Mythical Guardians

◇9. Cursed by Blood◇

  Johnathan Ridge winced at the strong light, and ducked. He sometimes hated being in the city, and the loud noises and blinding lights were the reason. He could never understand why humans could be so damn loud.

  He flattened himself on a rooftop, his sharp and hard nails, which acted like claws, dug into the concrete. His sharp eyes alert for any sigh that he had been spotted. It could be a bit hard to explain to people when you were crouched on a rooftop, observing everything and everyone below.

  It wasn't too late, and the humans were chittering and chattering loudly. The lights in the city, the signs, and the buildings were giving him headaches. He should really get a pair of sunglasses. Unforunately, he left his last pair somewhere in the wildnerness when he was too busy getting chased by predators.

  He liked watching humans, but it always sent a pang of loneliness when he realized he couldn't be with them. Regrettably, he was a creature of the night, from the stories that were used to scare children. For them, he wasn't supposed to be real, at least, to most of the ignorant population.

  He was currently in one of the most advanced city in the land of Peramis, and those people would certainly scoff at the idea of supernatural beings, like vampires and werewolves. But in the village where he was from, they knew those myths to be true, and feared those creatures.

  Thankfully, vampires like Johnathan himself tended not to mingle with humans. They were too afraid of being discovered. A few tried, and managed to settle down, but most failed to manage that.

  He observed the humans, chatting with their friends and family, shopping, going to the movies. Only reminded him of what he couldn't have. He didn't have much money, and he relied on hunting and stealing from some of the wealthy people in the city to survive. He was only fourteen, and wasn't able to work for a living. At least not yet.

  Observing the humans also had another negative impact. His stomach rumbled when he caught sight of the humans' necks, and he had to hold his bloodthirsty instincts in check to prevent himself from launching himself off the roof and feasting on a human in the middle of nowhere. That would attract a lot of unwanted attention, or worse, get him killed.

  He remembered the taste of blood from the time he drank it. It was salty, with a metallic smell. It tasted delicious the first time he gulped it down, when he couldn't keep the monster inside him in check. He hated it, but as if in a daze, when he finished feeding, he was so disgusted with himself that he swore to never lose control and drink blood again.

  Speaking of the urge to drink blood, he remembered the village he came from. If that beast hadn't come to terrorize its residents, he would still be living an ordinary life with his family and friends. He would still be enjoying the sunshine, and playing ball with the other kids in the open, with nothing to fear and nothing to hide.

  He clenched his fist, a few droplets of blood dripping from his palm as his sharp fingernails pierced his flesh. There wasn't a day he regretted making that decision. But he was afraid that the outcome would had been worse if he hadn't. To be honest, if he hadn't became a vampire, his entire village would had been wiped off the face of the world, and its people with it.

  He had remembered waking up in the forest the next morning, the sun was like a million pins of burning needles in his eyes, and his skin stung where the sunlight penetrated the canopy.  Every sound seemed amplified for a few times, and everything seemed so loud. The fresh smell of the vegetation in the forest seemed even more dominant, and when he sniffed, he caught a particularly attracting smell. The smell of blood from far away, from the direction of his village.

  It had seemed like a dream, what had happened the night before, but a look at the blood stained leaf confirmed his suspicions. He had drank the blood. He had done it. And he had to deal with the consequences.