19:34 May 08 2006
Times Read: 612
Jazlyn collapsed to her knees, unable to stand any longer. Her head pounded as her body fought the strange blood that was trying to over take her system.
She knew this sensation, she had felt it once before, on the day she had died, years age. It had not hurt so much then. It had not hurt to die.
It had not hurt to die…
Why did it hurt so much to live again?
Her vision went black as her heart beat for the first time in more than thirty years. She drew a slow, painful breath.
The heart in her chest labored, unaccustomed to its task. Her lungs burned with the constant intake of oxygen, which seemed to sear her throat. All the muscles of her torso cramped each time she inhaled. Finally she fell into blissful unconsciousness.
Instead of the death-sleep that she had grown accustomed to, she dreamed of the world she was now trying to escape. She dreamed that she was running through a city street at midnight, chasing her frightened prey. She dreamed that she was flying far above the nighttime desert in the form of an eagle. She dreamed that she walking in a graveyard, toward the grave of her once-husband.
Jazlyn woke gasping for breath. It took her several moments to realize where she was, which was something that hadn’t happened to her in a long time. Her very survival had frequently depended on her ability to wake instantly.
During those confused moments, a vague memory flashed in her mind of meeting a witch who called herself Monica, a witch who had offered to give her back her hard-lost humanity.
But why had the witch made this offer? Why had Jazlyn accepted? Everything was so faint in her mind. Monica had been afraid to even speak to Jazlyn. Why had she given back the life that Jazlyn had willingly tossed a way.
Jazlyn’s mind drifted back to the might had had died. She had known for years the black-haired, green-eyed creature who called himself Siete, and she had been offered immortality often. She had refused every time. After all, she was twenty-five, she had a husband, and life was perfect.
Siete had twice changed humans against their wills, and both times the result had been disastrous, so he accepted Jazlyn’s refusals with good grace.
Then everything had changed. Carl, the love of her life, her husband for three years, was hit by a drunk driver. He died in the hospital bed while she wept in the waiting room.
Her parents both had passed away several years before, and her friends were few and far between. There was no shoulder she could cry on. The only one who as there for her was the immortal Siete.
She still said no. immortality was not what she wanted. Immortality without Carl was meaning-less. She wanted only to be left alone and given time to grieve.
Even this was denied her.
She was pregnant. Looking at her no one would have been able to tell but, the test had returned positive.
Why would the universe not leave her alone? She was only twenty-five, and she was a widow. How could she raise a child be herself? Carl’s child deserved better than what she, who was still in mourning, could provide.
A cruel god gave her this life.
The next time Siete visited, Jazlyn did not say no, she knew that what ever life she woke up in would not be the life she was leaving.
But any decision made out of desperation is later regretted. The world of eternal night and lawlessness was no better then the human work d she had fled, yet Jazlyn had no more choices.
The years passed and faded, meaningless and empty. Often Jazlyn found herself remembering things like the beach on which Carl had proposed. He remembered being married in the outdoors and honey mooning in France.
Tears came frequently. This was not what she had wanted at all.
Just past Valentine’s Day 1983. Jazlyn visited Carl’s grave for the first time since his funeral. She brushed off the thin layer of snow and read the stone for the first time: “Carl Raisa, 1932 – 1960. ‘ I shall smile from heaven upon those I love. My death is not my end, and in heaven shall I meet my beloved again.”’
But he wouldn’t, because she was never going to reach heaven. Her kind was evil; she had killed so many times to sate the blood lust that she would never be forgiven.
Jazlyn lay weeping in the snowy graveyard that Valentine’s night, wondering why the world had chosen her to torment.
That was where the witch who called herself Monica Smoke had found her-weeping there for the one she loved. Monica was the first on in more then twenty years who offered her shoulder to cry on. Then she heard the story and gave Jazlyn the one thing she thought could never be returned: her life.
Jazlyn was in constant pain for the first few days, but even that pain served as a welcome reminder that she was alive.
The first thing she did was go to the church, inside which she had not dared set foot since the day she had been changed. The priest blessed her and listened to her confession, which she abridged for the sake of his sanity.
She thought she had been given another chance- a chance to leave behind the life of darkness and evil. When the child came- Carl’s child, whom she should have had years before – she thought it was a sign that she’d been forgiven.
Instead, the child was a reminder of her past. Jessica was flawless, brilliant…..and shadowed be the night. She looked nothing like Carl or Jazlyn; instead, she had Siete’s fair skin, black hair, and emerald eyes.
Those eyes could look upon someone and see the darkest parts of their soul.
Jessica had spent more than twenty years in Jazlyn’s womb, kept alive only be Siete’s blood. She was more his child than Jazlyn’s.
There was no way for Jazlyn to raise the child who brought back every painful memory. No child deserved to have a mother who could not bursh her raven hair; or look into her gemstone eyes, without shuddering.
Jazlyn put the child up for adoption, so that she could be given to caring parents who knew only of sunlight and laughter. Jessica deserved that life; she had done nothing wrong.
Jazlyn prayed that her child would never be touched be the darkness of her past.
But Jessica did meet a vampire, but that is another story.
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