I FEIGN A SHIVER AS I PULL MY LIGHT BROWN PEA COAT CLOSER around me.  Looking over the street from a dark doorway as I wait for a man to come to me.  The cream scarf tight around my face does not hide me from the cold that has everyone else running for shelter.  It does however hide my pale face from view.  Keeping my straight jaw and curved lips concealed from view so no one can remark on them later.

    With my bone structure, strong straight lines with no whisper of blemish.  The length of my neck with the line of my chin all in pale white skin tend to emphasize lips that are by contrast full, curved and rich with color.  People tend to remember when your striking.  I wouldn’t say I was anything special, but I was a rarity.  When my lips are as red as an apple off the tree with a natural shine like dew, I didn’t need extra emphasis of my features.

    Actually girl, if you weren’t out here playing mouse you would probably like the emphasis.  You’re just in a weird situation where being a one of a kind makes life hard.

    I don’t hide them to avoid stares or comments.  If things were different I may even flaunt my face around.  I hide them so no whispered conversations reach the ears of the one person in the world who would know that I was the one they had seen.

    My deep red hair with highlights both light and dark made a color that was also hard to pass over without notice.  I had tried hair dye.  It just washes out.  My hair thinks it’s perfect so will not absorb anything into it. 

As well as the scarf for my face, my waist length hair pulled up in a tight braid and wrapped around under a big knit hat that matched the scarf.  Other then the blue jeans, I am dressed like I was modeling a new fashion line of winter chic.  I'm not, but it helps me blend in without using any energy to look unremarkable.  The past few nights I could feel my hunter getting closer.  I was trying hard not to use any power for fear it would bring him faster.

    For now though, I am not waiting for him.  Adam would find me later if I didn’t leave this city, but tonight he’s not close enough.  So I need to get something to eat before I begin to finish up my years of planning and training.

    That’s why I’m standing here wasting time trying to look cold while I wait for some man to find me.  If I wasn’t so picky I would already be sitting in my apartment but a girl has to have standards.  Granted most standards are for the bigger better man but I won’t let myself partake of anything good. 

So I look around waiting for someone with blood tainted by some wrong doing already.  It doesn’t take long.  It never does in this city, in this neighborhood especially.  Which I guess is good for a self repentant vampire, but what does that say of humanity. 

I don’t have time to contemplate that again tonight though, I spot my meal.  A man leaves a bar walking my way.  He smells of corruption.  Not just the alcohol, but something inside him has twisted.  He’ll make a fine meal.  He’ll taste awful, but when only innocents are delicious, I’ll pass thank you very much.

He’s so close, but still doesn’t see me.  He leans on a wall and starts to fall.  Bumps his head on a brick then straightens out and walks too purposefully.  He was trying with all his might to walk like he wasn’t full to the eyes with vodka martinis, even though he still had a toothpick in his hands.  Maybe he wasn’t sure enough of himself to put something so sharp in his mouth while he focused so hard on just moving his feet.

It didn’t matter; a toothpick won’t hurt my skin when mascara won’t even stay on my lashes.  He walks right by me staring straight ahead.  If he had seen me, he didn’t see me as a threat.  I was guessing he hadn’t because he was too preoccupied making his body listen.

I lean out of the doorway and turn fast, pushing him into the alley and shadows.  Touching so lightly but precisely that it probably felt like wind to him, and a stumble.  He tries to get up and ends up spinning in a circle, grabbing his head, falling to his butt on some trash bags and hitting his head on the bricks behind him.  I didn’t mean for all that, but it works out.  His lungs and heart are still going.  Now that he’s passed out I don’t have to worry about wasting energy to keep him still, unseeing or feeling  while I feed. 

He didn’t have any bleeding wounds, so I pull out my small knife.  I look around for an excuse he will be able to believe.  There are a few boards with nails and sharp edges near his head level while sitting. 

That’ll do I guess.

Pulling my scarf off my mouth I breathe in the night air and commit myself once again.  I make a sharp cup across his neck.  Then bend to the lifeblood that sustains and revolts me.  When I feel I have enough to keep me going for tonight I lift my head and take a deep breath.

I use the knife to smear blood along the boards and one of the nails.  Leaning him closer towards them I place a compulsion for him to wake up in a few minutes.  I always make it look like they hurt themselves accidentally.  I hope that it’ll make them think twice about their way of life.  Sadly though, I have found a few of my victims later.  None I had found seemed to change. 

    I leave him in the alley.  Spend a little energy to blur myself from human eyes.  I make my way back to my apartment building, glance around as I quickly sneak in.  I walk into my apartment.  Wishing that I could have a cat again.  I had one ages ago, but it was hard to change lives and make the cat deal.  It was also harder to hide it with power.  Constant energy spent made it easier for Adam to track me.

    Not for long I thought as I look across the little dining room to the new computer on my desk.  I had never used one before but I don’t like writing a lot with pens.   Even eternal fingers hurt after hours of scratching paper.  I had bought it for one reason and one only.

    I am tired of hiding.  I realized a few days ago, that when I started hunting back, I could die.  That was an unsettling thought, but there was more.  Destruction was the only thing left for Adam.  If I died trying to do it, I had to leave an account of my life behind.  Hence it is time for an autobiography of sorts.

    Keeping all the information to myself had kept people safe while he was hunting me.  If he defeats me, my knowledge dies with me, then everyone would be in danger.  

    I take the hat off and let the braid roll down.  After pushing the power button, I take the scarf off of my face while the computer starts up.  The coat gets thrown on the back of the couch.  I sit down while the system loads, start undoing the braid.  Pulling my fingers through to loosen the waves away from each other.  I pull up the word program, the tiny cursor blinking at me.

    “Where do I start though?” I asked, as if it could tell me.  “Everyone says ‘start at the beginning’ but what beginning should I use?” I thought to myself, ’Do I start at the beginning of time?  My first life?  My second?  My curse or my death?  Which death for that matter?’ 

    “How can I explain things so one can understand how I learned everything I know?”  I look over to the single photo on the table.  It was a picture of a gentleman from the 1800’s with his wife and a young daughter.  All of them are sitting very straight.  Smiling just slightly in the fading sepia coloring. 

    “One last family moment before the daughter's marriage.” I touch the glass above their faces slightly.  A sadness I hadn't felt in a long time rushes through me.  I close my eyes.  Lean back in my chair.  Memories and emotions race through my mind, all fighting for the forefront but only one keeps coming back to me.

    “Very well, I’ll start with our first meeting.  I’ll write things down as they happened to me.  If someone reads this, they will learn along with me.”  I start to peck at the keys, going slowly as I try to find the letters.  I look up at the words slowly forming on the screen, as I remember the events that lead to my now cursed life.

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