HEY GUYS! SORRY ITS BEEN SO LONG BETWEEN UPDATES. LIFE GOT VERY BUSY. BUT AFTER ALMOST A YEAR, HERE YOU GO. ANOTHER CHAPTER. LET ME KNOW HOW YOU LIKE IT. IF YOU'RE STILL INTERESTED IN ME CONTINUING THIS STORY, ALL THAT FUN JAZZ LOL. EITHER WAY, HOPE YOU ENJOY.
Dante's POV
The music was blaring loudly, but I could still hear Mikael over the roar. We had decided to go to a graduation party one of Mikael's classmates was having, instead of heading home for the night when the twins left. The younger boy was excitedly babbling about the things he wished to do now that he finally finished high school. I couldn't help but smile at the bright eyed wonder the boy still had in the world. The optimism hadn't been driven from him yet. I could remember a time when, I too, had grand expectations for what my life would be. It had been 1929, the year I had graduated high school. I joined the army the moment I could, despite my small demeanor. My father had fought in the great war, I remembered it well. I was only two when my father left, but stayed over seas until the war was finished. When he came back four years later it was 1918, he came back a changed man. Or so everyone would say. I myself admittedly had no memories of the man before he went to war. But according to my mother, the stern man I grew up knowing was a stark contrast to the kind and gentle man she had married. But still, all the same, I loved his father. Admired him so much I wanted to be exactly like him. Yes my father was strict. Yes he would ride me endlessly to do better, better in everything. But, rather then seeing this as an act of cruelty, I viewed it all as preparation. My father was preparing me for the hardships the world would throw at me. So I studied harder, trained harder, became the perfect soldier. Sadly, even with all the preparation, it turned out I wasn't fit to fill his shoes. I had always struggled with the concept of killing another human being. Even for a just cause. And the conflict didn't lessen through basic training. There was an accident on base, during my training. A cadet, a boy who unlike me hadn't wanted to be there at all, stole a weapon and took his own life in the barracks. And of course, I would be the one to find him. The experience had rattled me so much, I couldn't function anymore. I knew, if just the act of seeing a dead body had shaken me so much, I would never be able to actually kill a man. After a week of my inability to do anything other then stare at a wall, I received a dishonorable discharge. They packed my things for me, and put me on a train home. Or should I say former home. My father would have nothing to do with me after they kicked me out. He said I was a disgrace to the family, that acknowledging me would do nothing but dishonor him. He viewed my compassion as weakness. The fact that I cared so much, he couldn't understand. He forbade my mother from ever speaking to me again and threw me out on the streets. My own father, forsake me because I couldn't take another persons life. At the time it didn't effect me like it should have. You see despite my fathers reaction. Despite losing my mother, my home, everything I thought I held dear. I couldn't get it out of my head. That dead boy, laying on the floor, his brains sprayed on the wall behind him. All because he was forced to be there, forced to be a soldier. He was my age, Had come into basic a week before me. Just starting out in life, and now he was gone. And the thought of ever being the cause of that, being the man behind the trigger, out right sickened him. It took several months for the reality of my situation to actually sink in. I had aimlessly wondered around the city, sleeping on benches and in alleys. Trying desperately to get that boys image out of my head. After about seven months of this my mind began to clear. The reality of the choices I had made and the consequences they held started to fully take hold. I had lost everything, my family, my dreams, everything I had worked for was gone. At that point I did try returning home. I begged my father to take me back in, to give me a second chance. Tried to explain that the military just wasn't right for me, no matter how hard I tried I wasn't a soldier. My mother sat silently behind him the whole time. I couldn't read a single emotion on her face as I spoke. She never even looked at me. I think at the end of the day that's what broke my heart more. Not the ultimate rejection my father gave me. No, It was my mother's inability to even acknowledge me anymore. This women brought me into this world, but now she couldn't even look at me. I left that night with a whole in my heart that would never be filled again. I would never try to speak with my mother or father again, even after I was turned. And to my knowledge they never once tried to find me before they died. But that night, as I walked away from the place that was once my home, I decided what the world was. I would no longer hold any fairy tales or delusions that anybody in this world truly cared for you. That anybody could really achieve real happiness. As I looked back one last time, it was like I was seeing the seen for the first time. My father, as accomplished as he was, was broken by the world. He wasn't happy, he survived. We all work our whole lives to just survive through the hardships with no true end to the strife but death. I walked away with a new found perspective on the world that would take me over a decade to shake. I only spent a few years on the streets before I was turned. I don't know who turned me, or why they turned me. All I know is shortly after my twenty second birthday it happened. I had been sleeping in an alley I had frequented when I was startled awake by teeth digging into my neck. I tried to fight off whoever it was, but as my blood drained my limbs became weak and heavy. Next thing I knew I was waking up alone in the alley with a hunger I couldn't explain. My head felt like it was splitting and I was hypersensitive to the light. The sun was setting, but even that dim light pained my eyes. Everything hurt to such a heightened extent. I didn't know it then, but it was because my body was going through the transformation. I stayed crumpled on the alley floor, in too much pain to do anything, when suddenly a scent caught my attention. It smelled so good, so delicious, and I knew I had to find it. The rush this smell caused made the pain subside greatly and I was filled with a knew vigor to find whatever it was. I quickly pulled myself from the dirty floor and ran from the alley in a frenzy, I had to find it, I had to find that smell. The sun was setting and most people were already inside for the night. I only passed one women on the street who barely spared me a glance as I went running by. I turned a street corner and approached a park I knew well. I had spent many nights on the benches that sprawled throughout it. I inhaled deeply, closing my eyes at the intensity of the scent. "Yes" I thought, "It's definitely coming from here." I briskly walked through the park, almost on autopilot, to a bench a young boy was sitting on. He couldn't have been older then fourteen. "What are you doing out so late boy?" I asked, annoyed that I had found this child instead of the source of the smell. He quickly looked back at me, shocked at my sudden presence presumably. He pulled his hand closer to his chest and cried out in frustration, "I cut my hand climbing that fence over there and I can't get it to stop bleeding." He held out his hand for me to see at that point, and my horror story truly began. I wasn't able to control the hunger that over took me at the sight of the blood. The boy barely had a second to utter a short scream before I ripped his throat out with my teeth and drank till the blood stopped flowing. It was like the universe was playing some sort of sick joke on me. I spent the next decade living in isolation, feeding off of rats and other small vermin. Unable to accept what I had become. That is until one fateful evening. It was late October, the year 1944, when Lexa and Jesse would happen upon him in his hovel in the sewer. Apparently they could smell me from a mile off, or so Jesse mused as they looked at me. They would teach me how to control my hunger, how to feed without killing. A concept neither Jesse or Lexa could really wrap their heads around anymore, but still aided in teaching me for my own sake. They had saved my life. Gave me a renewed hope in this world. I couldn't help but smile at all the memories flashing through my head of the struggles the first few years together were. But he wouldn't trade them for the world.
