Love Beyond Time (True Blood)

2. Present

If you are Christian, then reincarnation is not something you hear everyday or believe in. After everything that had happened in past few months, I still don't think I have processed everything properly. Some religions, to name a few, that believe in reincarnation are Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism. And while it is not bluntly said in the Bible, Jesus was a reincarnation of God in the flesh.

When people told me that I was an old soul, I took it as if I were more mature than others my age, but now I know that it's because I am an old soul. It is confounding and daunting- am I two people or am I still one whole? What life am I suppose to lead? Why did it happen? Am I a supernatural being or am I still human?

Even before I met him again in this life, I had little glimpses of visions of what I now know are memories. Painful, beautiful, pivotal memories. It was like if I have been under amnesia all my life and I just remembered it all and I can't decide whether or not I was better off not knowing or knowing everything. Everything.

The beginning of everything, of these revelations leading to the big one, started when I walked into the Carmilla Hotel.

Dallas finally caught onto the spring weather, right on time for the Spring Festival for our church. It was an event for the kids, an event I have always helped organized because I was part of the children's ministry. My parents, both pastors of a location of the Fellowship of the Sun, were trying to drill in the idea that ministry was my calling. Sure, the kids are fun and I am looking forward to motherhood when I'm older, but I have always responded with, "I'll pray on it and hope to Jesus." And up until now, I don't think Jesus wants me to become a pastor.

The sun was setting and I knew what that meant. Vampires were awakening. I personally have met only two vampires; a talented artist who had a gallery show at the Dallas Museum of Art, and another who lives five blocks from my street. Growing up with the Fellowship, I think that instead of instilling hate in me towards vampire, they instilled fear. A fear that I am trying to overcome because due to what I want in life, I'm going places where vampires are quite common.

Before stepping out of my car, I breathed in and remembered that they won't hurt me because they have to reason to.

"I'm just as likely to get assaulted by a human as a vampire." I repeated aloud in my car before turning off the engine, grabbing my bag, and exiting the car.

My parents have no idea of where I am, I even turned my off completely so they wouldn't see, but even with that, I felt like they were watching me enter the elegant building.

The gasp of my mother, my father's mumbling prayer in tongues, my heart pounding.

I tried to calm my rapid heart beat for fear of it being too loud in a hotel of vampires.

The receptionist to me seemed human enough and I didn't want to think whether or not she was a vampire. By looking around, spying on the dark atmosphere, I felt like I looked out of place. My light pink sundress and denim jacket was not something you would see among sultry women here.

"Welcome to the Carmilla Hotel. Do you have a reservation?" The receptionist asked me with a flashing smile.

"No m'am, I'm here to see someone. She's a guest here with her family, her name is Zoe Dawson." I managed to say calmly.

As she typed in the information, I looked around the lobby of the hotel. I noticed the material of the floors, the chandeliers, the bar, the elevators, and the modern stairs. The staircase was being descended by a group of three men and a woman, all well dressed except the one that looked like your typical conservative ranch land owner miles outside the city. There was one that looked younger than all of them, yet he walked in front of them like a leader would. He had such a beautiful yet melancholy face, like a Greek god marble statue in the flesh. And then he looked at me and in that moment it felt like a thousand things happened at once.