I clutched my stomach as the growling grew louder and filled my ears. My head still pounded as the pangs growled and snapped at the lining of my core. I stared at the desert ahead and imagined a world where its endless fields held fruit once again. A single tear ran down my dusty cheek as I reached into my cloak and removed a minuscule piece of thin dried meat. My hand shook as I brought the edge up to my mouth, and took a small soft bite. I savored the chewing as I ground the meat and began to feel functional once again. My spine still weighed against my back, and the lashings still burnt against my skin, but I could deal with the external pain in easier ways. I pulled the frayed whip from my side and pulled the aged leather taught. As the frayed ends straightened and lines themselves clean, I brought the strap forward and quickly snapped it backward. The rough surface wrapped around my shoulder and sliced my back. My skin bled as the fray and string ran along my flesh.
“I cant fucking take it anymore!”
I screamed to the desert as the pikes dug into my flesh, the sand turned to glass with the heat of my voice and the world around me folded inward. My eyes bled and I felt my heart grow colder and colder as I pictured the sky above, wishing to be reunited with the stars before my death. I sobbed, my shoulders shaking and my body wracked as my eyes failed to produce tears.
“I just wanna sleep”
I spoke through choked sobs and fell backward, the glass still smoldering and the endless black veil crackling with inferno. I looked up and blinked, clearing my vision and staring upward at the worst mistake I’d ever made. The blanket that covered the sky billowed in the spacial wind, and the small frayed fibers hung smoldering, like small orange stars. I smiled, remembering my mother and all the emphasis she put on space when I was young. I used to look up at the stars every night before I went to sleep, imagining how it might feel to embrace the cold vacuum, step into a powerful wind, know the very apex of an otherworldly storm. But I was born on earth, and forced to walk the dirt of a world where I didn’t belong…until they came along. I was so eager to be an outcast, I never thought of the repercussions.
“Spare some change?”
I continued walking past the old man as he sat on the sidewalk, shaping a small cup and looking in all directions as his white eyes failed to grasp visuals. I got a few feet past him before my soul placed burden, and I began walking backward to give him what I had.
“How’d you end up here, old timer?”
I inquired as I placed the contents of my pocket into his cup. He nodded and smiled, looking up at me with a strangely rejuvenated focus.
“Tales as old as time son, I fell in with the wrong crowd, and i let my conscious call my bluffs, you get me a coffee i’ll tell you my whole story”
I shook my head and laughed
“I’ll get you a coffee, but i’m good on the story, got somewhere to be”
He nodded and looked to the side of me
“Ohhhhh is that right? And where would that be?”
I gestured forward for a moment before remembering he was blind, and dropping my arm to my side.
“Gotta meet my girlfriend, big night you know? Our anniversary”
He chuckled and changed his seated position to rest his arms on an upwardly extended knee
“Oh I know all about it, I was married once, 25 years”
I nodded and gave a whistle
“That’s a serious amount of time, congratulations?”
He shook his head and looked down to the concrete
“Nothing to congratulate their son, I took 25 years of someone’s life, and gave em nothing back, I’m good at that, you know? Taking.”
I backed up a bit and nodded, looking around for any person to save me, or a convenience store to deliver the coffee that would get me out of here.
“Right…well let me go grab that joe for you yea?”
He put a hand up and leaned forward a bit
“Not so fast friend, let me come with you, give me a chance to stretch my legs”
I shook my head and tried to protest
“No sir you don’t have to do that, i’ll grab it and bring it right back to you
He stood to his feet and as he rose off the ground, I noticed a few details I felt had almost been hidden from me. For one, he was quite tall, nearly 7 feet by the looks of it, and his build was not what his clothing had suggested, once he had stood to his feet and really stretched, his arms looked powerful and well nourished. His tone got a tad deeper as well, and a thin black cloth fell down the length of his torso, looking not dissimilar to a cloak or poncho.
“Come on son, give me a chance for more conversation, your girl can wait”
Wait she did, I spent the next 10 years separated from her by a nature I had not asked for. She was surely deceased by now, or at the very least following the definition of the word, god knows I couldn’t protect her, try as I did, I just couldn’t take on the world. We were 20 feet from the fluorescent lights of the convenience store when his powerful hand reached out and grabbed my arm. I remember a sharp pain in my shoulder as he grasped the limb, and quickly yanked me closer. He spoke only 2 words before sinking a set of needle-like teeth into my arm, just below my shoulder.
“You’re welcome”
For a moment there was no pain, as my mind raced and I struggled to throw him off of me, I felt a strange bliss wash over my body…merely a temporary paralytic unfortunately. I spent the next 6 days in unending agony, unable to sleep, unable to move, even the slightest shiver caused my eyes to bleed and my stomach to empty itself. I could only listen in pain as my phone rang itself to a grave, and began to collect dust. On the third day there came a knock at the door, and I shambled my way to the glass peephole to see her. She sat in the hallway shaking, her eyes puffy from crying, her frown burning a hole in my heart. She spoke softly through the door as she realized I was on the other side.
“Listen, I’m not mad about you missing the other night, I just want to talk. If you’re mad or unhappy or you can’t do this I get it, but at least just talk to me”
All I wanted to do was open the door. I wanted to rip the wood off the hinges and leap out into the damp hallway. I wanted to hold her, I wanted to kiss her, I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life in bed next to her, her soft fingers running through my hair. But my hunger was insatiable, my mind raced with thoughts of world domination and unending destruction. I had become one of the monsters she studied, and I didnt want her to see me like that.
