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When I entered the house, I couldn't really believe that I had gotten the right house. I knew from his thoughts that this was the
right place, but it was strange. Everything was exactly as it would have been had there been a mortal man living there. That was
what had shocked me the most. I had expected something a little bit, you know, out of the ordinary. Something that might
suggest to a person that a vampire lives there. I guess it was kind of a stupid thought. I should have expected the Hooded One
to own a perfectly normal house. He sure wouldn't have wanted the whole neighborhood to know that he was a vampire, now
would he? No. And it worked out good for me, too. Because, regardless of whether or not he wanted anyone knowing what
he really was, I felt perfectly content in keeping the fact that I was a vampire from everyone. For the time being it seemed as
though I would be staying there. I found his coffin easily enough. It was stowed away in the basement, but it was easy enough
to find. Beside it was another coffin that looked almost new. I wondered if it was supposed to be for me. I didn't take too long
to think about that, it was getting late. Six o'clock. Dawn was approaching and with that came sunlight, my newfound enemy. I
knew what would happen if I was caught out of my coffin when the sun came up, so I didn't waste any time. Hurrying, I slid
the lid of the coffin back far enough to get in it. After carefully getting in, I slid the lid over me. Inside was complete darkness,
nothing but black. My eyes closed. All intelligent thought drifted from my mind.
The next few nights went by smoothly. I drank and killed a lot of people. It averaged out to around five people a night. That is a real lot of blood for a vampire to be drinking if they are drinking that often. Blood makes vampires stronger. The more blood you drank the stronger you become. So you might be able to see why it didn't bother me that I was drinking so much. And believe me, I drank until I couldn't drink anymore. It's not a very good practice though. Too many people missing and the ones still alive get suspicious. Because of that, most vampires only drink what they need to survive. To just survive, I would only have needed one victim every night. Or as an alternative, I could have drank from two or three victims, and still left each one with more than enough blood to live on normally. But I didn't seem to think about it that way. Actually, I didn't really think about it at all. So more people died and I grew in power. What I didn't know was that when you indulge in blood as much as I did, you begin to crave it whenever you're not drinking it. It's almost like a drug. When you drink it, you feel good, replenished, full of energy. If you drink too much blood, and then sometime you don't drink it, you'll crave it. Except it's not like a human craving for drugs. It's worse. So much worse that you almost can't compare them. Any vampire could easily lose control over themselves when this happens. They'll go into a frenzy, searching for a mortals blood. They wouldn't even remember what happened until they came out of the frenzy, generally with their fangs sunk into some victim's neck, always the person that was easiest to get to at the time. If I knew that then, I probably wouldn't be writing this now. But I didn't, so I fucked up. That was my biggest problem as a vampire. And it all happened because I was impatient, and instead of waiting for my power to grow, I had to try and make it grow faster. Bad mistake. If only I could take that back now. It's my biggest regret in both my vampire and mortal lifetimes. I can't take it back though, I just have to live with these painful memories. During those few days in which I indulged myself in blood, I thought much of that coming Friday. I had become a vampire on Monday night, but the day before I had made someone a promise. And I always kept my promises. Many times in those nights I had tried to convince myself that I was not the same person as before, that promises no longer mattered to the dead. It would've been a good cop out too. Who was I fooling though. I couldn't even convince myself that a promise didn't matter regardless of what you were. If I l couldn't convince myself, than it didn't even matter if I could convince others. While I was alive, I had always kept my word. Even if I didn't want to, which was most of the time. To me, a person's word was their bond. My thoughts were that a person was only as good as their word. Because of that belief, I had always kept my word. But now what? Now I had become a vampire. What did that make my word mean? Nothing. Maybe. It's just that I couldn't believe that. I had mad a promise that Sunday, and unless I gave up my beliefs, I was going to have to keep it. I had promised to take my ex-girlfriend out on a date. Now that would've been fine, under any other circumstances. She was a nice girl, I had fallen in love with her. Nothing meant more to me than she did. But there were problems. We couldn't exactly get back together. I was a vampire. I was sure she wouldn't be impressed by that. And I couldn't hide it from her. How would I explain why she never saw me when