Leonidas De La Cruz- Unboxed Pt 4

Moonlit Reverie

The sun had set, it was a cool summer night. The campion and primroses were blooming. Delicate, small white flowers sprinkled among the brilliant glow of glorious white roses. The starlit sky shared with a gigantic full moon. As I walked out into the garden, lost in thought, I barely noticed him. He stood, his gaze on the starlit sky. I took a moment to study him—this being who had lived for centuries, had experienced joy, pain, sadness, happiness, and suffering over several lifetimes in no small measure.

I watched as he became aware of my presence. He seemed to draw inward, to come back from that faraway place he had been as he gazed into the night sky. He turned and smiled his Leo smile, and it almost stopped my heart. I was lucky he had chosen me to share his story with. It was the greatest privilege of my life.

Leo: “So, Hamilton, are you ready to hear the rest of the story of my rebirth?”

His voice held warmth, sensitivity, and a hint of sadness. These were memories with teeth—wounds he had chosen to open so that truth could wash them clean.

I nodded, unwilling to trust my voice to remain steady in the moment.

Leo: After I had washed, I simply stood there, marveling at the change in me. Every sense was heightened. I could see the water—droplets flowing through space. The scent of blood, still fresh on the ground where I had died, was pungent in my nose.

And the sounds—it was as if I had woken up to a whole new world. Human beings complain about things being too noisy: the music is too loud, people talking or shouting, sirens, alarms, that annoying ring of a phone when you’re trying to concentrate, the neighbor’s TV set, or the loud stomp of the person in the apartment above you. But imagine returning to life with all of that magnified a thousand times. Thankfully, my rebirth happened in a somewhat quieter time.

Leo smiled at a joke only he could understand, then continued.

I heard a gentle rustle, a whisper of sound. At first, I couldn’t understand what I was hearing. And then I realized what it was—it was the wings of a cricket as they rubbed together. Outside, I heard the hoot of an owl, as clear as if it had been perched in the room with me. And then I heard it: Fernando’s voice—the voice of my sire and my father.

It transfixed me. I had heard Fernando speak many times before—but that was as a human. Now, in this moment, after the trauma of my death and the exultation of my rebirth, I was hearing his voice again. With all its color and beauty, it was how I imagined an angel might sound.

I closed my eyes and just listened. In my mind’s eye, I saw flashes of color: red, gold, deep midnight blue, greens in shades I had never imagined, the deep browns of the earth—all within the sound of his voice.

When I opened my eyes, the colors were still there—undulating patterns of light, pulsing even through the wood of the walls. Genevieve entered, bringing new garments for me to wear, and for the first time, I truly saw her. The glow of her vitality, the strength of her soul—it was as if she were cloaked in light.

She must have noticed me staring. She simply smiled. Walking over, she covered my ears gently with her hands and whispered:

“It will take time for you to understand everything that has happened to you. Don’t be afraid. We will teach you how to live again in a world that has become so very big.”

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I must have been holding my breath, but as Leo recounted Genevieve’s words, I realized I should probably start breathing again. Wake up, Hamilton—remember, this is an interview, my brain seemed to say.

A question—yes. Do I have a question?

2260: "So much had happened. Can you remember how it all made you feel?"

Leo: “How did I feel? Yes… how did I feel?”

He reached out his hand to cup the bloom of a rose from the bushes surrounding him. I watched as he leaned in—to appreciate its beauty and fragrance in the moonlit night. He paused there, waiting, considering what his next words should be.

Leo: Vampires are creatures of instinct, of primal desire. They often act before they think, driven by perceptions that are too big to fit into a human lens. My rebirth filled me with all of these things—but something was different. It was as if there were a wall between the beast and the man. I could feel the aggression, the territorial instinct, the rage and bloodlust—but they were blocked off from me. I could understand. I could reason. The beast was not in control.

2260: So you were different from other vampires—and you knew it, even if you didn’t understand why?

Leo: At first, I thought it was normal. But the more I searched myself, the more I felt it. A whisper in my mind. It said, “You are loved. You are special. You are not a beast, but a prince.”

2260: The whisper within—did you understand where it came from? Was it you or something else?

Leo: At the time I didn't understand everything that was happening. But mark well the expression—the blood always remembers.

