Let us begin with the niceties.

I am Viktor, and I am a vampire. It wasn’t always so, and this is where the story of how I came to be so will commence. I do so adore talking to you, even though we’ve barely met.

I was born into aristocracy, to very strict and commanding parents, and it’s through this that I’ve gained a habit of respecting authority, despite what else you may hear about my personality. In saying this, it might be prudent to note that in my perusal of literature of the nineteenth-century onwards, I also differ from other vampires that I’m not held down by concepts of the Christian God and death, and that as a vampire, I possess no qualms with the matter of killing ‘innocents’, as one might call them. But I digress. I shall not deviate from my story any longer. I would loathe to keep you waiting, beautiful.

As I have already said, I was born into aristocracy, and with this came wealth, higher-class acquaintances, and inevitably, dinner-parties and balls. It was with one particular dinner-party that my austere parents had decided to host that everything had began with.

It was immeasurably boring. I’m not normally a people-person, but the guests that my mother and father had decided to befriend were extraordinarily dry. They were all middle-aged, past their prime and I found them extremely uninteresting. The men were all rotund in the extreme, with girths a Shire horse would envy. They wore coats too small for themselves, as if they refused to acknowledge their ageing, and had the redness about their round faces that makes them look perpetually as if they’d just been running.

The women were worse. They wore ugly, unbecoming dresses, and their necks and wrists dripped with jewellery, almost as if they’d worn every single gem they owned. Their faces were made up and would have looked beautiful on a much younger lady, but on them the lacquer sank into the depressions and folds of their faces and had begun to bleed out by the second round of drinks. The laugh lines and crow’s feet deepened immeasurably as they laughed, like fissures in an earthquake.

When they decided to converse with me, they mostly asked me about my life, of which there wasn’t too much to tell, and of my looks. Oh, Angeline, you’ve brought up such a handsome young man. Look at his beautiful hair. So dark! And: look at how tall you are, Viktor! You must be nearly six feet! Five foot ten, actually. Ten and a half, if you’d rather be technical, but I’d rather not. Still, hardly six feet tall. Perhaps you’d like to then tell me of my long, narrow nose which is rather angular yet slightly too large for my face? Or perhaps of my lips, which always betrays my emotions no matter how hard I try to conceal them? Excuse me, madam, I know I’m good-looking, but it’s no big compliment coming from you.

After dessert, I called upon any acting skills I possessed, and feigned the onset of a lurgy. Rubbing my eyes, sniffling, and the whole lot. Excusing myself, I crept to my bedroom where I lit the candles before settling into my most favourite chair and losing myself in the literature of the day. I forgot myself in the ink and the paper until the wicks of the candles burnt low, when I regained my senses. I noticed that my eyelids drooped slightly, and I put down my book and listened lazily to the sounds of the dinner party in the rooms not too far from mine.

There was chatter; the women no doubt gossiping about the scandals sweeping the town and who’d been seen with whom, and the men obviously bragging about their business ventures and the money they’d recently acquired. It all bored me half to death. I’d much prefer to converse about art or literature, or human nature. That was endlessly interesting.  

I’d gained what my peers called an ‘unhealthy’ fixation with human behaviour. They imagined it vulgar and perverse in their close-minded brains, that I sat in the town square with my book for hours on end, just watching the townsfolk go about their daily business. In it, I imagined the life stories these people held, a tale untold to me kept safe in their breast, and I liked to know why people did what they did. I think that whomever condemned me doing this were perhaps simply frightened that I’d understand their motives for the things they did. I know not.

Anyway, I’d been listening almost lethargically to the chatter of these dull people, when my ears picked up a very strange sound. It was a rhythmic noise, almost like somebody singing or humming, but in a bass almost far too low for the human ear to hear. In fact, I only heard it because it shot up an octave for a few seconds, before dropping down again. This interested me greatly, and so trying to block out the voices of my parents and their guests, determined that the sound originated from below the floor. This puzzled me; the only thing below the house foundations was an old, abandoned cellar, which had been sealed off with iron bars and a dense, heavy old bolt, which needed a unique, ancient key to open it.

Curiosity kindled in me, I stood up, adjusted the lacy, flared sleeve-ends of my linen shirt, lit the candle in my little carry-along candle holder, grabbed it and tip-toed out of my room. I crept to the top of the cold stone stairs descending into the bowels of my house. The small candle flame flickered and jumped in time with my breaths; it threw monsters against the chilly masonry of the walls that opened gaping maws and ran like wraiths. Visions of madness. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the silly fear that rose in my throat like insanity.

Quiet as a churchmouse, I crept down the steps to the cellar, drawing my coat about me like I was freezing to death. It made me feel safer somehow, like years past, when my mother used to wrap her arms around me when I ran to her after my overactive imagination had sent to me a nightmare. Holding the candle out in front of me like a weapon, I approached the massive wooden door.

