A Toast to Dieing

A Toast to Dying

         Hunger. A desperate, aching need greater than any desire a living soul has ever felt. A need born of damnation, one that cannot be fulfilled, only satisfied for one short night at a time. A burden, a thrill, a curse; it is all of these things. A need for blood can sometimes befall an otherwise benevolent person and change them forever. Death is a tool.
         Sorrow, pain, and anger. When allowed to thrive within a soul, these things grow and take hold of their victim, becoming a weight that is impossible to overcome. All other thoughts drown beneath them and cease to be important. Even the most desperate thoughts for ending the pain are lulled away. Death is a welcome companion...

         Thunder echoed across the dark, cloud-filled heavens as rain fell in endless, driving sheets and somewhere a bell marked the late hour. Water flooded the streets, ran off the roof of every building, and formed muddy puddles everywhere it could. The weather had been gray and wet for what seemed months in length, not days. Such weather was infamous for depressing people, but the truth is that those who suffer were depressed to begin with. Vince knew this, and he knew tonight was perfect for his cause.
         Vince sat on a clammy stone wall, his right leg over his left. He brushed raven, shoulder-length hair out of his face while his crystal-blue eyes stroked the empty streets. Though the rain fell around him, he was not wet. His black turtleneck and flared pants accented the paleness of his skin and how slender his build was.
         "Tonight," he whispered to himself in his silken, dark voice, "I feel like a conversation." With a fluid, effortless motion he leapt onto the street. "Then business." He paused, a smirk crossing his dark lips. "Perhaps both."

