[This is copied verbatim from my journal... I was the guy in the first half, then I was the girl in the second half... you'll see, it makes sense almost...]

Well, wait, let me do this differently; I want to talk-story to you, and here's how I'm going to do this... and I'm only half Asian, one quarter Chinese, so I have some leeway with how I talk-story. This is my dream, but I've added imagination to it. I suppose I've also added some reality because I am only human, and I write what I know. It is the tale of a man betrayed by all he loves, and the woman who betrays all she loves and the price she pays...

Ah, how I loved the way she laughed--silver bells, tinkling in a ray of sunlight through the dense forest.

That is how I choose to remember her; not in the moments before and certainly not in the turmoil that came after, just as she was, and shall always be to me.

Laughing in that quiet shallow pond, never suspecting the cliff just beyond, or perhaps she did, but she never once uttered a word of it. Not to me. Not to the one person who loved her more than life... no, not to me.

And I fell. Unsuspecting of anything for lack of knowing... but I'm not bitter. No, I could never be bitter with her.

I like to think she called my name. That at that last moment she screamed out in anguish, come back to me, Louis, come back.

But all I heard as I fell was the harsh rush of wind all around me. And the silence of the fall.

I don't remember blacking out, but I remember quite distinctly waking up. The swamp. Ah, my homeland of Louisiana... or perhaps not. I lifted my head from the few inches of water it rested in to find myself in an abandoned mansion, slowly being consumed by the swamp.

I wanted to leave, but something compelled me forward, downward. Yes, down into the cellar, something I needed, or something that needed me.

At first all I saw was darkness. Then it came, exploding out of the water below me, or perhaps it was above me. A flash like lightening and a pocket sized pyramid, unfolding into something grand and limitless. The cellar was gone and we were outside. Below I could see their reflection in the Blue Nile. Yes, them. For there were three who stood before me. Two men and a bride, a bride ready to be wed.

And then I saw it. The box. What they wanted and what needed so desperately to be taken away from them.

Take it and run, something inside of me urged, You can make if you go now. Then she stepped forward and I hesitated. She raised her veil and I knew who it was; I knew before I even saw her face.

Could it be? Ah, but it was! Had I not been so ecstatic I may have known, may have noticed, but as she leaned forward to kiss me, all I saw was her face... yes, until I saw the fangs, and then it was too late...

[Now for the woman's perspective...]

Floating down the river; there was death in my eyes and death in my heart... Louis, my Louis, twice lost and with no one to blame but myself. I like to think of myself like Rose in those fatal hours after the Titanic sank--floating on a river of songs between life and death.

But I was not singing, and my wish was only for death. I screamed in those last few minutes. He would never believe it, as he has every reason to not, but in those last fatal moments I cried out to him, clinging to all that was real, shattering the imagery the vampires had managed to make so real for us... but too late; always too late.

Months later I was wed, by the powers invested in me and all that was holy or unholy, to my deceased lover. Yes, always too late, as I carried my luggage onto the riverboat to travel North to my house.

It was then, as I sat alone on the floor of the boat, (though hardly befitting a queen) that I was flooded with memories of our last day in the forest.

Ah, Louis blames so much on me, and for it all he is not bitter, leaving me only with enough bitterness for the rest of us. Laughing; such a sentimental value....

And there he was. As I stepped off the riverboat; there he was, standing in line for a train ticket.

Should I have let him be? Most likely, but instead I called out, what I had wanted to do for the longest time. "Louis!" But he didn't even blink. I ran up, determined to make him see me, "Louis!"

Still not listening. I covered the change hole for him to deposit 50 cents into to get his ticket. "Louis, look at me," I cried.

"Move." His words were harsh and his glare, deadly. They drained me utterly, and I could do nothing but stare as he moved to the next terminal and purchased a train ticket.

I wanted to say, "I screamed, Louis!" ...Tell him that even under the vampire's enchanted spell I had screamed his name, begged for him to come back to me. But it wasn't until those long days after, which thank the Gods he has no memory of, that I screamed. So I said nothing, and watched him bored the train. I was heartbroken; crushed.