Changing our forever.

Changing our forever 8

"You are Cold Ones," Jacob stated. "Vampires."

"Yes, we are," Carlisle admitted. "But we do not drink human blood ever. We only hunt animals."

"What about bagged blood, like from the hospital?" Embry asked.

Carlisle shook his head solemnly. "No, we do not drink that either. There are vampires who do, who consider that a fair compromise. Personally, I still have moral issues with that, the least of which is that it diminishes the available blood supply for patients who need it. Honestly, I have never used human blood as a food source, never in over 360 years. I was human once, a long time ago, and I chose to never relinquish my humanity. Even as a newborn, completely on my own, I chose to run away from humans rather than be tempted to attack and kill them. I would consider myself a cannibal if I were to feed on human blood. I realize that is a highly unusual opinion for a vampire to have, but I do not want to be a murderer or a monster. Unfortunately, most vampires believe they are superior to humans. They view humans as nothing more than cattle, ripe for slaughter. They spare no thought to who might be hurt by the loss of the person they kill for their dinner, much less the loss of a future for that particular person."

"So if you're not getting blood from the hospital, what are you doing there?" Quil wondered. We all looked at him like he was crazy.

Carlisle raised an eyebrow. "I'm a surgeon. I save peoples' lives. Ask anybody at the hospital. I spent 200 years, two hundred years, developing an immunity to human blood, so I would feel absolutely no temptation to taste it even if it splattered in my face. Why do you think I did it? I wanted to make a difference in this world. I wanted to spend my eternity making things better for others. Do you have any idea how many lives I've saved due solely to my advanced senses and increased speed? Lives that a human doctor would have been incapable of saving, surgeries a human doctor couldn't possibly perform. That's in addition to all the procedures I do that a human doctor could do just as easily if one were available. Can you even imagine how many babies I've delivered in the past hundred and fifty years? How many broken bones I've set, how many wounds I have stitched?"

"But why?" Jacob queried impatiently. "What is your motivation? What makes a vampire go against its nature and become a doctor for humans?"

"Ah," Carlisle responded in comprehension. "I believe I understand your question now. My father was a preacher. He raised me to obey the teachings of the Bible, particularly to love my neighbor. His pet project was hunting vampires, seeking to destroy them, considering them evil soulless demons bent on destroying innocent human lives."

All three Quileutes nodded, their attention fully fixed on Carlisle. This was something to which they could relate. It was the same thing they were taught about vampires from the cradle. Carlisle noted their nods and continued his story.

"He asked me to lead the hunt one night and, to everyone's amazement, we actually flushed a real vampire out of hiding. Since I was in the lead, he pounced on me and bit me. He then fled from the rest of my group, who were bearing torches, before he had time to drain me dry. The others left me where I had fallen, taking off in hot pursuit of the vampire. I knew my father would be devastated by what happened to me—not to mention that he would've destroyed me—so I hid myself in a nearby cellar. As I burned in the fires of hell, internally at least, I promised myself that, if I became a vampire, I wouldn't become a monster like the one who had bitten me. When the transformation was complete, I denied my thirst and tried to end my existence. That's how I discovered vampires can't drown, can't suffocate, and can survive any fall. I chose to starve myself rather than attack a human, so I ran far away from people into the wilderness. After a month without feeding at all, I came across a deer, and my instincts took over. I had eaten venison as a human, so I had no moral issue with feeding from animals. I knew then I had another option. I didn't have to be a monster or a murderer."