         Shana stared absently into her cooling cup of coffee, her burgundy hair creating a wall around her face. She sat alone, the only one in that small coffeeshop. The paneled wood floor, earthy stone walls, and personal, round tables gave the place a welcoming feel by day, but a lonesome one at night. Lost in her thoughts, she did not notice when Vince entered and sat across from her.
         "The weather has chased everyone into their homes," he said softly. "Except you."
         Shana jumped at the sound of his gentle voice, tossing her hair out of her gray eyes.
         "I'm sorry," he chuckled in a friendly tone, "I didn't mean to startle you."
         He seemed harmless enough, and something about him felt familiar and trustworthy, so Shana relaxed and commented, "You're out in the rain too, you know."
         "I am out every night," he replied, "no matter what the weather happens to be like." He paused to smile slightly, then added, "Besides, the rain is cleansing, don't you think?"
         Shana began to agree, but shyly silenced when the only waiter working at that time of night approached with an almost rudely apathetic air.
         Vince stopped him before he spoke, wanting to keep a more personal feeling between this girl and himself. "Black coffee," he said, waving away the waiter's presence.
         The waiter glared at him, then left to fulfill the order. Vince grinned when he caught Shana regarding him and offered her his hand across the table. "I'm Vince."
         "Shana. Nice to meet you." They shook hands.
         "The pleasure is mine," Vince said, his voice full of sincerity.
         "Your hand is frozen," she said as their hands parted and the waiter almost slammed Vince's coffee onto the table.
         Vince gave him a dismissing stare, prompting the young man to leave them alone, then turned back to Shana as though no one else existed. "Yes, well," he answered, "that happens. So tell me," he coaxed in an old friend-like tone, "are you a creature of the night?"
         She found his voice easy to respond to. "I guess so. I like the," she thought for a moment, "darkness of it, but society functions during the day, so..."
         "Not every society. I survive at night and night alone."
         "Good for you. I would if I could. As far as I know, only vampire societies can manage that."
         Vince simply smiled at this and changed the subject. "Do you always sit in coffeehouses alone at night?"
         "Who else would I sit with?"
         "Friends? Boyfriend?" His tone became encouraging, interested, almost flirting. He knew exactly how to get someone to open up, and he felt like learning more about Shana in particular.
         Shana sighed. "I'm single, and as for my friends, I..."
         It was easy for Vince to understand what was hidden in her voice. "You have friends, of course you do. Yet you feel alone, so you might as well be. People do that, you know."
         She raised a brow at his explanation, trying to guard her emotions. "How would you know how I feel?"
         “Call it an educated guess,” he said quickly, easing up on his knowing tone, having, he realized, moved too quickly. She was emotional; she gave off every sign. He shifted his tactics. “It seemed to similar to what I once felt, I naturally assumed you… were experiencing the same thing. The loneliness that comes with depression…” He trailed off, hoping she would see the similarities between them and finish. She did.
         “It’s so overwhelming,” she confessed, “but why do you care? We’ve never met.”
         He nodded. She was a lot like him. “Because I see now that you and I have a lot in common. Is it so wrong to show interest? Sometimes,” he said thoughtfully, “confiding in a total stranger is best. They, for example, know only what you tell them and can only judge you by what you decide to show them.” He found, as he spoke, that he believed what he said. Maybe she would listen to some of his own ancient grievances. He chanced it and opened his emotions. “Fighting the depression can be too hard, can’t it Shana?”
         She found even thinking about it painful, but his words resonated with how she felt, making her want to speak. “I know I should want to be happy, but… it’s just too much.” Her gaze fell to the table, her hands resting on her black jeans.
         Vince waited kindly for her emotions to calm a little, then asked, “How did it come to this, for you? I would think you tried to be happy once.” To himself, he wondered when he had last spoken to someone for this long.
         “I don’t know,” she sighed, a waver in her breath. “I couldn’t even begin to guess, I just know how I feel now. I know I’m tired of this pain…”
         “So you stop caring,” Vince continued for her. “You think, ‘If I die, I die,’ but you don’t have it in you to end your own life. You wish someone would do something, but you would never ask. You remain miserable.”
         “Exactly,” Shana said, pained tears beginning to form in her eyes. “How could you know?”
         “Sorrow is universal. I felt that consuming, dying while living feeling years ago. I did, however, find a solution to my pain.”
         “What was that?”
         “You would listen? You would never believe me,” he chuckled, “but I can tell you anyway. I was depressed, lonely… tired of living.” He paused, then said, “You will believe me, won’t you?” His coy smile somehow fit in with their sad storytelling. She shrugged absently, so he broadened his smile, flashing two pointed fangs. She noticed, but Vince continued with his story before she could either believe or doubt what she saw. “So, I went to a cemetery one night, offered my final prayers, though I felt they were pointless, and slit my wrists with a razor blade.”
         Shana flinched at his, carefully listening to his every word in a sympathetic trance. Vince continued slowly to mask forgotten emotion. “I lay dying, ready to be free of my pain, when I was discovered. I panicked, thinking someone was about to save my life.” He shook his head at how absurd it sounded outloud. “I could do nothing, my mind already beginning to slip into darkness. But my discoverer had no intention of returning me to life. I found a choice upon my hands…” Shana watched as he placed a hand on his neck. “Looking back, I’m not sure I made the right one. I saw the power to avenge my sorrow and I accepted it. I choose to become… living dead. Indeed, my pain left me, but now,” his voice rose, perhaps in regret, “I can never die.”
         Shana was surprised no one heard him as she looked at him, speechless. She did not consider there was really no one to overhear. She believed him because she wanted to. “Are you really…?” She wanted to hear it from him, straight from his lips. It would make her beliefs seem… less insane.
         “Dead?” Vince considered her, his voice quiet again. “More like half-living, but yes, in a way I died once.” He looked into her eyes and saw his old hurt reflected back at him. She must have suffered inside for so long… “I can take away your pain,” he whispered.
         “W-What?”
         “Surely you’ve imagined it? A release from pain, the kind that can come only from death? You want someone to do something, don’t you? Well, I’m offering.”
         Shana swallowed. “I…”
         “It’s alright to admit you want to die. I did.” After the slightest of pauses, Vince added four words that could no have been better chosen. “You can trust me.”
         Tears fell freely from her cheeks, black eyeliner streaking her face. “I do…” she admitted. “I want to die.” It was hard to say. “But I’m too afraid…”
         Vince reached out to her and wiped away her tears even as they fell. “Everyone who truly thinks fears death. They are terrified by it because they don’t know what will become of them, right?” At her nod, he went on. “They hide behind their religions, but deep inside they are afraid. I can promise you there is something after death. I saw it myself that night I spilt my own blood.
         “Are you… are you sure?” She had stopped crying now, but seemed so fragile.
         “I will swear it, should you ask me to. No one would feel shame, because it would not look like suicide, if only you would let me free you. You could forget everything you have unfinished and hope that it will work out next time. No more pain, Shana. No more sorrow.” It was obvious she was going to agree. Yet as another thought came to Vince’s mind, he decided to express it to her. “I could turn you into… what I am, you know.” He seemed hesitant in offering, but he wanted her to have every choice. “You can live and be dead at the same time.”
         Shana smiled sadly. “I do that every day. I want it to stop.”
         He felt almost foolish. Of course she felt that way. He raised his coffee, now cool to match hers, to her in a halfhearted toast. “To death.”
         Shana returned the gesture. “To dying.”
         Vince nodded in understanding. “Come on, then.”
         He offered her his hand, and she took it. He led her outside into the pouring rain and then into a shadowed alley. He placed his lips on her forehead as he brushed aside the collar of her black formal shirts aside and untied the red silk scarf knotted at her throat. As he tucked into his pocket to remember her by, he paused. She was trembling.
         “Did you change your mind?” he asked sincerely. If she said yes, he was willing to walk away and find blood elsewhere.
         “No,” she whispered. “I’m just scared.”
         Vince leaned close, whispering directly into her ear as he stroked her hair. “So was I. But it’s alright, Shana. Soon, that too will mean nothing.”
         She relaxed slightly at those words, crying again as Vince brushed his lips over her throat. The sharp, forceful pain that rose when he sank his fangs into her neck was brief, followed by a dizzying sensation as he fed on her blood. A few moments later the promised peace came when she fell limp in his arms.

-Fin

“… Death before my eyes, lying next to me I fear. She beckons me, shall I give in? Before my end, shall I begin? Forsaking all I’ve fallen for, I rise to meet The End.” –Whisper, Evanescence