The sow rooted somewhere among trunks and roots that jutted from the damp soil.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFIPQBHZr6F
I heard it before I saw it. The scraping, the grunting, the snapping of branches. It had no idea that the night was my domain.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPyEzuPKk5H
I slipped through the undergrowth like a cat. Unarmored, in my cloak. I needed no weapon. My hands were enough.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2McjeBTWze
Wild boars are stupid, but dangerous. For humans. For me it was survival.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4pPVsO7XqC
The wind came from ahead, smelling of fir and resin and of the warm blood that pulsed beneath the hide. It raised its head, an old boar, strong enough to tear a village child to pieces. Then it kept digging.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtOHPCejsTD
Three long steps away.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMzmAx7hTOB
Two.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6ex1iDsk8Z
I lunged before its head could lift.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8nR6BaWCvE
My hands seized the bristly fur at its neck. It roared, kicked, tusks flashing in the moonlight. They are stubborn beasts, but not stronger than me. I threw it to the ground. A short struggle, then my teeth in its throat. The blood came hot and metallic, spurting into my mouth, tasting of fear and rage.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8gSqoAlFUf
Not my first choice, but it quieted the hunger.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6aIIxPzgri
The boar thrashed, then grew limp. The forest held its breath, as it always did when I drank. I let go, wiped my mouth on my cloak. Watched the final twitching. I had what I needed.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjgLMyTnRW4
For now.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeR0wHNQKN1
299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkhRSQw4VtG
Whoever has slept enough through the day knows how the silence of night resembles a stage. Every sound counts, every rustle means something. Daytime is nothing but chatter.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoxJWbIzGFo
I walked on, fir scent in my nose, cold air on my face. The metallic taste of blood would linger for a while. Satisfied, I turned back. Morning was coming soon. I pulled my cloak tighter.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6KNwi5mdhy
The forest was still. Nothing stirred, not even the creatures that usually scratched in the dark. They knew the scent of danger. Humans rarely do. Sometimes a vagrant wanders into my territory. You smell them from afar; sweat and cheap spirits. In a pinch a fox will do. Anything with blood that the forest offers. Years as a vampire make you flexible when it comes to survival.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0lMblXZzb3
My human life ended abruptly. It happened so fast I never even met my sire. The vampire who made me called it mercy. I call it cruelty.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmgcMBz1Zwr
I knew that when the first birds began to sing it was time to return home. A reliable sense of time had long abandoned me. Years drifted by, hour after hour, day after day, while I myself did not know where to drift.
Then suddenly a sound. Jarring, like a wrong note in a ballad. At first faint. A whimper. Pitiful yet relentless, as if it had no idea how misplaced it was. Like a pup too stupid to die. Frowning, I followed the sound. It grew sharper the closer I came. Curiosity outran thought.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUS3kTf5ig3
I expected a wounded animal. A youngster perhaps, abandoned by its mother, too weak to live. Something nature in its brutality had cast aside.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNlEIdpoKcv
The forest swallowed the light that even the moon could not push through the fir tops. Damp needles everywhere, soft moss between roots that rose from the earth like snares for the careless.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoA7sWIv1eR
I was almost right. It was no animal.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsdg6Esit4Y
But it changed the life I had known until then. A human infant. Squirming in a wicker basket that looked as though a drunk basket-maker had woven it in haste.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc8L3ywcRfv
You were like a bad joke. Chubby-cheeked, wrapped in a tattered blanket that stank like wet animal hide. No place for a baby. Yet here you were.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6MSt87QMQG
You did not even notice me. My brows drew together, as they always did when I did not understand something at first glance.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvEPo3WbDE3
I knelt and searched the basket for an explanation. A note, a letter, anything. Nothing.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgGkqC78pNV
299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡngxklciueL
I could have ended it then and there. One move, no more noise, no responsibility, and best of all, no place in my memory. The thought came so fast I did not even question it. The impulse was purely instinctive.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvzrelOcDxM
But then I hesitated. And it unsettled me. I, who had gutted men for the slightest provocation. I, who had snapped women’s necks because they shrieked like sparrows.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdbOFGrwayP
I hesitated. At you, a screaming bundle. I saw something I did not yet understand.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRZ6sQ4q797
It was not compassion. I am no nursemaid. But I saw a project, if you will. Like wine that ripens in darkness. Some things need time before they are of use. You were weak now. But humans grow quickly. A sharp mind, a strong body, clay to be molded while still young. Something can be made of them if one has patience.
