Best Friend (02)

Dimitri

The journey to the lower city was long. It was interesting at first, watching the scenery as we drove down. But eventually one gets bored from watching the different houses pass by. The more out of the kingdom we drove, the smaller and cheaper the houses became. I honestly never noticed this before since, I usually used my vampire speed to get places. Speaking of which, I really don't understand why Damien and I couldn't just use our vampire speed to get to where we had to go. It would have been so much faster and easier than driving a car. But dad said something about getting into the human character and all. Anyways, so after existing the kingdom, all that was to be seen was grass, and more grass. I don’t know what came after that because Damien had to wake me up when we arrived. Yes, I fell asleep. But then again, I only got over two hours of sleep.

I was glad my family was awake to bid me goodbye at least. It meant that they would miss me as much as I missed them. After all, this was going to be the first time I was away from them for so long. Usually, I leave for a few weeks and I never go alone. It is usually me and my father. He always took me with on trips to teach me the ropes of how rule a kingdom. I honestly never paid much attention on these trips. I always spent the time drawing things I found fascinating on the trips. When I turned 50 however, I had to start taking things seriously. My dad would delegate work for me and I knew nothing. Luckily, Ellie always paid attention to dad. So, I had her teach me everything again. She is way better a teacher than dad I must admit. But I would never let her know that because then I would never hear the end of it.

Damien is my most trusted friend. He was the first friend I made and he was human back then. We became friends when I was sent to school. My parents had me sent to a normal school. They didn’t want us to become snobs. Anyways, I was rather small for my age due to all the vampire slow aging. So, in essence when I was 6 years old, I looked more like a 4-year-old kid. Vampires aged slower than humans. We then stopped aging when we reached 25 years old. Well, not stopped, but slowed down greatly. So, from birth until I turn 25 years old, I look on average 2-3 years younger than a human my age. After, I turn 25 years of age, it gets longer. For every ten human years, I age one year only. So, I am currently ninety-nine years old, but I look like the equivalent 29-year-old human being. Then when I turned 100, I would age twice as slow. That means every 20 human years, I would age 1 year only. And so on and so son. In essence my aging slowed the older I became.

Back to the story of Damien and I. Basically, I was an easy target to pick on at school. I also didn’t have any vampire abilities yet. Those only came later. Luckily, while I was being man-handled by the bullies, Damien was still waiting for his parents to come get him. He heard my cries, came to my aid beat my bullies to a pulp. Unlike me being extra small, Damien was much larger than the rest of us. He looked like he was 10 years old or something. So, I was honestly terrified that he was going to kill the bullies. Yeah, I ended up feeling sorry for the very people that were beating me up. I am an odd vampire accept it and let us move on shall we. Damien and I eventually bonded over that incident and well, all the other bullies he would beat up for me since that day. It was true “pity” at first glance for us.

During the Vampire War which Selene had begun, Damien's family had been killed. Yes, unfortunately the war took many innocent lives. Most of which were human lives. Normally, we evacuate the humans before there is war with some random excuse like a hurricane or something. But with the Vampire war we were blind-sided. I had found Damien crying over his mother's bloodied body. He had blood all over him as he had tried to keep her from bleeding out.

It broke my heart knowing that the war had caused him such pain. My father had me and Ellie in a carriage to leave the kingdom as soon as possible when I saw Damien out the window. I took him with me that day and since he had no other family, my parents raised him like their own. I had never seen Damien more emotionless than the few weeks following that. Even until today, He is still very guarded and emotionless. It’s like the joyful side of him died with his mother.  

When I turned 20, it was ritual for my father to kill me which would trigger my vampire abilities to fully kick in. Yes, my dad had to snap my neck. It would end my human life. My heart would stop beating and my beast would come alive. It is another special occasion for us. Just like how humans celebrate an 18^th birthday. When I woke up from the dead, I had the strongest craving ever. It felt like my body was feeding off itself as if my intestines ate each other up.

With my heightened sense of smell and hearing, I heard movement in the forest my dad had placed me in, so I went for the kill. My first feed was a deer. It tasted so divine. The metallic taste was electrifying and addictive. I wanted more and more and more. Unfortunately, Damien had witnessed my rather inhuman moment as he had been in the forest that night too. I nearly fed on him. See, human blood smells sweeter than any other creature. Especially if it is O-blood. Luckily my dad was keeping an eye on me during my first feed feast. So, he pulled Damien far away from me before I devoured him in my rampage. I would never have forgiven myself if I did.  

The next day, I went to apologize to Damien about it and explain to him what I really was- A Vampire. I was so scared of losing my best friend. But instead of freaking out and running away, he asked me to turn him into a vampire as well and I did. My dad was pretty pissed about it when he found out but oh well, what's done is done right?

I no longer needed Damien to defend me as I had eventually become rather very powerful after the vampire shift. I am an Original Vampire after all. But that didn't stop Damien from always fighting my battles for me still. He was loyal to a fault. I mean, here he was with me on this journey simply because Ellie said that since he was my best friend, he should accompany me. Damien agreed to endure these four torturous months with me as I lived like a human without arguing back with her. I know that I wouldn't have agreed to it had things been the other way around, despite him being my best friend. I loved him, but I loved myself more.