I'm sitting on the ground with my back against the brick wall of the building, hugging my knees and looking at the stars. There's a cool breeze blowing, and the ground is slightly damp. It's in the 60's, which is downright cold for Sunnydale. I can feel the cold brick against my back, and the chilled ground under me. The cold seems to permeate my body, and I can't seem to recall what warmth feels like anymore. It scares me, and I wonder if I'll ever know what it feels like again. I've thought about it before, what it would feel like. I never thought it would feel so cold though, so empty. I don't know what I expected exactly, I guess I thought I'd be more evil. More angry. I don't feel evil though. I don't feel anything.
I can hear their voices, their laughter. It's a warm sound. I'm sitting under their window, it's three floors above me. But I can hear them as clear as if I were in the same room. I can smell them too. It's a combination of wild flowers and clean cotton. It's an earthy smell. They're women of the earth, women of nature. There's another smell too, one that I've never noticed before, but one that's always been there. It's blood. It's the smell of life. For them it's life, for me it's food. Similar, but not quite the same. I don't have any blood of my own anymore, any life of my own. Only what I take from others.
Their voices have grown quiet now, hushed. I can just hear their whispers, their moans, the sound of their breathing, of their hearts beating. They're making love. I can hear their passion, even though it makes no audible sound. I can smell their love on the wind, as it drifts through their open window and catches the breeze. I understand now why a vampire's senses are heightened, so we can see the world as it is. We don't really exist anymore, we've been removed from it all. We're like observers, outsiders, and the things that we knew in our former existence become new again. Like we're seeing them for the first time. And in a way we are, we see things as they are, objectively. Coldly.
I briefly wonder if all vampires go through this. If they all say goodbye to their former lives as they slowly realize that they can't be who they were anymore. Maybe that's where the anger comes from. Then I pick myself up, and walk away.
There's a tree right outside the living room window next to the house, with a good strong branch about six feet off the ground. I idly wonder if Angel or Angelus ever sat here, peering through the window at the girl inside. I remember how I used to wonder why Angel watched us they way he did, from the shadows. I understand it now. It's how vampires all see things anyway, from the shadows. From the outside looking in.
She's sitting on the couch, with the young one asleep in her arms. She's looking down at her. They both have tear tracks on their faces, and they look exhausted. The young one's sleep is restless. She's stroking her hair slowly as she looks down at her. There's so much sadness in her eyes. I see in her sometimes so many qualities that one would associate with my kind. She can be cold too, detached, because she has to be. I think she'd lose her mind otherwise. But at the end of the day, she's still only human, no matter how strong she is. And it's things like this that remind her how fragile humans are, and how little control she really has. I think about all the times I've tried to get her to let me in, to let me help her take away the pain. But she pushed me away, she pushed everyone away. Maybe she thought if she ignored it, it would go away. But it doesn't work that way. So when everything she was keeping bottled up blew up in her face, we were always there to pick up the pieces. And for a little while, she would let us in, let us help her. Then, when she became strong again, the cycle repeated. But I have a feeling that that will end now. Things are never going to be the same for her, for any of us. I just hope she lets us...them, I hope she lets them in now. She needs them.
I'm starting to feel something, but I'm not sure what it is. It's almost like sadness, but it doesn't feel right. It almost feels... foreign. Like I've never experienced it before. I feel something on my face, and when I reach up touch it, it's wet. I look at my hand and I see blood. Tears. I'm crying. But my nose isn't stuffed, my heart isn't beating fast, or at all, I'm not raked with sobs, or hyperventilating, or even frowning. I'm looking at somebody I love in the worst pain of her life, and all I have to show for it are a few blood tears. Wait a minute. Love. I do love her, don't I? I love them all. It's there, inside me, but it doesn't feel right. It feels like I'm remembering someone else's life, and the emotions are just there. I can see them, but I can't quite feel them. I'm starting to panic, the emptiness inside me is starting to become painful. I don't understand what's happening to me.
I look back and see her carrying the young one up the stairs. She clings to her older sister like a child half her age would. But that's what emotions do, isn't it. They control us, reduce us to our base selves. Us? Or them? I feel the panic again, and confusion. I jump down from my perch in the tree and walk away.
The door creaks, and it's the only sound in the room aside from the sound of slow breathing. I'm amazed how quiet I can be. There isn't even the sound of footsteps as I descend the stairs. I stop as I catch sight of her, lying in our bed asleep. Our bed. She's beautiful. The way her hair frames her face, she looks so peaceful. I love her, I know I love her. I know it, but I can't feel it. I remember how just the sight of her made me smile, made my heart flutter and made me feel...warm inside. But I can't feel it anymore, I can only remember it. I know that I can't hurt her, that I have to protect her.
I walk closer, right up next to the bed. I lean down close to her face, studying it. I want to touch her, to kiss her. But I'm afraid. I don't want to wake her. I don't want her to feel how cold I am. I can smell her, and it's the only smell that I can't break down and identify, it's too complex. It's also the only smell that I can remember being cognizant of when I was still human. It smells like...her. I have to leave. I knew that before, but it seems to just strike me now. I have to leave, and I have to say goodbye.
