Chapter 1

2.3K 135 76
                                    

Alesco:

We've been here for a week and I think we'll have to leave soon. Again. We always have to move, to run, to escape, to hide.

This house must have looked good in its day. Now it's run down, the 5 bedrooms coated in a layer of dust. The furniture is old, wooden desks and antique bookshelves. The ceilings are high and the plaster moulds hold candle chandeliers. The fireplaces look like they haven't been used in years.

It's probably lucky we can see in the dark, and are immune to the cold. We live for the cold, for the dark.

"Alesco!" My mother shouts up at me. I'm standing in the dusty hallway at the top of the immense, wooden staircase. "Come down stairs."

I live here, for now, with my mother and father and two brothers. I'm the youngest. My family is all that I have. We move too much to make friends. And there's not so many of us left now since the hunting began.

We're hiding from a predator, who hunts in daylight, who can move with speed, who could turn us. I saw it happen once, before we ran. Our village was attacked. I don't know what happened to the rest of them, but I saw my uncle turned. He changed before my eyes. My father had to carry me away.

I go downstairs, the floor creaking as I walk. I like to walk with heavier steps, to feel the reactions of the ground. Naturally we are built for stealth. We can move with the lightness of a feather and the speed of a running cheetah.

The living room has a similar appearance to upstairs, there is a blue sofa, worn and torn, thick with dust. It smells of must and age and moths. A stained and chipped coffee table takes up the center of the room. Two mismatched brown arm chairs and a rocking chair.

My father is in the rocking chair, gently swaying. My two brothers occupy the arm chairs. My entire family has black hair – the black of bats or midnight or bottomless pits. My father and brothers have red eyes, the colour of blood. My mother and I have yellow eyes, cat-like.

My mother moves towards father, carrying what seems to be a ball of orange fluff. She looks at me as she hands it to my father.

"Clemente has brought us Fox." she says. "Give him thanks."

I kneel and give thanks to the oldest of my brothers. He nods, a solemn look on his face. My other brother, Wynn, flashes me a smile, white fangs gleaming in the darkness.

The wind howls outside, rustling the trees. This house is surrounded by trees. It was built in the midst of a forest.

I take my seat on the sofa next to my mother and we wait while my father drinks. His pale face whitens and starts to glow. This is our first meal for three days. He savours every drop – who knows when the next will be.

My two brothers look like my father, long nosed, pale and thin. Their looks don't give away their strength. I'm told I look like my mother, pale face, almost the white of snow, tall, elegant, graceful. Black hair long and shining. I don't know if our faces match, I don't have a reflection. The mirror stares right through me. I often wonder what it's like to stare at yourself.

The fox is passed around, my father to my brothers, then to my mother and, finally, to me.

It's warm, a fresh kill. I feel the blood refreshing me, restoring life, brightening me. I have no blood of my own, I'm a vampire. I was born a vampire, as were my brothers. I'm 17 years old. It's around 30 when we stop ageing. My parents have lived a lot longer, hundreds of years.

It should be easy for vampires, we can reproduce for eternity. We don't die natuarally. It was easy, until the hunt began.

The hunt has been going for 100 years now. My father remembers its beginnings. He sometimes tells us tales of it.

The HuntWhere stories live. Discover now