At the end of the night me and Mikael said a farewell to all his friends and started our walk home. We walked with his arm slung around my shoulder for balance. He had a few beers throughout the night and had since lost the ability to walk straight. "You know, if I haven't said it yet, I'm really glad you and Lexa showed up in my sisters life." Mikael mumbled while gazing up at the sky. "She always seemed like she was holding something back, a part of herself. But now, every time I see her with Lexa, I see her truly happy just being herself. So thank you. I know you both made a decision, between Freya and Lexa's brother. I'm not sure of the entire story or what the issue even was. But you chose her, and I can see what that means to her." I just stared at him as we walked, unsure of how to respond. He was right, we had made a choice between these humans and Jesse. One of the hardest choices I've ever had to make in my life. But I couldn't help but care about them. And I can't help but see what Freya means to Lexa. All I can do is hope that someday Jesse see's this too and comes around.
As we approached the house I fumbled inside Mikael's hoodie for the keys. When it hit me very suddenly. This sickening feeling that something dark was watching me. It felt like I had just been dosed in ice water, the shock of it holding my breath in my lungs. The lights seemed to disappear, and the volume sounded like someone cranked it way down. I was paralyzed, and Mikael was to out of it to realize something was wrong. I could feel something in the darkness with me. But just as suddenly as the feeling came, it went. I quickly opened the door and ushered the tired boy through it. Whatever was coming, was coming soon. And he had a sickening feeling that whatever it was, was something that none of them were ready for.
Freya's POV
I sat on the couch in Lexa and Dante's apartment thinking about everything she had told me about herself tonight. Everything she went through before becoming a vampire. She had been through so much, I couldn't see how one person survived all that with their sanity, yet here she is. I smiled at the thought of her, she was perfect. It had only been a week but I couldn't see myself without Lexa anymore. I wanted all of her, including her past. As I was thinking, she came strolling back into the room and sat down next to me, just watching me a small smile. We did this often, just stared at each other. Its like we both couldn't believe the other was actually real. My eyes wandered down to her lips where a lazy smirk lay. I couldn't help the inclination to lean in and claim them for myself. She seemed to know what I was feeling, as she pulled me as close as possible. It was weird, we hadn't actually had sex yet the relationship had surpassed that level of intimacy all at the same time. I sighed happily into the kiss, savoring the feeling. Lexa slowly began kissing down my neck to my pulse point, and my heart rate increased. I knew what was coming, and how amazing it would feel. Everything about our connection screamed we were supposed to be together. I knew it without any kind of doubt. And as her teeth sank into my neck and the blissful ecstasy filled me, I knew I would never find anyone who could make me feel as high as the girl in my arms.
Jesse's POV
I stood on the roof across the street from the window. I watched as my sister embraced the girl, watched how she held her. "She's in love." I thought bitterly to myself. I couldn't be happy for her. I knew where this path would lead. I had to admit, it broke my heart when they chose a group of humans over me. But I should have known that Lexa wouldn't make a decision so rash unless it was going to cost her something great. But still, I couldn't abide it. Had she forgotten what happened the last time, when he had been the one stupid enough to fall in love with a human. Everything it had cost them and the vows they had made to each other in the wake of all the destruction it had caused. They couldn't be trusted, and she had to learn that again. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that screaming something terrible is about to happen. And I have no doubt it's because of this girl. What else could it possibly be. I was pulled from my thoughts by the sound of a low moan. "What in the hell is going on." I whispered to myself in total confusion. Before me was my sister, feeding on the girl. But instead of the pain that always registers on them when their life force is being drained from them, she appears to be completely enthralled. The experience seeming beyond enjoyable. I stood there, dumbfounded at what I was witnessing. In five hundred and forty six years I have never seen a human have anything but pain as we feed from them. "What does this mean?" I thought to myself as I turned to leave the rooftop. "It's time to visit an old friend, I need more information."
