5:32 AM, Late July, 2009
Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The sun's rise was imminent. The city - already awake for a few hours now - would slowly bloom and grow, like a rare flower: the heat of the solar rays transmuted almost perfectly into human motion. Soon, the business day would begin, and the world of warmth and light would flourish for a few scarce hours, before a different sort of flower took its place.

It was this second flower - with a cold and dark petal, but no less beautiful than its counterpart - that Michael was accustomed to. Yet he found himself staring out across the city as the light grew brighter and brighter. True, it burned his sensitive skin: but the pain was not great enough yet to force him beneath ground. If there was any danger, it was that the unbearable drowsiness would overcome him. If he slept here, he knew it meant his death.

He pondered his future as the sun rose. There were days, every now and again, where though his mind was tired, his body would refuse to rest: and these strange days seemed to be more frequent, of late. This was one, and that was why he had been driven to watch the sunrise. He knew with a sad certainty that, if he laid himself down now, there would be fitful glimpses of sleep and wakefulness until the next night, and he would awaken as if he had not slept at all.

With a sigh, Michael turned from the sun. It began to burn him more and more painfully. It was time to be in his haven. With a parting glance towards the rapidly brightening sky, he retreated from the roof of that tenement. A faceless structure in a faceless city: simply another slum, each floor inhibited by the detritus of humanity. Lower and lower, until he came to the basement. The locks there were undone and fell away, and he closed them behind him, descending beyond the searching rays of the sun. To his apartment.

The cross on the door was a comforting sight. God took the sins of the last night upon him, and forgave even the immortals. Or so Michael prayed.

With a sigh, he collapsed onto the cot, and his mind wandered, as the cool darkness enveloped him. For two years now, he had been content. Or, at least, as content as one of his blood could be. The nights he had! The deals forged, the hunts led, the battles engaged, and the debates fought. For two years, Portsmouth had been his home, and for two years, he had thought little of change.

/There had been too much else on my mind,/ he thought bitterly. Most would consider him almost pathetically new to the laws of the night, but he learned quickly and was more intelligent than he seemed. And he knew the feeling of restlessness, but not what could cure it. No, that was a lie. He knew how to cure it, but lacked the courage to take that action. There was always the power to leave - so why couldn't he? And then, from that question, a more logical one followed: what was keeping him in Portsmouth?

The answer sprang readily to mind. Spike. He owed the man much - in fact, he was the only father he had ever known. To leave, after only two years in the nest... How audacious! How inexperienced he knew he was! Michael violently flung himself on his side, perhaps to drive such thoughts out, or perhaps in self-punishment. Gradually, his mind quieted, and he resumed his earlier train of reasoning.

Yes, he was young, but he knew that service was grating upon him. It had grated upon him for a year - all that bound him was loyalty to Spike, and that... /Best not to think of the past. We're trying to plan our future now. Suffice it to say, my debt to him is deep./

But he also knew that this captivity was slowly killing him. The nights seemed less beautiful and wonderful than once they did, and his prayers to God had, of late, become full of repentence and guilt over sins partially imagined, whereas once they were recountings of miracles that ended with the same question: how could I be Damned? An unanswerable question, for Michael knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was. He touched the cool silver of the cross on his necklace briefly, to calm himself again.

To live life on his own - ah, Michael allowed himself to imagine it for a few moments. To steal his own knowledge and blood. To make his own money. To gather his own friends and forge his own relationships, rather than be forced into them as he was in Spike's service. It was no fault of his surrogate sire's: it was simply that he needed to work together with the gang, and made his desires subservient to theirs. And he was tired of it.

Another violent twist brought a brief pause in these thought, as Michael chided himself angrily for his flaws. Indecisiveness was primary among those. He knew that he would continue to ache like this until he had made up his mind on some sort of resolution.

But the possibilities on both sides were too great, and he cursed himself for not being able to choose a single course. There was freedom, yes, but was he abandoning his duty? He could not do that, not to Spike. He would have to talk to Spike, then: that was all there was to it. As soon as possible. The next night, when he woke.

Michael nodded to himself, in the darkness of the basement, and resigned himself to the restless day to come.