As I walk down the street it occurs to me that I've learned more about vampires from three hours of being one than I ever learned in five years of fighting them. I'm struck by the irony of them in general. Vampires can't be made against their will, it takes a willing human to drink. And why would a human drink, willingly become such a creature? Sometimes it's out of a misunderstanding as to what vampires are, a craving for power and romance. But most of the time I think, it's just out of fear of death. I knew what vampires were, I had no misconceptions. But when the moment of truth came, when I was faced with the decision to live or to die, my fear won out, and I chose to live. Now here's where the irony kicks in, because fearing death in the conventional sense is ridiculous. First, because there isn't anything you can do about it, and second, because it really isn't that bad. Death is only a moment. One moment, and then it's over. So, in trying to escape one moment of death, I was given an eternity of it. Because you see, I am dead. Not just because I don't breathe or because my heart doesn't beat, but because I am no longer a member of the living world. No matter how solid I may appear to be, there's nothing inside. That's why vampires have no reflection, there's nothing really there to reflect, they're empty inside. It's just a walking mass of intellect, memories, and instincts. And that's why vampires have to be invited into private places, because they don't belong, they're outsiders. They don't belong anywhere.
I also find myself wondering why so many vampires kill their families after they rise. Maybe it's the anger they feel about what they've become, and they feel the need to destroy their former lives. Or maybe they're just too weak of mind to resist their darker instincts. But I don't feel any dark instincts. It's true that the things I used to feel as a human appear to be fading, and that my current sense of morality seems to be...well, non-existent, but I'm not struck with the desire to go out and kill people either. I don't feel anything, just emptiness.
And that's when it occurs to me, that the pain of the emptiness is something much more sinister. It's hunger.
Stalking prey isn't as hard as it might sound when you're a vampire. Being quiet just comes natural, as does hiding in the shadows and watching. In fact, I didn't even realize that what I was doing *was* stalking at first. I was just walking through the park when I noticed a woman walking alone, so I decided to follow her. I allowed myself for the first time to really study a human with my new senses. The sight, the smells, the sounds. She was nervous, I could tell. She kept looking behind her, and she was walking very briskly. I could smell her. Her perfume, her soap, her shampoo. Her blood. I could hear her heart beating. And the emptiness inside me was screaming.
I stepped in front of her path as she was looking behind her, and she walked right into me. I didn't move, but she nearly fell as she bounced off me. She let out a yelp and I reached out to grab her, to keep her from falling. She took a few quick steps back out of my grasp, steadying herself.
"I'm sorry," I said. She didn't reply. "Are you lost?" I asked. I was amazed by how cold my voice sounded, it was the first time I had used it since I was turned. She was scared. She just shook her head. She was reluctant to walk past me, but not quite scared enough to run full tilt in the opposite direction either.
After a moment, she moved to go around me, and I grabbed her. First around the wrist, pulling her to me, my other arm moving around her back to hold her against me. My hand went up to her head, grabbing her hair and pulling her head to the side. She screamed, and I pushed her face against my shoulder to muffle the sound as I looked down at her neck. The smell of her blood was calling to me now, as close as I was, and the hunger took over. My game face came on, and I lowered my head down, sinking my teeth into her neck. As the first taste of blood struck my tongue, I felt something within me awaken. It was like the hunger I felt was suddenly given a name. The coppery taste, the rich texture, the warmth as it slid down my throat. I could feel it filling me, like hot chocolate on a cold day. But it didn't stop at my stomach, it filled my whole body. My teeth had plunged into an artery, so with each beat of her heart, blood surged into my mouth. After a few moments she stopped struggling, and I could feel her heart slowing until finally it stopped.
I pulled my teeth out of her neck, licking away a few stray drops of blood before letting go and letting her body fall away. I looked down at her, dead and broken, and searched my thoughts for any kind of remorse. But all I felt was satisfaction, and warmth throughout my body. The hunger was gone, but more importantly was the warmth I felt. It almost felt like I was alive again. The very sensation that I was worried about never feeling again was filling me to the core. I ran my hands up over my neck and down my chest, up and down my arms. I was warm. I felt like screaming it at the top of my lungs, I was warm!
But almost as quickly as it came, it began to fade away. I could feel it escaping my body, and I started to panic. I started grabbing at the air, like a child trying to catch steam, but it only slipped through my fingers. I could feel the cold again, at the center of me, and the emptiness was still there. The hunger was gone, but the cold and the emptiness were still there. I collapsed onto my knees as the last of it drifted away, and my skin was once again as cold as the night air. And I wept. I wept as I realized that this was where my fear had led me, this was my punishment. Vampires aren't evil creatures, they're tortured creatures. And that's where the anger comes from. The evil comes through them, not from them.
I made my way silently through the courtyard outside Giles' apartment. In my hand I held a plain white envelope with a piece of double sided tape on it. On the front it simply read, 'The Scooby Gang'. Inside it I said goodbye to the people I loved. The people whose names I had been afraid to think since I had been turned, for fear of it driving me insane. Fear of the anger at the loss of my former life. But I'm stronger than that, and I'm not afraid of anything anymore. Except for maybe eternity. Anya, Buffy, Willow, Giles, Dawn, and Tara. I hope they all find happiness. And I hope that they'll think about me from time to time, but that they'll eventually let go of me.
I stick the envelope on the front of Giles' door, and I turn to leave. Moving through the courtyard again, I wonder if they'll have a funeral for me. I wonder what they'll say when they eulogize me. And I wonder what my epitaph will read. Maybe something like,
"Xander Harris, a man who showed bravery in the face of the most insurmountable odds. And yet whose final downfall was his fear. His fear of death."
But like I said, I'm not afraid anymore. I know now where the anger comes from, why vampires want to destroy their former lives. But I don't want to destroy anything, I just want to say goodbye. I just want to get into my car and point it South. Find someplace warm.