Well, it had been such a long time since I had been in my home village, I am around 30 years old, I run a business and I am successful. I returned so I could invest in this place, There may be 24 billion people in this world but this village looks so desolate now, only a few people are remaining.
I visited my old house where I grew up with my parents and siblings.
“Hello there!”- A warm spoke to me, that voice, it was her.
“Maya?”- I turned around to see an old friend of mine. We knew each other for a long time, she used to take care of me and my siblings when our parents were too busy with work.
Maya looks like she hasn’t aged a bit since I last saw her, her black hair hasn’t lost any color, her eyes are still emerald green and she is still the tallest woman I know to this day reaching 195cm. She looks just as strong as I had seen her last time when I was 18 before I left the village, she must be around 60 years old but damn, she looks even younger than me. I wonder what does she to keep herself this young.
“Yeah, that’s me, how have you been Josh? Long time no see huh?”- She grabbed some of the boxes I was carrying. It looked so effortless when she lifted them like it was nothing much to lift 40kg in one hand.
“I see you look as young as ever. Even younger than me. Anyway, how have you been in these 12 years?”- I looked at her face, she still was pretty, and spotless, and her eyes were a serene blue reminding me of the summer sky.
“Well, still in the village, I run a business in the city now, but nothing more than that. Where have you been in these 12 years Josh”- She gave me a warm smile. Her face was radiant and shone brighter than the sun.
I have been infatuated with Maya since I was a little child, she looks stunning, and from what I know our age gap isn’t that big, to begin with.
“Well, I have to another country, worked there, opened a business, and now I am coming back to visit this village”- The good old days of my childhood passed. I can still remember my mom playing with me and my dad teaching me how to cook for the first time. For reference, my dad was a Chef at a 5-star restaurant and my mom worked away from us on an oil rig, she was handling chemicals and refining, but she often had time to come home once or twice a year.
“Good for you.”- Maya and I moved everything into the house as fast as we could, we stopped talking and got back to putting boxes into my house. I brought new stuff.
Sadly, my parents aren’t alive anymore, they died 2 years ago, but that didn’t stop me from living my life.
I am sitting with Maya in the kitchen. I sat down on a chair and thought about something.
“Hey, Maya, didn’t you wish you were immortal?”- Maya stopped what she was doing, looks like this question caught her off-guard
“Even if I was, I wouldn’t, you have to be mad to wish for that”- That tone of voice she spoke just now, it looks like she is uncomfortable, something tells me something is wrong.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you”- She looked at me for a few seconds and then turned back.
Maya likes to cook from what I remember, she always cooked for me when I was a kid, but one thing that I am curious about is how can she still be so young. She should be in her 50’s but look at her, she looks like she is still 18 or 20 years old.
“One question from me. Why do you wish to be immortal? Life as an immortal being from my eyes seems pretty boring, not being able to die, living forever, getting to see others around you die and perish, and witnessing more horrors that people can’t comprehend. It doesn’t sound fun to me”- I don’t get why she thinks like that. This sort of thinking is far removed from the Maya I had known for such a long time, but hey, maybe people do change, some for the worst, some for the best.
“For me, it’s to spend more time in this world, I would like to do many things, if I have unlimited time for them, then I can take it easy with life and enjoy the small things. That’s how I think at least”
Maya looked at me and laughed for a good bit. She shook her head back and forth like she disapproved of something that I said. She turned her back to me and started to rummage through the bags I brought for ingredients. It seems like Maya still knows me, I usually carry ingredients to make food everywhere along with a mini gas stove. I am a pretty avid camper, so maybe Maya would like to go camping one day with her family and me.
“What you said is so stupid that it’s funny. I still you are a pretty avid camper. I would recommend you not go in the forest at night tho, we have a lot more bears around here than when you were a kid, so it’s better to look out”
Me and Maya talked for like 4 hours, we cooked and ate some mushrooms with rice and veggies.
2 days later:
It’s almost night, I wanted to go into the forest to get 1 closer look at it and what changed. The trails I was going when I was little were almost gone now, replaced by newer ones, but I still remember them as clear as day now.
Something peculiar on these trails is that they have a sign that says! Danger! And ! Closed trail!
Well, I should go onto the main trail then, the one that is marked. It’s not night yet and I don’t plan on venturing too far off, the forest is also a road to get into the village faster, so I can make that excuse that I didn’t know.
Walking just 400 meters or so into the forest I could hear a yelp, similar to that of a dog.
I ran to see what that was about and to my shock, there was a 7-foot-tall creature that looked like a wolf, and it was fighting 2 people, 1 of those people was Maya, but what was she doing here? Is she some sort of monster hunter?
That other person, is also a girl, around Maya’s height with white hair and crimson, bloodshot eyes, Maya has a long, translucent crimson spear as her weapon, while the white-haired girl holds a katana in her left hand and a few throwing knives in her right.
“Meiko, now!”- The creature jumped in the air at Maya, the white-haired girl ran behind the spot where the beast would land, her speed was incredible, I don’t know if a human could reach that speed, that girl moved as fast as a car.
Maya threw her spear directly at the beast’s face, Meiko jumped high in the air and impaled it from behind. The beast fell over dead.
“Now, we have 1 more issue”- Meiko dashed somewhere, I don’t know where.
Someone gave me a hard kick in the back and got me out of the bushes I was hiding, I turned around to see Meiko looming over me. She somehow had her katana back, she placed her left foot on my chest and pointed the katana at me.
“Peaking are we? It’s peculiar to see a Shadow Hunter spying on us like that”- Meiko’s eyes cried blood, I didn’t know what was happening.
“Wait, Meiko, that’s!”- Maya looked at the scene.
“I know now. Keep him out of the way next time. I will make it easier for you.
My head moved toward Meiko as if it were compelled to do so by some higher force.
For some reason now I know about monsters and Maya, she is also a monster, but how? I don’t understand anymore
1 day later:
Maya explained everything to me. She is a vampire that was alive for around 400 years or so she says. Meiko, that girl I saw she’s in her teen years, she is pretty aggressive from what I saw.
“Josh, one thing, tell this to no one, there is an organization named Shadow Hunters that wants to eradicate monsters, they don’t care if others see us as human. You don’t know who might be hiding or listening in. Understand that. I will come to visit you from time to time but I will focus on keeping the village as safe as possible for now. Also, your parents, the truth is that they were killed by shadow hunters. They didn’t die a natural death, 2 years ago they discovered a monster child and helped him out, the Shadow Hunters were furious so they killed them slowly with different poisons. It’s up to you what you do with this information, but keep in mind what I said as well”- Maya left my house.
The truth is that I don’t know what to do with this information. I don’t. We will wait and see. I am too distraught to do anything now aside from mourning my parent's deaths.
