A vampire and a human.
And he will walk her out in the sunlight.
And he will walk her out in the sunlight.
It is new and it is only for a night. A night, and when the night ends so will this. It will be over and he will be lost, but that is okay. He will have done what he was sent here to do and he will find some sort of happiness, the kind that is the only kind his kind can have. He is kind.
In the alley, she is frightened. Feels fear. When he turns up she cowers, presses even more into the corner of the dark and rot place and she feels the way the alley is. Actually letting out a whimper she closes her eyes and clenches her fists and knows that she is alone. No one will save her, no one can rescue her, no one is there for her. What she refuses to see, she can hear and the footsteps echo loudly, softly. Harshly. Then she can almost feel the presence right next to her, she can almost see it even through tightly closed eyes even though she cannot. An overactive imagination.
A tap on her shoulder. Barely, only barely, can she manage to contain the scream she wants to let out but she can and he would be slightly impressed if he had not turned into the person he is. Will be. Will not be. He removes his hand from her shoulder where it barely rested and he waits for her eyes to open. It takes minutes, as if she imagines him not being there when she opens them, but he is when she does. Her eyes are frightened. His eyes are red. Shining but not shining in the night, glowing but not really, just being red where everything else is black or dark grey, his eyes are odd, frightening. Scary. Bright red in the dark is not the way it is supposed to be, is not natural, it is not all right. Red eyes are the Terminator and 28 Days Later and vampires and evil supernatural beings that hurt and scare and she cannot breathe, cannot really think properly, because oh my god, there is someone with red eyes in front of her. Panicking, she shuts her eyes tightly, not wanting to see the reality, not wanting him to be there. When she, minutes later, opens her eyes, he still is.
He is not human. He has not been in a very long time, does not expect to be, has almost given up on wishing to be. Almost. Breathing, squatting next to her, he patiently awaits her calming down, breathing. Not a sound is uttered, not a breath heard – he is silent as she breathes. He knows that this is it. This is it. This is make or break, hit or lose, and he knows he will pass. For once, just once, he will manage, he will pass, he will not fail.
He will not fail.
He does not know why she sits there and he does not really care. There are greater things on his mind, more important thoughts, she is everything yet she is nothing at all. Ah, the irony. During a thousand years he has lived, a thousand years; pacing from continent to continent, a breezing wind through peoples’ lives and across empires. The shadow within the shadow is who he has been, only now he is not. A shadow slowly walking towards the light. Some words from generations long since passed echoes still, foggy and voiceless, yet as accurate as they were the day they were first said. A seer in purple, a woman with golden bracelets on her wrists. Partly forgotten, slightly remembered. A mystery. Destined for more that anyone will ever know.
She is a princess. She is a princess, but not one of laughter and dragons and dresses and crowns and rescues from a lonely tower. She is the princess of the future, the princess of dependence in a world more frightening and greater than ever before. As the world grows, so does the empty hearts and she might save so many of them. Some will be sacrificed and she does not know of anything yet, but she might save so many of them. Almost all of them. But she does not know it yet.
“What’s your name?”
Soft, melodious. Breathtakingly beautiful. Allure?
She answers without opening her eyes.
“Alicia.”
“Alicia.”
Repeating it, having him say it, it sounds different, extraordinary and more rare and more expensive than diamonds. Nothing like a mere name – yet it is.
“I am Damien.”
He is not Damien, not really, but the name he once had is mostly forgotten. For sure, it is complicated and unusual and nothing like the names of today. He was named after his father. The father does not live anymore. Neither does the man who once had a name that was not Damien.
Slowly, he coaxes her out. Gently, he pries her eyes open with his words, with his voice, talking to her soothingly as if she were a wounded and shy animal. She is not though, Alicia is not; he is the animalistic one, the one of cat like grace with eyes far sharper than those of any human. He runs fast, fights hard, responds harder, and is harder in every way. But not from his voice. That is soft and gentle, with underlying steel almost forgotten, almost hidden. He is hard. Still he coaxes her out from the dark corner and soon she sits with him squatting in front of her. He can tell her eyes are brown but she cannot know that he knows. For a long time they simply sit, stare, him waiting, she preparing. She still breathes, takes deep breaths to keep the panic at bay, closing her eyes occasionally to make sure that when she opens her eyes, he is still there; he is real. He is.
It is somewhat raining so the world is damp. Alicia’s hair is slick against her face, dark, but his still stands, the water forming pearly droplets in his hair. The way it would on a duck’s feathers. Not normal, she thinks. Not human. There is an odd sort of ethereal beauty surrounding him, hurting almost, luring her in. Her pulse quickens, her face heats up but she does not act, nor does he aside from a barely distinguishable stiffening. Her breath halts, only to catch back up when her lungs are burning for the for life necessary air. From her mouth comes small bursts of smoke and it is when she sees that that she realises he has nothing similar coming from his. She swallows. He is not human. What he is she does not know and she does not want to know; she was never a child reading of wizards or magic, is not a woman believing in what she cannot see; she is a woman of science and evolution and she looks at her watch on her arm, removing her gaze from his invisible breath. 4.13 AM. Blinking she thinks she must have been there from hours and though she knows she should go home she cannot bring herself to rise, to stand. To walk away. As if under some spell she remains in the alley, sitting in front of him, staring in to his eyes. That is it.
As the sun rises, the water is steaming from the street. From the alley he can see the sun, its bright beams turning the world alight and his chest is filled with painful longing. It has been so long since he has seen a world lit in sun, a world soaked in light and not drenched in darkness. Deep down he know that this is it, there is no way out of it now; he cannot do anything but surrender to his destiny. He knows: all his life, all his actions have led him here – laughable, really. Somehow he can find comfort in it though; there was a purpose, there was a point. Some good will come of this. There is some sense in the very strange world he has existed in, even though it might have taken him a thousand years to get it. Her hand in his is strangely tight, strangely soft. Warm. He cherishes her warmth and now he is the one to take deep breaths, bracing for panic, breathing. How strange to think that he will no longer exist. Briefly he wonders if it will continue, his soul, to somewhere else, in another existence, but he has long since resigned himself to the fact that there is no such reprieve for his kind. He is to die and that will be it. Nothingness. He cannot imagine it, not even based upon his own carefully built illusion life. Holding her hand he breathes, slowly, her eyes stuck on his dark form. He looks almost human to her with his eyes closed, only he is not. Eventually though, he rises, pulling her up with him. Her legs are wobbly and had she been more aware she would have seen that his are too. He is scared. Yet he cannot wait to feel the sunshine on his face, even though he knows it can bring only death. He wants to feel warm again, wants to feel the happiness that only a sunny day with a clear blue sky can bring. Will it be fast? He does not know. Will it hurt? He does not know. Will it be worth it? He does not know. Does it matter?
He will not be remembered. He will be forgotten. A dark shade in a foggy memory, the shape of a man who helped her. No name. Damien. It is a whisper in her mind but the world provides too much noise and so it will be a whisper never heard. She will not remember. Despite the goodness, the brilliance, the dedication and the strength, he will not be remembered. A man who sacrificed everything he had left, he will not be remembered. And when he looks into her eyes he can tell. He knows. He sees the painful truth: he will not be remembered. The stuff of legends, he will never be remembered, never known, never fondly recalled with gratitude or with love. He will not be remembered. And he knows what he must do. He knows. He can save the world.
And so he walks her out in the sunlight.
sjuttonde maj tvåtusenelva
Näe vad vackert! Du är så himla bra vännen<3