The bus screeched to a halt, its wheezing brakes announcing my arrival to yet another town. Another fresh start. Or so I hoped. Stepping off, the familiar ache of loneliness settled deep in my bones, a constant companion for centuries. The air in this new place was thick with the scent of damp earth and something else something metallic and faintly sweet that made my fangs ache.
I pulled my worn leather jacket tighter, the collar scratching against the sensitive skin of my neck. My reflection stared back from the darkened windows of the bus... a pale, almost translucent face framed by choppy brown hair. Even after all this time, I still looked like a teenager forever frozen in that awkward stage between childhood and adulthood.
My name doesn’t matter. Names are fleeting, insignificant whispers in the grand scheme of eternity. I’ve had so many, each a temporary mask to blend in, to disappear when things inevitably went wrong. I’d learned long ago that identity was a fleeting thing, a fragile shell that could shatter at any moment.
This time, I’d chosen a small town nestled beneath towering mountains. Quiet, unassuming, perfect for hiding away where secrets could be buried beneath layers of fog and silence. My gothic look suited the place... dilapidated Victorian houses with peeling paint and crooked fences, streets cloaked in mist and mystery. It was a perfect stage for my own personal tragedy a place I hoped would be different, where I could finally find some semblance of peace.
I found a room in a crumbling boarding house run by a sweet, elderly woman named Mrs. Hawthorne. Her eyes were milky with age, yet her smile was genuine, her hands warm as she handed me the key to room number seven. For a moment, I allowed myself to feel a spark of hope. Maybe, just maybe, this time could be different.
The town’s college was a hulking concrete monstrosity, a fortress of hormones and desperation. It was a far cry from the grand libraries and lush ballrooms I once inhabited in my long, tangled history. But it was a necessary facade an act I played out with quiet, calculated patience. college was a breeding ground for innocence and vulnerability, and I was the thing lurking in the shadows, observing from the darkness.
I tried to be invisible, to keep to myself. I haunted the library, burying myself in dusty tomes and ancient texts, searching for answers anything that could explain this curse that had haunted me for centuries. But the silence was often broken by murmurs, rustling pages, and the faint sighs of loneliness that echoed through the quiet stacks. Each sound was a siren call to the dormant monster within me, threatening to wake and take control.
Then I met her.
Her name was Sarah. She was everything I wasn’t. Bright, vibrant, full of life. Her fiery red hair cascaded over her shoulders, freckles dotted her nose, and her eyes sparkled with a fire of life, something long extinguished in myself. She was sunshine personified a stark contrast to my shadowed existence and I was inexplicably drawn to her light like a moth to a flame.
Sarah saw past my guarded exterior, past the brooding silence I cloaked myself in. She saw something else something vulnerable and wounded and she was determined to heal it. She’d leave notes in my locker small drawings of fantastical creatures, sketches of stars and moons, little notes with encouraging words. She’d always offer a smile in the crowded hallways, her warmth like a balm I desperately needed.
I was wary at first. Trust didn’t come easily after centuries of loss and heartbreak. But her persistence, her genuine kindness, slowly chipped away at my defenses. I found myself looking forward to those notes, those brief exchanges that left me feeling seen, even if I didn’t quite want to be.
We spent hours talking after school, sharing secrets beneath the watchful gaze of the moon. She told me about her dreams of becoming a writer, about her love for classic literature Jane Austen, Dickens, the Brontë sisters and her fears of never being good enough. She confided her insecurities, her hopes, her fears of a future she wasn’t sure she deserved.
And I, for the first time in centuries, felt a connection something real and raw that I thought had long ago been extinguished. I told her fragments of the truth about being different, about carrying a darkness within me that I couldn’t quite explain. I warned her I was dangerous, that I had a past filled with pain and shadows. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the full truth the monster that lurked beneath my surface.
Our friendship blossomed into something more, something forbidden and intoxicating. It was a dangerous game, and I knew it. I’d had not allowed myself to feel this way in ages I dared not open my heart to the possibility of love. But Sarah was irresistible her touch, her smile, her laugh all of it ignited a fire within me that I thought had long gone out.
One night, beneath a sky dusted with shimmering stars, we kissed. It was tentative, hesitant an act born of curiosity and longing. Her lips were soft and warm, her breath warm against my skin. And in that fleeting moment, I felt like I could be normal like I could finally escape the curse that had haunted me for so long.
But the darkness always wins.
A week later, Sarah was gone.
She’d been walking home from school when it happened a hit-and-run. The police said the driver was drunk, that it was a tragic accident. But I knew better. I felt it in my bones the sharp, agonizing pain that ripped through my chest, a connection severed with brutal finality. I knew, deep down, that I was responsible.
They found her body lying in the street, her fiery hair matted with blood, her eyes wide and vacant. The metallic scent that had haunted me since I arrived grew overwhelming. It was as if her blood had stained the very air I breathed, sealing her fate the curse claiming yet another victim.
Grief, raw and visceral, consumed me. It was a familiar pain, one I’d felt countless times over the centuries each loss a fresh wound on my immortal soul. But this time, it was different. This time, it felt like a part of me had died with her.
Guilt crushed me the crushing weight of it almost unbearable. I knew, with chilling certainty, that I was responsible. My darkness had reached out and claimed her, just as it had claimed so many others before her. I wondered if I was cursed to destroy everything I touched, to be the architect of tragedy in every life I encountered.
I left that town in the dead of night, slipping away into the shadows. The crumbling boarding house, the oppressive school, the memory of Sarah’s bright smile all left behind. I knew I couldn’t stay. I was a plague carrier, a bringer of death and destruction. Anyone who got close to me was doomed, their lives tragically cut short by the darkness that clung to me like a shroud.
And so I wandered.
A solitary figure drifting through the endless night, seeking out the shadows, the forgotten corners of the world where I could hide from prying eyes. I fed, of course I had to. But I was careful, I learned several lifetimes ago... take only what I needed, leave no trace behind. I learned to hunt with precision, to avoid the suffering I knew I would cause if I took more than necessary.
Sometimes, I dream of Sarah. I see her smiling, her eyes sparkling with life her laughter echoing in my mind. And in those dreams, I allow myself to believe that maybe, just maybe, there is a place for me in this world a place where I can finally find peace.
But then I wake up.
The cold reality crashes down upon me like a tidal wave the knowledge that I am destined to wander alone, forever haunted by ghosts of my past, forever burdened by the curse that I can never escape.
The world keeps spinning, indifferent to my pain. I keep moving an endless, purposeless journey through the dark, searching for a place to vanish into. But I know, deep within, that there is no escape. The darkness is always there, waiting, ready to claim its next victim.
Some monsters don’t lurk in the shadows they lurk within. Mine, I fear, will never be silenced.
And so I continue, a tragic figure in an unending night, haunted by memories of love lost, of lives destroyed, of the fragile hope that flickers just beyond my reach. I am a vessel of darkness, a creature cursed to wander until the end of time, forever alone, forever cursed.
Because some monsters aren’t born they are made. And some ghosts refuse to stay buried.
), but I'm really satisfied with it. Now I'd like to finish a Legend of Korra story I started about 10 years ago now that was really fun to write because it was a comedy--I can still read through it and get a laugh (at my own jokes, yes lol). I started to continue it a few years ago, but then stopped. A recent comment made me realize I should finish it for the people who still want to read it, and because it was legitimately fun to write.
