The Village of Secrets
I knew no one would miss me.
Even though everyone in the village knows leaving one’s home after sundown is equivalent to signing your own death warrant, the knowledge didn’t deter me. Whatever danger lurked within the shadows of the night, it couldn’t be worse than the life I already lived. Because here, “abnormal” is not welcomed. Here, to go along with the status quo is to be welcomed into the fold – those of this quaint village, nestled between the spires of two lording mountains. From the outside, one would think this a perfect pit stop on their journey to and from lands beyond.
But those visitors don’t know why we shut our gates at sundown. Why lights within houses go dark. Why streets become vacant, and why the cries of children are silenced, extinguished like candle flame.
From birth, my red eyes were seen as a curse. My own mother kept a cloth tied over them, telling neighbors “His eyes are just sensitive to the light.” But even that innocuous response was enough to raise suspicions. Enough so that one evening, men stormed into our house and ripped the cloth from my head.
Abnormal is not welcomed. Not for the village parading itself as a paradise between mountains.
It’s been ten years. A decade of being restricted to this house, shoved away from everything an everyone else. It was hurriedly built, and equally as hurriedly forgotten about. Rain regularly leaks through the roof. My single window is cracked, causing everything outside to appear as though looking though a kaleidoscope. The scant furniture within lies in disrepair.
The night, however, is the time for me to escape my prison.
For a while, I began to wonder if the rumors of the night were mere folly. My nighttime ventures became increasingly daring, straying further and further from my home. But then, on a night like any other, when all was quiet and dark, my first step into the welcome darkness was met with a swift, brutal silence. A blow, extinguishing all thought from my head.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
The sound sparked my senses from the edge of oblivion and back to the real world. Blinking, the world only became slightly brighter – no more than a muted moon’s glow from behind a blanket of clouds. It seemed I was in a cave of some sort. Gnarled roots seeped in from the ceiling, moisture gathering at their base and dripping on to a hard earthen floor. The space was almost circular and…I couldn’t move. Glancing down, I found myself chained to a wall, limbs bound.
A shadow suddenly moved from the space in front of me, and before my dazed mind could register it properly, a wan face swam into view. Something resembling feminine features, but also somehow…wrong. A flower which never had the chance to bloom properly in the light and warmth of the sun. But still, I could make out the full lips. Slanted eyes. Hair, long and curly, draped her eyes.
Her raspy breath seemed to be breathing me in. Slowly, she angled her head up, revealing her own set of red eyes.
“Any last words before I feed on you, human?”
Instead of fear, however, I felt…pity. When had she last felt the rays of the sun on her skin? Surely, this person – no, this vampire – was the justification for the village’s fear. Just as I was a source of fear for them. And in the same way the night was the only time I felt I could truly live, it was the same for her.
But in the end, a vampire will have need of sustenance. I could only tempt fate for so long.
“Yes,” I say, and even I am surprised at the calm in my voice. “Do you miss the sunrise?”
Her raspy breath pauses. And she looks at me – truly looks at me, red eyes finding their twin.
“I do,” she says slowly, as though remembering how to speak. “I’ve…forgotten the feeling.”
“Me too,” I say.
For a long while, we stare at each other. Then, her long, thin fingers reach up, a single long nail tracing my jawline. I fight off the shiver that runs through me. But we keep our eyes on each other. I can’t see anything else besides her face; the rest of her is covered in an aged, dark robe. However, the slow caress of her finger has my mind wandering and wondering, dimly, what might lie beneath.
“I’ve never seen eyes which mirror mine,” she breathes, bringing her face closer. Her breath is warm, and oddly scentless. Somehow, I thought a vampire’s breath would smell of carrion. “In truth, a part of me would like to spare you, yet…I am I hungry.”
I practically feel her eyes rove from mine, down to the throbbing pulse in my neck. Her stare makes my pulse quicken, but again, not from fear. From something else. Something I’ve never felt.
“What if,” I say, swallowing. “What if I had a different way to satisfy your hunger?”
Her eyes find mine again. She stands straighter, causing her robe to shift. It slides down her front, revealing a seductive line creasing her chest. “I’m listening,” she whispers.
My thoughts turn to the village. To the men who cursed me to live a life in solitude. “What if we gave that village an extra reason to be afraid of the night?”