I walked into the white walled hospital. The smell of hand sanitizer and alcohol rub was muted but still very present. They try their best to make is the smell less strong, but it’s always there. There is a sense of hidden urgency in each doctor’s face; the nurses are more practiced in showing kindness in a place were no hope could be found.
The nurse that occupied the front desk was heavy eye-lidded and had large, dark half circles around her eyes.
“Can you tell me where Lucas Adrian is?” I tried to smile, yet still sound distressed and worried
The nurse looked up, slightly annoyed, but with a smile on her face. I was probably the only person in the room who could see it.
“Are you friend or family?” she responded.
“Family, he’s my brother.” This was a lie, but we were so close that I could pull it off.
“He is in room 212; the left side of the hallway behind you.”
I thanked the exhausted nurse and turned to walk over to his room.
It was time to tell him everything, so he could choose what he really wanted. He should be allowed to choose, and then I would have to go see Elijah. Just the name stirred a more vicious and instinctual voice in my head, whispering murder in my mind’s ear. I shook the thought as I entered the room housing my dearest friend.
“How are you feeling?” I tried to walk in silently to not wake him if he was sleeping, but he was up and coherent.
“Pretty good, ever since they introduced me to the morphine stuff. They don’t give me much, just enough to mute the pain.”
He finished his small talk with a wink.
He has always been a thin person. He was taller then a normal man of this century, but he was also lanky. Taking that into consideration, it always amazed me how strong he was. He always helped me around the house, building a deck and such. I could have never lifted one of those 8x8 pieces of lumber but it never seemed to be a problem for him.
Seeing him now was very different. He wasn’t just thin anymore, he was pale. The thin sheet that covered his gowned body hung loosely on what looked like bones, even though I knew it was his legs and torso. This light blue, thin sheet looked like lead on his frail limbs, weighting down what little strength he had left.
I had seen him last week, and it is true he was getting thinner, but not like this. He still had a glow to his caramel-brown eyes and redness to his dark checks, his constant blush. Now there was nothing. He’s eyes where sunken in; his dark features seemed to be greying at the single motion of picking up a glass of water. His soul was still there though and right now that was all that mattered.
“I can see the question on your face, you’re wondering how much time I have left.” He was the only person in the world who could read my expression. After many years of practice I was able to hide most of the emotion I had left.
“Yeah, I just want to spend so much more time with you, and I won’t get to.” The tears that were again growing on the sides of my eyes surprised me. Maybe I was gaining some humanity again. I quickly blinked, as if that was necessary.
“Doctor Keen said about two months. It could be any time though; but my tests show about then. He also said that if I keep a good frame of mind, it’ll make my time . . . better.”
Two months. The regular time it took to get an appointment with Elijah was about two weeks, that wasn’t even including a prep time and scheduling a court case.
I didn’t realize that I was speaking out loud until Lucas gave me a puzzled look.
“What are you talking about? A court case? Did you get arrested or something?”
I quickly realized now was the time to share what I needed too. It was time for him to find out.
“What I’m going to tell you is going to be a serious surprise to you, and you’re probably not going to believe me at first, but what I have to say is completely true and I will show you evidence that what I say is honest, just keep an open mind, please.”
I rushed through my words, stumbling on some. I eventually got them all into the open air. He looked at me in alarm. He was worried about me. He was the one with cancer, and he thought that I had done something awful, or that something was happening to me. I knew that if I said Joe Shmoe from across the street had hit me, Joe Shmoe would be dead, no matter how much cancer Lucas had, or how much morphine was pumped into his blood.
“I want to give you an offer, but I need to explain how I can give you this offer before you choose whether you want it or not, so I’m going to tell you everything.”
Again a look of alarm, and still for me.
“Let me put it this way. I’ve been to 16 different high schools in the United States, but that was after I spend some of my life in my home town in Europe.”
“What the hell are you talking about? We are only in grade 11, and you started mid-semester, how much do you move?!”
He’s response was expected. He didn’t understand the time frame, he still thought in this decade.

“I was born in 1547. My mother practiced witchcraft and was burned at the stake for it. My dad was assigned to an explorer as a ship man; he was pushed overboard for casting a spell on the boat. I was handed over to the governor after my mother died because there was no one to take care of me. I was told to befriend his daughter and entertain her. The governor’s daughter was actually a gentle and kind soul, we became best friends. Eventually, she convinced her father to move another bed into her room. I stayed there.”
Lucas was slowly backing away from me, as much as he could in a hospital bed. He now got how old I was, but he didn’t know how that was possible yet. He knew that I never lied, but I could see that Lucas was trying to figure out if I had a mental disability. Trying to actually convince him would take more the just the story, but that’s where I needed to start.
“The governor’s daughter, Elizabeth, and I were walking down on the beach. We were playing dress up. I was dressed in one of her best gowns, and she was dressed in my work clothes. We were exactly the same size, and we had similar features. A man jumped out at us; demanding to know who we were. I assumed it was part of the game and it was just one of Elizabeth’s jokes.”
