2. ARA

I didn't wish to announce myself to society in any way, shape, or form. I didn't want to find out how much the world had moved on in the last fifteen years. Each time I slumbered for this long I would see news of horrible world events, and medical documents of plagues that wiped out small villages.

If I'd been an omega vampire, I wouldn't have been forced to survive this long. But here I was, sitting at a breakfast table with all the blinds drawn as a bowl of heated blood. A woman with sleek red hair and a black gown approached me. "Uncle," she said. "They told me you were awake. I got the train in Vermont. That's where he took me. I'm not sure if you remember."

"Estefania," I said, as she came closer, she was a beauty. A reminder of my sister, Elya, who died, and one of the catalysts for me hauling up inside my penthouse. "How have you been darling?"

She sat at the table beside me. "Uncle. I've missed you. The world has been—wow. A lot has happened."

"And your father?"

"We live in a small plot of land," she said. "He was going to come with me, but I didn't think it was a good idea to leave the thrall without a leader."

"Well, I wouldn't want your father to make the trip all this way," I said.

"But you're having a party tonight," she said, screeching forward on her chair. "Unless the invite we got wasn't meant to come to us."

I reached out across to her. My palm out for her to touch me. "Sweet, niece. I've been in a slumber for twenty years. The guest list for my awakening was planned by the omegas who work for me. Although, I suppose some of the invites might be a little outdated because the list I gave them was full of celebrities, debutantes, and other famed people."

"Well, I'm here to help you adjust to life again," she said. "First thing you're gonna have to learn is technology. A lot has changed since you went to sleep. Although, you still look like your paintings."

I had slumbered in an effort to protect my looks. As a vampire, I aged at a much slower pace. It was different to humans who were afflicted with vampirism, that, in my opinion was a curse. They were forced into a forever hunger of blood and their bodies might not have aged, but internally, they were deteriorating. Most humans turned into vampires took their own life around the one-hundred-year mark. And I was just over six-hundred.

With a weighty spoon, I ate my warm blood from the bowl. My thumb and forefinger caressing the design and pattern in the stem of the spoon. These were over a hundred years old, they had belonged to my parents once upon a time. "How is life treating you?" I asked her as she stared deep into my eyes at every possible turn of my head.

"Incredible," she said. "I'm really finding my feet. And there is another reason I came to see you, uncle."

"Yes," I said. "You may move in with me. The city has that affect on people."

She squealed, immediately reaching for a block with an interactive screen that moved as she tapped her fingers at it. "I'm going to call my dad and let him know," she said.

"What is that?"

"Right. Technology. This is a phone," she said. "And a camera, and a music player. I'll send a courier out to get you one. You're gonna need it if you're going to integrate yourself into the world again. Oh, and there's this thing called social media now. This apartment would go wild on some of the apps. Can I make a video tour?"

I'd only known Estafania for a few years as a babe, but here she was, the spirit of her mother. "Of course," I said. "And tonight is a masked party. You are my niece, but the rules are the rules."

"Got it," she said, screeching out of the chair and placing the odd device to her ear.

I sipped the blood from the spoon. It was burned, I didn't cause a fuss. I preferred it from the source, but I needed to ease myself back into the world around me. The last time I took such a large slumber, there was an entire revolution that occurred. I feared the same had happened. I had yet to view the city outside.

Estefania seemed to have accounted on me accepting her into my home. I would never refuse her. She'd brought several cases of luggage, and she was quick to find herself a room. Strangely, the same room that had once been her mother's. My heart still ached for the tragedy. I almost wondered if twenty years was enough, maybe I should've gone down for thirty. But I knew I'd wake with the same feeling on my chest. In my mind, she'd died only months ago, but in reality, it was years.

It was common for an Alpha vampire to present themselves to society once they woke. If it had been up to me, I wouldn't have wanted a masked ball of sorts to occur the minute I was rocked awake. I wouldn't have wanted one at all.