“You’ve gotta go, I can’t see you anymore. Im sorry but it’s over, please dont come back her”
I saw more tears form in her eyes as she looked into the peephole
“Please, just talk to me, I’ll fix whatever it is, I just don’t want to say goodbye”
I shook my head and sunk my new teeth into my arm, letting tears roll down my cheeks as I let go of the last beautiful thing I would know.
“Then don’t, leave and don’t say anything, i’m so sorry”
I heard her footsteps retreat back down the hallway, becoming faint and eventually falling from my audible range. The moment I knew she could no longer hear me…I lost it.
“YOU BASTARD”
I lifted my kitchen table high into the air and slammed it across my apartment, tearing half the furniture from the floor and shattered it against my walls. More knocks came on the door as I destroyed every remnant of humanity. The hunger grew worse and worse as I tore the floorboards and ripped the ceiling. A stray piece of debris found itself lodged in my forearm, and as I collapsed onto the floor, I watched my crimson life spill onto the ground. My mind raced and my eyes grew heavy as I slowly inched myself toward the blood, and brought my tongue into its iron filled poos. The moment my mouth hit the fluid, I found euphoria beyond comprehension. I drank everything in sight, clearing the ground of even a drop and eventually draining the color from my arm. The wound healed quickly and I felt the pain begin to subside as I felt my body grow more and more powerful. I strolled over to my window and looked down at the street below, taking in the scenery and feeling an immense sense of guilt.
“Take it all”
I looked at the small people, the tiny cars, the finite lives of all the beings below me, and I began to imagine my life as their king. I saw future iterations of myself, printed on posters and plastered on walls, overlooking the world as I sat atop an unending throne, surrounded by power in every form of the word.
“Hate to bust up the dreams boy, but we can’t have you dreaming like that”
A screaming pain shot across my back as a thick leather strap dug itself into my skin. I reeled around just in time to avoid a loud crack and the hooked edges of nails flying past my face. I looked into the darkness and my eyes settled upon a solem figure shrouded in the dark. I called out as I continued to dodge, hoping to understand what was happening.
“Who are you, what do you want?”
He moved without sound, crossing the apartment in an instant and driving the apex of his knuckles into my gut.
“I am the savior, a man on the side of man”
As I doubled over, he let loose the whip once again and ripped the flesh on my shoulder. I screamed in pain and latched onto his torso as wrenched the whip away. I squeezed with all my might and in an instant…it was over. I couldn’t control myself, I lost care, lost concentration, for just a second. I protect myself from a man who could have killed me…but at what cost.I couldn’t recall what happened next, but by the time I could once again remember consciousness, I had crossed the world over, and come to the one place I knew people like me might exist.
“Welcome to Romania, have you come to our country before?”
I shook my head and adjusted my robe, its thick white fabric encompassing my entire body and covering my now infernal skin from the deadly sun. The young lady behind the counter smiled and reached below the desk, My hand shot forward through instinct and prepared to attack. But as she brought her hand back above, I saw the non-threatening exterior of a gift bag. She placed the paper container down in front of me and pushed it across the counter, smiling as she gestured for me to open it.
“Thank you, No i haven’t been here before, what’s in this?”
She jumped up and down a bit as she made an opening motion with her hands. I followed her instructions and began rifling through the bag. It was all relatively standard, mints, bottled water, chocolates, coupons. But one item stood out as particularly strange, at the very bottom of the bag, almost hidden behind the other items, was a thin white booklet. I picked the peculiar addition out of the bag and held it up in front of her. This time she accompanied her gestures with a heavily accented English word.
“Open!”
I did as she asked and opened the booklet, to see the words written in small print on the front. My heart sank as I read the title of the book that was held beneath the first page.
“The vampires guide to Romania, birthplace of our people”
She smiled wide and I looked up at her with fear, shaking my head as I placed the booklet back in the back and pushed it toward her.
“I’m sorry miss but you must be mistaken, vampires don’t exist”
Her accent fell and she now spoke to me in almost perfect American English.
“Cut the act monk, your eyes burn like the ignition coil on a fighter jet. Vampires are a colloquial term and a bit on the backward side so don’t say the word out loud. Use the book, find a clan, figure it all out. You wouldn’t believe how many first time wraiths come here after being bitten
I stared at her dumbfounded, my heart beating rapidly as she stared back at me with a now lifeless expression.
“How are you sitting here in the daylight? How do you know all of this?”
She groaned and leaned over the counter
“Listen noob, the movies and everything only got 2 things right, the need for blood, or in a case like yours..flesh. And second, we all end up in this country, whether its for the feeding stock or the resources”
She had been right too, I would come to find myself inhabiting the streets of Romania for the rest of my life. Or for the rest of the world’s life that is. 10 years into my time there, I would watch as the president pulled great veils across the sky. I would bear witness to the hunting and grouping of billions. I would stay silent as the race I used to belong to, were captured and contained within pens and poor housing. I was a catalyst for the end of humanity. Now I was one of the last remnants of earth’s sentient life, a wraith who committed the original vampiric sin, and fed on himself. Once in control, the immortal beings who viewed themselves infallible, bombed the world into dust. Now I traverse its ruins, wishing for change, wishing for new, wishing for life to once again grace the world. I have such little sustenance left, that I think maybe no longer can I wait. Patience is the route that a dying man cannot take, and I find that I have been dead a long time.