My eyes opened wider than their normal large and extravagant size; this was a memory that I always tried to forget, but that never left my mind.
“I told the man that I was the governor’s daughter and that this was my play mate, Jude. A smile spread across his aged face. He turned to Elizabeth and told her to go back to the house, which she did. I didn’t know that Elizabeth didn’t know who this person was, that he was a stranger that just spooked her.”
Suddenly the smell of ocean and sand came to my nose, even though I was still obviously in the hospital.
“The man’s name was Elijah; this was before the time of Overlords and court. He could just go around and bite whomever he wanted. His graceful leap could have been one of a house cat if it hadn’t been so deadly.”
Lucas opened his mouth to say something, but his mouth just hung open. He was thinking of what to say, so I did not interrupt his thought process.
“So, you’re saying that some guy in the 16th century jumped out at you and bit you, which has now let you live until the 21st century.”
Realization finally came upon his face as he listened to himself say the words that connected my story.
“You’re saying you’re a vampire?”
This single sentence was below a whisper; I wouldn’t have heard it unless I was looking at his mouth form the words at the same time as hearing the mumble. It wasn’t quite a question or an idea, but somewhere in between.
I felt the air move around his hand as it slowly made its way to the nurse’s call button.
“I wouldn’t touch that, I’m not insane as you must be assuming. I haven’t finished what I need to tell you.”
Lucas slowly moved his hand away again. He’s emotion was one of someone caught in the middle of a bank robbing, or of being kidnapped.
“I was changed by the next day, and I was hungry. Elizabeth came to see me after the man left, and found me passed out on the ground, she placed me in the bed with some help from her father, and they nursed me.”
I signed heavily, remembering the burden I put on the only family I ever had.
“I told Elizabeth what happened, and we agreed that my attack would not be shared outside of her room. She would bring me animals from the woods secretly. One of our mutual friends was an amazing hunter and she would always ask for his kill if he didn’t want them. It made a good way for me to survive.”
My eyes returned to their natural size. Again I was seeing the hospital room, the smell of alcohol rub evading my nose, replacing the ocean smells. It was now time for him to choose which life he wanted to live; short and humble or beautiful, dangerous and long.
“What I am offering you is life. You can live for as long as you want, choose how much you age, if you choose to age at all. Cancer would not be in your body anymore. You wouldn’t die from natural causes.”
Lucas had a crazed look on his face.
“You’re insane, just frickin’ crazy. What is wrong with you? Is this some kind of joke? You find out I have cancer and make some plan to make me think that I can live? This is so messed up Jude, you need some serious help or medication or something.”
Now I had to show Lucas the evidence, there was no other option. He wouldn’t believe me any other way.
I closed my eyes and thought about sinking my teeth into a deer. I was making it so real in my mind that I could almost smell the rotting leaves on the ground as I moved close to the prey in my mind. I crouch down so it doesn’t see me-.
My day dreaming was broken as I felt the two razor sharp teeth poke the inside of my lower lip.
Lucas looked at my silvery fangs as I pulled my upper lip away, moving my lower lip behind them at the same time. He was mesmerized with them just as all of my kills are. Humans expect them to be just like the rest of my teeth, white and even. These are a clearly polished and silvery; almost a steel color, with just the same amount of shine.

“That is so wrong, there’s just no way. You are just . . . so human.”
He was leaning in closer to my unnatural mouth, and the sudden proximity - with my fangs extended - caused me to hone in on the large blood vessel in his neck, the jugular, where I could access most of the food I needed to survive. I was suddenly very scared to hurt my dearest friend and my fangs quickly re-entered my gums by instinct. I sunk into the back of my chair and moved my head back. Lips firmly pressed together as the pain of my gums growing over the holes were my canines sank in closed.
“So just change me, right now.”
He’s voice took me away from the feeding I almost took part in.
“Well it’s not as simple as that. I’m not an Overlord, and I haven’t even started a court case with Elijah.”
My normally soft voice was rough and forced.
“I don’t understand, you’re a vampire, you can change whoever you want. If you do care about me like you say you do and you aren’t going to eat me -”
At least I had convinced him that I am who I say I am, now was explaining.
“The man who changed me, his name is Elijah. He is the son of Charles Bishop. Think of Charles as the vampire king. Only royalty has the ability to change people, and it’s a lengthy process of court applications and stuff like that. How I was changed is what caused Bishop to put these laws in to protect the amount of people in the vampire world.”
I took a pause. Most people don’t understand this part.
“Unless you have a royal bloodline from Bishop, you can’t have children, and you can’t change people into vampires, only the Bishop family can.”
Lucas’ eyes narrowed from their already slight form. I could see him trying to figure out a way around said fact, so I forced more out of my mouth.
“They have children with their cousins and it’s gotten to the point where the Bishop family will begin to have children with humans; the offspring are vampires, but the humans never survive.”
