1799 February 1st

She knew she needed to be somewhere, and she knew she needed to hurry. Something was after her; she could feel it in the core of her bones, in the fog of the weather. This was unbeatable; this was also her fault in some way, the invisible force coming after her'

She needed to find Aiden. Maybe he could help her' It was ironic how she had only meant him a couple of days ago and he was the first person she could think of. For all she knew he could be the one that was after her. No'

Tazia found herself in the forest about a mile from her family's estate when she could no longer run anymore. Her broad heavy skirts had weighed her down. She had always known they would be the death of her.

Yes, she would die here. Here in this place, because she was meant too, nothing she could have done, or could do would have stopped it. It almost struck her as funny. Almost. She had given up on her life now, her sense of impending doom only heightened by the second and she could no longer ignore her fate, but that didn't mean she was ready to laugh.

In her mind she made a list of the things she regretted. It wasn't long, because she couldn't even think of much. Only him. But then again she had a sense that she would see him again, not in this lifetime but another. He wasn't lost to her, but how did she knew this?

1980 February 1st

'Meeeerryyy Christmasss!' She sung at the top of her lungs. Tazia had never had a gift for singing, but she liked to think the gesture was nice all the same.

He just laughed, most likely at how horrible her voice sounded, her maybe at the gift. 'You got me something?' He pretended to sound surprised, but she knew he was happy, and in some way suspected it.

'Yes I did! But, it's not much'' She was telling the truth. Her gift was only a journal, a measly cheap one at that. It had been the only thing she could afford. They all couldn't be rich, right?

He opened it, slow, too slow for her; she wanted to see his reaction. Just as she hoped, he was happy with his meager present. 'And you said it wasn't much! It is the best, no, the only gift I've gotten in a long time.' She knew he was lying now. Didn't everyone celebrate Christmas, or something like it? How could his words even possibly be true?

'Here, I've gotten you something too.' He thrust a small thing at her. His present wasn't wrapped. She could see it and its wonder very clearly. It was a necklace, and quite a lovely one at that. Its pure silver chain was as long as half of her chest, and the one pedant strung on it black. At closer inspection she found out that it was an onyx stone.

'You can't give this to me!' She didn't know exactly why she was protesting, she already felt a bond it the object. She didn't want to let it go, it symbolized something to her. However, it was the polite thing, the right thing, to do, to refuse it.

'Nonsense, keep it!' Then he seemed to mutter, 'It was yours anyway'' But, she couldn't be sure. Tazia was all too willing to agree. His words were true to her, the necklace had once been hers' a long time ago. Would she have forgotten such a thing though? There had to be another explanation.

She kept walking while she fastened the necklace on her, because she didn't want to waste any time she had with him. But, that turned out to be a mistake. She tripped on something, whatever it was didn't matter. Now, her jeans had holes in them, and her knees were bleeding.

Tazia looked up at Aiden, she saw him looking at her almost hungrily. It was too late before she realized her mistake. He had already pulled her up and bit her neck. This was wrong; she wasn't supposed to end this way. Someone else was supposed to have killed her. This was a mistake. Tazia didn't even bother to struggle now. She wasn't afraid. She knew what he was now, a vampire. How could she go up against that?

1622 February 1st

She didn't have time to think about what was happening to her. Not when something so awful was happening to him. Not when the thing that had caused this was getting away. Tazia wanted revenge, if it was the last thing she never accomplished, or the only thing.

Revenge wasn't something that had ever crossed her mind before, she wasn't revenge driven person. Sure it was nice to get back at people, but for small things like poking someone that poked her back, or something around those lines. She was more of a competitive person, and always loved a challenge. This was on an entirely different scale. This thing--or Ciardana as it liked to be called, had left her here in a puddle of blood, to bleed to death, slowly, and slowly... But this wasn't for her, this was for Aiden.

She had done something macabre, something so awful to him, this wasn't forgivable. Perhaps if she had just killed them both Tazia could have forgiven and forgotten, after all Aiden and she would've met again. Now such a thing was impossible.

Ciardana had frozen him in time, made him something other than human. Or in Tazia's mind, something less than human, and that still was marginally forgivable. No matter how much time that went by, no matter how many times they saw each other in future lives, they could never be happy together. Never. That was what she couldn't forgive; Ciardana had spoiled both of their chances at happiness forever.

Her revenge plans didn't matter anyways. She would never be able to carry them out. She was dying, slowly becoming colder, and losing body temper at every passing minute. The lives after this way would be short, as short as this one because of the unusual circumstances of her parting from this life. Revenge wasn't good for the soul, Tazia knew this. If her last dying thoughts were centered on making her killer pay, it would cost her.

This wasn't what she wanted her herself, she didn't want to die at a young age every reincarnation. To not live past the age of sixteen and a half was almost as bad as Aiden's fate. But she couldn't just put aside what Ciardana had done, she couldn't make herself forgive. That in its self would have been a miracle. Ciardana was never going to pay, she knew that. Evil never really atoned for anything; Tazia was only losing herself here. But, she didn't let go, her hate was the only thing she had left to cling onto.

