Hybrid of the Forbidden

I. Memories

    It is the day you remember most vividly. No matter how old you are, 159 or 927 years old, you can never forget that day. Other memories are bits and pieces, they never truly fade, but they deteriorate. However, the one memory from your human life that you will never forget is the day you die. The day you are reborn. Maybe it's because of the significance.        I say it’s because of the pain. 

    The day you die, the day you changed, the day you’re turned, it is memorable for a number of reasons, mostly because in the end, most of your human memories fade into a blur. Nothing until that point matters, it is insignificant because the word you are about to enter truly restarts your entire life. 

    You can’t go back. 

    You can’t change your mind, and in often cases, you aren’t given that choice. 

    You lose your human life but gain an eternal one.

    It was 1890 and a beautiful summer day had settled upon Richardson, England. My home was a small town in the south of London that prospered under a large estate. I remember I was getting ready to go to church, the kids that I grew up within the orphanage were going to be there and afterward, they were going to catch up over tea. I remember not wanting to go, I remember how they weren't that friendly, and after they were adopted by wealthy parents or married a wealthy man, they gained pride and took joy in picking on me. To them, I was the youngest, I was just the brunette in the corner, not to be missed or loved. Or at least that was what they always told me. 

    I remember how I slid on the itchy fabric that was my dress. It was a pale, light blue shade, and the material was starting to lose its color after every wash. It was my good dress I remember, and I had two other dresses. A yellow one that, which I had worn before and I was called Ducky by those same women, and a brown one, the one I wear to go run errands. And of course, my uniform; a black skirt and a long sleeve to match, an apron with soft lace trim, and the boots. The only pair I owned. 

    I remember looking in the mirror. That was the last time I saw my eyes, the last time I saw myself flush, embarrassed by my own reflection. It was the last time I felt human. The church was a mile from the estate where I worked and lived in. I remember the farms and the cattle, and the green grass that covered the open fields and the few houses that covered small plots of land here and there. It was a peaceful walk, and then I arrived at the town and things went downhill from there. 

    Town drunks who had risen from the back of taverns look at me as I walked, "Where you goin, sweetheart?" One called, eyeing me with greed.

    I frowned, masking my fear, "Pigs."I muttered."Oh, don't be that way, luv." 

    They called after me, their accents think with liquor.I remember the last seconds, the moments when I got near the newly remodeled church. A new bell tower had just been built, and the stone shone as the sun hit it. Nothing seemed wrong, but then all I could hear was an argument, loud but indecipherable, and then-

    CRACK!

    Like an avalanche the bell tower fell, the once shining stone became covered in grey and red. I remember I had been too startled to move, that I was completely paralyzed by the shock that when I was knocked unconscious, it felt like a blink of an eye. 

    It was short but serene for a moment or two.

    And then I woke again. Pain like no other spread through my body, my chest felt like if it was on fire, my skull felt like it was lined with shards of glass. 

     remember that by the time I was taken to the hospital, I was a lost cause. My ribs were shattered, my lungs were failing, I had internal bleeding and there was no hope. As I suffocated to death in silence, they transferred me to the morgue, where I was destined to land eventually. 

    I was as good as dead and I didn’t even know it. All I could focus on was the pain I was in, and how it was getting better and worse. I was dying, but I was still alive. And then I remember, how suddenly I was lifted from my death bed. The movement was painful, but I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t see who, I was trying to breathe correctly and it impeded my yelps to be audible. Once I was off the stiff surgical table, I saw the face of my angel of death, a handsome blonde man, he took me to a much more comfortable deathbed within a matter of seconds. All I knew I was at the edge of death.

    Who is she, Vincent ?" A soprano voice wondered.

    "She was in the Bell Tower accident, " the man spoke.

    "Why did you bring her here?"His response was hesitant, "I-I don't know."

    There was a hiss of air after a deep inhale, "She smells....odd." She said.

    "There is little blood in her." 

    My senses began to dull as the blurry people worked over me, "Are you going to turn her?" She asked in a panic, "We don't know who she is, Vincent!"

    "I've realized that Abigail, but she is as young as you when you died- when I turned you. . . 'Janeane Harris', she's barely 18. Abigail. . . she is too young ." He spoke calmly as he read.

    "Are you sure about this?"

    "She is orphaned, Abigail. Alone and was about to die alone."

    "She might not want this life."

    "You are strong enough to give her that choice later."

    "Dio mio. . .Do it." She said after a brief second.

    A cold oozy liquid slipped into my mouth. I choked and gasped as I couldn't swallow and darkness suddenly completed me. Cool and gentle death was what I was praying for. After the pain, I was going through it seemed only fair, but I rarely got what I wanted. Darkness was all that was around me as a stinging pain burned me but also filtered my ability to scream. Slowly it ended, dulling. The flames of the pain flushed away and my muscles felt anew. 

