Chronicle of a Vampire

It was 1805. Bulgaria. The century had just begun and already it promised to be prosperous for wealthy landowners such as me.

I always felt myself a normal man, not one of the favoured few others perceived me to be. In the end, I suppose I was neither of those. The unnatural damned few.

Heinrik had travelled from neighbouring Romania. Originally from Germany, he told me of his travels across the continents. Instantly I became drawn to him. He was so interesting and knowledgeable of everything he had seen. He used to thrill me with his adventurous stories and wild anecdotes. He’d lived with savage tribes in the jungles of South America, trekked across the icy arctic plains and climbed to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. All I’d ever seen was the dark stone corridors of my home.

“Stavlin,” he said. “You must be free of this place. Here you languish in the gloom; the bright petals of your life are wilted.”

Such poetry in his words, music in his voice, burning fire in his cerulean eyes.

You still question my reason for following him? It’s simple—love. I loved him, not the same love shared between men and women, but still love, though I’m still unsure what form it took.

We began our travels that week. I was exhilarated, my heart beating fast and hard in my chest. The sight of that dank castle shrinking into the rolling fog was enough to make it burst through my ribs.

Soon we entered the rugged landscape of Romania. It was here, in the dense forest surrounding the Carpathian Mountains, that my humanity was stolen from me.

We went for a walk. He was prone to daydreams and thoughtful strolls, often asking me to accompany him. I never spoke, not wanting to interrupt the workings of his brilliant mind.

Yet this time we conversed. Mindless prattle to begin with until Heinrik steered us to a new topic.

“Eternal life, Stav. What is your opinion?”

“I suppose I am for it. I don’t really understand why anyone would want to die.”

“How naïve you are, my young friend,” I remember vividly the loving smile he bestowed upon me at that moment, altering his handsome features and making them all the more engaging. “If you had seen what I have seen, done what I have done, felt what I have felt …you would understand why some long for the sweet release of death.”

Unable to reply to this cryptic and unsettling comment, I remained silent. I think I must have looked away uncomfortably because suddenly he was in front of me. My face reflected and warped in the empty black and bottomless blue of his eyes.

He swiftly put his hand at the back of my neck and kissed me full and long on the mouth. His lips were like steel and ice; I remember thinking those exact words as his fingers tangled in my dark tousled hair, if thinking is what you would call it in my shocked state. Even though it was morally wrong, it was the most right, natural thing I have ever done. I reciprocated. No one would have caught us together anyway as, except for the slaves minding the carriage, we were the only people in that forest. To me, we were the only people in existence.

All too soon, as I began to think on what it meant, it was over and we were simply embracing as two brothers might. His face was turned close to my neck so that he could whisper the words I recall as clear as your look of scorn when we met.

“Stavlin, in these last eight months that we have known each other, I have grown to love you very much, in more ways than I believed possible. Finally, after years of being mad with loneliness, I have someone that I cannot bear to be parted from; someone that I cannot possibly bear to lose. If something were to happen to you, there would be no point to this accursed half-life I survive through. Fundamentally I am a selfish creature…”

I interrupted. “Why are you saying these things?” He sighed deeply, stirring the light hairs on the back of my neck. “I want to explain to you, my dearest, most exquisite Stav, why I am about to destroy your life forever.”

He tenderly pressed his cold lips to my throat before his elongated canines penetrated the soft flesh of my neck. I was held fast in his iron-like arms. Even if I had any inkling to move, I was paralysed by the blinding pain of my blood, my life, being violently sucked from my body.

We sank awkwardly to the forest floor. His mouth was still latched onto my neck as darkness clouded my vision. I was left with only the sound of groaning along with growls and the feeling of Heinrik’s hard body crushing whatever life remained in my dying, twitching form. Then, as the final sigh was drawn from my body, he released me and pressed his wrist to my bloodless lips.

A warm, sticky liquid dripped onto my tongue, leaving a coppery tang behind on my taste buds. With the very first drop, air rushed back into my lungs, allowing more liquid to seep in.

An uncontrollable hunger racked through my body. Desperate for the liquid heaven to appease this all-consuming thirst for nourishment, I groped blindly for his arm and, when found, drew it as far into my mouth as possible, discovering the source of my salvation with my lapping tongue: a two inch cut in his skin.

The fluid began to take over, filling every pore of my body, repairing and perfecting everything within me. Animating me, yet not returning me to my former life. My heart remained as it had during by brief death: cold, still.

As I choked and drowned in my gluttonous pleasure, the paradise was torn from my lips, leaving me coughing and gasping among the crisp leaves.

My muscles began to spasm, trying to reject the change that was still traveling through me. My breathing turned into a frenzied gasping with each stab of pain as my organs slowly shut down.

Finally I became still, only my dead lungs rising and falling with the rhythm of remembered life. Slowly I lifted my eyelids in an attempt to understand what had happened and was greeted with the sight of Heinrik leaning over me, gazing at my face. There was flesh and blood in his fanged teeth. My flesh and blood. I stared speechlessly at this captivating monster, all the more beautiful now that my eye sight had changed. I could see every skin cell on his face.

“What happened?” I asked fearfully. “What have you done to me?”

A blood red tear escaped from the corner of his eye. The smell was intoxicating. “I’m sorry Stavlin. I’m so sorry.”

“What have you done to me?” I repeated.

“I have changed you into what I am. Made you mine for all eternity. Given you my blood. I’m sorry that I had to do this, but this was the only solution I could see to losing you when you age and die. Now that can never happen.”

“Wait, I can’t die?”

“No, not anymore. I have sired you. You are Vrykolakas, Strigoi, UpÍr, Wąpierz, Strix, Death, The Grim Reaper…a vampire.”

At first I could not take it in. I was dead yet I could never die. The stuff of legends and nightmares. Not real, but not fiction. I was free. Completely free from my obligations, my mundane life. I could go where I wanted. Do as I pleased.

“Are you hungry? I’m famished.”

Heinrik’s face bent with confusion. “Stav, you do realise what I’ve done? How you will feed now, what I have taken from you?”

“No,” I replied. “What you have given to me.” I raised myself on one elbow and used the other arm to draw Heinrik’s face close to mine. This kiss was different than before. I could feel tiny sparks of electricity passing between us as our wintry tongues met.

As we pulled apart, I brushed the dirty blond hair from his surprised but ecstatic face and wiped my blood from our mouths. His strong marble hand lifted me onto my feet and I caught a glimpse of myself in a small puddle. My skin was pale and icy, my eyes the iridescent green you see before you now. Perfection. Heinrik and I looked like beautiful angels that had fallen into this harsh, dull world.

I turned to my handsome lover and smiled with my new sharpened fangs. “Can you smell it? That mouth-watering, tantalising scent.”

“What?” he said smiling.

“The blood.”

For over two hundred years we have hunted and fed and made love. Gorged ourselves on blood. That has been our utopian existence. Others you have interviewed may have told you of their regret and empty lives. Not I though. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I can see, even now as I crush your spine with my bare fist that you are tempted by this life. Alas, for you it is not meant to be. You, my sceptical interviewer, are merely a snack.

"Heinrik. Would you like the first bite?"