Forever is quite a long time, especially when you sit there staring into darkness. I prayed for death in that coffin. I prayed that immortality wasn't what it really meant.

God didn't listen to vampires.

Still there were days buried alive where I was the most devout Christian in the world and then there were days when I felt nothing but anger. The majority of the days were nothing but emptiness. It was as if my soul was out of my body with the air in the coffin. I didn't need air to breathe. I didn't need anything to breathe.

Some days I would talk to myself. Some days I would sing. That didn't last long when my voice left me.

Forever is a very long time.

Too long to think about the love my life.

Too long to miss anyone. Too long to really remember what it's like to be a vampire or what it's like to be a human.

There is nothing left after a while. I've thought of everything I could think about. I've felt as bad as I could for myself. I'd forgotten what hope was or where it came from. There was no way to explain the pain I went through. There was no way to speak about something worst then death. There was nothing left to me. Nothing but silence and darkness and pain and eternity.

Until there is something.

A song.

“We are the lucky ones

We shine like a thousand suns

When all of the color runs together

I'll keep you company

In one glorious harmony

Waltzing with destiny forever

Dance me into the night

Underneath the moon shining so bright

Turning me into the light

Time dances whirling past

I gaze through the looking glass

And feel just beyond my grasp is heaven

Sacred geometry

Where movement is poetry

Visions of you and me forever

Dance me into the night

Underneath the moon shining so bright

Turning me into the light

Dance me into the night

Underneath the moon shining so bright

Let the dark waltz begin

Oh let me wheel - let me spin

Let it take me again

Turning me into the light”

I think I imagine it for a minute but I don't. Something has awoken in the emptiness. A voice has given me strength in the emptiness.

It's my mother.

And all of a sudden I feel myself punching at the coffin I'm in. I'm punching! I'm kicking. I'm clawing and then I feel the coffin shatter! I feel dirt all around me and I'm clawing at it. There is a power in each one of my limbs. Dirt can't keep me down. Nothing can keep me safe. There is a need to understand why Lilith was singing that song. There is a reason that she has woken me up and I'm clawing up into it. I dig upward. I dig and I dig.

Until I see light...

***

It's you. You're really alive...”

I've dug through a hole from the ground. I'm covered in dirt and grime. I smell like a corpse. To my right is a man. At first I don't recognize him but then I see the girl who is speaking and I recognize her almost immediately.

“It's me Prince,” she whispers at me softly, “Nelly. You remember me, don't you?”

Nelly looks the same. I find myself standing on my knees. They are weak but somehow I'm able to stand on them. I can't talk. It's almost like I've forgotten how to speak. I wonder how long it could have been. When I look at the man next to her I remember who he is. He is the leader of the Rogues. From the reddish sky I can see that we are in Eden still.

“I'm Massiano,” he says smiling, “Do you remember me your highness...”

He is smiling from cheek to cheek. He looks like he's about to cry. He's emotional for a man that I just met once in my life. There is a hope in his eyes that I don't understand. He thinks I'm some sort of savior. The second coming of the Human Jesus Christ. Am I his Jesus? Yes, perhaps. Perhaps that is what he thinks about me.

“We've waited for you. We've waited so long for you to wake up,” Nelly explains.

“Lilith told us to come here. She told us where you were. She told us when you'd wake up. She knew. She knows everything,” Massiano explains to me.

So I hold my hand out to him gently.

I welcome him into my arms. He approaches happy tearing up with eyes of happiness. When he comes close to embrace me I reach out and strangle him! I pull him to the ground like an animal in head and I savage at him. My fangs bite into his neck. Into his shoulder. He screams. He's struggling to get up from beneath me.

I tear out his throat.

“JR!” I hear Nelly screaming out.

I ignore her. She looks like she is going to come help him but when she sees my finger ripping away his stomach and his major intestines to them for blood she thinks again. She stands there half in shock as she watches me devour this man whole.

I drink every ounce of blood until his body disintegrates into nothing.

“I'd never drunk all someone's blood,” I admit realizing all of a sudden I can speak again, “I thought it'd take much longer. I'm still hungry. Come...Nelly. Sacrifice yourself for me.”

I outstretch my hands to her.

...Just like her Jesus.

“You can't kill me. Please,” she struggles tripping over her own feet and landing on the ground.

I stand up and slowly approach her, “I offer you a blessing. Don't you want to please me Nelly? Don't you want to sacrifice yourself...for me?”

She is crawling away kicking up dust as she goes. Either she's too afraid to get up and run or she realizes that running away from me would be pointless. She sees something has changed about me. I'm not the same that I used to be before. I was different.

“You need me. Please.”

I laugh at her, “I don't need you. I've been alone for a very long time. Now, come here...let me make you happy. Let me kill you.”

My mouth is foaming with Massiano's blood. My fangs are longer than I'd ever remembered them being. The blood drips down my chin and body and mixes with the dirt from my grave. Nelly is in tears now. I can't relate to them. I've forgotten what it's like to feel human. I don't know if she's scared or upset or crying from tears of joy. It doesn't matter.

“I know what Lilith wants you to do,” she pleads putting her hands out as I reach down to her, “She wants you to get the Lucky Ones.”

The Lucky Ones.

