Searching for Peace - Finding Love? by Loreletta Nox (libby ebook reader TXT) 📕

Ever since my kind had started to exist, we had been forced to live in the darkness of the night. We had been forced to hide ourselves away from the light; the sun our greatest enemy besides fire. And despite us being natural predators, we had partly acted like prey when dawn approached.

But sometimes, things change for the better. Not for all, of course, but for some. And we belonged to those lucky ones that benefited from two certain changes. How ironic that humans, our natural prey, had been responsible for it...

The first big change had been when they had failed to stop the climate change. Their greed for more and more, for bigger, better, more beautiful, more awesome, was ultimately what led to their downfall as the leading race on this planet. You had to give them credit for trying to change things, yet it had been too late.

Heat wave after heat wave had taken their toll on the land and whichever small rest of plants which had managed to resist the heat, was often washed away by harsh storms. Nothing was left.
In the end, they were forced to look for ways to buy more time. They were far from being ready to travel to other planets and cultivate them.

A clever head finally came up with the idea that they could add something to the atmosphere. After all, they already had been doing that whenever they had ‚needed‘ good weather for an event. For those they had send planes to spray silver iodide which had temporarily changed the weather into humans‘ favour. Only this time it would have to be a substance that would cause a more permanent effect!

Finally, after many tries and errors, they succeeded. Clouds returned to the sky and covered the sun effectively, but fortunately not fully. Or else they would have caused themselves yet another Ice Age. But maybe that would have been better...

The second big change, in turn, took place without their knowledge and on a rather smaller scale. This too was triggered by human greed for more and more, but this time by their greed for meats.

They increased the herds of cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry to meet the ever-increasing demand. But even though some people worked to improve husbandry conditions....

These quantities of animals crammed into sometimes very small spaces came at a high price. Diseases. And what do you do to prevent diseases? To nip them in the bud so that they don’t spread? Exactly... You give the animals medication - regardless of whether they need it or not.

Some even went so far as to alter the genetic makeup of the animals. They wanted the animals to be more resistant. They wanted the animals to put on fat more easily. These highly bred and medicated animals served as food for humans. And humans, in turn, were ours.

Taken individually, those two changes were already unnecessary and bad, but together? Together they prepared the way for the likes of me...

Sure, it took us a while to notice that we weren’t bound to the darkness of the night any longer. That we now could wander around whenever we pleased without the dread of dying at sunrise. But when we finally understood the gravity of this discovery, it spread like a wildfire amongst our kind!

Clans started to leave their hiding spots and revealed their existence to mankind. Suddenly we were everywhere and humans could not do anything against it. At least not if they didn’t want to lose everything they had so painstakingly reclaimed again.

You could say they now had a choice between plague and cholera. And for their own sake, they chose the lesser of two evils: us.

It was easier to open new blood banks and special bars to enable peaceful coexistence instead of worrying once again about crop failures and famine. And it was also easier to accept us in their society, because many of us had always been involved in it.

But just because something is an easy thing to do doesn’t mean everyone will like it.

On both sides there were and are those who are not enthusiastic about the new lifestyle. Those who would like to see it gone for good.

And then there are those who think like I do. Who don’t care as long as you let them live in peace.

Depending on the century you are living in you’ve got several years ahead of you. And with every new generation they seem to increase themselves.

By now humanity has reached a lifespan of around 100 years, given, or taken some. You are born, you grow up, you learn, you go to work, maybe marry someone, maybe you get some children, you raise them while you grow older, then you retire and in the end you die. Simple as that.

At least it is this way when you are lucky and live a normal life. Sure, accidents and illnesses don’t care about normal lifespans at all and when they happen they can rip you out of the routine. It’s sad, no doubt, but it’s still something natural to happen.

But the situation is completely different when you die and… wake up again.

That’s exactly what had happened to me. My family and I had lived in a small village and had led a somewhat normal life, if you want to call it that way. So far, so good.

But whereas my siblings had married and had children, I had remained unmarried. Nobody had wanted to marry the weird one... At least not until this stranger had come to our small village.