You stared at me with those far too large eyes for so little sense. That is the trick humans survive by. I hate it, because it works. Unfortunately even on me.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWjFOuwKQny
“What could you become?” I muttered.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvn2SObKsKO
My voice seemed to calm you. Slowly your crying ceased.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfsMFJfE69K
God knows how long you had been in this forest. Likely nearer to death than to life. Of course I knew you understood not a single word I murmured. Perhaps it was better that way. Most of the words I would ever speak to you were not ones anyone should hear.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmGJIhf7ydL
299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnQRoR7LNz3
And then it happened. That flicker of recognition in your eyes. Primitive, blurred, but there. You had sensed me. Something in you knew someone was there. The cold of my body, the darkness that clung to me like a shadow. All that should have frightened you, had your newborn brain been capable of fear. But it was not. Instead your sobbing faltered. Then it grew silent.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwnYFTnHn6q
The dead needles beneath my boots cracked like brittle bones. My eyes studied your face in the pale moonlight. I could have crushed you with a single finger. Instead I traced a line across your cheek.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9jyS7xx3F3
“You do not even know what I am,” I whispered. You stared for a moment as if you had sensed something. You pressed faintly against my hand. You sought warmth. Understandable, but foolish. I have none. Yet you found comfort in mere nearness. That was a kind of humanity that stilled me for minutes.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDxAybfSHo6
Then I wrinkled my nose. My eyes narrowed, a crooked smile crossing my lips.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5AxLSC2ZcG
“So be it. We make a pact. You… will grow… and I will see what happens when darkness raises a light.”299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYwCNZzOBDe
I took the basket, mechanical yet careful. My black cloak wrapped around you like a shadow consuming a flame.
The path home wound like a serpent through rocky ground bordered by firs. You weighed almost nothing. As I walked through the forest, I now carried a purpose, rare among my kind.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡURiQqfDm57
My cold body swayed slightly with each step, and within the folds of my cloak you finally slept, completely.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9rzEepipNu
It was bizarre. You were so pitifully mortal. 299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjvWzUHas1z
And yet, in that small body beat a heart that knew no betrayal. No bloodshed, no lies. Only raw innocence. For one like me, that was more fascinating than I would ever admit.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ97Xltm1ymw
I pulled my cloak tighter as I left the forest behind and approached the place I called home. An abandoned house, long smothered by ivy and weeds. Hidden and broken enough that no villager would dare wander here.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPCahmpiRSh
Once a house consumed by plague. For me it is House Hedera. I care little for Latin phrases, but ivy clings to whatever no longer moves. It outlasts men. That seemed fitting.
I claimed the manor when I wandered the lands from Rosegrad. Not a castle, but suitable enough for a creature like me. Cold stone, overgrown with ivy, mostly dust and rotten wood within. Of course I never bought it. At that time plague raged everywhere in Vargarin, and the family who once owned it had decided to die out together.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe2O1AmtGNj
The family lay upstairs when I arrived. Father, mother, child. Their bodies covered with boils, some still filled with pus and blood, some burst. Their fingers black as ink, the stench sickly sweet. I vomited into a corner before setting to work. I was polite enough to bury them behind the manor. No flowers, no grave. I was only a pragmatist with a shovel in need of a fixed abode. With time, a patch of grass grew on their grave. Later daisies, clover, dandelions spread. As though death itself had decided to mask misery with a touch of aesthetics.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9sV44pPQVd
Simple farmers call such flowers weeds, maids pick them for toothaches or lovesickness, and the rest trample them underfoot. But I saw: death is a poet; from their graves the flowers grew all the richer. Perhaps plague corpses simply make the soil especially fertile.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBofP3OLCGh
“If you fall sick, you are on your own,” I murmured into the night, “I am no wet nurse.” Yet I held you tighter than necessary.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTsoWPzrxO8
There was something about you. No beauty, no strength. You were an ugly child, your face squashed, a black uneven fuzz on your head. More a promise that something might stir if I let you live.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSj4datx484
The years before had been nothing but emptiness.
When I reached the manor I walked through the entrance up to the second floor into the master chamber. The house smelled of old stone and mildew, the stench of death long gone. Dust everywhere, the windows dull. The scratched wooden boards creaked with every step. Moonlight poured through a window, laying like a veil upon the faded bed. I set the basket there.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu62h0Qb7cq
No coffin. I sleep in ordinary beds, as I always had as a mortal. Whoever thinks we prefer coffins has listened to too many tales.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWpbtGnGSZP
As long as it is dark, I sleep anywhere.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRXZFaj0mg4
299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxCVunRSwhx
Only after placing the basket on the bed did I check what I truly had before me.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH38qVDioXB
I unwrapped the meager rags. A girl.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLDa71Pzw2J
That gave me pause. Girls grow faster than boys, they say. And if they are not kept stupid, they become the most dangerous manipulators there are. That is an advantage. Provided they stay loyal.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFrLMgqSNzt
It was calculation. I looked at your wrinkled face and thought: if I let you live, I will make something useful of you. And for a fleeting moment, the kind that comes to every vampire who has been alone too long, I pictured what I might make of you once you were a woman.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIEO1sWB8Jz
Other bloodsuckers forge plans when it suits them. I do as well.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡM6Fw192GTt
But before anything concrete could take shape, I smothered the thought.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZhjLAvncG7
Not out of morality. I had discarded that somewhere between my turning and the plague. It was a reflex, my body resisting. I had learned to heed instincts when they scream loud enough. Like the disgust that rises when you smell sour milk.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsjN7p9A3RE
So I left it. Some doors are better left closed.
I sat in the only chair in the corner. Legs crossed, chin in hand. As if before a painting, I stared at the basket. Watched your small body breathe. So tiny. And yet alive.299Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxuuS3hWSjy
“Sleep well, girl,” I whispered into the darkness. “You are now the only light in my world. Do not burn too bright.”
and then Add to home screen.