Ramblings

Though the years I've come to learn a great deal about life and death; and its that life sucks. Strange to hear that from an immortal, right? But most of our kind feel that way; unless we've found a mate. And by that, young fools, I do not mean that in just the physical act of love - generally that is in our nature to do anyway with our fledglings. Do not mistake this for "whoring about"; the reason we commit this is because when we add to our family, when we give this sadistic gift to those who do not yet realise the turmoils ahead, it is as if we give them a bit of our soul. Thus, we have a special attachment to that person. But the kind of mate I speak of is in the old sense of a life partner. (Or afterlife is the better term?) When we find a mate, we find what we feel is worth living our eternity for. Of course we love our own fledglings, our friends, and we'd quickly come to help them; but having a mate is a far more powerful reason to want to stay alive and bare witness to each tragedy or act of kindness that the world shall give.

If I have such a grim outlook, you may wonder why I simply don't offer myself to the Hell that awaits me, wanting to claim the real demons of the world. I do not live for my friends, my masters before me, my fledglings, and surely I don't live for the world we live in now as it falls apart, and I have yet to find a mate; I live to repay the debts of my slaughters.

There are many "vegetarian" vampires, so wanting to protect humans isn't such an odd thing. But I was raised as Hell's killer. I was considered one of the most lethal vampires in existence, and I still would be; if I were still killing as I did back in the day. The reason that I have become a protector of my natural prey is because a very long time ago, when I was a young fledgling, I easily took out an entire family as usual, but it came back to haunt me. Guilt tugging at my hair, pulling me backwards into the dark abyss of past sins.

First came the father; reading in his red velvet chair made of the finest oak I'd ever come across. They were a poor family, it must have belonged to a past family member and he was the only heir to it. He adjusted his glasses in the dimming light of the flame's dying embers. He was my victim before he inhaled another breath of the smoky atmosphere.

Then it was the mother's turn. Lovingly brushing her sleeping child's hair. A scream from the woman fit to turn the dead in their graves woke the young girl. She yelled for her to seek shelter with her father once she saw my twisted grin; she knew what was coming. How funny, I thought, that she actually believed her husband was still alive. Once the woman had succumbed to life's end I carelessly dropped her to the ground and noticed the sickeningly ugly child looking up at me. A face with uneven features, twisted teeth, and hideous brown curls.

Tightly gripping a hand made straw doll as her body quivered in fear; but her sharp blue eyes scolded me as if I were the child, and she had just caught me sneaking a cookie before dinner. This child, no older than seven years, stared back at me as if I should have feared her. I was the predator. No mortal had ever challenged me. I ripped her limb from limb. I hadn't even bothered to clean up my feast that night. I was outraged. But as I sought solitude in the deep wood, I realised that the little girl with her ugly features was right in challenging me.

I was Hell's beast that had destroyed her family. She was taught in church to pay no heed to demons such as myself, to show them no fear, to expose them for what they were. Insignificant nightmares that God would banish to Hell. After this display of defiance from the girl, I realised what I had been doing to countless families before hers, to my meals; I knew I'd spend my eternity making up for it.