking and coughed blood. "--you promised." I ran my fingertips down his cheek and over his light hair.

"I can't, you're gonna be fine." He jerk forward and coughed into a fit of shaking. I grabbed him and held him in my lap.

"You're gonna be fine."

That morning was the last one that mattered to me. I wished I had done something. I wished that I had turned him, but I couldn't burden him with the same pain as the one I had taken on for nearly two centuries. But I could have just left him to rot on the kitchen floor, I didn't though. I took him to the woods and made him a proper grave with a carved rock as a headstone. For a good ten years I went back every May 20th because I missed him. Eventually it became too much and nothing was right. I ran away from New Orleans, from Louisiana, from people. It wasn't the way I should have lived. Being around humans and the blood. It's not the life I ever dreamed of living. The life my sister and I stayed up late talking about was much simpler. She wanted to become something more. I believe her exact words were: "I don't want to be damned to normality." She was always the free spirit. I lived life too safely and with a stick up my ass. Until I met Kie.

The English countryside - July 6, 1764

Kie was a drunkard in my village. My mother and him had an affair June 13, 1754 that pushed my father and brother to commit suicide by going off to war. When I saw him again I was 18, five years after my sister's death. He was a pervert, tried to get in my pants. I ran away but he was fast, really fast. There was so much lust in his eyes, but not for me. It was more of a terrifying hunger than thirst for something he could touch.

"I can hear your heartbeat. It's so steady . . . why is that?" He questioned. I struggled against his tough grip, but I couldn't pull out.

"Let me go you pig!" I spat. He leaned in so his lips practically pressed into my neck.

"Aren't you afraid?" He hummed before sinking his newly sharpened canines into my neck. I gasped and then felt oddly relieved. There was a long period where he drank from my neck and then the black spots began to appear. I could feel myself slipping away slowly. He stopped after he had taken everything. Before I died he bent over me and bit his wrist open.

"You will no longer have to fear death love," he hummed and dropped the metallic liquid into my mouth. I felt heavy again and watched him smirk through the slits in my eyes.

When I woke up everything was different. The candle beside me was more illuminating than it was supposed to be, I could hear everything down to the smallest movement of the leaves of that tree my sister fell from, I could even smell the flowing blood of people in the buildings surrounding me.

"It is lovely is it not?" A gruff voice said smoothly. I jumped and gathered the sheets around my chest.

"No need to be scared, love. Here, you must be hungry," the man who spoke to me hushed. My stomach sank a little because I thought he would set something like soup on front of me. He didn't. Instead he called into the hallway for "Felicity". A short brunette walked in and the man guided her to me.

"Here, drink up," he instructed. I cocked my head, confused before sinking my teeth into her wrist. Some days after that when the high from blood had worn off, I convinced myself that it was my newly found instincts telling me to survive. But what really got me were those people in the room with me.

I mustered all of my courage to ask the man his name. To which he chuckled and replied:

"I'm Cooper Hedron." I nodded and watched him walk around the room.

"What's your name, love?" I smiled and debated silently on whether or not to tell the truth.

"I'm Mary Lockwood."

The man laughed and held his hand out for me to take. I took it and he lifted me out of bed.

"Mary, I am about to show you how to truly live."