A Place to Belong: Chapter One

I.

When I Changed

I died again tonight. 

There’s a theory that we as humans die many deaths. The me that I was at five years old is dead and gone and can only be seen in pictures and memories. My high school self died when I matured, and the version of me that thought he’d matured died as well when I realized what maturity really was. We’ll die a physical death one day as well, and then one day our name will be forgotten, another death, and finally we will be thought of one final time before all memory of us dies from this earth. 

I died the physical death tonight. 

I was surprised to find myself lying here, in what I think is a pool of my own cooling blood, staring up at streetlights that flicker and fade, allowing the pinpricks of thousands of stars to pierce through the blanket of night that wrapped around me. The air around me was cooling in the early North Carolina autumn, still warm to my northern blood, at least, what was left of it, but cool enough the natives wore hoodies and coats against the chill of sixty degrees. I didn’t feel cool. I didn’t feel hot. I didn’t feel anything. 

Confusion slowly wrapped over me as I lay there, expecting my senses to fade and darken, disappearing in a haze. Instead, they grew sharper. I heard the sound of footsteps from a far off street as if they were walking right by where I lay. I could make out the veins in the dying leaves in the trees above me, almost black against their orange membrane that flickered into color then back to shades of grey with the shifting hues of the buzzing streetlight. I could feel the roughness of the concrete against my back, but could not discern warmth or coolness, as though the information were worthless to my dying brain. 

But even my thoughts began to crystalize. At first, I thought I was hallucinating the sensations; like the people who claimed to see heaven upon their deaths, but in reality are just experiencing their brain throwing every chemical at the wall in hopes of keeping their bodies alive long enough to find a fix. When that sensation didn’t fade, when I could still hear and see and feel with a sharpness that indicated my brain was functioning not just as it normally did, but better than usual, that’s when I began to experiment. 

I spread my hand, feeling the rough street under my palm and pushed slightly. Surprisingly, my body began to shift. Not just in a jarring, staggered way, either. My movements were more fluid than I remembered them being even in my prime. With an ease I was unused to, my feet slid underneath me and lifted my body to its height. I expected to stagger, to need something to support me, but instead I stood with poise, with a grace I’d never had before. My back was straighter, my muscles relaxed, and while my senses were still hyperaware, they weren’t screaming at me that I was in danger. They whispered their observations and my mind filed them away for later use if necessary. Slowly I began to understand. I was feeling something that I had always sought but could never truly claim.

I felt in control. 

It was only when this revelation hit me and I began to feel a sense of confidence wash over me, that finally, the smell hit. Iron mixed with a sickly sweetness that bordered almost on the edge of wine. I knew the smell, though I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but my confidence was so strong that for the first time in my life, or I suppose looking back, in my unlife, I didn’t question myself. I knew that smell. 

Blood. 

My blood. 

I looked down and licked my lips, feeling both they and my tongue were dry. A hunger rose up in me. A hunger that was more need than desire. As I looked down at the blood I wanted it back. 

And I was going to find the one who took it from me.