Excerpt: Bird The Third (A Working Title)

I live in a world of grays, however, I don’t mind because I know I don’t deserve the green. For green equals life and I’m a destroyer. I’ve been a vampire from birth and I know how to live in the world of gray, so I don’t mind it. I know how to admire the green from afar and to leave it be as one would leave a wild animal alone. From time to time, I wish that I could be near the green as one might long to touch wildlife. But I know my place.
Or at least....I thought I knew.
I knew back then when I first saw her lying unconscious at the main gate. I was taking my nightly walk when I saw a strand of green peaking out from under a cardboard colored sack. Anyone else would have missed it. I didn’t. Because I knew what that was: Life.
When you live as I do, you learn to appreciate life. In a world of dark browns, grays, and blacks, you learn to appreciate such a vibrant green. Life.
I take small satisfaction in believing that she might have died if I had not found her. If one such as myself, who cherishes live, had not passed, then no one would have noticed the green strand of hair and she would have died. It also saddens me that I could have lost her. That symbol of life, lost so easily. But I did find her, and I did save her and that has made all the difference to me. Because it gave me something to think about on overcast days. I could think about what she was doing, and that was a guilty pleasure. Still, it kept me going.
I didn’t actually know what she was doing though. I took her to the kind old caretaker of the small garden. I knew that since he was so good at taking care of life in that small patch of life in this gray world, then he would take good care of her. Much better care then I would have been able to provide.
She was light and although she was covered in cuts and bruises, she was so soft and smooth. I wish that I had taken that lopsided strand that had first alerted me. But then I must remind myself that it is not for me. I didn’t take it back then because I knew my place. But now…I have forgotten it.
And by forgetting my place I have endangered not only my brother, my self, and the city where we live, but I have endangered her as well.
That life, which I wanted to protect, will be destroyed by my selfishness.