The omegas who worked for me all came from omega vampire families that had spent their lives in servitude to my family. They worked for me because it was a blessing. I came from a bloodline of vampire that could stretch back a thousand years. And I loved all the omegas that pledged their life to me.

"Uncle," Estefania called out to me. I'd regained most of functionality from the nutrient rich blood in my bowl, but I continued to sit at the table in the dinner hall, a small stack of papers with choice cuttings torn from them as I reacquainted myself with the world. "I'm obsessed with this place."

"You didn't visit while I was sleeping?" I asked.

She shook her head, her large curly hair covering her face for a moment. "Dad wouldn't let me. He was worried I'd wake you. I think he was just still mourning. And he said this is where it happened." She touched the wood paneling. "This place is so clean."

"You didn't expect me to be living in filth did you?"

"No, well, I wasn't sure," she said, still rubbing her hands across the carvings in the wood panels. "But I didn't think this place was going to be so well-maintained."

"I do have a staff," I said. "The ones who welcomed you into this place."

"I know, I know, but they're not really out. They sink into the background of this place," she said. "I didn't even notice one girl at the bedroom door until I was walking towards her and she said something. I nearly screamed."

"That explains the sounds," I chuckled. "Tell me more about that device." I folded the paper clipping binder onto itself.

She bounded across the hall to me, sitting on the edge of the table. "There's also the internet. I'm not sure if that was a thing before you went to sleep. Anyway, you can ask anything and you'll get an answer."

"Oh, really?" I liked the sound of that. Instead of combing through books or going from person to person for information there was an archive of sorts. That seemed like real progress. "Tell me more."

"Anyone you know, or knew, are probably online," she said. "You're not, but that's because nobody has ever made an online profile for you."

"Good. I don't want people knowing me."

"Uncle, you've got to get with the times," she said, chuckling. "I have an idea! You should go take a bath, pamper yourself, get all dressed up, and then we'll take photos. You'll be online before this evening, and before the party, then all your famous friends can follow you. You'll have thousands of followers, trust me."

I tickled at the facial hair on my chin. "Followers, you say."

"Online followers, not like, a commune or something."

"I don't follow people," I told her. "I've never followed."

"You don't have to follow anyone. Except for me."

My smile faded. "Darling, I don't want to set a precedent for others."

"But I'm family."

It took her a little while to explain and show me some of her profiles. The last time I'd been profiled was for a crime I was being falsely accused of by some vampire counsel. That was the one and only time, I got a full written apology for it too.

Estefania was right about the bath. I needed to soak my skin. Being in a deep slumber for as long as I had been was not good on the skin. I had small sore spots and a couple of hard patches of skin. My omegas had just what I needed for it, a nice, milk and rose petal bath. It took me back in time to somewhere simpler, when I wasn't in charge.

After an hour, a heavy pounding of knocks came to the door. "Uncle, I have a phone for you," Estefania called out. "I'll wait until you're finished to unbox it. You're gonna love the ASMR of an unboxing. Is it ok if I record it for my followers?"

"Of course," I said. "Give me a moment while I dry myself and get dressed." An woman was waiting in the wings of the bathroom with a large bath towel and robe for me to get into. I held onto her as I got out of the tub. "This thing has gotten deeper since the last time I was in it."

She smiled. "We've kept everything as it was, sir," she said. "My parents said you were very particular about keeping everything untouched."

"Your parents," I said, taking the bath towel and giving myself a pat down. "So, we haven't met?"

"I served your food earlier," she said. "I'm Dana, my parents are Ronan and Sara."

"And they're passed?"

"Oh no, sir," she said. "They're still here. I believe they went to the market for supplies. Tonight is going to be quite the event."

"Of course." I slipped a hand into one side of the comfy fluffy robe, and she helped me put my other arm into the other. "I'm going to require a lot of small, dark, and empty spaces where I can hide and escape from it all."

