I don’t know why my story would be of interest to anyone, I’m not important in any way and I haven’t got much of a contribution to make at all. I just happened to get caught up in this maelstrom of shit and got fucked in the most royal way. But since you asked so nicely and I haven’t got anything better to do, I’ll take some time to enlighten you about me. Take it how you will.

I was born and raised in San Francisco. Lived in a great place overlooking the bay. My family is fairly well off, so we could afford the view. I’m the youngest of four kids; I have an older sister and two older brothers. I can’t complain about them too much, we’ve all always gotten along well. There was a brief setback when my brother Parker started hanging out with a group of less than stellar friends and started getting into drugs, but that stage got nipped in the bud pretty quickly. My dad isn’t the kind to put up with shit. And he has this nice imposing quality about him. Might be that comes from his years as a frontline fighter for Civil Rights. It’s amazing what comes out of such things. It’s even more amazing how the circle keeps going around and around on some issues in this world.

So... I had it pretty easy growing up, I guess. I got into water sports really early. You name it, I’ve tried it. There’s a nice calming influence about the water. Taking out the boat a ways and then just letting it drift has always been my favorite thinking spot. I’ve been known to go overboard (no pun intended) on that a little, even had searchers out looking for me at one point where I neglected to remember to inform my parents that I was okay and they started to worry after three days of no contact. My mom’s lectures are legendary, and that day I found out just why. That was my own personal first experience with that at the tender age of fifteen. I’d gotten away with pretty much everything before that. There is some truth in what they say about the youngest child, after all. Not that I’d ever take advantage of such a thing. No matter what my brothers say.

Well, there wasn’t anything spectacular of note that happened the rest of my teen years. I went to school, pulled good grades, hung out with friends, got into several confrontations, and tried to decide what I wanted to do with my future. I was always hazy on that, still haven’t made up my mind. Of course, sometimes someone else makes the decision for you, or at least one that sets you on a particular course. That would be that godawful bitch Mora Thay in my case.

I don’t know what started the woman on her little crusade. Maybe she has some insecurity issues going. But then, I don’t really care when it comes down to it. All I know is that for one reason or another, she decided to go looking for guys. Not in your usual way, either. There was none of that go to a club, pick a guy, dance, take him to bed, say goodbye shit. Oh no, she had more nefarious things in mind. She decided she wanted her own little collection of attractive men. From what I understand, she looked for models and actors primarily. And lucky me, I’d done one... count ‘em... one photo shoot on a dare. One of my friends had seen advertisements for a competition locally that could lead to a contract and she decided to dare me to enter. I sure as shit didn’t want to be a model, that much I knew. I was content for the time being a professional student at UC Berkeley. But after awhile she wore me down my resistance and I accepted the dare. I think I owe her for that. I’ll have to look into that at some point. It gives me something to do, anyway.

Anyway, I did the shoot (what a fucking mindless and dull job modelling is, no offense to the professionals) and I even won. Which is what led to my doom. I had no intention of accepting a contract, but my face got plastered all over the place regardless. It put a nice grand prize of five grand in my pocket, but it was not worth what came of it. The modelling agency wasn’t too thrilled with my refusal to accept their ever so generous offer, considering they hoped to make money off of my looks. But hey, there wasn’t a requirement to sign shit, so fuck ‘em. I got punished for it in the end anyway.

Well, speaking of the punishment, I met Mora when I was out with my friends one night. We were pretty much just screwing around and having fun. We were at a local bar just having a beer when Mora came in. She was obviously too young to be there, but the bouncer just let her walk in after she talked to him for just a moment. I guess she used her charm power on him. That’s the only reason I can think of as to why he’d let her in. He’s one strict, no nonsense son of a bitch. It wasn’t very long before I realized that it was me she had set her sights on. There was no way I was getting into that underage shit even if I had liked the giggly airheaded type. But she’d set her sights and there she came. Before she could open her mouth, I told her flat out no and suggested she get back home before her parents sent the cops out looking for her. But she’s a persistent little bitch and wouldn’t back off. So when I decided that I’d be going and got up to leave, she decided that yes, I *was* going. She just decided that I’d be going with *her*. She reached out to touch me and the next thing I knew, I was somewhere else. She’d taken me to this house where she was keeping her prize collectibles.

I won’t go into too much detail about the short time we all spent together. We divided quickly into our own separate camps. Some of the guys she pulled in were real assholes and some of us didn’t appreciate them. Thornton and I were the most difficult for the other camp to deal with, both of us have a tendency to not put up with shit. We had a few fights but avoided killing each other. Some just tried to get along as best they could; Han was probably the biggest factor in keeping any really substantial blooshed. He’s a comedian so used humor to lighten things up. I have to give him credit for that, he did a nice job of it.

