@CioThirst was a funny thing for a vampire, though after a thousand years Evren felt he'd gotten good at managing it. He felt as though a wild animal was trying to claw out from within him, rip its way up out of his chest and explode forth from of his mouth in a spume of bile and phlegm. His knees shook under him as he slowed his pace, taking a deep breath and carrying on as if it were nothing. He hadn't hunted in almost two weeks, and hadn't had a proper filling drink in much longer. It was getting bad.
The bottom of his worn out sneaker struck cobblestone; he'd made it to the edge of town. Redhaven reminded him of the little hamlets of Germany from all those hundreds of years ago. They weren’t dramatic and busy like the free cities, but had an almost depressive energy from generations of predictability; traditionalism, Evren thought with some faint nostalgia as he made his way through the old neighborhoods of vacant buildings and sleepy houses. Change was natural for the living, even if it only happened because they died. Vampires were quite stagnant, perhaps in a traditionalist sense like those dead farmers, forming covens and hunting humans until they all get killed by some ambitious kid with a rosary. The sun rose and set on the same world every day, apathetic to the villagers and vampires and cute little Massachusetts hamlets that dotted Earth’s surface; no death could stop the dawn from rising.
He'd have to eat at some point today, but he tried to push it out of his mind and focus on the other necessities he needed to continue living out his solitary existence in the woods; he unconsciously ran his fingers along the crease of the folded up to-do list in his jacket pocket.
Just as he considered this he heard hurried footfall that alerted him he wasn’t alone. He felt that gnawing within him again and bile rose in his throat, causing him to retch and double over. If he didn’t feed soon he would black out and wake up bloodied, again, and have no idea how he got there. Evren straightened up and began to follow the sound, hoping it was some lone slayer or drunk skulking around at sunrise. Licking his lips, he picked up his pace to catch up with the ill-fated loner. He reached the end of the block and turned the corner to get a look at his victim, and instantly all the sickening thirst was flushed out of him and replaced with a heavy hollowness that settled in the pit of his stomach.
"Aa... Aava?" he called, voice weak as though he didn’t believe his own utterance. He swallowed and peered again through the fading fog, seeing several yards ahead of him the familiar nude form of an old friend. He lost all of his wits in an instant, unsure what he could or should say to the Näkki he’d missed for hundreds of lonesome years.
”Aava!”