Lucius - Thousand Year Old Vampire - Part 5

2.1 In the morning, grief over what I’d done overcame me. Sahylina didn’t just turn me, she created a horrible monster. I didn’t deserve to be alive, or whatever I should call this existence. How I wanted this pulsating feeling of guilt to go away.

Aulus lay dead in his bed. I sat on the floor by his side. I would have given anything to have him alive again. I wanted to talk to him, to say that I was sorry. I wanted to listen to him sing. And I wanted to feed on him again.

I had tried to drink more during the night, but after death the taste seemed to shift and fade. I didn’t need much blood to sustain myself, but the taste, when fresh, was so intoxicating.

All day I sat by Aulus with an ever growing sense of horror over what I was turning into, over what I’d already done. My central tenant was to leave the world better than I found it. To spread joy. I no longer deserved to be a roman, or even part of this world.

When night fell I carried Aulus body out of the city and buried him with his instruments. I knew that if I stayed in his house, I’d hurt others that would come.

In the late hours of night I found an abandoned house close to where I grew up, some fire had ravaged the entire neighborhood. The walls were caving in. I found the darkest corner and lay to rest.

Without moving for days I lay there in the corner. I could hear rats coming and going. One day some children that were playing in the nearby ruins. Nothing mattered any more. I yearned for everything to end.

Daydreams and real ones, I got from fragmented sleep, intermixed. Fabia ran from me terrified. Quintus and his workers stabbed me with daggers. In my dreams Aulus died, over, and over.

It felt like weeks, but I was sure it to only be a few days as my beard hadn’t grown. Remembering that my beard had stopped growing I was unsure. I know that time past, but I don’t know how much.

One night I found myself walking by the river. Insomnia and a hunger deprived madness had prompted me to move. As I came upon the group I still didn’t know if it’s a dream or not.

For a while I only observed them. It’s clear they were thieves of a sort. Their words held little meaning to me, but their smell did. The constant wound I had below my ribs ached and grew worse when I was hungry.

I promised myself I wouldn’t hurt them unless provoked. I approached them and called out a greeting. Soon they surrounded me. At least two of them had knives. It wasn’t my fault.

The night marked the first time when I tasted the blood of more than one person at a time. My entire body tingled. Later I just lay in the ground in my abandoned house and shook. The rush lasted for hours. All the stars in the sky were radiant that night.

In my exile from society I’d found the solution. I’d live in the outskirts and keep away from honest romans. Then only attack those who had sinned against another roman. In no way was I absolved of my terrible sins, but I’d found a golden middle ground where my work would keep Rome a better place.

I know I’m a bad liar, and the lie even felt weak when I tried to convince myself. But that was what I had. I believed it enough to try it for a while. It had to be good enough for now. During the nights I would sneak around in the shadows.

I relished the hunt. I didn’t find the same kind of group as that first time. Over the months I found both men and woman walking alone who I marked as bad people. It weighed on my conscious whenever I ended someones life. But that guilt always came later. It could be later that night, or the next few days. Then I’d curl up in the corner of my house and agonize over what I was. In the moment of the hunt, blood thirst drove me.

Regret always came later.