Luckily, we weren’t in all of that for too long. Mora found out about some deal that side had made to not involve innocents (that’s the first time I recall being referred to that way, but that’s another story), so she had to let us go. Some left to return home, but a few of us stayed behind. I guess you could say Mora stoked a desire to fight in us. Of course, not being in the know about much of anything, most of us had no idea where to go or how to go about getting involved. The ones who leaned more toward evil as well as a few others left; the rest of us figured we’d just keep the place Mora had so generously supplied us at least until we found an alternative. It’s not been the easiest going living with some of these people... Thierry and Alex come to mind there. That’s not to say I’m a homophobe or anything, just to make that clear. But I draw the line at those that make comments about me, even in joking. Hell, I don’t like to put up with that from women. But even above them, since they are harmless and most of the time easy to deal with, I’d have to say that Zack is at the top of my shit list. He had the power to possibly avert some things, but apparently decided against it, who knows why?

You see, it wasn’t that long ago that we got some unwelcome visitors. This wasn’t long after we finally got in good with Las Panteras, but just before some of them moved in. I’ll interject here that being called a Pantera is infinitely preferable to being called a Fox, which is the name with which Mora decided to tag our group. But that’s neither here nor there. As I was saying, we got visited at night by this... thing... called Auntoni. He, his airheaded girlfriend, and that girlfriend’s sister decided that it might be fun to try their hand at kidnapping some of us. I have no idea what put us in their minds, but something did. So they snuck in and proceeded to work on that kidnapping. The sister got successful right away, not that it’s all that hard to sneak up on and surprise Han. I was surprised he noticed anything at all had happened. Auntoni decided to go for more than one by killing and stuffing people into a bag. And I was lucky enough to have the girlfriend pick my room. What it came down to is that she tried to grab me, I threw her and grabbed her, put a knife to her throat and put my back against the wall to prevent being snuck up on. I do have some sense of survival, after all. She’d have been fine if Auntoni hasn’t just appeared there. I was jumpy enough as it was and reflexively used the knife and slit her throat. I got taken out by Auntoni (now that is a weird thing to say), there was some capturing done when Tricks showed up, we got Han and others back, and those of us who had the misfortune to die got brought back. Unbelievable, isn’t it? Oh, and this episode is what sent Zack flying up on the old shit list. He’s the only one of us with any real training in fighting and what did he do when he heard everything go down? He stayed in his room to wait for someone to go in and bother him. He might have been able to prevent some shit, but preferred to leave it to those of us with little to no training. Quite a team player, isn’t he?

Well, to make an already long story short, Auntoni visited again to pay me back. It wasn’t his idea and he didn’t seem to want to do it. The father of his girlfriend pushed him into it, I guess. Of course, it didn’t seem to bother him at all either. First he snuck in and killed me, stuffed me in one of those bags, then forgot about me as he turned into a puddle of goo when he was stuck all by himself for a few hours. What a winner. He waited long enough that Tricks was able to bring me back by latching onto my soul as it started to depart my body. I don’t pretend to understand all of that, but right now it seems preferable to be stuck dead in the bag. We can’t all get what we want, I guess.

Needless to say, he tried again. This time he chose to use people against me. First he got one of my brothers, who got out of it, and then he went after my friends. Again, they got out of it thanks to some help. Then he decided to try going after innocent people and just torturing them until I turned myself over. What else could I do? I traded myself to keep anymore innocents from being fucked over by Auntoni. Before I went, Tricks tuned my pain sensors out so I didn’t feel any torture. However, Auntoni did succeed in bugging the hell out of me. He stuck me in a coffin and buried me alive. I can’t even begin to describe just how that felt. It was the worst feeling I’d ever had.

I was there awhile before he took me out and reintroduced me to Mora. That time she went where I wish more than anything she hadn’t gone. I’m sure people can guess what that is, considering her recent activities. Cutting off the pain sensors doesn’t help against some things, I found out. I’m still not over it all. I don’t think I’m coping all that well, either. Having to face that you’re insane is not an easy thing, nor is it to know that I won’t get any better but will likely get worse. I can’t go inside for more than a few minutes at a time anymore without losing it. It’s like I can’t breathe and almost like I can’t move. A really tremendous feeling of being trapped. I know a feeling of not breathing shouldn’t be a huge deal to a vampire, but there you have it. Life is now just totally fucked up and I’m not sure what I’m going to do. But paying back Auntoni and Mora is definitely on the agenda. I know there’s a huge line ahead of me, but I’m a patient man. I still have some things to learn, after all. And I plan to be a quick and efficient student.