Never-ending Nightmarish Heaven

Never-ending Nightmarish Heaven

4/19/04

My name is Shina. I am a new vampyre. For only the last hundred years,
I have inhabited this city. I have survived alone, preying on humans.
I watched as humans have changed, improving their lifestyles with
technologies while their dramas of love and life remained the same.
I watched the town grow. The gothic buildings became historic next to
newer, shinier buildings. The lace and night are the same, though. The
city is still antique, and the people still beautiful. Odi et amo. I
hate humans. I hate their weakness and flippancy. Yet I love humans -
they're alive and real. And I need their vain humanity just as much
as their blood. I hate them more than I love them, but I love them a
lot. I don't think any vampyre could survive without loving humans.
Their simplicity. Their brief lives gone, flowing from a gash in their
throat like a feather on a breeze.

Long ago, I, too, was drained of blood. I was 22. Since then, I have
not aged a day. I worked at an abortion clinic then. My family was
dead then as it is now. That night I walked home after I had
closed up the clinic. I stored the keys into my black purse and walked
rapidly down the street. My shoes clicked on the pavement.

Click. Click. Click. Click.

I walked under the street lamps. Circles of white light bore holes into
the pavement as I stepped into them. Half the time I walked, it was so
bright I couldn't see anything. Half the time I walked, it was so dark
I couldn't see anything. I passed a dark alley. I passed a chain link
fence where a dog growled deeply at me. It barked repeatedly - each
clear shout starting from the back of its throat. I saw its teeth less than
a foot away from me with only the metal mesh between us.
I pulled my black, high-collared coat higher because a wind had started
up. It whipped my blonde, shoulder-length hair back. I walked through
a park. Some homeless people slept on a bench. They had an assortment
of winter clothes on.

I passed the window of a late-night cafe. The lights inside were pale.
A man was sitting at a small table. He looked at me. He extended a hand
and motioned to the seat across from him. I saw a vampyre. I blinked
and looked twice. I saw what I thought was a man. He was thin. He wore
black and lace. There was a white scarf around his neck. He had long
brown hair and dark eyes. His skin was pale. It was well past one a.m.
I decided to go in.

The plastic door closed slowly. I walked over to his table and placed
my coat on the chair. Wordlessly, I sat. The man was highly beautiful,
but I was not especially impressed.

A waitress came, and I ordered a warm drink. The vampyre studied me and
I glared back at the vampyre. He watched me drink thoughtfully. I
looked at the steamy cup in my hands and then out at the macabre city.

"Do you come here often?" he asked. His voice was deep and beautiful.

"Never." I replied.

His dark, dreamy eyes peered at my crystal blue ones. He looked at my
hands.

"You have long nails. Are they real?"

I nodded.

"Do you like to have your nails long?"

"I guess. It helps with my work."

"Where do you work?"

"An abortion clinic."

We fell silent for a while.

I noticed the man had not touched his drink. I opened my mouth to speak,
but the vampyre's finger was on my lips with a movement my eyes could
not follow.

"Come with me." he said and dropped some money onto the table.

He stood and walked to the door and waited. I sighed with narrowed eyes.
I put on my coat without buttoning it and stood. He opened the door and
I walked through. I followed him through the city. His stride was long
and graceful. His lanky arms swung low on his thighs with each step he
took.

We came to a lake. There was no one I could see except the buildings
leaning over the water.

He stood and looked out at the water on the pebbles and sand of the shore.

"My name is Gabriel." he said.

"I am Shina." I replied.

"I know..." he said quietly.

He turned to me and took my hand as he looked in to my eyes. I turned
cold. Is this guy some stalker? was what I though immediately.
My mind recalled fighting tactics. He did not move further so I snatched
my hand back with a scoff. I turned and stalked away.

Gabriel was instantly next to me. I didn't know how he could have moved
so quickly. I saw his unnaturally long canines as he opened his mouth.
He violently pulled me close as I tried to punch him. His embrace,
however, was loving. His eyes looked longingly into mine.

With a confident bite, his canines tore into my neck amidst my open coat.

I tried to shove him away, but my strength was being drained. I felt weak,
but I was not out of this fight yet. Suddenly, I felt something. My
memories, my feeling, my soul was being opened up and shown nakedly to him.
Likewise, I, too, saw Gabriel's soul open. This is what I was told:


Gabriel was an old vampyre that had been living for a very, very long time.
He was powerful from the blood of many victims. Beautiful Gabriel loved
humans, but he killed ruthlessly without hesitation. However, once Gabriel had
marked me as a victim, he did not kill me instantly. He
watched me at the beginning and end of work at the clinic, while I
rested at my apartment, and as I trained at a modern-day dojo. As this
vampyre studied me, he found me intriguing.

Gabriel was amazed at my strength. My solitary life was something
Gabriel identified with. However, he couldn't understand how I could
exist without anyone while he always needed other vampyres or humans.

Gabriel came to love me.

One day, he found out the difference between me and him.

I was stronger.