It was damp and mouldy and ancient, with heavy iron bars across it, as I’d always seen it. I’d never been in it; we’d never used it, and it had been locked tightly with a heavy bolt. I was shocked to find that the bolt was no longer in place; in fact, it had been ripped from its nails, all without a sound ever stealing through the house! At first I wondered whether my father had done this, meaning to use the cellar for some reason or other, but as I stared at the heavy piece of metal like it was some vulgar dead thing, I remembered the low bass singing, and realised that my assumptions were ridiculous.

The sound had become very low now that I could hardly hear it. I caught snatches of it, but lost it more often than not. It seemed confident, sure, in a rhythm that made me feel I should have known, but I could not place it. Pushing open the heavy door somewhat clumsily, I peered into the darkness that my flickering, uncertain candle flame did not reach. Taking careful, cautious steps, I moved forward, turning a corner and into the depths of the dark, windowless cellar. Like the door, it was damp and mouldy, and smelt dank and mildly repulsive, like death.

It was then that I saw them.

Pale as death, and inhumanly beautiful, two males and three females stood before my eyes, like some sort of hallucination. In the little light of my candle, my eyes grew wide as I gazed at them, noticing that they seemed to exude a faint glow, now not unlike a failing fluorescent light, and that their fingernails looked as glass does. They were swathed in the clothes of the day, but the material was somewhat ragged and dirty, and smeared with a dark substance which in a flash of fear, I took to be blood. The strange low humming was coming from the two females and one of the males, while the other male seemed to be grasping a lifeless woman to his chest. With horror, I noticed that he’d bitten into her neck and was drinking from her! Terror rising in me, I stepped back and gave an inadvertent cry. Suddenly, almost too fast for me to see, the pale figures snapped their heads up to look at me, and their humming ceased abruptly.

The man that appeared to be dining on the unfortunate woman dropped her drained corpse to the floor, where she fell in a mass of limbs, like a grotesque marionette that had had its strings cut. His mouth was dripping blood; I could see it running down his chin and onto his clothes at his chest. I gasped, and the creatures all looked at each other, before nodding. I seemed to be experiencing a version of rigor mortis for the living; I was unable to move my limbs at all. I felt the blood pounding in my ears and the only thoughts going through my head were Vampires! and I’m going to die.

The male that had dropped the woman, whom I’d assumed to be the leader, rushed at me suddenly. I gave a yell and jerked backwards, my candle flipping itself out of the candleholder and extinguishing itself on the cold, damp, stone floor, plunging us into darkness. Confusion and chaos followed. I heard a wild, crazed woman’s laugh, and a man’s voice cried out: “yes! Another new life to feed upon!”, then another chastising him. “He came through the cellar door! You must close it and lock it, lest anybody else discover us!”

“He’s quite a nice-looking boy,” I heard the first man say. “Look at his eyes, so emerald green, and just like a cat’s.”

The other man chuckled.

“They could look very sinister if he wasn’t so scared. Curiosity did kill the cat, they say,” he said, and everyone laughed, horribly high sounds that ran together and made my ears hurt.

I went to yell out, but a hand, cold as death and tasting just the same, clamped suffocatingly over my mouth, and I could not breathe. I then felt something puncture my neck, and I floated into unconsciousness.

--

It was bliss, this unconsciousness. I now understand it to be called the ‘blood swoon’. I felt I was drifting, yet walking, seeing things clear as day. I saw people that I’d never known personally and people that I had once known and yet had forgotten. I also saw my parents sitting at the dining table; around a feast which I found repulsed me. I wandered further and settled myself onto a chair and watched these faceless, forgotten people for an endless age. I’ve heard other stories of the blood swoon, and mine seems to be the most uninteresting by far, to them, at least. I found it intensely fascinating. All of those people to watch and study. I fell into a stupor.

--

Pulled from my swoon, I awoke. Desperately weak and feeling a great coldness, it felt as if tonnes of ice had been piled upon my limbs. I felt as if frostbite would settle in and my fingers and toes would fall off and I would never be able to walk or grasp things ever again. My eyelids were iron shutters, rusted with sleep, which I tried to open, to little avail. I did, however, find that as my mind pulled itself from unconsciousness slowly but surely, I became less paralysed. The horrid cold still remained, but I could twitch my fingers and wriggle my toes. In one particularly abrupt burst of waking, my eyelids slammed open, my head snapped back and I let loose with a strangled scream that was horrific even to my own ears. With shock, I’d realised that I was alive.

My scream had roused the vampire-creatures from whatever they were doing. I heard a faint swish of coat tails and dress-skirts, but otherwise they made no sound as they walked to me along the cold stone floor. For some reason, this made me shudder violently. The women laughed manically and bent over me with grins like lunatics cracking open their painted, made-up faces, their eye-teeth sharp and pointed. There were two dark-haired ones and a blonde; their hair was knotted and greasy, and covered with slime and grit.

