The Damned Soul: Light Within

Chapter 2: Calli

I stepped outside and I took in a big breath of fresh air, or considerably fresh air since I lived in the city. But better than a stuffy building filled with large groups of people.

You see, I'm an old vampire, born into the what we call the Elder family, the only family that governs all vampires on earth. The vampire population isn't big. There are only about 100 or so of us in total. One can imagine why, with our only diet being blood. Our job as Elders was to oversee and control the population by doing a new life ritual on a willing human and making the change yourself. Another form of population control was executing those who don't follow these rituals. Oh, and obviously keeping our world a secret from the human race because, lets face it, humans are a territorial species.

But for the past century, I've been trying to redeem my soul. I cut myself from my family and started to live my own life, away from their evil influences.

The night was crisp and the city lights made everything beautiful. I made my way home, but since there was a full moon out, I decided to take the long way back to my apartment. I started thinking about how my life has turned out.

I was alone.

I was afraid to make friends or get close to anyone. My natural allure made that exceptionally hard, but somehow I managed to keep to myself.

I was almost broke.

A century's worth of saving was running low. When I left my family, I took as many possessions as I could, which included many jewels of my inheritance. I created a new bank account for myself as well. But I guess I wasn't that money conscious, and now it was biting me in the ass. 

I've tried a few night jobs, trying to schedule myself around the least amount of people as possible. But being a woman working a night shift wasn't always the first choice for any company. Even when I did land a night shift job, I'd run into dangerous characters that thought because I was woman, they could get away with anything. This would eventually end up with me exposing myself for my own protection.

I was lost in my thoughts when I heard the most beautiful and romantic music coming from the park.

I slowly made my way closer to this mesmerizing sound, to find an young man playing his guitar for tips. He didn't look homeless or anything like it. He looked well groomed with a slicked back pompadour hairstyle, a clean shaven goatee, and tattoo sleeves on both arms. I floated closer to him to savor this wonderful bliss.

Then, almost immediately, I was hit wit an incredible urge to feed.

My heart sank, as I knew what this meant. With my body reacting to the true animal I was, this meant other vampires were closing in on a hunt. Not only did I fear for the innocent humans surrounding me, this also meant that if I was seen by any vampires, I'd be taken straight back to my family's place.

But I couldn't just let innocent humans die just for my sake.

Although, hunting out in the open like this was never what our race did. We did our best to keep the secret of our existence, only trusting in blood donors that willingly gave their blood for us.

 Something wasn't right so I quickly hunted the hunters, in hopes I was still strong enough for a possible fight.

They weren't too far away, and thankfully I got to them before they pounced. They seemed newborn and very power hungry, as every vampire was during that stage. I, on the other hand, never experienced that stage though. But that's a story for another time.

"Leave!" I snarled, as the gang of hungry animals came into view.

There were four of them, three males and one female. All of them clearly newborn. But what boggled my mind was that Mother and Father would never allow this to happen.