Indeed, I had accepted his invitation into the cafe unknowing of his
nature. I had even followed him to the lake when he asked, sure of my
safety due to the training I had put myself through. And now he said he
was baring his soul before me during this painful bite.

I did not know if the vampyre wanted to be with me or kill me or love me
or anything. That was not included in his message. All he communicated
was a confession of his love and lust. But it didn't make a difference.
I fought his grip with my dying strength. To him, this was a denial of
some unspoken, misunderstood question. Perhaps he saw something in my
soul - something I sometime might look for someday and never understand.

He cut open his vein and sprayed a small amount of blood across my lips.
The blood empowered me in addition to my will to live. I heard something
strange. Two drums. They beat quietly, and then louder and louder.
They were not in line, but they were close.

Each spoke: Boom-BOOM. Boom-BOOM. Boom-BOOM.

I forced the vampyre off my neck. We were still in an embrace, and he
forced my eyes into his. He tried to tell me something with his deep
eyes, but I only saw some type of hope.

"I love you." he said tragically. "I knew..." he stopped speaking, and
red stains trailed from his eyes and onto his pale cheeks. "I knew you
would reject me. What? was all I could think. "Furthermore, I
knew you would kill me. I would rather die than exist without your love.
You are so strong... and so adamantly alone. You have shown it to me
in your soul."

From the wrist of the vampyre gripping me fell a red waterfall. The blood
splashed onto the pavement, and some traveled into the water. He was
weakening from the loss of blood.

"I am sorry." he said, still searching my eyes with that alien hope as
his strength washed away. Gradually, his grip on me slackened, and I
was holding his frail body from the ground.

He cried silently. His body was wracked with either pain or crying. I
couldn't understand, but he looked so devastated - it was something in
his eyes.

Eventually, those eyes closed, and he ceased to move in my hands.

I had fought his beautiful charm, I had fought his bite, and I had
fought his need. Now I let go of his weight, and his limp body fell
onto the rocks by the lake. I stared at his body with a furrowed brow,
teeth clenched.

In one movement, I slammed my clenched fists to my sides, threw back my
head, and screamed angrily at the night.

I looked loathingly at Gabriel's body as it turned to ash. I had been
confident in myself, but although he was dead, Gabriel was stronger.

I then passed out from lack of blood.

Later that night, I awoke and sat up. I was very groggy. It was just
before daybreak. I vaguely remember ash in my clothes. I also remember
my clothes were soiled from my body removing its contents. I didn't know
what was happening to me, but I felt like shit - like I was dead. And
later I learned that my body indeed was dying. It is part of the process
to become a vampyre. I stumbled out of a pool of dried blood and away
from the lake.

I don't really remember where I went in my drunken state, but I was moving
frantically. I had wandered into a dilapidated shack. I remember
stumbling against a few boards that served as a wall for the house. The
weak boards broke, and the house collapsed on top of me from a lack of
support. Dirt and rotting wood covered me, and I became unconscious. I
slept until the next night. I haven't seen a sun since the morning of
that day.

The moment the sun was gone, I snapped instantly awake. I burst out of the
wreckage with unnatural strength. My drowsiness was gone, and I vaguely
remembered the sound of the drums when Gabriel drunk my blood. I then
realized those two thunderous drums were our two hearts. I also remembered
the strength I had gotten when I had tasted his blood. I was hungry.

I ran through the streets. I entered a park and found two homeless men
finding a place to sleep in a cemetery. As I ran, my steps got faster and
faster. I was a mere blur to the two marked bums. They could barely
react to my approach. I seized one with my right hand and lifted him off
the ground. His eyes were wide with terror as I ripped open his jugular
vein with the long nails on my left hand. I lowered his neck to my mouth
and drank deeply.

I felt his heart beating like a bass drum.

Boom-BOOM. Boom-BOOM. Boom-BOOM.

I felt a second drum. This one started quietly and grew stronger as the
man's heart weakened. This drum, mine, went from a bass drum, to a gong,
to an elephant, to thunder.

Boom-BOOM. Boom-BOOM. BOOM-BOOM. BOOM-BOOM!!

The blood flow released gave a huge amount of pleasurable chemicals into
my brain. It was pleasant, and I drained him.

Eventually, I felt the man getting limp. I felt his life force start to
slip away. I felt my soul going with it. Calmly, I unengaged my teeth.
The man fell, dead.

The other bum had begun to run away, screaming. I leapt two stories into
the air and pounced on the man. My claws dug into his shoulders. The
momentum caused the man to fall to the ground. However, this time, my
teeth broke his skin as a true vampire, and I tasted his blood. I felt
even stronger with each gulp. In time, I knew I would be more powerful.
My teeth released the man's neck with a sucking noise at the exact
opportune moment before my soul began to slip away. His limp body fell
to the ground with a thud as I wiped my mouth with the back of my arm.
I stood.

