Carlisle's Diary

The Beginning

Dear Diary: April 23, 2013

"I was born in the mid 1600s. It was only my father and I. My mother died while giving birth to me. When I was a small child, I used to blame myself for her death. My father, though strict was incredibly caring towards me. He would reassure me time and time again that this wasn't the case that things like that just happened. He loved my mother unconditionally and was extremely bitter that he was alone. He never once turned his bitterness on me though. And I always respected and admired him for that.

We lived in London, England. It was a dreary place with lots of rain but it was home. I grew up learning everything my father did. I always looked up to him and wanted to be just like him. We had our own flat, which means apartment. British English and American English has many differences and I will try not to confuse you. I went to school and was always interested in medicine. I think I was born to be a doctor. I always tended to my father when he would be injured in some way. I started this at the mere age of 5.

When I was about 15 or 16 years of age, my father finally showed me what he wanted me to do with myself. The reason he was able to keep his bitterness regarding my mother's untimely passing from me, was because he manifested it toward something else, something more sinister. See in those days, people believed in witches and warlocks as well as werewolves and vampires. All of those were considered the works of the devil and therefore needed to be eradicated. My father was the leader of a group of people that would hunt these things and when he would find them or perceive to find them he would burn them at the stake!

It was all very dramatic. My father channeled his anger and bitterness into finding all of these evil beings and getting rid of them. It brought him immense pleasure. He never cared about what they were like. And what made it even more tragic was that a lot of times if he didn't find the actual entities, he would accuse regular people of witchcraft just so he could be honored by the people in town as an extreme hunter and protector for our city. All these centuries later, I do not believe my father was an evil man. I do believe he was incredibly misguided. That he never thought before he acted. There weren't any consequences for him at that time so he didn't care much.

But I digress, when I was about 22 or 23 years old and my father was getting on in age, he made me the leader of this group of his. I wasn't as quick to judge as him and would actually stake out different places before I would call anyone to the attention of the hungry mob.

One night while I was out walking, I noticed something strange. An ordinary looking man, walked from underneath a building and then followed another man down an alley way. Before I could even blink, this first man attacked the second one with speed and strength I've never seen before. It was all over in a matter of seconds and the second man was lying on the ground while his attacker was nowhere in sight. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I looked left and right and then walked over to the now motionless man lying on the ground. I could tell without even touching him that he was dead. I also knew whoever or whatever attacked him could still be there somewhere in the shadows watching me.

I never ran home faster in my life. I felt like I had grown wings. My father had to tell me to slow down my breathing before I could tell him anything as I was not making any sense whatsoever. Once I told him what I had seen, he told me that the following evening I was to take the group of men and go to that underground location I had spotted the man exit from and capture him. I went to sleep that night thinking about what I'd seen and how close I'd come to certain death. Little did I know that what would happen to me the following night would change my life forever.

The next evening I got the crowd of angry men together. We all met outside of my flat. My father had already informed them of the horror I had experienced the night before. So they were ready to go search out this thing and destroy it. I was convinced it was a vampire just by its speed and strength alone. I said goodbye to my father and along with the group of angry men, went to where I had seen the vampire emerge from which ended up being a sewer. We approached very cautiously not to be heard; of course at the time none of us knew the keen hearing a vampire has. We couldn't have known that not only had he heard us approach from a sizable distance but he also saw us. Before we had time to react, he appeared out of the sewer. He looked fierce. His eyes were a scarlet red, his hair was brown and he wore very simple clothes so that he wouldn't stand out. I wasn't sure what I had expected him to wear really.

At that moment everything happened so fast it appeared in slow motion in my head. The vampire rushed forward, bit me and threw me against the far wall of the alley. I started seeing stars and just before I lost consciousness I saw him kill two of my men totally draining them of blood in under 30 seconds while the others scattered in fear for their own lives. After that, I felt more then heard him standing over me. I guess he was debating on whether to just finish me off. I held my breath and pretended to be dead. After that all sounds faded. As my thoughts started to clear, they were seized by another sensation; my body was on fire!

I didn't know what was happening to me but I knew I couldn't stay in the position nor place I was in. With every inch of the last strength I felt, I crawled into the same sewer he crawled out of. There I stayed for what seemed to be eons, while the change fire blazed through me. I had no idea whether I was dying or something else was happening to me. I couldn't even conceive a rational thought, the burning was so intense. A few times I looked around and wondered why my body didn't have flames shooting out of it. It felt like I was being burned alive. The only thing I could really concentrate on was not crying out so I wouldn't be found out.

Every particle of my body was blazing and I couldn't move. I felt like I didn't have control of my body anymore. It seemed like an eternity.....when suddenly.....slowly.....the blazing heat started to subside. I heard my heart thud a few times and then come to a halt. For long minutes all I could do was hold my breath afraid that if I moved even the slightest inch, the fire would return with a vengeance. When nothing happened, I lay where I was with my eyes closed......realizing that something......everything had changed.....both within me and around me.

I slowly opened my eyes to a dawn of a new world. As I absorbed everything around me......it dawned on me what had happened......that I was no longer human......that I was the monster despised by all including myself.......but especially by own father.........that I could never go home again........

As I stood up I realized with absolute horror.........that I was a vampire!"

~Carlisle Cullen