The air was so chilled that it burned my cheeks and my ears. It had been another merciless December night, and I walked at a faster pace than usual to escape, not only the cold, but the impending sunrise. St Steven’s Parliament Clock Tower advised that it was after seven, an ominous time for any vampire to be walking the streets of London. It was time to hurry home.
As I retreated towards my London apartment, the world around me began to come to life. Smart looking men in business attire glanced up at me momentarily before retreating back into self importance. A man and woman jogged passed and smiled, trailing a hapless, panting Alsatian in tow. I could hear a burgeoning symphony of car horns disturbing the calm in the direction of Trafalgar Square. The gears of London were in motion. This was as close as I would ever come to knowing how life unfolded once the world basked in daylight.
The night had begun as any other, and almost ended in the same way as an endless procession of nights before it. But it was at that moment, as I stood unknowingly at a great junction of my past and my future, that fate intervened with her steady hand.
The knowledge registered somewhere in my consciousness that I was not alone. There was no thrum of an immortal heartbeat, and yet my instincts told me, as sure as they told me that daylight was near, that another vampire was close.
I stopped and turned, searching out the source of this lingering presence. I soon saw him, though the moment he turned to face me I doubted my judgment. He stood across the street, staring back at me, his trembling hands searching for warmth inside his pockets. Surely, I told myself, this young man, with his flushed cheeks and modest gaze, was no vampire. What vampire could seem so soft and warm? And yet my intuition told me that he was. His fangs were visible to my eyes between his parted lips. He was tormented by his thirst, though he possessed no knowledge of how to sate it. With his alluring eyes, the blue of a summer sky, he was one of the most perfectly made creatures I had ever seen; and yet, the most poorly made immortal.
His sorrow was haunting. He looked like a child who had wandered too far from home, and could not find his way back again; and yet he possessed a youthful dignity that prevented a child’s tears from giving way.
The night was waning. There was no longer time to hear what pain weighed upon him. It was time for him to go to his rest, as would I. I turned away and kept walking. Half way down the block I looked back, but he had not moved. Defying my growing concern for him, I walked on.
Minutes later, I was safe in the dimmed, sealed isolation of the apartment. The heavy shutters protected me from the penetration of light, ensuring I could see out the day in safety. My fatigue alerted me to the imminent sunrise, and yet, I simply stood and stared at the bed. I couldn’t stop thinking of him. His sadness permeated my thoughts and I feared the worst.
I lifted the remote from my pocket, pressed the button, and the shutters began to rise. I stood by the window and beheld a vision of night’s final moments that I rarely allow myself to see. When I peered down towards the shop front where I had seen him, and saw that he had gone, I felt that the worst of my fears had been alleviated. And yet, I could still taste his sadness; I could feel the weight of a misery that was not my own.
I searched him out, my vision beginning to blur. I finally found him scaling the side of the building, climbing towards the roof, searching out the sun rather than taking refuge from it. There was no doubt or hesitation; there was no time to think. The silence was shattered with the glass window as I broke through it and threw myself back into the night, soaring down towards him.
He was unconscious on the rooftop by the time I reached him. I tore off my coat and wrapped it round him, lifting him into the air just as the first beams of sunlight began to burn. My limbs weakened and I feared that I would lose my hold on him, but somehow, through sheer force of will, we reached the shattered window and plummeted through it.
I fell upon the bed with him, gathering up my coat to search out the remote for the shutters. In my final waking moments, I must have found it. The next thing I remember is opening my eyes at sunset to his peaceful, perfect form, still sleeping beside me.
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