DISCLAIMER:  The concept of Immortality used here belongs to Rysher.  Nick Knight and Lucien LaCroix belong to the SciFi Channel.  Laurana and Alexander belong to me.

This is in answer to the Halloween Lyric Wheel.  “We Only Come Out At Night” by the Smashing Pumpkins are the lyrics I used.  Happy Halloween everyone!

October 27, 2000

Dearest Laurana,

I was looking through some old crates in my attic when I found this.  I believe it belongs to you, and I figured you would want it back.  Sure brings back old memories, doesn’t it?  I was surprised that it even still existed.  Anyway, here you go.  I’ll let you know if I find any more of your old stuff lying around.

Always,

Alexander

Laurana de Brabant Thompson read the short note from her former teacher and current persona’s adopted father and smiled to herself before picking up the antique book he had sent her.  It was her earliest journal.  She very rarely wrote in her journal, in fact, she only wrote in it on the yearly anniversary of the day she had her First Death and was turned into a vampire in one fell swoop.  She hadn’t even known that this one still existed, much less had been in the possession of Alexander Thompson.

She picked up the book and let it fall open to random page.  To her immense surprise, it was at one of the few entries that did not occur on that particular anniversary.  In fact, it had occurred on this day, the thirty-first of October, All Hallow’s Eve.  How particularly hallowed indeed, this day was all those years ago.

“Oct. 31, 1677

“Vampires may be immortal, but we can still die.  We walk into the sun, and we turn to ash and dust, never to wake again.  Never to taste another drop of blood, never to fly through a moonlit sky.  But I cannot.  I walked into the sun, and nothing happened.

“Why can’t I die?”

Paris, France
October 30, 1677

Laurana was not listening to her grandsire, nor did she want to.  It was not as if he ever listened to her.  So he continued lecturing at her, and she continued to stare out the window at the moon.  It was such a lovely moon.  Laurana only had vague memories of what the sun looked like.  She had not been a vampire for that long, but her mortal memories had nearly been wiped out in the trauma of being turned.

Suddenly, Lucien LaCroix grasped Laurana’s chin and pulled her face towards him, forcing her to pay attention to him.  His eyes were tinged yellow.  “You are my under my care,” he snarled.  “And you will obey my rules.”

Laurana merely stared at him with her own emotionless light blue eyes.  She took care never to show emotion, especially weak emotions, around the ancient vampire.  He would not hesitate to exploit them in her.  “Yes, sir,” she replied tonelessly.

LaCroix brought back his hand to slap her, but Laurana was across the room in an instant.  “Get out of my sight,” he growled instead.  So Laurana calmly walked out.

Her sire, Nicolas, confronted her as she was going up the mansion’s stairs.  “You know better than to go against him,” Nicolas reprimanded her.  “Why did you leave the house without telling one of us yesterday?”

She shrugged.  “I was bored.”  At that, she turned away from her sire, the only person in the world she cared for.  She knew that both he and LaCroix expected her to go meekly to her room after the evening’s events, but she had a better idea.  She hated her existence.  She knew nothing about herself, only what LaCroix and Nicolas had told her.  Her only clue was that her name was Laurana, the name engraved on the golden locket she had been wearing when Lucien killed her mortal self and convinced Nicolas to bring her back to this tortured world of darkness.

Softly, she whispered, “I’m sorry, Nicolas,” as she opened her bedroom window and climbed out onto the roof.  Sunrise was in less than an hour.  They would surely find her remains the next evening.

Night House
October 31, 2000

Laurana sat on the back porch of her house and stared into the sky.  It was just past noon, and the sun was directly overhead.  She remembered very clearly the day that she had discovered something very important about herself.  The rather important fact that she was not just a simple vampire.

As she sat on the roof and stared into the brightening horizon, Laurana felt a tear trace it’s way down her cheek.  Out of habit, she brushed it aside with a finger, but then she noticed something odd.  The droplet of liquid was not tinged red, it was perfectly clear.  Tasting it hesitantly, it seemed to be an ordinary human tear with not hint of blood.

She raised her face again to the sky and spread her arms wide to await the sun.  Finally, it would all end.  She would be released from her haunted life.

The light hit her all at once, but there was no pain.  Laurana closed her eyes and relished the unfamiliar warmth and waited for it all to end.

Carefully, she cracked open one eye.  There was the sun.  And there was her.

And there were no flames.

Her scream of anguish was what brought the lone traveler heading for Paris galloping towards the small mansion.

Alexander Thompson.  Laurana loved the man, her teacher, dearly.  Almost more so than her sire.  He gave her a reason to live, when all she wanted was to truly die.  To Alexander, she was a treasured child, and one of his only ties left in the world.  Sometimes it seemed that both of them were the only things keeping each other alive.

Laurana opened her eyes and automatically winced away from the sunlight.  Then she remembered – it would not hurt her.  She was lying on the ground, and her neck ached curiously.  Kneeling next to her was a man with a concerned look on his face.

“It’s okay,” he said when she tried to roll away from him.  “I won’t hurt you.  I’m like you.”

“You’re not a vampire,” she whispered.  “We only come out at night.  Who are you?  What…what am I, if I’m not dead?”

“You’re an Immortal.”

Laurana closed her journal and rose from her seat on the porch.  Heading inside, she gave the brilliant blue sky a last glance and nodded to herself.  She was a vampire.  And she was an Immortal.

“I walk alone,” she whispered.  Who else in the world was like her?

“No, you don’t,” came another voice from behind her.  Laurana turned around to see her roommate Victoria standing in the doorway to the living room.  The other girl had a small half-smile on her face, as if she knew exactly what was going through her friend’s mind.  “Us daylight loving vamps have to stick together.”

“No, I’m not alone,” Laurana said with an answering smile.  “Not anymore.”

~finis~

"We Only Come Out At Night"
~The Smashing Pumpkins

We only come out at night,
We only come out at night,
The days are much too bright
We only come out at night
And once again,
You'll pretend to know me well,
My friends
And once again,
I'll pretend to know the way-
through the empty space
through the secret places of the heart
we only come out at night,
We only come out at night,
The days are much too bright,
we only come out at night .
I walk alone,
I walk alone to find the way...Home
I'm on my own,
I'm on my own to see the ways
that I can't help the days,
You will make it home okay
I know you can,
And you can
We only come out at night,
We only come out at night,
The days are much too bright
We only come out at night
And once again,
You'll...
You'll pretend to know that
There's an end,
That there's an end to this begin
It will help you sleep at night
It will make it seem that right is always right
Alright?
We only come out at night
We only come out at night
The days are much to bright
We only come out at night

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