    'Death,' I thought with a hint of relief.I opened my eyes, slowly taking in my surroundings. I rested on a feather mattress, an expensive item to possess, and a library like room trapped me here. Other than a window and door there was no other exit. An intricate chandelier hung over my head and then the door opened.

    "You're awake,” she says as I angel-like girl spoke. I knew who she was, I recognized her. She was Dr. Vincent Dale's daughter, though, there were rumors about how he killed the mother because she was unfaithful to him. 

    It made some sense, Abigail had a different complexion compared to her father. She had a dark, almost black hair with gold-green eyes and warm olive skin. As far as I knew, Dr.Dale was a dark blonde male with pale skin. They both had similar eyes, but none of the other features matched.

    "Why am I not dead-?"I blurted out. I froze, every movement I made was heard through my ears. Everything was sharp and clear; my British accent clear in those five words, and as clear as the rest of the white noise surrounding me, echoing and my eyes widen in bewilderment, panicking as I seemed healed by witchcraft. 

    Abigail held her hands out, "Shh, don't worry, everything will be fine, relax," She told me, "it's overwhelming, isn't it?"

    I nodded. 

    She smiled with sympathy, "I forgot how much different it is," She said, a small glimpse of a memory skimming my mind, "well, brace yourself, Jane." She said, shaking off her memories. She held a cup out to me, the small movement stirring a breeze, sending a delicious scent to my nostrils and the rabid part of me woke my senses. 

    Hunt and prey were all I could think about."What is going on? What's happening to me?" I gasped in a hoarse voice; restraining myself from attacking her just for the cup.

    "It's hard to explain to a young one." She said with an apologetic gaze as if she was talking from experience. She passed me the cup and I took it without any second thought. I gulped it down, I couldn’t stop myself. It was like my thirst would consume me until I had what was in the cup. It was cool, revitalizing and addicting. 

    Then I looked at my cup and I let out a horrified gasp, "Bloody hell! What is this!"

    "Pigs blood." She said she was now standing by the door, almost guarding it. I hissed the second I understood what I had done and dropped the cup, but in a flash she was there by my side, ready to catch it.

    “What have you done to me?” my words trembled their way out of me. She stands up straight and walks over to a small table. 

    “Saved you. Ruined you. It all depends on how you want to look at it.” A sharp piercing noise began to ring in my ears and I cowered as things began to come in and out of focus. 

    “That’s the blood.” She tells me, “You’re fairly new to your senses haven’t had the chance to adjust.”I close my eyes and press my hands to my ears. “Don’t, you need to learn.” I still hear her say.

    “What did you do?” I ask again and once again I hear my voice ring in my throat. 

    She sighs, "Do you believe in magic?" 

    I lost my humanity that day, but I was able to live once more as something stronger, more advanced but monstrous. It took me a while to get used to the idea of vampirism, but it got better over the years. I was immortal, and I had a new family to learn from and have by my side forever. Immortal or not, we could still bleed. We couldn't walk in the sun without a Sunstone that was crafted by a witch or else we became a torch and we needed blood supply. 

    We were stronger, faster and more mentally capable than mortals, but we were limited by our aversion to human blood which made us weaker than those who feed mercilessly off of humans. Vincent treated us like his daughters and I learned about their past. He was born in Britain as the only son of a warrior back in the medieval area. His mother died after his birth and his father was never there with him. He was 31 when he was turned into a vampire by a woman, a vampire who planned to feed off him and had already killed his wife and child. He somehow managed to stab her in the heart, killing her. But the blood transferred to him somehow and he became a vampire.

    Abigail was being raised by her hating aunt when Vincent found her in 1868, Italy. There was a fire in her home and the house fell on her, almost killing her, but he changed her right on time to give her a second chance in life. But the thing she found out in that second life was that she had the ability to do magic since her family was descendants of a witch coven. 

    We believed the transition to the supernatural world made a spark of magic which woke the rest up. Then around seventy years after my rebirth, we were living in a town near the shore of the Atlantic ocean. It was then when we saved a woman named Sara Beth after she nearly drowned. Later we learned that the accident was the act of men who wanted her dead.

    Vincent saved her and loved her far more than as for a daughter, and so did Sara. Vincent wasn't the only one of us to find the love spark in this life. In 1980 a group of hitmen attacked a man named Kenneth. He was knocked unconscious and given amnesia months before thus he couldn't remember why he was being persecuted. 

    Abigail and Sarah found him in an ally, they brought him to our house and changed him. Within the first weeks of his rebirth, Abby tried help restore his memory, only for him to fall in love with a new memory: her. So I ended up being the only one without a partner, but I had something else. I had my ability to read thoughts, a nifty little something I found out I could do a few weeks after my rebirth. Only my newfound family didn’t have that same ability. 

    Only now I wished that was the only thing I found out.