Birth of a Damned

Chapter 2

She spotted the heads of tombstones and realised she was close to a graveyard.

Belén had only been to a graveyard once before one Sunday when she and Ibn had trekked to the northern part of the village where a small cemetery stood

They'd gone hoping to see ghosts, having heard tales of them roaming the rows of graves course they didn't see any - ghosts mostly came out at night but they saw plenty of monuments to the dead.

The poor of the village were carted off to be dumped in mass graves, nothing to mark the spot where they lay. Those with money secured a grave. Wealthy people bought tombs.

Graves and tombs were of no use to Belén, but some of the truly rich invested in family crypts, small houses for the dead. If they kept the dead dry, they could keep the living dry too, at least for a night and maybe even warm?? That's what she hoped.

Belén didn't know if this small graveyard would boast any crypts. But on the off chance, she abandoned the path and silently marched through trying to respect the dead. fearfully edging her way towards the home of the (hopefully) sleeping dead.

The graveyard was larger than Belén bad imagined and while it was no match for the lavish city of the dead she had been expecting in a town? It was barely any bigger than the cemetery back in the village. there were a few crypts jutting out of the crop of crosses and tombs.

Belén scrambled across the graves, muttering prayers to god. To forgive her and hope that what she was doing wouldn't damn her for eternity.

She wanted to look every which way at once, to check for ghosts, witches, demons. But she thought that if she saw them, they would see her too. By not looking, she hoped no ghosts would notice him, so he kept his eyes on the ground. It was pretty foolish but she didn't care. She was young and had been brought up heavily catholic even though she hadn't really cared that much about it.

She couldn't get into the first crypt that she tried the doors were sealed shut. There was a chain on the woven copper gates of the next. She tugged at the gates as hard as she could, and the chain gave a little, but not enough.

She began to believe that her attempts were futile and that she'd just have to lie on a tomb and hope it didn't rain, and that she wouldn't freeze. That's when she heard movement behind her. She jumped up violently in shock but didn't make any noise except those movements. She tried to be as silent as possible.

She finally found a crypt that wasn't locked up. She pushed hard against the stone door and it didn't budge at all. Until it shifted and then slowly slid open. She took ger hands-off and it continued to slide. That seemed strange to her but she entered anyway. She whipped her head around inside the black crypt. When nothing leapt out she sighed with relief and entered. She tried to close the door but it was too heavy to push.

At first, the crypt seemed pitch black but after a while of closing her eyes and straining to see she could make out basic structures inside. The crypt was completely closed off with stone walls on all sides. The stone seemed to be a kind of sandstone so was probably built by the moors to bury some of their dead. There were also coffins lined up along the walls and a fountain in the centre. No water ran through it so it was likely purely a decoration.

It was warmer in the crypt than outside but still colder than she would have liked. She lay flat onto a stone ledge that covered part of the coffin. One of the coffins was slightly pulled out from the slot. It was pulled out just enough so that it could be opened without the ledge obstructing it. But Belén wasn't planning on opening the coffin on a dead man anytime soon.

She was starving as she hadn't eaten anything since the sun break. She had eaten nothing but a few lentils for breakfast. And she had been exerting herself all day. She sat solemnly in the dark worrying about what ger life would become. She had nowhere to go and nothing to eat. She would have to become a wild person to survive. She thought

Then she heard another sound only this time it was a voice. "Good Evening child. I see you're upset" Belén wailed in fright but then covered her mouth to not disturb the dead. The voice was coming from the coffin that had been pulled out. The coffin lid then rose and was placed on the floor. Inside was a lean man with pale skin and light hair. She had never seen hair of that colour before but Belén had heard tales about how in the north people could have hair of white and red like the man before her at that point. The man stepped out of the coffin. He was tall probably very wealthy and yet he had stayed in a coffin in a crypt in the middle of the countryside.

He spoke with a foreign and unfamiliar accent. It sounded harsh and many words weren't pronounced properly or even understandably.
"My name is Crayn Macdiod" He stated. His voice drastically changing when pronouncing his name. "I am a vampire" He replied smiling widely seemingly expecting her to be afraid. "A what??"
"You don't know what that is??"
"No. Does it give you an excuse for sleeping in a crypt and disturbing the sleeping dead??"
"No but isn't that what you were about to do" he hissed slyly. Belén looked downwards at her feet in shame. "It means I suck blood girl, I am a creature of the night, a hunter that feed on humans to hunger my insatiable thirst"
He studied ger with a bloodthirsty smile. Belén darted for the door but it had been shut and she wasn't close to strong enough to budge it. "I would ask you to stay" he purred. "I will open the door once you hear me out."
"I will not listen to you, you sick murderer" He looked like he was faking being hurt by this but in the dark Belèn couldn't tell it was faked.
She looked back only to find the man was stood right up to her. Towering 2 heads above her. She squealed but didn't back off. The man sounded lonely and bizarrely harmless when he spoke. "I won't kill you I don't kill when I hunt"He murmured. And then under his breath, he snarled and replied with usually.
He then bent down and knelt on one knee to talk face to face. "I want you to be my assistant. I mean nobody else will watch you will they "You will have company in me and safety we will travel around the country and you will help me."

What's in it for me she questioned, intriguingly. "A place to sleep every night. Safety. Friendship perhaps. Or at least something to do."
For Belén friendship wasn't of great importance to her as she would never want to be friends with the man. She felt she might change her mind about him. But his promise of safety and something to do was very appealing to her. So she accepted his offer.

"Great" he cooed. Then feel free to sleep here tonight I'm heading south next. He then pulled a persimmon from his pocket. "Here, for the appetite,
I would give you more if I had any but I don't."

"What do you want??" Belén asked aggressively. "I don't want anything" Crayn chortled. "Then why are you helping me what benefit will you get from me being your assistant" isn't it obvious? You help me during the day when I can't move around"
"Sounds like you're quite useless then. How can you promise my safety if you can't be in the sun?" He then told Belén about how vampires were strong and fast and wouldn't die instantly in the sun. He explained that the UV of the sun just seemed about 20 times higher to them. Meaning they would sunburn severely. To the point where if we spend too long in the sun our skin will start to fall off and eventually die.

Belén seemed surprised by these details as she had been sunburned before but never experienced that. Usually, peeling happened days after the burn and would always leave the skin underneath. And she'd never heard of death by sunburn.

Eventually, Belén slept during the night. By morning Crayn was already asleep again back in the coffin. She worried as to what he had done during the time when she was asleep but she was mostly just glad she would be with him.