I have never seen a sunset more vibrant than the one I am currently witnessing. The rays skim over the water like molten overpouring from a volanco. They engulf the water stripping it of its blue wonder and replacing it with a citric orange that stretches as far as the eye can see. This day has been of particular importance in the last ten years I have spent on this island.
March 12th Ten Years Ago
I am awoken by a language I do not fully comprehend. It sounds like French but not the kind you would find loiterring on the tongues of Parisians in France. It has a more harsher tone associated with it and judging by the hut I am lying in, I doubt that France is my current location. I try to move my body in the hopes of exploring my new surrounding but I am assaulted by a throbbing pain in the back of my head. I slowly push myself on my knees when an elderly woman comes into the hut and tries to usher me back onto the bed. I try and ask who the lady is but all that escapes my mouth is a dry heave as I the pain in my back of head takes over the rest of my body causing me to collapse.
I awake again to the feeling of a hand applying something wet to my forehead. The old lady is now replaced with a much older man who is looking over me. I try and open my mouth again but he tells me to try and conserve my energy and this time it is in a language I do understand, English.
I was told that I slept for four days without any food and the villagers had doubts about my origins and what I was doing on thier island. I was even presumed dead on day four and was in the process of finding my way six feet under when I awoke with the first shovel of wet sand that hit my face. For the most part, I remember hearing screaming and people panicking. My head pain was much more milder at this point and the elderly gentleman who had nursed me in the hut was standing above the pit, his eyes widenned with the look of fear. Needless to say I got out of the pit and was told of my arrival on this island. I was found lying on the shore with my face in the sand. The woman that found me started screaming as I was drenched in blood and my back had a large gash on it runing all across the upper half of my back. They bought me to their village as I tried to move when they attempted to turn me over. Over the course of the next four days, they observed my health improving till on the fourth day, the visiting doctor from a medical consignment on the island checked my pulse and told them that I was clinically dead. An honest mistake considering the doctor had no clue what I was. I was to be given a proper burial as a Catholic because they were under the impression that I had to have been one due to the tattoo of a cross on my wrist, another forgivable mistake in hindsight. It was only after the story was told that I tried recollecting my name and was unable to. I have since spent the last ten years on this island helping them take care of themselves while I tried to make sense of myself and my ongoing struggle with who I really was. I never slept at night, I didn't eat much, I was exceptionally strong for a man who had no muscle to show and as a result, I was considered a blessing to everyone on the island.
The first week was exceptionally difficult as I was given food but I could not find it within me to even try it. It was on my first hunting trip with the men of the village that I found my love for drinking the blood of live animals. I remember walking in the forest with only the moon as my guide when I spotted a wild boar moving in the darkness. Of course, to me, the night was never really a bother as I could see things very clearly in the dark, something I have still kept from the villagers. I walked in a slow circle around the boar as I watched it moving in the night. As I inched closer, it became aware of my presence and darted at me, only to find its demise at my hands.
Present Day
Our medical friends are back again but this time they have bought some interesting people with them; a man and woman. I sit with them and ask them about where they are from and how they had become a part of the medical team that frequented the island in my time here. The lady seemed oblivious to my questioning but it was only when the man whispered something in her ear that my life started to take a turn back to who I was. I was pulled aside from the crowd that had gathered in the medical tent and the man asked me a question that didn't make sense at first, "Do you know who you are?". While I tried to gather my thoughts, they began to quarrel about someone named Jacques and I couldn't figure out who they were talking about. The man informed me that he could help me regain my memory but they would need a quiet place to help me. Curious about these new people and their seemed understanding of who I was, I encouraged a move to a quieter place to see what they had to offer. My surprise only turned to shock when the man produced a knife and cut the woman's wrist asking me to drink her blood. My initial hesitation is turned to a well grown addiction when I dig my teeth into her flesh and begin drinking her blood. I pull back as my head starts to hurt again. The same hurt in the back of my head that I had felt ten years ago as I arrived on this ilsand.
As I walk through the villagers, I find the village doctor, Cecil. My request for his audience with the two doctors is obliged. I close the door of the hut, asking him to sit down as I do.
Cecil: "What can I do for you my friend?"
Me: "It is not what you can do for me but what I need to do now Cecil. My hope is that you will understand when I tell you"
Cecil: "Is something the matter"
Male Medical Officer: "Doctor, I do not think you know who has been staying with you all these years"
Cecil: "This man is a good person and nothing you tell me about his past will change what he has done all these years for this village and the people that live here"
Female Medical Officer: "We understand that doctor but now that he knows who he is, I do not think he will wish to stay here much longer"
Me: "I think I should be the one to tell Cecil who I reall am"
Cecil: "You have me worried my friend"
Me: "You have nothing to fear Cecil. No harm will come to you and anyone in this village. All that I am asking for is that you respect my decision to leave the village as there is something that I must finish that I started"
Cecil: "You have never been obligated to me for anything I have done for you and I have never asked you to stay should you feel the need to leave"
Me: "I will be leaving in the morning with these two doctors"
Cecil: "May I ask for where?"
Me: "New York City"
Cecil: "So you are from there?"
Me: "No"
Cecil: "Before you go my friend, would it be wrong of me to ask who you are?"
Me: "I don't see why not. My name is Jacques Belmonte and I am half-breed vampire who hunts other vampires....."
Music Listened to while writing this blog - Sound of Silence aka no music
Mood - Sullen
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