“Ooh, he’s ever so handsome, isn’t he, girls?” exclaimed the blonde, maniacally. The other two women clapped their hands in amusement, with the manner of gleeful children. This sickened me.

“He’s not dead?” asked a lazy male voice from somewhere outside my peripheral vision. “After three nights?”

Three nights. Terror welled up inside me and I retched, half-hoping that I’d choke to death on vomit just to escape this nightmare, but nothing came up. My stomach settled. Three nights? I now fully understood my predicament. I’d been drained of nearly all of my blood, yet my heart still beat. I could feel it, barely, thumping feebly and shallowly against my ribcage. Three nights?!

“He is so very pretty!” said the thinner of the dark-haired women. “May we keep him, Diego?”

“He’s survived this long,” noted the blonde.

I heard the faint thump of booted feet on the ground, as if their owner had been propping them up on something and had decided to plant his feet on the floor.

“He’s got a good survival instinct, I’ll give him that,” said the drawling male voice which I assumed belonged to Diego. “His blood tasted strong, did you not say, Elise?”

So the blonde woman had been the one to drain me! I would kill her if I could!

It was then that a great thirst hit me. Desperately, I rolled myself over, looking for a liquid that I might drink– water, wine, anything. The second of the two men chuckled.

“Look at him, he thirsts!” cried the other dark-haired woman. “Diego, may we keep him? May he become a Child of the Night?” I shot a glare at Diego, hoping my hate for him would radiate from me like a furnace. He just smiled at me. He had a slender face, with a strong, masculine nose and jawline, but his eyes were small and dark. His hair was short and curly, but filthy like the women’s. He nodded his head.

“Alright, if we must. You may keep him as your pet, dear ones,” he told them.

The blonde woman made a gleeful noise. “Oh, thank you, Diego!” she cried. She walked over to me and kneeled down, further soiling the skirt of her dress. She looked me in the eyes; hers were a beautiful shade of sky-blue, disregarding the insane glint in them. She extended her wrist out towards me and sliced the vein with the nails of her other hand, which were long and yellow, and caked with earth. Blood immediately flowed from the wound. I felt a faint stirring within me.

“Come, darling one. You must drink if you are to live.” She then pressed her bleeding wrist to my mouth.

“No!” I tried to cry, but the sound was muffled and all of a sudden, my mouth was filled with hot, wet blood. I tried to resist. I would not become one of them, the filthy, ragged, lunatics that they were. I would not, upon the moon and the stars! I tried to repeat this to myself, but my internal voice began to fade out until it was no longer there, and my tongue lapped at the sweet lifeblood that anchored me to this earth.

I do not know how long I drank, but I must have surely nearly drained Elise, the blonde woman, when she pushed me away. I felt the blood run down my chin and onto my clothes, and it felt good. I ran my tongue along the inside of my mouth, savouring the taste, and was surprised to note that my canine teeth had already begun to lengthen into points! I felt powerful, like I was Hercules or some other demigod. In fact, I felt more powerful than a demigod; more like a god! Better! I watched in awe as my nails became clearer, like glass, and I gazed in wonder at my arms, which were becoming whiter by the second. But with this power, I felt a sickly, despairing sense in the pit of my stomach. I grimaced.

“Ah, now he feels his body dying,” laughed the other man, from the shadows.

My body was dying! I doubled over as I felt waste leave my body, through every pore and orifice, it seemed. Bottom lip quivering, I forced myself to straighten up, determined to keep some dignity, walked to the far corner of the cellar, and sat down, my back against the walls, my arms wrapped around my knees so tightly I thought I would break my spine. Trying to chase the awful feeling like a high, I closed my eyes and rode the pain for hours and hours.

--

When it was all over, I lifted my head and saw everything around me with new eyes. Such was my amplified vision, I could see every speck of dust on the stones across the room, through the darkness and the muck. My hearing had expanded so that I could hear the rustling of trees up on the surface and many miles away. But the greatest thing, the thing that was the icing on the cake and the cherry on top of it, was that I could hear the thoughts of those around me! I heard Diego’s mind: he was going to move himself and his little coven away from the cellar; they’d find an abandoned house in the village nearby and sleep in the earth when the daylight came. Oh no, you don’t. I’m going to kill you one day. The corners of my mouth curved upwards into a sinister little smile.

That was when Elise saw me. She glided over to me, and knelt down in front of me. She had a gorgeous little cupid’s-bow mouth, and a small, slightly snub nose, which gave her the look of a porcelain doll, albeit a dirty, unwashed one. She would have been beautiful if not for the slime and the damp.

“What is your name, beautiful one?” she asked of me. I noticed that the neckline of her dress was a little torn, and the fastenings had opened so that I could just see the hint of full, white breasts. She placed an upturned finger under my chin and kissed me on my mouth.

“V-Viktor,” I breathed, quivering.

“Well then, Viktor,” she said, pulling me up to stand me on my feet. “It’s all over now. Welcome to immortality.”


Fin