The Lost Vampire

“What the hell?” I awoke in the darkness, nothing but a small candle creating a small light. I couldn’t remember how I got there, where there was, or even what happened. “Where am I?”

I scanned the darkness, trying to see if I could see anything, but the candle wasn’t helping. I could feel the cold, the moisture of the air and smell the ‘age’ of the place. The ground was uneven and the things moving around made a clanking hollow sound. The sort made from bones. I stood up and realised I wasn’t wearing what I had put on, the ‘cloths’ were nothing but a hessian sack with a piece of string for the belt. I moved over to the candle, hoping it would settle me down. As I got closer I could see small changes, on me and the way I saw things. The candle was small and hadn’t changed but it seemed that I was getting better at seeing in the dark. I could see my skin more pale, the spots and blemishes on my arms gone and the purple of the scars almost gone. I was aware of a change inside as well, there was a hunger that was strong than anything I had felt before and I could feel or rather couldn’t feel my heart working.

“That is impossible,” I reached the candle. I was feeling for my pulse and I couldn’t find it, there was a shimmer to my hair as it flicked into my view, “what is going on?”

I brought my hair into my field of vision, the normal ‘strawberry blonde’ of my hair more of a gold shine. My skin was a white as snow and I then saw my nails, black and sharp and I know I had no nail varnish on. Then in front of my eyes my veins grew darker, looking like they were drawn onto my skin.

“This is not good,” understatement of the year. I could feel myself get colder but not getting cold, in fact the feel of anything was leaving me, “but, its nothing but a myth.”

I was remembering everything I ever read, heard or watched. They were meant to be nothing but a myth, a miss interpretation of disease symptoms and a creating of fear. But here I was, becoming one.

“No, this is all a dream,” I shook my head and closed my eyes. I felt the candle go out, my hair flicking it out, “this is nothing but a dream. A hallucination, a product of my tired mind.”

I sat down on the floor and waited, waiting for my mind to wake me up so I can continue my normal life but all that happened is I started to smell the dungeon more. Smell the old, moist air that surrounded me, the bones littering the floor and the stench of death and decay that had come before. As I sat there I thought about what could have happened, trying to think what had occurred but there was nothing but me walking and then me waking up here. Time passed, I wasn’t sure how much time it was. I felt like days but in the dark with nothing telling me to show the passage of time it could, have easily been weeks. I just hoped that it wouldn’t be too long till someone came to help or I died. The hunger in me grew and grew, I could feel fangs in my mouth. I kept telling myself that this was all a dream, that it was all fake.

“Hello?” I had heard a door open above me. I opened my eyes and saw the leak of light and a shadow on the wall, “please can you help me or at least tell me where I am?”

There were shouts, a face momentarily looking down and the door slamming again. I sat down, drawing my knees to my chest and burying my head in my legs almost. I started to cry and sob, were they so heartless to leave me down here to die? And if so why? Why had they chosen me and what had they done to me?

“What the hell?” I had been shocked out of my self-pity by a large sound near me. I looked at the thing “what...”

It was a sack; in it was a bundle of cloths. But not what I had started the day in, it was a long flowing purple dress, the sort of dress royalty of old would have worn and felt like velvet but softer. There was a hair brush and a purple ribbon with it, and the shoes were a high heeled purple and the stockings purple and shimmering. I could just about see and so dress, if I could get out of here and all it took was me to ware this I would do it. As I dressed I was thinking that: A, it was a lot of purple and B, that I would look a mess, the dress would be wrinkled and wet. My hair not very well kept and no make-up. But I couldn’t care too much.

“I’m ready,” I shouted up. The door had been open all this time, “what now?”

I managed to move out of the way as a rope came down; the end had a loop in. I looked up to see if I could see anyone but there was nothing. I could hear the sounds of cogs and grunting. The rope started to tighten and then move up, I hooked my foot in and held on. It didn’t seem as hard as I had remembered it being from my schooldays. The rope and I made our way up slowly, but I was happy to be making it out of the hole.