Present Year (February 1st)

Tazia woke up from her dreams, tired, cold, and surprisingly restless. When had she even fallen asleep? Had she drifted off sometime around problems six and seven, or had she completed the ever so annoying/troubling assignment? Sure enough, luck had averted her like always. She found that she was splayed across on her bed, with her binder and Math work under her face.

Normally the unfinished work would bother her, but tonight was different. School work could wait until tomorrow. Tazia sensed that her relaxed attitude should have bothered her; after all she took her grades seriously, but she couldn't bring herself to really care. In fact her barely there humorous side saw her situation as a valuable life experience, now she could say she hadn't done her homework because she simply didn't want to.

The question was what did she want to do? She picked up the cheap faulty cell phone that sat on her nightstand beside her bed and turned it on. Great' 3:33 a.m., hours until daylight. Tazia had always hated the darkness; she took every precaution possible to be in before sunset, and only went outside after the sun went up. However, this did not mean that she disliked dark colors or all things associated with the dark of the night or morning. On the contrary black had been her favorite color since she was old enough to remember, and vampires and the supernatural were a rather crazed obsession of hers. Though she wasn't all unusual about her hate of the dark, she still had some of the same fears as most like her, and she despised horror movies with passion, always slept with the light, TV, or both on at the sometime, and never ever quite was able to slip in a deep sleep. All her body required was her to be asleep deep enough to dream, and sometimes she could even hear things that were happening around her while she was sleeping.

Ever since winter had started, a couple of months ago, Tazia had noticed a change in her behavior patterns. First of all she became stricter on her school work and no night time rules, and then she became insomniac, never falling asleep, or if she did she always woke up in a couple of hours her less. Where as before she had loved midnight strolls, and was a dead sleeper, whose own alarm clock couldn't wake her up. Her supernatural obsession had gone into overdrive when the dreams started, plus on account of the presence of a vampire in all of the nightmares, and the fact that she was killed by one, she harbored an even more intense curiosity of them. Now, she felt her life would be complete if she merely meant one, even if they were dangerous, and if she didn't exactly want to go around sucking people's blood and being one, it would be very interesting to have a conversation with one. Preferably one that had lived several centuries, so she could ask them about the past, and what it used to be like in the time periods they went through.

Of course, she knew that was what she would ask only if they were real. She wasn't quite bizarre or eccentric enough to actually believe in them' But it would be cool, right? She would have to not count the part about blood though; she had never had a particular fondness for it. Blood tests, blood drawings, and just blood in general made her rather queasy.

It was the idea that something could live forever, and see so much that appealed to her, not that she wanted to do any of those things. Living forever got boring after awhile, she knew that only too well from the many vampire stories she had read, and boredom had never sat well with Tazia. She always needed to be entertained, especially as she grew older. Though, she was rather good at sitting still, because all she needed was a book, and she would have made a new best friend.

Tonight she felt more like herself than she had felt in a long time. What had changed? It wasn't the dreams. They were the same as always. Starting off in some forest where she was thinking about this guy before she was killed, the last two were always the most horrifying to her, always the most traumatic to live through. The one that was set in a deserted city sidewalk at midnight was the worst; she was killed by what she knew to be a vampire, and to make to worse someone that she had trusted. Vampires could not resist warm, bleeding blood as close to them, in that one she had died because she was abnormally klutzy. The last one was unnerving though. All she cared about was revenge. But that was understandable considering what had happened then.

Still, revenge was not what you wanted to think about while you were dying'It brought people back from the dead; it brought curses to both sides. In her case in the dream getting revenge would mean being born over, and over again until she made whoever it was pay. That also meant dying at the same age, same day every time if she couldn't complete to beforehand.

Today was that day in her dreams now, it was the only way she could explain the weird feeling she had. The dreams weren't real though' In the beginning when she had first started having them, she had documented them. She had wanted so bad to believe that her dreams could be true, she observed every aspect of them.

After the first couple times she finally researched her name and found out the Tazia meant one that is reborn. She also noticed that in all the dreams the same guy was in them, and the evil girl's name was mentioned more than once. In the last sequence she had noticed something off. The girl that had her name was wearing an engagement ring. That simply just couldn't be her. Most people her age being that they were almost adults and teenagers, had more maturity when it came to thinking about marriage, and less when it came to everything else. She was the exact opposite, she never ever, wanted to get married.

But in the dreams it would be safe to say that the guy'Aiden that got turned into a vampire had been her fianc', unfortunately. In her later lives they had always met again, before she was killed by the curse of revenge she laid on herself in her first life. Except in the last life, then she was killed by him, by accident at least that was what she believed. There was a hole in her theory; she would have to have lived several other lives along with the ones she had been dreaming about. Could that be explained by the fact that she hadn't been revenge ordained in those? That she was moving on, growing, forgiving, but still trapped in the same cycle.

