The Lament of a Vampire
That�s the way it works, isn�t it? The wounded bleed and then they die. People are so afraid of blood, as if it was something filthy. Unnatural.
See, the problem with people is that they don�t have the capacity to see something when it�s in front of them. Blood is what keeps them alive. It is life. Maybe That�s why we need it so much. Why we crave it.
We have no blood of our own. That�s all robbed from us by others before we can become what we are. As if it was something we need to be rid of. Something filthy. Unnatural.
I�m sorry, that�s an unfair statement. Blood is cherished by our kind, something we long to have moving just beneath our skin. However, damned as we are, we must steal the blood from others. If we can get enough of it flowing through our veins, maybe we can pretend to be alive.
For some it�s different. They shun anything human, and hunt and kill merely to stay alive and revel in causing what they believe to be beneath them torment and fear. It�s ironic that the life they kill to keep is hollow and impure.
That�s the thing about us. We are impure, things cast aside so harshly from God that even the light of the sun causes us harm. Evidence that the humans are falling from his graces as well, seeing as though the sun can now kill so many of them with an unholy disease they can�t seem to cure.
Cancer. It plagues them all, and they can�t stop it. Strikes when it�s least expected, tearing lives apart. Reminds me of us. Sometimes if I stop to consider what we are, I feel disgusting. Filthy. Unnatural.
The real reason I feel so much contempt for myself is due to the fact that the damnation of my soul (if I even still have one) was my own fault. Caught in a bad alley after dark. Should have had more sense than to go near the damn thing in the first place.
I saw a woman going into the alley. Long black hair, nice figure, and yellow eyes. I normally would have found that odd, but I was too enthralled with them to bother. They were so dark, and deep. A man could be swept up and drowned without even knowing it in those eyes.
Of course I followed her into the alley. I couldn�t do anything but go after her, despite everything in me telling me not to. What harm could she be? Such a pretty little thing couldn�t hurt you�
She led me to the very back of the alley. It was a dead end, and in retrospect the clich� was fairly ironic. She finally turned to me, with the slyest little smile that spoke volumes to me. Her pale skin seemed to glow. It was very pale, almost sickly. I never noticed, her eyes took all my attention away.
She whispered something to me. The only thing I remember was something about eternal life, and being happy in the dark. I hastily agreed to whatever it was she was saying, anything to stay in those eyes. I didn�t even feel it when she tore my throat out. It was a peculiar. Unnatural.
I felt warm, warm and wet. I could feel her at my neck, drinking the flowing crimson liquid as greedily as she could. My heart was racing to the point where I felt like it would explode. It was almost like it wanted to move faster so that more blood would be able to satisfy her thirst.
Pain was never an issue as I stared off into space, wondering were those eyes had gone. I shuddered as I sunk to my knees when I had became light headed.
I looked up and there she was. My angel of death. She smiled sweetly, and I noticed for the first time the gore surrounding her mouth. My own blood. She cut her wrist open and held it to my mouth and I didn�t think twice about drinking it. I welcomed the coppery taste, needing to feel it in me. Some far away part of me screamed that this was wrong, filthy. Unnatural.
After I had my fill, I looked to see her grinning with satisfaction. That�s the last thing I remember as the darkness creped into my vision, other than the scorn I felt for that very darkness. It was keeping me from her eyes.
I woke up in the dark. I was beginning to feel a deep seething hatred for the darkness. I was disoriented and didn�t know where I was or what had happened. I began to panic and tried to sit up, only to be met wit something solid six inches above my head.
That�s when it all came flooding back to me, and suddenly I realized where I was. Buried, in a coffin, six feet under the ground. I calmed myself down to think about my situation. It was so quiet. Not even a heartbeat� I was a vampire. The thought struck me like a moving train as all the memories followed it.
I now knew I didn�t have to breath, so no sense in panicking. But all of a sudden a gnawing hunger began to rise up in my stomach. It was painful. Must be what starving people feel like, because the feeling was almost maddening. I needed out of this box this very minute.
I barely remember it, but I clawed my way through solid wood and 6 feet of packed ground above me to raise from the darkness into� more darkness. This was disappointing, mainly because a part of me had been hoping to meet daylight. That would show me how stupid it was to think of yourself as a vampire. But another part of me didn�t care, because it knew the truth.
The truth was that I was now a thing of the night, and that someone was waiting for me. The woman; rather, the vampire that had turned me the other night. My sire, I suppose she should be called.
