Pain II

The man watched Neculai. He was quiet as he puffed on his cigarette. Neculai had nothing to say even though the atmosphere had grown awkward. Finally, the man moved and stood directly before Neculai.

"I recognized you earlier tonight as you fed on the human." He stated watching Neculai intently.

"You are lost Neculai. I recognized the signs that were once a part of me." he continued.

"You don't know what you are about or how to live. You might not even recognize it yourself." He looked to the left at the small table nearby and moved to stand next to it, leaned over, and extinguished his cigarette. Then he turned back to Neculai.

"You know when I first came across you, I was lost in pain myself. You see, I had grown up in that monastery. Father Thomas was a man I knew as the head of that church, a mentor, a teacher, and a disciplinarian. However, he was actually my father." He stated quietly. This caught Neculai's attention as he watched him, finally, he was able to focus on what he was saying.

"I never knew Father Thomas had children," Neculai stated. The man laughed a sad little laugh.

"Yeah, no one knew. It was to be forever a secret. The only reason Father Thomas allowed me to stay at the monastery with everyone else was that he felt everyone's soul needed saving." The man looked down and scoffed as he kicked at an imaginary spot on the ground with his expensive black leather riding boots.

"He forbade me from telling anyone he was my father, then forbade me from having any contact with the woman who was my mother. He said she had low morals and she would corrupt me." He continued. Neculai was confused by all this. This did not sound like the same man who welcomed him and his mother at the monastery. This is not the same man who loved him as his own son. This was some stranger, the man spoke of.

"I lived at the monastery from childhood, I never saw you there before," Neculai replied. The ancient being chuckled.

"I was long gone by the time you and your mother had gone to live there. You see when I was still young, Father Thomas wanted me to pledge my life to follow God. I decided I wanted something different and so I left." He said looking far off into the night. The stars shone brightly in the night sky. The moon set high and a slight breeze was in the air, but it wasn't cold. It was comfortable.

"I snuck off into the night with a small satchel of food and water and a change of clothes. That was it for my new life. Little did I know what awaited me. The monster that awaited me."

"The first night I was out was great. I slept in an old barn right on the outskirts of the village. The night was my friend or so I thought. The next day I decided to walk to the nearby village, trying to put distance between myself and that monastery." He grew quiet again.

"The next village was strange. Everyone appeared to have a secret. Everyone watched any new stranger who came into the village. People throughout the town had placed crucifixes over their doors. I stopped at a local tavern. I remember thinking how horrible the place was. It was an old musty horse smell that clung to the air. There weren't many patrons that night, but the few there were quiet and kept throwing distrustful looks my way.

I asked the local innkeeper, what was that all about. The innkeeper was suspicious of me too but willing to answer my questions. He explained to me that the people were very superstitious in the area of course he never bought into it himself until he saw the man one night." He explain as he handed me the food I ordered. The way he spoke made me pause before digging into my food, but I was still quite curious. So, I asked him about the man he saw. Then he told me of the reason people look suspiciously at new strangers as they come into town. He also spoke about the monster who would visit their town."

"The man who was dead but wasn't. The man who could take another's life with a simple kiss, or give them a new life. I was fascinated by such talk but didn't really believe in it and laughed at how silly it all was." I let the subject drop.

"I asked the innkeeper if he had any rooms available for any type of work he needed to be done around the place,

but he said he had nothing and told me I should get out of town before nightfall."

"I went around the village asking anyone I could if they needed help in exchange for a place for me to sleep that night. But, everyone turned me down. I ended up sleeping in another barn that night, but I didn't mind. The night was beautiful. It all seemed so peaceful." He said lost in thought. He shook his head suddenly as if he was just remembering where he was before he continued.

"Then he came." He said and grew quiet once again. Neculai was curious, he couldn't help it. He always loved learning new things and especially things pertaining to vampire history.

"Who was it?" he asked. The man was slow to respond.

"The monster who made me into what I am now. The thing that took me that night as I slept peacefully unaware of the danger I was in. I was so naive." He whispered with a small sad smile on his face.

"I never saw his face, but I didn't need to. He fed on me til I was practically dead. I don't know what made him stop before he killed me, goodness knows I never had the restraint." He said with a small smile, bringing Neculai back to the image of his mother dying before his eyes.

"All I remember is when he touched my face afterward and called me a beautiful child. I guess he gave me some of his blood afterward. Because I didn't die and I woke up the next morning in someone's home. The family that allowed me to stay there was under some type of spell. They allowed me to feed on them and then they continued like it was nothing, going about their day as if I wasn't there.

The first person I fed on, I killed. I figured she was small and I just drained too much blood from her. I would need to be careful about the next person I feed on. However, by nightfall. I had drained the whole family and they all lay dead on the floor surrounding me." He continued.

"Finally, the one who had made me showed up. I saw him for the first time. He was large, his nails were like talons. His appearance was that of a man who had seen too much death and it rode him like a coat. Jet black hair and black eyes.

He was pure evil and I wanted to run from him, but couldn't. I soon learned that he could control people and vampires alike. So, I was forced to follow him around for the next fifty years or so, until a woman showed up. One who held his attention, one who didn't cringe at him or hate him.

Anyway, that was my escape. He didn't care that I was gone since he had the woman. I left and never looked back. I enjoyed the kills and thrills of making vampires.

That is when the plan came to me to go back to the monastery and pay my father a visit. To my surprise, he was still alive, but he clearly had never thought about me or even wondered what happened to me. However, when he saw me and what I was, he was afraid. I think he knew I was there for him. He ran and I had the joy of hunting him down.

At the time the pain I caused others was nothing to me. I lived in a world of pain. So, when I came across your mother, I didn't care about who she was, she was standing in my way to fulfill what I wanted, and that was it. I just wanted to get rid of my pain, and the only way I could ever do that was by feeding the blood. It helped ease my pain." He looked at Neculai as if seeing him for the first time. Staring at him eye to eye.

"For the pain, I caused you all that time ago, I want to officially tell you how sorry I am. I feel responsible for how you live now."

Neculai watched the boy/man who had earnestly apologized to him. Who was sincere in wanting to take a step and make the past right. This is what Vinna meant by caring and changing. Neculai knew he wanted to change and be better. He didn't want to continue to live his life in debauchery as he has for the last six hundred years. Neculai sighed.

The man reached out his hand and Neculai reached out and shook his hand. As he looked up into the man's eyes, all he could see was the same face with the blood of his mother running down the man's chin and he remembered his promise that night to his mother's corpse as he buried her. The rage he felt and the helplessness that had engulfed him. The same feeling he felt now and he hated it...