No, that was too fantastical even for her to believe. They were just dreams, and she really was a gullible idiot. Getting up from her bed, Tazia walked over to the window and opened it. Right now the only thing that appealed to her was going outside and taking a walk. She had done this before, sneak out her window so she could take a midnight stroll. She had to do something to rebel against her parents. Otherwise she would be an embarrassment to her age group.

She swung one leg over the sill, and then the other, pushing herself off. It wasn't a long drop, after all her room was on the ground floor. She would never be able to get out at night, if that wasn't the case. Her clumsiness was in some way her savior, like the time she broke her leg an hadn't had to do PE for a month, but in this case she'd probably just end up offing herself, or ending up in a coma.

Miraculously, she landed on her feet. The bad news was that she had forgotten her jacket, and was only wearing pajama pants, a pajama shirt, and no shoes in the winter.

Tazia decided not to go back inside the house, of she did she would probably never make it back outside. And, she wanted to be outside for some reason, despite the darkness. Her neighborhood was moderately safe; it had some crime, like robberies, but never any kidnappers'or worse. She was very confident that no one would go through any trouble to kill her; even there was someone dangerous out there.

Maybe if she was a guy, but she was just the odd girl that enjoyed midnight strolls. How much more unthreatening could you get? She had no money, and nothing valuable on her, she was safe. Call her dumb, but she didn't find herself worried, if someone came after despite of everything else she knew the place pretty well, she could run fast if her life depended on it.

She started wondering around aimlessly, cutting corners, crossing streets, and mingling around buildings. Pretty soon she found herself on a street she didn't recognize, lost. How had this happened? The area she lived in was huge, with plenty of houses, she wouldn't have been able to wonder out of it unless she knew where she was going, and she had only been walking around for ten minutes or so. She shouldn't have found her way here, she never had wondered this far away before.

Then she saw something of rather someone at the corner of the street she was on, waiting for her. As soon as she laid eyes on his face, she knew, just knew that this wasn't an accident. She remembered now'everything, all she needed to do was look at his eyes, they told her everything. All the little holes in her memories filled up, she immediately felt weighed down by her new knowledge. She was centuries old again, it felt wrong, bad. There was a reason she forgot everything, it was all too much for one person to handle. The magnified grieve, dying multiple times, the anger, and all that pain.

Revenge was no longer goal, it hadn't been for awhile, and she had lost her anger along with her vindictiveness, and no longer cared for such pettiness. For all she cared Ciardana could rot in a hole. But, that didn't matter. Ciardana was a vampire that picked apart people that were happy together. The vampire was evil all right, but she had her weakness, she enjoyed making others suffer, she couldn't see people happy, maybe that was because of whatever happened before she was turned. It was all by chance that she had picked them to torture for her amusement, they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. How could they be blamed for Ciardana's sadism? They couldn't be. They had deserved their happiness all those centuries ago. Ciardana enjoyed playing with humans like toys, how many others had she torn apart?

Tazia approached him. She wasn't afraid, she was anxious to see him again. It had been years, and she was never quite complete unless he was around. 'Aiden?'

He wasn't surprised to see her, but he looked a little bewildered when he looked up at her. 'You changed your hair color'' She had, the blond was hideous, always had been. Now that she remembered she didn't regret it either, black was more of her color, and it went with her dark eyebrows better than her natural hair color.

'Yes.' She should have been mad; he had killed her once, on purpose or not. She never would have done that, even if she was a vampire, she knew she could have controlled herself. He always had had no self control, was always reckless. But, he didn't ask to be what he was. 'We don't have long,' she whispered. He probably knew this better than anybody; he had always been around every time she died, on the same day. If it had been her she would have gone crazy a long time ago.

'No--' He started then stopped, his eyes flashed with what she saw as readiness. He had planned something. She knew what it instantaneously.

'Don't, please'' He wouldn't listen to her, she knew it. He bent down and bit her on the neck bringing back to her the clarity of the last time; he wasn't going to kill her though.

She didn't feel pain if it was there was too far gone to notice, he offered her some of his blood, she tried to refuse, but he forced it down her throat. She had forgotten how selfish he was, she didn't want this, she didn't want entirety. She had wanted a happy human life, and since she could get that a short unhappy human life was her next best option. He couldn't have anything, he didn't have an option. He was going to make her suffer with him, so he could be happier. Maybe he really had gone crazy, too much alone time could do that to people.

They would never be happy; they could never even have a glimpse of it. What he just did to her, start her changing process, only broke her cycle. She would be frozen like him. She would rather die than become like him. Her unhappiness would make them both suffer. One couldn't be happy if the other wasn't. They shared emotions, even over time and distance. What he did would only doom them both again. How couldn't he see this?

He was a fool. Time had impaired his judgment; he should have just let her die today. He was the cause of her regret now, an emotion she had never really felt before. She regretted meeting him, she would have died back in 1622 then, she regretted the bond they shared, she regretted the fact that she would live forever, but most of all she regretted the fact that she would never be able to leave him. What did her love matter to her if she had lost her humanity?