She told me her name only after she had me massacre my entire family. Pretty standard vampire initiation I later found out. None the less, their blood was bitter on my tongue, but that�s beside the point. She told me her name was Adriana. I smirked at her name; it meant adored. Why was it that the lives of vampires were so full of irony?
Adriana and I traveled around the east coast of the states. She had turned me in New York, circa 1927. Just before the depression. All the other vampires seemed to love feeding off of the poor people who had lost everything after the crash. I did it just to live. I never enjoyed killing, and seeing as though I was a vampire I was outcast for it. I was deemed filthy. Unnatural.
She understood though, and she comforted me. I could always turn to Adriana when I needed her. Then a group of vampire hunters drove a stake through her heart and burned her where she lay.
Of course I killed them all. I tortured them all to death slowly for taking her away from me. It was as brutal, bloody and savage as I could make it. It gained me respect. The other vampires learned to keep their distance after that, and I was alone, but happy with my solitude.
I lived, killed, and hunted in the New York area until the late 1980�s. Then it became to depressing and crowded for me and I moved to Maine. I was able to hunt and live there away from everyone else for a decade.
All that time away from everything gave me time to think. I got back around to Adriana and my family. All dead. I thought about myself and realized that I was only a rotten shell of myself that refused to lay down and rot. It was enough to drive a man insane.
I sought the church. Of all things, a creature such as myself found God. And I found that he didn�t want me anymore than man did. All vampires either looked down on me, feared me, or didn�t even know I existed. This was no way to be. We are the undead, but I am alone.
My sister begged me not to kill her. I did anyway, but I shushed her first and told her everything would be alright. I snapped her neck as I hugged her, and she felt no pain. I refused to let her be eaten and buried her out back myself. I wonder why I felt the need to do that. Perhaps there was still enough man left in me too care.
If there was enough man left in me to care then, there better be enough left in me to be strong. There sure was enough in me to know what I was. Filthy. Unnatural.
I had been whittling for hours. In 75 years you�d be surprised how many talents you could pick up. It struck me that I was only 23 when I was turned. So in total, I was only 98 years old. There were humans out there older than me.
Continuing to whittle, there was a sudden pang of pain in my hand. I looked down to see that I had cut the back of my thumb. It bled, and I shrank back from it. It wasn�t my blood, it was someone else�s. A dead man�s blood was coursing through the veins of a different dead man�s body.
The object I had made was an intricate staff with Celtic designs all over it. My parent�s were Celtic. I suppose that meant I was too, but I couldn�t bear to call myself their son after all that I had done. Angrily, I chopped the staff off at about a foot. This would do nicely.
I began to carve at the end of the section I had cut off. With every stroke, I saw a picture of one of my victim�s face in my mind. I was so glad that I hadn�t killed too many people when I had made a nice spike on the end of the staff.
Fingering the sharp point at the end, I drew blood. I watched the drop trickle down my hand towards my wrist, until it dripped onto my pants. Seemed about good enough. Now all I needed was courage. Then again, isn�t that all anyone needs? The courageous vampire. Seems wrong somehow. Filthy. Unnatural.
I stand up and take a deep breath. I don�t need it, but it feels good. Tagging along on the tail end of the breeze drifting in through my open window, I can smell that the sun will be up in under an hour or so. My last night.
I position the stake over my still heart. I will the stake to do the job for me, to drive itself into my chest and end it. Because I can�t bring myself to do it.
The stake falls uselessly to the floor beside me. I sink to my knees, defeated by my own cowardice and weakness. I�m weak. Filthy. Unnatural.
I wanted so desperately to be strong. Didn�t seem to be working out that way though. Damn this curse. Damn this lifestyle. I hated having to stay in the shadows. I hate the dark so much.
That�s when it hit me. I didn�t need to be strong; I just need the sun to rise.
So that�s what got me where I am now, sitting on a hill out in the country. Alone, as usual. Staring east waiting for the sunrise. It had been so long since I had seen one. I wonder if they were still as beautiful as I had remembered.
I began to feel the last fleeting bit of alarm and fought the urge to get to shelter. It didn�t mater. The sky was already starting to light up and I was too far away from anything to save me now. Good.
I smiled for the first time in years. Decades, even. I saw the sun break the horizon and pour light into the world. It was exactly as I remembered it, and I realized that it was only because I was so far away from the smog of the city.
The rays hit me and began to sear my skin, but I felt at peace. I didn�t even notice as I burst into flames. I knew I was going to the last place that would welcome me after all that I�d done. My last thoughts weren�t of my parents, or Adriana; they were of my sister, and I smiled as the flames finally consumed me.
End