Lucius - Thousand Year Old Vampire - Part 14

35.1 She was dead, for days this was my constant thought. Some days “she” meant Octavia, other days I was thinking of Fabia. It felt easier to mourn my losses than to consider that I’d slept for so long. A hundred years, that was longer than a person lived.

I wanted to berate Claudia for not waking me up earlier. I knew that she had tried, but to what extent? She should have tried harder.

The unspoken questions were around what happened to Octavia. Had Claudia considered to turn her? Did Claudia feed on her in the end. Did age come for her?

I wasn’t scared to enter the city again, instead it just felt so unknown. Like I didn’t belong in my home. It wasn’t just the missing or new landmarks or what I heard about the politics. People seemed different.

I felt uncertain when hunting, Claudia seemed a lot more at ease with the new changes than I did. She told me that Quintus once forced his way into our home, or what had been Marcus’s home when he lived.

Quintus had stood over me when I slept and said that he wouldn’t kill a sleeping man, no matter how vile. Claudia thought that my brother had left Rome by now but wasn’t sure.

The old abandoned house I’d once stayed in had been rebuilt and a family spanning many generations lived there now. Claudia had found another much smaller house where we stayed now.

I began a hunt, not for blood but for something familiar. I walked the city in vain for days. Everyone I’d known had passed away. Why had the gods taken them but spared me?

One day Claudia found a link to the past. A young man called Publius. Claudia said he resembled me in some ways. After we asked around we learned that he was a descendant to Fabia, and by extension my brother Quintus. The brother who saw me as the enemy.

I didn’t know if Publius knew who I was or wanted anything to do with me. I’m not even sure I wanted anything from the boy, I didn’t have anyone else. I felt an urge to be close to him.

Publius worked as a carpenter. While young he seemed talented. I approached him to offer my services and said I’d be willing to train under him as an unpaid servant. He seemed confused saying that he was too young to have an apprentice, but I insisted.

I ended up learning a lot from him, but the work itself was boring and gave me no satisfaction. Instead I tried to help him in other ways by going after his rivals and feeding on them.

Claudia hated that I worked with menial tasks but she joined in the feeding without complaint. I couldn’t even say why I was helping Publius, if that was what I was doing. I think I was searching for a purpose in an unknown world.

After news about the deaths among the carpenters spread Publius grew worried that someone would come after him. At that time I decided time had come to distance myself from him.

I realized that it wasn’t him I was seeking instead what I sought was something out of reach. I thought back to the old days and to my horror realized that memories that should have been there were missing.

Had the long sleep taken my memories, or was I loosing myself for some other reason?