The thing about Rasheen Perpetua is this: as much as he chooses to forget, he cannot help but to relive.
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Time.
It's a funny thing.
Isn't it?
It's a languid thing, slowly passing, slowly eroding, slowly existing – untouchable to all. It continues moving in something that isn't linear, isn't possible to truly be graphed. It's like laughter liquefied, except not as content; similar to a wave's kiss, except not as silky; comparable to a gargled scream, except not as contained. And perhaps that's why it intrigues the lives of all who walk the earth. Maybe it's because everyone knows it's a concept made by physicists, wanting a measurement; or, conceiving it's due to the fact that time doesn't give one damn about the human existence.
But people care about time, revolve their entire lives around it.
Because how long did it take for him, with his left-winged liberal ways, to upset a right-winged conservative man? A day. Because how long did it take for him, with his quick-footed ways, to escape a literal bloodbath with pulsing legs? A few hours. Because how long did it take for him, with his eyes cast in a dream, to spend moments drenched in a nightmare? An hour. Because how long did it take for him, with gentle and benevolent thoughts, to crave the destruction of many of his own? A minute. Because how long did it take for him, with future-filled thoughts, to reminisce his past time of before? A second.
Because how long did it take for him, with loyal blood, to stay with his clan, to not turn his back on newfound family, to not turn back into the human he misses?
I...
He can't answer that one, because desires like those don't die or dim with the passing of time.
Rasheen could choose to forget it all, but he's living this reality; he has been for the past three years. He could have gotten over it, his deal gone wrong, he supposes, if it hadn't been for the pain he feels. It's nothing metaphorical, of course – he's not that whimsical. No, the pain he's experiencing is coming from the spot in which he broke dawn a little over three years ago: two, tiny teeth marks erupting from the side of his neck. Had it been like the sting from a sterilized needle, or even the gash left from a papercut, he's sure he could ignore it.
But it starts strongly, and he's sure it will only end in a worse condition.
Maybe if I...replace it with another hurt?
He remembers when he was young and would get chronic headaches, he would always start thinking of his tummy instead. He would think of a boiling ice and melting lava pit inside his stomach, rupturing and erupting. Somehow, those thoughts would make him forget about his head pain, and when he realized the ache was over, he could simply stop concentrating on his stomach. Certainly, he could have taken a pill as to not waste time focusing on an untouchable tangent, and he acknowledges this – but where would he be now? Where would he get a capsule for the stinging of a vampire's bite?
Nowhere.
He realizes that answers both questions, and he smiles ironically.
Standing from the sole chair in his apartment's living room, he makes his way over to the treadmill in the corner. When he bought it a year or so ago, the salesclerk had recognized him from school and asked why he needed a machine when he was always running outdoors anyway. Rasheen hadn't even considered that, honestly. So he replied with a meek, "I get cold sometimes." It was a lie, because the lack of blood running through his veins leaves him a constant state of self-cold, not a "sometimes" gig.