2260: You’re not going to say anything more, are you?

Leo: You should know—you did write me.

2260: Ok, fair enough.

I knew Leo well enough to know when to quit. Once his mind was made up, there was no moving him. So I moved on.

2260: You said that you had heard Fernando’s voice earlier and witnessed the myriad of colors it evoked. Do you remember what he was saying at the time? And what about this new way of perceiving sound as color—how did that affect your experience?

Leo: My perception had definitely changed. As I began to adjust to it, I slowly started to understand what was happening.

Small sounds—like a cricket’s wings—flashed across my vision like fireflies. Little bursts of light in the evening twilight.

Larger sounds, like voices, came as waves of color rippling through me. I had to learn to focus, to tune out the small distractions the way you might ignore the drone of flies on a hot summer day.

2260: It seems that you had been radically changed—your rebirth was also a remaking of who you were.

Leo: Yes, everything was new. You asked about Fernando—what he was saying at the time.

As I listened to his voice and watched the sound of it, I realized I could sense its emotional quality. I began to recognize the nuances: brilliant reds conveyed passion, muddy reds suggested annoyance, and reds streaked with orange signaled anger.

My sire was angry—his words flashed across my sight like fire.

But there were moments when the colors shifted. When he said “my chosen son,” the colors softened: green like the first buds of spring, rose gold like the earliest light of dawn. That’s when I realized what I was seeing—when he used those words—was love.

I was moving before I consciously knew it. I found myself standing on the porch, with no real understanding of how I had gotten there.

As I stood there, I saw Fernando speaking to several men—their clothing tattered, dirt beneath their fingernails. I both heard and saw their voices. Where my father’s voice was full of beauty and color, theirs was gray.

Watching, I heard my father say:

“They have harmed my chosen son, and now their lives are forfeit. Harm no servant or farmer. You may take the lord and his family—but no children, and make no offspring. Drain them and give them the true death.”

He called one of the vampires to him and whispered in his ear. My hearing had been changed—so I heard every word.

“For the lord’s son,” he said, “he is to be impaled on an iron spike. Then you may drain him. Tell him this is his punishment for angering the Sanguinis Divina and harming his progeny. The estate is to be put to the torch, but do not harm the surrounding farmland. The people should inherit it, as payment for the cruelty of their overlords.”

I had to close my eyes for a moment—so disorienting was the panoply of colors that crossed in front of me.

When I opened my eyes again, it was just Fernando there. The others had drifted away like smoke on the wind. He turned to me, and I looked into his eyes—they seemed to glow in the moonlight, as if the fire of all the stars was contained within them.

I realized, at that moment, I was looking upon the face of a being beyond my comprehension. He commanded the undead with a word. And to look at him was to see the power of the night’s beauty—and the favor of Hecate.

Though I was a Greek Christian, the old myths still lived in my memory, told to me by my mother as stories of our past.

Leo paused, looking up at the moon above him. I let a moment pass before I asked my next question.

2260: After the Vrykolakas—the vampires—left, what happened?

Leo: The night passed, but in those hours, screams and wails of torment shattered the peace. To this day, I can still hear them if I think upon that night.

The next day, the smoke from the manor house could be seen for miles. Nothing was found of the lord—or of Alexios, his son. The farmers discovered a note, written in ornate, ancient script. It declared that the land now belonged to the people, in payment for the sins of their masters.

That next evening, Fernando, Genevieve, and I left the farm—and I began my new life as the son of my beloved father.

2260: And so the story of your rebirth has come to an end. But you and I both know that there is more yet to be written—and other secrets still to be shared. So here is my last request before we conclude this interview series:

In the final part, will you allow the readers to ask the questions?

Leo: Hamilton—what are you getting me into?

2260: One question from any reader who wishes to submit. You may choose how to answer it. Please say yes. You owe me—I still haven’t forgotten how you ghosted me when I was trying to bridge that gap in your story. You disappeared for a week! Talk about writer’s block!

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🩸 To the Readers:

In the final installment of the Leo Interview Series, Leo will answer your questions. Submit a single question—serious, poetic, or playful—and he may choose to answer it in his own words.

You’ve come with us this far through blood, memory, and fire. Let’s finish it together.