The Donor House: Ciar: Saving a Life

[k_a_webb]

Written for Elizabeth’s prompt – this was very hard to write, but hopefully it works.

There are moments, when things happen, that seem to not exist at all. Like the moment just before you trip over when you might be able to catch yourself or the, much harder when you miss it, moment before a child runs out in front of a car when you might be able to stop them. A vampire sees them, but can’t always do anything about them, because they happen during the day, when we aren’t around. Since the Donor House opened things have changed a little. We can be there in those moments, as we have much more freedom in the town that we have ever had before, because now we can walk around during the day without it seeming strange, so we can be there for those moments.

Like the time I managed to save the child from being run over before anyone even realised it might have happened. I’m glad I did, even though I didn’t get any thanks for it, because it meant she got to live a normal life. The humans all missed the moment, one that was too fleeting for them to see, but that is something I don’t blame them for – the way their live their lives is different to the way we live ours. Theirs are so much shorter, yet they miss some of the things we see, because they aren’t looking for them, they aren’t expecting something to go wrong, in the way I think vampires do from the very morning they wake up.

I gave that little girl a chance of life, but that also means she might, sometime in the future, become a vampire, because it is very unusual for any of my species to change someone imperfect. All vampires have a different idea of what perfect is – few of them see disabilities as anything more then a problem for someone who is going to live forever. To be honest I can understand their point of view. Becoming a vampire doesn’t magically fix any of the issues you have when you’re a human, a blind human will become a blind vampire, but it does often create more. Almost all the vampires I have ever known have been adversely affected by the change, because I’m one of those strange people who never wanted to become immortal, no matter what my creator believed.

Fortunately there are more of us that I ever believed was possible and I’ve met them thanks to the hard work Nick, Alice, Issac, and Lewis did, because they realised that vampires like me, like them, needed somewhere to be themselves. Around other vampires, those who have embraced the change, it is hard to be anything other than them. It is impossible to admit that you have kept track of the families that your children had, all those years ago, and that the little girl you saved is a relation, which made being there for her at the right time, when she needed you because you were different, all the more important.

Explaining what goes through your mind in that moment is very hard to explain to someone who hasn’t lived for the length of time that I have. I see things differently to the average person and I’m not just saying that to make you think that I’m special, because I’m not. It’s just that being a vampire changes you in more ways than you expect when you first wake up. There are the obvious issues, like the more sensitive senses and that first evening… it was torture, because everything was more. Sounds were louder, smells were stronger, I felt like I nearly blinded myself when I opened my eyes because the light was so bright… even now I can have difficulties. I’m much more touch sensitive that a lot of vampires, which is a pain when I’m trying to feed, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Again it’s thanks to the House that I have much fewer problems with that than I did before.

Okay, what I’ll do is take you back to the exact moment I realised that my who knows how many greats granddaughter was about to step right in front of a car. Now the car was far enough away that the humans she was with didn’t realise that it would get there at the time when she was going to be in the road. To be honest I’m not certain they realised she was about to step into the road, because they were talking and she was bored of listening to them, but I did know. At this time I was on the other side of the road, further away than I needed to be if I was going to stop her from being run over by someone who was going much faster than he should have been. If he’d actually hit her it would not have been pretty, but I wasn’t going to let it hit her.

Time seemed to stop. For the first time in years I sprinted across the road, hoping that I would be quick enough even though I was massively out of practice, and managed to grab her around the waist as I did so. We stepped onto the curb the same time the car whizzed by us, so close that I could almost feel the metal it was made from on my back. Breathing a sigh of relief I put the little girl, a pretty brunette who had my wife’s eyes, next to her mother, who looked between me, her daughter, and the car. It was obvious she didn’t know what to say and I could easily imagine being just as speechless in her situation, but I found myself smiling.

“She’s safe. That’s all that matters.”

Without waiting for her to say anything, partly because I didn’t want to hear her voice in case it sounded like someone I had lost when I was changed, I walked away. I didn’t need thanks. Knowing that they would both live a normal life because I had been in the right place at the right time was more than enough thanks for me. That didn’t stop me from hearing her when she stammered, “Thank you.”

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.