My friend was suddenly angered and saddened at the same time. He understood that it was necessary to keep the vampire lineage alive, but it was something of murder in his eyes.
“So why would you need to talk to the guy who changed you? He’s probably back in Europe right? It’s not like he’s lurking around here looking for more people to change.”
I sighed and blinked for longer than a standard second. I opened my mouth, willing the words to come out that I always wished never would. There was nothing of justice with my kind, only feeding and sex. It was not a life for children, as many where being formed and pushed into a world of severe pain.
“Elijah was 25 when he changed me, and when I say 25, I don’t mean how old he looked, he was actually 25 years of age. That is one good thing; royals don’t get to control how much they age and how long they live. They have a life span of about 150 years. Elijah was disowned by his father because he kept bringing women home, human women, and caused them to have his kids. Only none of them survived. All of his kids where deformed and still-born, and all the mothers died during said time.”
I stopped again to intake air; I only needed it to pass through my diaphragm, not to actually breath, there was no need for that anymore.
“Bishop disowned him, hoping that his life among the less fortunate would teach him to really appreciate what he had. This had never happened before, and no royal could have known what would happen.”
Again my mind flashes to an older time of long dresses with awful corsets. The smell of fecal matter in the streets overwhelmed me as I tried to pull myself back to the clean and sterile hospital room.
“Because he was disowned, he was no longer a royal, but he was still a vampire, and he still had the venom needed to change humans. He was a hybrid. Somewhere between a made vampire and royal. He could live forever, and he could change humans. This was something that could have never been anticipated.
“Once Elijah learned this, he was changing everyone in sight, and his first target was the governor. Elijah had a long standing resentment for the fatherly man, and wanted him to pay for it with the mortality of his daughter. It just so happens that I was not the person that he was looking for. It was too late to kill me when Elijah found out the truth of my heritage. The vampire’s society grew beyond what was ever expected.”
Lucas stopped me with a single dog-like yelp. It seemed that it wasn’t an intentional cry. It wasn’t even a painful one, just a surprised one. Once he processed the sound that escaped his mouth he covered his lips with both hands. Just letting a little noise through, he said,
“This is the same Elijah you need to meet with about changing me?”

I was hoping that he wasn’t going to see the end of the story before I could tell the whole history of Elijah. I should have known this would be impossible with Lucas
“Yeah, it is, but there is an explanation. Once his dad, Charles, found out about his massacre of vampirism, he put many laws in place to stop it from happening anymore. He also called Elijah his son again in the hopes of changing the agelessness of his son, but with no success. So he punished him by sending him to the New World, which was at the time empty of vampires, but in case any decided to move there, there would be an overlord ready.”
Again Lucas opened him mouth, and I let him think through the questions he had growing in his mind. It finally formed on his tongue.
“Wouldn’t Elijah just break all the rules if he moved out where there was no . . . vampires . . . around? There is no way with all the aboriginal people living here at the time and all the new European people coming in that he wouldn’t be tempted.”
“When a formal law if decreed, it doesn’t matter if you are a forced vampire or a royal, you have to follow it. If you somehow forced yourself to do something against the law or you get someone else to make you do it, you are instantly burned.”
Lucas’ eyes open wide.
“You can’t tell a human about the Bishops or about vampires in general unless you are planning on having a trial. All trials must be held in front of that area’s Overlord, and all sides must be heard completely and all points of view and possibilities must be explored.”
I was so worried about this part; this was what chooses for life or death for both me and Lucas.
“Lucas, I don’t think you understand, if Elijah doesn’t change you, we both die.”
This sudden realization shocks Lucas to near tears. He never cried. Even though I didn’t know him for very long, this fact was evident.
“You shouldn’t have told me. I accepted it, and now you could die for this? I said I was fine with my life, you made it worthwhile.”
These words surprised me, and I knew that it showed on my face. Before I could take this openness away, he commented again.
“I don’t think you realized how lonely my life has been. You’re honestly the closest friend I’ve had. No one can believe that you actually hang out with me.”
I never did understand why people talked about that. It was nothing amazing. There were some things that the boys said about me in the halls, the girl’s jealously which I never did understand. I wasn’t that spectacular.
“I’m nothing special, but now is not the time to talk about it. Now that you know we need to plan a trial with Elijah, I’m actually surprised he hasn’t called yet.”
Suddenly I remembered that my phone was off in the hospital, and I felt an invisible bite of fire near my feet. This was all just my own sense of urgency, but it was a quick reminder of something that I had to do.
“Maybe you should call him then, if you’re so set on doing this now.”
Lucas again brought me out of my daydreaming and pushed me into the more instinctual strength of needing to move now.
Once I was safely away from the hospital, I pulled out my phone and dialled Elijah’s number. A woman answered it with a very loud and obnoxious voice, she was giggling with obvious liquor in her system.
“Hello?”