I opened my eyes as if seeing for the first time. All my senses were
enhanced. I could see everything. There was such clarity in
the world. Everything was different. Lines were softer, but there was
more contrast in texture. I could see the pieces that made up everything.
I walked to a willow tree by a group of graves. I touched the soft
branches that were blowing gently in the wind. The moonlight sparkled
off each grain of every leaf. I could only imagine what candlelight
would look like. It was magical. I could also hear everything.
I heard birds roosting in the willow, dead leaves brushing against headstones,
ants scraping against the tree's bark, and a car starting two miles
away on the other side of the cemetery. I smelt better as well - the
improvement was not as great as my sight or hearing, but it was significantly
better. I smelt the animals, and the fresh death of the bums and the old
death of the graves.

The blood gave me such vitality. I felt my muscles bulge and my sinews fill out.
Blood was now my strength.

I wondered how far my abilities extended. Curiously, I began to run
between the headstones. I tried running faster and faster. I placed
each foot down quicker than the one before it. I felt the wind whip
past, but I pressed on quicker. I cleared the length of cemetery to the exit
two miles away in less than 40 seconds.

Amazed, I check my body as if using it for the first time. I found myself
by the wall of an caretaker's home. The car next to the house was running, but there
was no one inside. Apparently its owner had forgotten something.

A woman came out of the house. She was the wife of the caretaker. I saw
the diamond twinkle on her finger. Obviously she did not like living in a
cemetery because she looked about her warily as she approached the car.
She had a few bags in her hands. I pushed back into a shadow, alarmed.
However, she just walked within arm's length of me and got into her car,
eyes still searching. But she did not see me at all. It was as if I
was invisible if I wished to be. The woman changed gears and drove away.

I realized that I had been given so many things: heightened senses, speed,
stealth, and maybe even more abilities. I was stronger now, and that was
so important to me. The anxiety I had felt toward Gabriel's better ability was almost gone.
Elated, I jumped onto the two-story house and laughed into the night breeze,
viewing the city that stretched out before me for the first time.

I hopped over the street to a taller building with ease. With easy hops and incredible
speed, I arrived on the roof of my apartment building. I climbed down into
my window from the roof by digging my long finger and toe nails into the
brick. I broke the window and swung into my apartment.

I shed my disgusting clothes and took a quick show, running water over my
supple body. I dried myself with a towel and threw myself, naked, onto my
bed. I felt mentally relieved to lay down, but my body was only marginally
more comfortable. I realized that my body wasn't tired at all - it was
always quite at rest. I loved this new existence.

It was then that I first reflected at how I'd gotten to be a vampyre. When
I drank up the bums, they didn't become vampyres. I then recalled how I
physically survived Gabriel's onslaught, and how I had drunken some of
his blood. That must have been it... drinking a vampyre's blood.
I also recalled Gabriel's soul and
words, but they didn't seem very important to me.

I picked up my naked body and dressed. I chose my best clothes. My wardrobe
was already dominantly black, and I felt like a new, more skilled Shina.

I noticed that I had a message on my answering machine. Someone from work
had called, wondering why I had been absent. I realized that I had much
to do. I wanted this to be the start of a better, more autonomous life.

During the next week, I quit my job from a surprised clinic, moved, and
managed my money differently all via night transactions.

Among the things that I discovered about being a vampyre, was that as the
legend said, I could not be out during the day. During the end of my second
night fully awake, I felt internally compelled to sleep somewhere enclosed.
I figured I would burn to ash as Gabriel had if I was in the sun. I also
now knew why Gabriel didn't touch his coffee at the cafe. I now found food
disgusting. I could eat it, but blood was my nourishment now. It was nice
to watch people eat, but I was never hungry myself. However, I was more carnal
in the sense that I was more sexually active. I did not lose my
ability to have sex, but I did lose the ability to have children. And some of
Gabriel's strange
questions also made sense. Even though I did heal all wounds during the night,
my hair and nails grew back to the same length they were when I was killed.
I could cut my hair and style it however I wanted, and it would be long
enough to change completely the next day. I also had the eternal long
nails that I had always desired.

I therefore purchased places to sleep safely from the sun. I got money from
my victims and from investments that became favorable after the deaths of
racehorses, professional sports players, and CEOs. Wealth was never an
issue. I had all the time I ever needed.

I have thrived for over one hundred full years. I am now over
one hundred and twenty-two years old. I honed my fighting skills, and
I became stronger with each drop of blood. I have done this independently
and alone. I love humans, but I hate them because I need them.

Even now, I release a sigh as I recall it... such an unnecessary, human
gesture. Forgive me for my hesitation, but once my words start flowing,
I am not sure they can stop.

I have lived for such a long time and with such strength until that fucking fated day when I
first saw you and came to love you. Varian, you took my strength away.

I have told you my story because I hate you, and yet I exquisitely
love you. I cannot live alone anymore! I need you.

My soul weeps as if on judgment day for my lost strength. You have
broken down my soul with a painful and pleasant erosion as water on a
shore... Until I was more dead than I am. Then you built me back up into
something else - something that needs you and always will need you.

But I will not be as Gabriel. I will not make his mistake. I will tell
you what I want so that you will understand. I want you to be with me.
Be with me, please. Be with me like this forever, or let
me perish.

Please. Please. What will your answer be?



Somewhere in the city, someone named Varian
gave an answer that would exist for her eternity.