I remember. The ring, the bracelet and the necklace that once belonged to Eve were the lucky ones. They were ancient relics.

“You know where they are?” I ask.

“I do. I can take you to them,” she promises.

“Take me to them,” I respond.

“We should get you cleaned up first,” she states, “I know a place. Your father's. He's still alive. He's still in Eden. He'll take you in.”

Jackson. The idea of seeing Jackson again is a strange thought. I don't know what to think. I want to miss him. I want to feel this emotion but honestly I don't feel it. I'm empty on the inside. There is nothing left. Still the smell around me is disgusting. It would be nice to shower and get a change of clothing. Nelly might be useful after all.

“Take me to him.”

“We should keep a low key. It's been a long time since you've been gone,” she explains.

“How long Nelly?”

“100 years.”

***

Learning I was locked up for 100 years doesn't make me feel anything. I just didn't get it? Why couldn't I feel anything. Why was there no sense of emotion in me?

We walk through the town of Eden. Nelly leads me as I cloaked up to the edge of the city. No one gives me any mind. I look like a homeless man. The streets haven't changed much. The eternal city of Eden remains eternal. There is a sense of desperation around the city but that's all that I recognize.

As we walk Nelly seems to realize how curious I am.

“Us rogues have cut off the blood supply on the outside. A lot of people are struggling to get blood in Eden but with Lilith awake they are afraid to leave Eden.”

That's when I realize the look on people's faces. They were starving. Vampires sustained themselves with blood but all in all they were immortals. The lack of blood wouldn't necessarily mean the death of vampires but it would mean a strong deformity in their being. The vampires that are around now aren't the same vibrant vampires that I remembered when I first walked into Eden 100 years ago.

As I walk through the streets I get to a house that I don't recognize. It's on a private block in Eden. There is a well-manicured neat lawn. There is a white picket fence. This is not the same beautiful lawn that I remember from a while ago.

“He...doesn't know...”

“Know what?”

“90 years ago I was caught by the King's guard and I spent 25 years in jail for my part as a Rogue. I told them I changed my life. I told them I didn't serve Lilith anymore,” Nelly explains, “I lied...”

It's not until Nelly walks up to the door and pulls a key out of her pocket that I realize what Nelly is hinting at. As I walk into the door, Nelly knows the house very well. I turn to the right and see pictures hanging up on the wall. Nelly and Jackson have gotten married. I raise an eyebrow.

“Does my mother know about this?”

“About what?”

I don't intend to ask her twice. I grace Nelly by her neck and begin to squeeze the life out of her. I can hear her squirm. I can her struggle underneath me. She is in pain. Nelly was my mother's servant and had the audacity to sleep with my father.

“Don't do it.”

The voice is familiar. It's strong, mellow and deep. I turn to see my father standing there. He still looks like the young man I knew all those years ago. He's grown out a little goatee and he isn't as muscular but he's still quite fit and handsome. I drop Nelly and watch as she crawls towards Jackson.

“I was going to tell you baby,” Nelly says, “I was going to tell you that Lilith contacted me in a dream and told me where he was. I had to go see if she was right. I'm so sorry. I'm so---

My father doesn't seem too worried about it.

“Thank you for bringing him back to me.”

That's when Jackson's eyes fill with tears. They are legitimate tears. He is emotional and he runs over to me. He starts to whine like a small child as he hugs me. He kisses my dirty skin a million times and wrap his hand around my waists. He continues to rock back and forth as though I was the father and he was the son. There is no comfort that I can give him. There is nothing I can do to relate to him.

“I need the Lucky ones,” I tell him as he cries.

What?” he asks me, “Jr it's been over a century that I haven't seen you. I searched everywhere I could. Jr I...”

He's in between sobs. I don't remember Jackson being this emotional fool. I push him away from me with a hard strong arm. I intend to push him on the floor with as much strength as I can but he catches himself before he hits the floor and jumps back up. His face gets serious all of a sudden. Yes. That's the Jackson I remember.

“Where are the Lucky ones?” I ask him.

“The King has them,” Nelly states.

“NELLY!” Jackson barks at her at that moment in a way that makes me think he isn't quite aware that Nelly's loyalty is still to my mother.

“Fine. I'll go to the palace,” I turn around at that moment.

“Wait,” Jackson stops me, “You aren't going to want to go to the palace dressed like that.”

“I don't need to impress Ecbert,” I explain to Jackson.

“Ecbert is no longer the king...JB is,” Jackson explains.

I stop and for a moment that changes everything.

***

I take as shower. I shave. I brush my teeth. Jackson has left me an outfit to wear. It's just a plain black outfit but for some reason I don't think it's enough for the mood I'm in. Maybe that's why I dig in the spare closet in the laundry room and find a cape. It must be Nelly's. Looking around the house it blows my mind that my father and Nelly have become a couple. My father doesn't have any of his medals of valor up or any pictures that lets me know that he was ever once a captain of the guard. He seems to have gone into a life of complete solitude. It must be the reason he lives so far on the edge of Eden away from the palace.

I wonder if he really did look for me. Knowing Jackson, I could imagine he did. Thinking about JB I could imagine JB did as well. It's JB that makes my heart beat for what I think is the first time in a ver