In a moment everything changed
“In a moment everything changed. My life. My soul. My destination. But most of all, my eyes.
The only thing that still remains the same, is my past. But as time passes fast I’m sure it will be forgotten, too. Pity… Cause that was the last reason to keep humanity alive in my heart. Hmmm…It’s almost funny. “My heart”. We were born with hearts to feel, to know, to love. But it’s not working for me like that anymore. Neither for my kind. Yes, I know how it feels to show love and to receive love. My heart was saying it to me. And now what? 400 years later, I hear her talking to me again, for the last time. The last time because that will be the one that is gonna kill me. What a tragedy, huh?
Of course I knew it all from the beginning. But how could I believe the words of an old woman, who the whole village was calling her evil witch? Now I see I should have…
I was just nineteen. I’m still nineteen, only now I’m four centuries older in mind. Though, I still remember the unpleasant smell she was carrying on her clothes, the tremble at her voice and her words. Her words… \"Your eyes! Your eyes are your curse! They will charm them… That’s why they’ll come for you. They can’t stand to see your eyes. They can’t have them, that’s why they want you to join them! They’ll come for your eyes! They’ll come for your eyes…” Well they did.
There was a rumor that time around my village. They were saying that doomed creatures with human form and dark sight, were taking away young girls with green eyes. It supposed that they were torturing them, cutting them off, turning them into thousand pieces and feeding our dogs with them…But the eyes belonged to them. They were wearing them like the most precious locket…
So much lies. They never tortured me, they never turned me into thousand pieces and they never wore my eyes. They just…kissed me. That simple. Just like that I sold my soul, I sold my future, I sold the color of my eyes to them. What I got in return? A new family, a new destiny and immortality.
It wasn’t that bad. Until the time I met Jesse˙ so different from my world, so different from me myself.
I still don’t know how, but I fell in love with him. It was forbidden and I made a big mistake…I should have heard them. I should have…”
Tarja looked up the chains at her hands. They were tight and caused her pain. Just few inches away from her, the 17th year old Helena, captive too, was watching her in silent. Tarja smiled and tears showed at her white eyes.
“He has green eyes, you know.” , said to Helena. “ The old witch was right; green eyes are charming us…”
The other girl hesitated for a moment, but finally she asked. “What creatures are you?” . Tarja turned her sight up to Helena. Her black hair was covering her pretty face, but she didn’t try to push them away. She smiled again. “What creatures are we? Haven’t you ever heard of us before? We’re Sapanters! You don’t know about us, do you? Of course you don’t! Nobody believes we really exist…I don’t blame them.” She took a better position so she could see clear the young girl. “You see, Sapanters are actually four brothers; Mihaor, Beaunt, Antre and Baurn. No one knows how old they are, but I am 419 years old and they made me what I am. As they did with 145 other girls before me. Their mother was a witch and their father didn’t know it, until the day he got into her room and caught her practicing magic. And not only that, but she was teaching her boys, too. He got so much angry that he locked them in the basement and burned them…alive. Cassia burned, but she saved her children first. She did a spell that didn’t really worked, but it took them away and safe. Their mothers’ mistake gifted them with immortality, but it also cursed them…They can feed only with blood, they can’t have offsprings, sun burns their hearts and the only color they can see is green. The last color they saw before they separate from their beloved mother. Her eyes…” She paused for a while and let herself to get lost in her thoughts. “They really loved her you know. What their father did was unfair. After that, he got married again and had one single child with brown eyes. Since then they cause pain to every father that has a girl with green eyes. They make her one of them. It’s their way to take revenge for Cassias’ death…”
Helena swallowed with difficulty . “You’re…you’re vampires?” Her last words made Tarja laugh loud.
“Vampires? I never thought of it like that…Yes, I suppose we’re something like vampires, though we don’t turn into bats and garlic doesn’t keep us away, as they say. It’s just bad for the breath!”
“And you drink…what, blood?!” asked Helena and Tarja could see in her eyes that she was loathing her as much as she loathed that place.
