Teaser

So, you want to know what's going to happen? A little hint...

I was just ready updating the personal file on the new Kindred. Little is known about him, so I file him in the drawer labeled 'untrusted', where ninety-nine percent of the other files accumulate dust also.

With a strange melancholia I glance at the covered machinery in one corner of the cellar, unused for so many months. Have I made the right decision, am I ready to conform now to this rigid society of ours? In my heart I doubt it...

Above me, the dog starts to bark. Probably miss Gerling, our neighbour, who comes home after yet another desperate hunt for male companionship. She's a poor old heap of human misery, abused and maltreated all her life long and now spitted out by society after a life of hard and faithfull labour. Sometimes I wonder who are the monsters...

I quickly write a letter for my Ghoul that his mother has called. The poor old thing nearly suffered a heart attack when we moved into this house together, seeing her hopes for a grandchild vanishing. Hah, the truth is more bitter than I can sometimes stomach.

The dog keeps making a racket, so I decide to turn out the lights in the cellar and quickly take the steps to the ground floor. Last month I was visited by a police officer concerning the noise, probably send by the old fart living two doors away.

The dog starts to whine and I hear him running the stairs to the first floor. Alarmed, I peek cautiously around the cellar door.

The front door silently slides inward. Two shadowy figures, maybe a third one behind them, are silhouetted by the weak moonlight. I trie to blend in with my surroundings, to become invisible to their mortal eyes, but see to late the night goggles on the face of one of them, who catches me in a sudden sharp beam of light from his lantern.

Enraged by their violation of my territory - again - I snarl, when the two in front of the door step smoothly sideways to make room for their companion. I dart towards the kitchen door. From the corner of my eye, I see something that cannot be true, which invokes me with a terrible fear confronted with my great weakness.

The man stretches out his hands, mumbles some words fit for a Tremere, and a small ball of fire leaps towards me, growing bigger, engulfing the scene in sharp light and searing me with it's heat. Confused images race through my mind the split second before the fireball erupts onto me. I crash into the kitchen, taking the door down with me. Unnamable pain, fire searing my clothes, consuming my flesh. I try to move, terror embracing me like a long feared visitor, knowing that this is the end and my refusal to accept it. I can barely move, the strange fire consuming my body too quickly, the undescribable pain agonizing my mind.

I hope they will be away before he gets home. Will the dog get away in time? All seems to be ablaze now, though I cannot see anymore through my melted eyes. The pain is distant now, my feeling numb. A strange feeling comes over me, and I stop moving. A feeble laugh escapes my raw throat, and it feels like it is taking my spirit with it. Is this what the mortals mean by that proverbal last breath? My last conscious thougts are escorted by astrange feeling of elevation.

Free at la...