the sun was out? I couldn't. There was just no way we could get back together. That was why I didn't want to keep my word. As the week got closer to the end, my mind changed. I began to look forward to it. At least a little bit. I thought of it as a chance to say good-bye. I loved her, and she loved me. I couldn't take off forever without saying good-bye to her. Of course, I didn't know that I would never forgive myself for going to see her that one last time just to say good-bye. When I awakened on Friday, it was already seven-thirty. How I figured it, I was going to be late. I had estimated that it would take close to forty-five minutes walking to get where I was going. The thought of driving never even crossed my mind. I had been a vampire since that Monday, not once did I drive anywhere. Walking seemed so much better now. Everything I passed was so beautiful. It also let me find my victims easier. I'd be walking down the street late at night, when I'd run into some stray kid walking home from a big party. That would be one of my victims. It was the summer, no one was in school and the kids stayed out later. I always thought that it would look less suspicious than breaking into houses left and right every night. Tonight was different though. I was going somewhere specific. Not only that, I had to get there soon. Real soon. Since I was already going to be late, I had absolutely no time to spare, even to feed myself. Not that the time was really a major factor in me not drinking that night before I went to the girl's house. Even though I was pretty hungry, I didn't feel like drinking right at that moment. I was too nervous. My thoughts kept drifting to ideas of what would happen that night. I wondered if our date would go well. I figured it wouldn't go too well. Tonight we would say good-bye to each other forever. We were in love, so it would be hard on both of us. But especially her. For I couldn't give her an explanation for why we were saying good-bye. I had always given her my reasoning for everything I did. This time I wouldn't be able to do that. And she would assume something was up. I just hoped for the best. Even when I thought of the worst things that could happen, they weren't too bad. I guess I don't have a good enough imagination. That's just one more of my flaws. It was eight oh five when I got to her house. Good time. When I had left, I was sure that I wouldn't arrive before ten after. I knocked on the door of her house. She lived in an older style house. It was nice, except for the fact that it didn't have a doorbell. I always knocked loud, even though it had hurt my knuckles when I had been a mortal. I could never be sure if she would hear me, so I always made it loud. Every time, without fail, she had heard me and came running for the door, this time included. The door opened. There she was, standing in the doorway as beautiful as ever. "You're late, you know." Her voice sounded sarcastic, like it had always been. My eyes scanned over her. Memories began to pour back into my mind. My thoughts were only of me and her. When we had first met. Our first kiss. The thousand kisses afterwards. The first time we made love. And all the other times. Exactly as it had happened. Perfect down to the tiniest details. And my mind couldn't help but to make sure that the whole time I knew that all of these times were over. Gone forever. I just stared at her, and she stared back at me. All the time my pain growing inside of me. My pain soon grew so much that it became unbearable in our silence. I couldn't take it anymore. Tears quickly appeared in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. Vampire tears. Blood tears. She broke the silence. "What the hell happened to you?" Then it happened. My mistake came to do it's damage. My terrible mistake. The reason I am here writing this now. My mistake came back to haunt me and has been haunting me ever since that night. I lost control of my body. My hunger took control. My fangs, ever so sharp, sunk deep into her throat. Her blood, so sweet, yet so nauseating at the same time, went rushing down my throat as fast as any blood I had ever drank. It was hell, even though drinking blood had given me the feeling of being in heaven many times before. I still felt and saw everything I was doing, and yet there was nothing I could do to change what was going on. My body had needed the blood since I had awaken. More even than I had thought. If I had only drank on the way, I would never have lost control. As the last drops mad their way slowly down my throat and I began to regain control, I raised my hand to her chest. I had to see if her heart still beat. If she was still alive. It was pointless. I knew the second that the last mouthful of blood entered my mouth that she lived no more. But I had to check. I couldn't accept the fact that she was dead until I felt the stillness of her chest. She was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do about it then. I fell to my knees. Tears streamed down my face. I could only think about how my wish had killed someone. Someone that I had cared so much about. And all I could taste was the sweetness of her blood, slowly turning bitter in my mouth. Back to the Acoustic Dimension |