The vampire who had prayed looked around. He said, "Hey boy. Did you know this man?"
Simon walked out from the shadows where he was standing and said, "Yes. He was my father."
The second one looked at Simon, "Your father, you say? I still wonder why couldn't he heal when he was shot."
Simon stared at his father's body and said, "We don't drink human blood. Our healing is just the same as humans."
The two vampires seemed taken aback. "Don't drink human blood? That is a new way of living." One of them said.
The second one shook his head, "It's a really bad business. The boy doesn't look any older than 150 or 160. Do you need our help to carry him back?"
Simon picked up his father's body and said, "No." He then ran back to his home.
Hearing what had happened, Simon's mother broke down and wept bitterly. When Simon vowed to take revenge on humans, she stopped him.
"You want to kill the ones who your father died protecting. What kind of a tribute this would be to him?" Laurel choked out between sobs.
"They are also the ones who killed him." Simon said through gritted teeth.
But Laurel said again and again that his father loved humans and his spirit would never forgive Simon if he dared to harm them.
Simon assured his mother that he would never do anything to aggrieve father's spirit, but continued to harbour hate for the entire human race. He left his home many years later, when Simon turned 200, and came to live in a big city.
"I never knew what I was going to do in that city. I resented humans, and the whole city was crawling with them." Simon told Stella.
"What did you do then?" Stella asked.
"Nothing. I just wandered around day and night in the city. I had forgotten what it felt like to sleep, hadn't slept since the day father was killed. I changed locations after some years so as not to draw too much attention to my slow aging." Simon seemed to be in a daze as he kept telling his story.
"What happened then?" Stella was curious.
Simon: "Well nothing really. I couldn't kill humans, my mother would hate me if I did. But I could never quench my hate for them. I didn't know what I was living for until one day I passed by a house, it was just a few minutes after daybreak and most of the humans were still asleep. It was then that I saw....."
Simon abruptly went silent.
Stella, who was sitting staring out of the window of the cottage looked at him. "Reached the point where it's not just your story anymore?" She raised an eyebrow.
Simon nodded quietly.
Stella said, looking back out of the window, "Can I ask you some questions? Will you answer?" It had gotten dark outside. Stella had not noticed where the time had gone. She had been really engrossed in Simon's story.
Simon: "Depends on what you ask."
Stella: "How do you turn someone into a vampire?"
Simon turned his head towards Stella so fast that she was sure that his head would have snapped if he had been human. He looked horrified when he asked, "Why would you like to know something like that?"