400 years.
Too many candles burned down to nothing. Too many rooms filled with people pretending warmth meant something, hands that lingered too long on a boy’s shoulders. I remember the false warmth pressed through their palms. I had believed I belonged among them.
They called it living. Celebrating.
I called it waiting.
There were some years where I entertained their happiness. I learned their names. Forgot them just as easily. Faces blurred together like breath on glass.
It took time to really realise what they were celebrating with all the balloons, cakes, gifts.
not life. Not growth.
Just survival dressed up as celebration.
Then again, 400 years was never something to celebrate.
It was proof of a being who roamed the earth wrongly.
Over those 4 centuries, I had noticed how hungry I was nowadays. Out of habit. I hunt, observe, move.
In past years, I had wanted, yearned. Blood, humans. Anything. The same cycle, repeated until meaning wore thin. Humans wanted the latest obsession, like fish on a fishing hook, whatever attracts them, they’re hooked. And can’t escape. I never yearned for worldly pleasures. Yet here I am.
And still, this year felt different.
Not because I changed…
Because of something else.
A particular someone who doesn’t flinch when things go quiet.
Doesn’t rush to fill the silence.
Doesn’t pretend the dark is empty.
She has no desire to be chosen, no plea to be seen or noticed, yet still doesn’t know who or what she belongs to.
That uncertainty is…exquisite.
Four hundred years, and after a lot of uncertainty, I found myself anticipating again. 400 birthdays and the perfect gift arose.
For this year would be different.
I take what I want from her…
Humans believe that birthdays are given to them for a reason. They believed that time offered something back for surviving.
That is not true. Time offers nothing.
I take what I want from it all the time…
and this year–
I intend to choose her carefully.
