Hunger

The light was blinding. It flared across his eyelids like a wildfire. Cristof screwed his eyes shut, letting the orange roar shift to a deep red. Feeling returned to his body slowly. First the cold, bone-deep and paralysing. Then the hunger. Always the hunger. It clawed and scraped in his mind, pulsing like a heartbeat.

Slowly and with great effort, he flexed a finger. It brushed the familiar rough stone of his bed. So it was time. Testing, he flexed his other hand. Then a leg. He felt so weak. It must have been centuries since he had gone to sleep. Shakily he sat up, his limbs protesting violently at the movement.

“Mr. Nikolai?” asked a voice. It was timid and uncertain, with the tone of a person unwilling to believe what they were seeing. Cristof turned toward the sound, eyes still closed. He sniffed once. The hunger flared violently, burning through him. A male. Young, very young. No more than fifty. He focused on the man’s heartbeat, hearing it as if his ear was pressed to his chest. It was rapid, beating his ribcage in a wild staccato.

My poor dear, he thought. You don’t have many left. Save them.

“What is your name?” The words barely left his lips. His lungs were dusted and atrophied.

“I’m— well. You can call me…” The man replied. He was almost whispering, as if they were in a church. His words were halting, as if he had to remember each one. “I’m Mr. Harcourt. I’m an associate of the bank.”

Cristof dared to open his eyes to slits. He was in a vault. The same vault he had gone to sleep in all those years ago. It was damp and musty, with the earthy smell all deep places share. Stalactites of clay and grime clung to the ceiling, dripping patiently onto the floor. The space was built from large grey blocks of stone, with arched half-columns lining the walls. Circles of white light set evenly in the curves of the arches glowed like stars. They lanced into his vision, flaring with halos. He growled, a weak, throaty sound that hurt his lungs.

“And what,” Cristof said, his voice gaining strength with each syllable, “year is it?”

Mr. Harcourt did not reply. He was staring at Cristof in terrible awe.

“The year, Mr. Harcourt?” Cristof prompted.

“It’s twenty twenty, as per your instructions.”

Yes, that sounded right. Cristof had liked the sound of the number when he had gone to sleep all those years ago. It truly had been centuries.

“You are an associate of the bank Mr. Harcourt,” he continued, “I assume my existence is not a complete surprise to you?”

“Your existence.” The man echoed it like a child learning a new phrase. “No. No I suppose not.”

“But you did not believe, did you?”

The man shook his head softly.

Cristof walked to him slowly, consciously limiting his strides. His strength was returning, and with it the hunger.

You could feast.

It rang through his mind.

He couldn’t outrun you. Even now, even in this state. He couldn’t overpower you. Feast. Feast. Feast.

Cristof ignored it, driving it to the back of his mind. He focused on the pain in his lungs, the halos of light on the walls. Anything but the hunger. He was in front of the man now, who had not moved. His body was tense, his heart still hammering.

Feast.

“Your instructions were to open this vault at the start of that year. This year,” he corrected himself, “and open this casket.”

A slight nod. “Yes, and I have left money and clothes befitting of the time, to the measurements provided.” The man said it like he was reciting lines. “You will find them upstairs.

“Thank you.” He paused, opening his eyes wider to look at the man properly. “I’m sorry this fell to you.” He meant it. The man would have been told what was in the vault. But it would have been passed from generation to generation, losing weight each time. He took another step. So close now.

The man did not reply. He was frozen, a deer in the path of a wolf. Other than his heart. Oh that was moving. Hammering. Pumping.

Cristof took the last step.

***

The night blazed with light. Tall poles of metal lined the streets and held the same circles of light that had illuminated his vault. Cristof marvelled at them, how they didn’t flicker or smoke. The hunger now sated, he could look at them with only a dull ache pulsing behind his eyes. People flowed around him, far more than last time he had walked these streets. They smelled of sweat and alcohol, teetering and swaying. The noise of their laughter and conversation flowed over him in a wave. He could pick out each one like a book in a library. They buzzed with excitement, talking about their dreams and wishes for the year ahead.

Sonder.

The word came to his mind. The feeling that every person had a life as complex as his that they continued to live and build even after he passed them.

He felt the opposite.

After centuries of living, he had realised that they were all the same. The young couple pushing past him, hands clasped, eager to get home. They were the same lovers that had run between hedgerows in a summer only he now remembered, searching for secluded shade. The man leaning against a wall across the street, emptying what little was left in his stomach. A peasant on his father’s lands, swearing to anyone that would listen this would be the last time he would touch drink.

All the same. Repeated over and over across the years like a bad joke. They were puppets that were picked up as and when the marionette required. Their rags changed, but the roles stayed the same.

The ache of the lights built slowly again behind his eyes. The noise rolled over him in turbulent gusts, feeding his morose thoughts. The street felt crowded, faceless bodies pushing past him endlessly. He was desperate to get away. Away from all of them. His eyes caught a doorway ahead, leading to a narrow bar. Pushing through the crowd, he stumbled inside.

The room was lit by low lamps strung from the ceiling and thin strips of red light that wound across the bare-brick walls like vines. A mirror covered the far wall. It had been scrawled on, thick black lines marring it with hearts and initials.

“Look at me.” it whispered. “Look at me and what will you see? Nothing. Proof of your damnation.”

He did not look. Instead he walked to the bar quickly. A man in a fitted white shirt was leaning against it, trying to catch the bartender’s eye. Cristof mimicked the pose, making sure his body was between him and the mirror. The man was young. Much younger than even the banker. Cristof had already forgotten his name. This man seemed to hum with life. His pulse moved visibly in his throat, a warm flutter beneath his skin. He sensed Cristof’s stare. He turned to look at him. A vein on his neck shifted with the movement.

“Well, aren’t you tall dark and mysterious? I haven’t seen you here before.”

Cristof did not reply. The friendliness made him wary. His teeth ached, sharpening. The hunger flared again.

“I’m Michael. My friends call me Micky.” He turned, leaning to the side now so he was facing Cristof. Leaning in, he smiled. “I’d like you to call me Micky.”

Cristof was frozen. His hands were rigid on the bar. He gripped it until the wood creaked, willing his teeth to recede. The hunger was scratching at his mind again.

The man’s smile faded slightly, but he did not turn away. He hesitated for a moment, before reaching out and placing his hand on Cristof’s.

Cristof jerked back. The bartender would see. Anyone would see. They would know. They would know and they would hate. He stared at the man. In him he saw the echoes of the same person over the years. His father’s squire, whose skin had been rough but whose touch was gentle. The scribe who had been too inquisitive, daring to explore the expressly forbidden. The professor, whom they had imprisoned for his incurable sin. He waited for the cries of disgust and anger.

But no one shouted. No one stared. Their faces did not twist into masks of hatred and revulsion. Cristof felt like he was falling. The world had moved on without him, softening around the stone walls of the vault.

How long I must have slept for the world to tilt.

Slowly, disbelieving, Cristof smiled back. The hunger surfaced again. Not the gnawing one that itched at his mind like a fever, but the secret one. The hunger that would bring out pitchforks and torches as quickly as his fangs and his reflection. He had buried it long ago. So long that he had almost forgotten it was there. Almost convinced himself that it wasn’t, that it had never been there. But now it beat in his chest like a pulse. He smiled at the man, and slowly placed his hand over his. The hunger whispered.

Feast. Feast. Feast.