“Yes, we do. We’re like them, remember? But we never touched humans, they would never let us do that. We kill only animals, and only when we really need to be feed.”
“Then why the hell you need me?”, screamed Helena. “What are you gonna do to me?”
Tarja smiled for one more time. “Tell me honey, what’s the color of your eyes?”
Helena felt like she was choking. Her eyes were green. Unfortunately…
“Yes. That’s how I felt when I stood in front of them… You really wanna know what they’ll do to you? Honestly? One of the brothers will kiss you, he will take your beautiful eyes and he’ll give you eternal life and power you never imagined you could have. But you must forget your past and any connection with it…Then, you’ll be able to become one of his wives. They’ll respect you as long as you respect them, too. Get use to it. This is your family now.”
Helena burst into tears. “No, no, no…No it can’t be happening! It can’t be…I don’t want it! I don’t need the fuckin’ immortality or…or any power! I just wanna leave, I need to get out of here…I want to go home where my parents are, where my friends and my boyfriend are, where my damned life is!” screamed the girl again. She was out of control now. Tarja turned her sight away from the girl, to the mirror in front of her. She could see the whole room with everything in there including Helena, except one thing; herself. She couldn’t watch her face for 400 years. Ghosts don’t have reflection …
“Helena? If I’d help you to get away from here…would you do me a favor?”
“Favor?”
“Yes. I want you to look at me and tell me what’s the color of my eyes …”
“What?”, asked Helena like she didn’t get it.
“Please. And I promise, I’ll set you free!”
“You…you promise?”
“Yes, yes I swear I will! Just…just let me know my color.”
The girl looked at her carefully and she swallowed. “They’re brown”.
Tarja shut them and tears run up to her face like they never run before. She knew it. She knew it of course, she just needed to hear it for one last time.
“Thank you.”
“ Yeah, yeah now set me free!” Tarja whispered ‘nantar!’ and Helena’s chains broke. “Ah! Thank you! No matter how you did it…”
“You’re welcome” smiled Tarja. The other girl run up to her and she tried to set her free too. “No! What are you doing? Get out of here before it’s too late!”
“I’ve got to help you. I don’t know why, but I feel I should…”
She stopped talking as they heard a noise at the door. “Hide! Hide! Behind the curtains…” whispered Tarja and Helena acted as she told her to. The door opened and seven beautiful girls stepped in the great room. After them, the most handsome men Helena ever saw…
“Sister.” said one of them to Tarja. Firstly he checked for Helena and as he couldn’t find her he continued; “What have you done? She supposed to be My bride!”
“Not anymore Antre.” She said to him smiling. He reached her throat and screamed “Where is she sister?”
“Away from this cursed family, brother…”
“Cursed, huh? Cursed? Cursed thanks to your father!” applied the other brother.
“Our father, Mihaor!” she corrected him.
“That’s enough! Your words will be forgotten from now and on Tarja. You’ll go to find your beloved human now.” Said Beaunt. Tarja kept her breath.
“You…you killed him? You murderers! You monsters! I hate you! I hate you freaks! You deserve what you happened! I give you my own curses from now and on… You’re lost souls. They’ll burn you at the end… They will, you monsters!”, she cried.
“Take her down” talked cold Beaunt again, this time to the other girls. They did what they’ve been told to. When everybody left the room, Helena run to the door and tried to find a way to get away. She finally made it. She could still hear Tarja screaming though. She went back, and carefully she took her head out of the wall. They tied her again to the yard and then they stood to the shadow as sun was rising and his light was wrapping Tarjas’ body. She was screaming while her heart was burning. When she left her last breath, Helena turned and run far away from that place.
She returned home but she never talked to nobody about Tarja and her life or for what she saw there…But her life wasn’t the same anymore. Everything she was doing it should be fair and right to every one…And the most important; she didn’t let any moment of her life pass just like that. She was living the every moment with passion and enthusiasm. That was the lesson she learned from Tarja…In a single moment her life changed. In a moment everything changed….
Castalia Boln