Long story short: My parents gladly agreed on marrying me off to the stranger – happy that I finally had found someone for myself. Not knowing that waving goodbye to us when we left my birth-village was the last time they would ever see me again.

Back then, he had locked me up in his heavily guarded residence. To ‚get rid of my unsuitable tan and other blemishes‘, as he had told me. Until that one day when he had deemed me ready...

Let’s just say that this stranger – my ‚husband‘ – was the reason for why I’ve been around for quite longer than I should have been and for why my family never saw me again. I’ve seen empires rise and fall, I’ve seen mankind enslaving and freeing each other…

Or in short: I’ve seen enough to justify why I still held myself hidden.

Ever since I had woken up again I had travelled around the world. At the beginning I had done this because my creator had insisted on it. Later on, after I had gotten rid of him, I had travelled for seeking answers to my questions and out of safety reasons.

If you don’t age, humans become suspicious about you at some point. They start to question you and if you still refuse to move, they start to hunt you down. They fear you because they can’t explain what you are.

At least this had been before they had been forced to mess around with the atmosphere. And now? Now I only did it out of habit. And probably because there still were humans out there that didn’t like those of my kind.

I knew that there were others like me, scattered all around the globe. Once they had needed to live in plain sight to the mortals, had been forced to hunt during nighttimes, but now...

Now they lived amongst them, integrated despite their need for blood. And humans voluntarily gave their blood to them, for peace‘s sake. But their eating habits disgusted me.

Oh, don’t think I wouldn’t drink blood at all. Humans or animals, it didn’t matter who provided it to me. I do drink it, I must drink it, but I didn’t need it as often like the others did. A trait back from when I had been alive which had survived my rebirth.

One of few I didn’t despise. Instead it was one which I rather was grateful for.

Nobody had ever understood the way I think about things, which opinions I hold concerning certain situations and I knew for sure that nobody ever would understand. Another reason why I lived on my own. Why I kept my distance, besides being disgusted about eating habits in general.

Yet again it was time to move. To travel to a new place for a while, to keep myself safe from those who tried to hunt me down. They were following me for quite some time now, I probably had even seen them already at some point, but I didn’t care.

Whenever this soft tingling sensation appeared at my neck, I moved without any question, without any regret. I held no ties to the mortal world, so why should I feel grief or anger for having to leave my temporary home again?

With the next gush of wind I was gone from my previous spot. Traceless. Angering those who tried to get to me – again.

I had no need to think about where I would go next. I also held no need to admire most of my surroundings. Yes, I could see them detailed and brightly, but there were only few things that could make me stop and admire them.

Small natural spots, no matter how rare they had become: some sorts of formations – stones, trees, it didn’t matter what it was, as long as the formation caught my eye. I even enjoyed some sorts of buildings, the old ones, not those new cubes made from glass, steal, and plastic.

Humans boast that they protect their borders, that no one can cross them illegally and unseen. That they have guards everywhere to prevent violations. And yet I have never been stopped at a border.

It is easy to get from one country to another when you have lived as long as I have. I know rat runs, crossings and if neither helps... I am simply too fast for the human eye.

I knew remote places around the globe, but I never visited them a second time in quick succession if I had lived there before. Predictability could lead to death and apart from various rock-bottom phases in my existence, I currently wasn’t tired of being undead.

Honestly, I hadn’t planned on staying at Spain when I took a short break. Another habit of mine, one I didn’t really care about.

The next human being was miles away from me, so there was no need for me to keep on running. Despite this knowledge I looked around several times before I sat down on a lump of rock and … did nothing. I only sat there, starred blankly at nothing in particular and waited.

For what? I didn’t know. But I knew that my mind would soon drift to something to think and wonder about it.

This time it were my legs. Or more so the strange feeling of my body in general. How my skin and flesh felt too big for my skeleton. Almost like too big clothes but lacking the possibility to wrap them closer to provide some sort of warmth.

I’ve already been cold when I was still