Morgan Rice - Resurrected

“Yes, I have helped people. Whether I can help her… I would have to meet her before I could say,” he said. “But I don’t feel that anything is impossible. I don’t know if I can heal her,” he said, “but I do have faith that she can be healed. Whatever her ailment.”

Caitlin stared back at him, welling with hope.

“Please, father. I would give anything. Please, please help my daughter.”

He stared back at her, long and hard. Finally, he said:

“Bring her to me.”

Sage pulled the huge, iron gate closed behind him, rattling as it slammed shut, then began his walk down the endless driveway towards his family mansion, upset with himself. They had asked him to fulfill a simple mission, for the sake of his entire clan. And he had sincerely intended to. But once he had seen her – Scarlet – everything had changed. He could not possibly bring himself to do what they asked.

He walked slowly, kicking the dirt, eyes on his toes, thinking. The driveway stretched as far as the eye could see, lined with huge, old oak trees, branches arching over it, almost touching, their leaves creating a medley of color. Sage felt as if he were walking into a postcard on this beautiful, late-October day, leaves crunching beneath his feet, the late afternoon sun bouncing off of everything. On the one hand, it made him happy to be alive.

But on the other, it sent a pain to his stomach, as it made him more aware of his own mortality than ever. After all these centuries, he was now faced with only a few weeks left to live. He knew he must savor each day more than ever, savor every site, every smell, taste, experience – knowing it would all be his last. He wanted to hold onto everything, but he felt it all slipping through his fingers so quickly. It was a funny feeling: he’d lived for almost two thousand years – 1,999 to be exact – and all throughout the centuries, he’d never paid attention to the passing of time. He had taken it for granted. He had felt like he would live forever.

But now, with only weeks left to live, everything took on a supreme importance, a supreme urgency. Finally, after so many years on this earth, he felt what it was like to be mortal. To be human. To be frail, vulnerable. It was awful, like a cruel joke. Finally, he realized what humans went through. He couldn’t understand how they dealt with it, how they lived with their own death sentence every day. It made him admire them more than he’d ever did.

He, like his entire clan, had known for centuries that there was an end-time to their existence. He’d always assumed that when the time came, he would deal with it gracefully, would have had enough of life, would be tired of all the centuries, of all the people coming and going. But now that the end was here, he wanted more time. It still wasn’t enough.

Being an Immortalist, Sage’s life was almost identical to that of a human’s: he ate and drank and slept and woke and gained energy from food and drink – just like any other human. The only difference was, he could not die. If he did not eat or drink, he would not die from starvation; if he got injured, he would heal almost instantly. He could not get sick, or disease.

Luckily, his kind did not need to prey on humans, or animals – or anything – to sustain its life energy. They could co-habit with them peacefully. There were some among his clan who attacked humans for sport, for a drug-like high: if they chose to, late at night they could transform to an enormous raven-like creature, roam the skies, swoop down and wrap a human in an embrace with their huge, air-tight wings, holding them like that for minutes until they depleted all the human’s psychic and emotional energy. They would leave them crumpled on the ground, collapsed, when they were through. They would never actually bite them. But they didn’t need to – when they wrapped their wings tight around a human, it drew out all the energy they needed.

Of course, this was completely unnecessary for an Immortalist’s existence. Those of his clan who did this did it for a high that only lasted for a few hours and sent them crashing after that. Sage could only always tell when one of his clan had fed – he could see it in the brightness of their eyes, the flush of their cheeks. Human-feeding was an unnecessary and hedonistic sport. It was also cruel, as it left the human victim psychotic. For this reason the Grand Council had outlawed human-feeding centuries ago. None of his immediate clan partook. After all, who wanted to draw so much negative attention?

But lately, things were starting to change. With only a few weeks left to live, he noticed his people acting differently. They were all on edge, acting desperate, and doing things they never would. He’d even heard that last night, one of his own had attacked a human.

Of course, he knew who it had to be: Lore. Who else? A distant cousin, Lore was the bad-apple of his clan, and had been a thorn in Sage’s side for centuries. He was an energy addict, and he relished in causing trouble for his clan everywhere they went. He was also a hot-head, vindictive, and totally unpredictable.

Sage continued down the driveway, approaching their ancestral home – a huge, sprawling marble mansion surrounded by dozens of acres, right on the river. They had homes all over the world, of course; they had grand castles, and marble townhomes, and fortresses, and entire islands. But of all the homes around the world, Sage liked this one the most. Tucked away, far from any main roads, nestled against the tranquil Hudson River, this one felt most like home. He loved to sit out on the balcony, especially late at night, under the moon, and watch the reflection of the water. It made him feel as if he were the only one left in the world. He remembered, centuries ago, during the Revolutionary war, sitting out and watching the battles on the Hudson.

But now, as he walked towards the house, instead of being filled with joy, he was filled with dread. His clan had only recently moved back here, and in Sage’s view, it was an act of desperation. He wanted to live out his remaining time in peace. Instead, the clan had raced back here, hoping, as always, to find a cure for their sickness, to prolong their lifetime. Sage knew it was ridiculous, a futile endeavor: they had been searching for a cure for as long as he could remember – and never, not once, not in any remote corner of the world, had they found it. They were all false leads, dead-ends. In his view, the cure was just a myth, a legend. There was no way to extend their lifetime. It would end, and that would be all. Sage was resigned to it. He just wanted to live out his life and enjoy what he had, instead of desperately chasing myths and fables.

But others in his clan felt differently. Especially his parents. Once again, they claimed to have sensed the last remaining vampire on earth, the mythical teenage girl rumored to hold the key to the cure. Sage had heard this before – many times. But this time, they were serious. They had moved everyone back here in hopes of finding her – and worse, they had assigned Sage to be the one to gain her trust. To find out if she held the key – and to make sure she gave it to him. Because legend had it that the key must be given freely, and could not be simply taken.

What bothered Sage most about all this was that, even if all of this was true, even if this was the right girl, even if she did hold the key, even if he managed to gain her trust and get the key – there was still the next part. Because in order for the cure to work, the vampire girl who gave it had to be killed. The thought of it repulsed Sage. He had never killed a soul – not in two thousand years – and he didn’t plan on starting now. Especially a teenage girl.

As he thought of the girl he’d seen in the cafeteria today, Scarlet, it made him feel even sicker. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and the thought of her sent butterflies to his stomach. He felt awful having to be assigned to gain her trust, to find out her secrets – to potentially kill her. It was against everything he stood for. He would keep up appearances to please his parents and his clan – but he already knew that he would sooner kill himself than harm her.