She chuckle. "I believe there are such places," she said. "And I'll be honored to show them to you."

I'd forgotten how doting my omegas were, these were the real followers that Estefania had been talking about. The ones who anticipated me, and knew what I would require before I actually needed it.

All throughout the two-story penthouse, there were heavy curtains batting out any daylight. Streams of it came in, gently dancing across my skin.

There was a nice, suit set out for me in the bedroom. It wasn't the one I'd taken my slumber in, for that, I'd been inside of a coffin. It wasn't a popular form of sleeping anymore, but it was the perfect thing for a stint of hibernation.

"The colors are from your chart," Dana informed me. "They're new in. We all put it to a vote, and decided that you should have new clothes to wake to."

"How very kind of you all," I said. "Once I'm dressed and Estefania has shown me her little gadget, I would like to speak to all the omegas. If you could bring them to the grand staircase, that would be very helpful."

She nodded. "Of course, sir. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

"That's all. I appreciate you," I said. "Actually, one last thing. All the curtains can be opened now. I'm ready for my new era to begin."

I watched as she blushed and walked off with my damp bath towel over her arm.

I took my time getting dressed, feeling the fabrics and smelling them. They were factory fresh it seemed, the smell of hands, a mixture of sweat and iron around the hemmed portions. I got dressed in the suit. No tie, this wasn't a job interview. In the mirror, I really admired myself. My hair hadn't grown a wild amount, but it rarely did in what I considered a statis of the body.

The bedroom was just how I'd left it. It really did feel like nothing had changed.

Drawing back the curtain in the room revealed the real change.

The city. In all of my wildest dreams, I never imagined so many apartment towers built up around the park. The park itself from my view didn't have much change, it seemed greener, but all colors seemed more saturatedafter twenty years with my eyes closed.

Estefania was still waiting on me. I could hear her heart beat and breathing as she paced around. She was eager to knock again. My abilities were slowly becoming restored. It was a delight on the senses to feel power once again.

"Come in," I called out to her.

The door swung open. "I am in love with this place," she said. "I'm going to be able to post online for months and months. I only have like five thousand followers from like mukbang content, but it's going to skyrocket." She tugged at a small plastic bag on her wrist.

"Muk-what?"

"Oh, wow. I so need to give you an education," she laughed. "Your new phone. I think you're going to become a social media addict."

"I'm not social at the best of times," I said. "And I'd rather not spend all my time consuming media."

She snort-laughed. "Ok, well, it's a top of a line phone for one terabyte of data, which basically means it'll take forever for you to fill up."

"Tera-who?"

I was quickly informed that a mukbang was a video shared to the internet of a person eating, and other people seemed to get joy from it. And a terabyte was one trillion bytes of data, wrapping my head around that was strange.

Estefania recorded the process of me unwrapping the box, feeling like I was a child at Christmas, being given a gift through clear plastic. She only got my fingers in the little box she was recording with though. I sat on the bed as I held the device and tapped a finger to it. "Why doesn't it do what yours does?"

"It needs to be set up," she said. "Don't worry, uncle, I'll set it up for you. Do you have an email?"

"No," I said. "Maybe. I have no idea. It was a something I hadn't gotten around to doing, but you can do that for me, right?"

"Of course." She took it from me.

It was strange being told all the things it could do, but I'd seen it in action, so I knew it was true. "You don't think all my guests are going to be into that social media thing, do you?"

She snort laughed again, this time harder. "Whoa. Yes. Everyone is going to be on their phones, taking pictures, videos, and exchanging numbers."

There was an easy fix to it. I wasn't against change. In fact, I was an early adopter of most things. "For my sanity tonight then, I'm making it a no phone policy."

"What?" she gasped.

"I like my anonymity," I told her. "And with the masks. I'd rather get to look at my guests directly in their eyes rather than through that little device."

"I can still have my phone, right?" She asked, pouting.

Just like her mother, my sister, I couldn't refuse. "Of course, but only in secret."