“Hello,” the man that confronted me was short but muscly. The lack of top showed lots of scars and hair, “where am I?”

He pointed down the passage, where a well dress male stood. He looked flawless, his cloths that of the old noble men and his skin pale. His eyes were a light blue and his pupils that of cats, he didn’t look very intimidating but I had the feeling that he was stronger than the little man that had hauled me up. I walked over to the man, as I did he smiled or smirked showing a hint of fangs.

“Look I don’t know where I am or what is going on here,” I stopped at him. He just looked me up and down, “and I have no idea what you have done. But there is no such thing as a vampires.”

He didn’t speak, just pushed me along, it was forceful but suggested that he didn’t want to annoy me or upset me. He seemed to be able to lead me whilst walking behind me; the corridors were long and winding and were stuffed with history. Armour, paintings, cloths, vases, weapons and all manner of other no-doubt priceless artefacts. The further through the corridors and the higher up the stairs we went the high-class and grand the décor was and the less cluttered the place seemed.

“Sir,” the man had stopped me out side one of the many door we had passed. He knocked and popped his head in, “we have her.”

The man in the room must have signaled for me to come in, as in a few moments I was in threw the door and the door was closed. The room was dark and poorly lit but I could see well enough to see it was just me and the knowledge that there was something else in there. I turned my gaze to where I heard a movement coming from, I smelt something sweet and delicious.

“It is rare for this to happen,” the voice said. It was male and rough, “you are considered royalty now.”

“What is this place? Why and what am I doing here?” from where the voice came from a lamp was turned up. An old gas lamp, all I saw was a hand go back behind the chair, and a glass of what looked like red wine, “what have you done to me?”

“Would you like some?” the hand had black nails like me but not as long. The skin less pale and the veins less pronounced, “you must be thirsty. All that time with nothing.”

“What?” I was shocked. He was right, “thank you.”

I went over and took the drink, careful not to see the man or go to near. I gulped it down faster than any other drink in my life. It was sweet, irresistible, and slightly metallic; it tasted like nothing I had ever drunk before.

“Glad you liked it,” he said as I put the glass down. I could feel the hunger lessen, my skin looked pinker and veins less pronounced, “I will get a proper meal brought here for you.”

“Look,” I tried to talk and reason with the figure. In a flash the chair turned round and I was met with the man, “wow.”

I was struck with the terrifying beauty of the person. His hair silver, his eyes red and old but the face young, flawless and irresistible. His cloths were red and very costly, cloths of the rich gentry or even royalty themselves. He didn’t look dangerous or menacing, but he looked unimpressed with me.

“You are… different” he stood up, he was tall. He walked round me looking me up and down. He smelt my hair, he went over to the desk and sat behind it fingers interlocked, “you are not of this age. That is strange. This is not normal.”

“Please, what do you mean?” I went over to the desk. I had nothing and could get nothing, “I have no idea where or what. And you’re not telling me anything. Please, I am scared.”

“Look out of the window,” he said. I was close to crying at this point, “please. It will help.”

I went over and opened the curtains a crack, the world I saw was not the world I knew or remembered. My heart and stomach sank and I thought that I was on some other world. That I was somehow not on the earth.

“The date is 23/11/3290,” I heard the man speak behind me. I was staring at the waste lands, the flying ‘cars’ as it were and all the strange tech, “you are out of your time. It is still earth.”

I awoke lying in a bed, large and comfy. The curtains around it like the four poster beds that queens of old slept in, I became aware of someone else in the room. I went to move and found a blood bag attached to my arm.

“We need to get you fed and healthy,” it was the same man from the study. I relaxed, I could tell I was safe with him, and no idea why, “after time in the dark and then the faint the other day. Your body and mind needs to adjust.”

“What is happening?” I said calmly. My soul and mind were screaming but there was no point in actually doing so, “please. What have you done to me? How am I in the future? Where am I? Who are you?”

“All in good time.”

I had many questions but I couldn’t ask them all. I turned away from the man and started to cry “I will give you time. There will be someone at the door when you are ready.”

The door closed and I was left to my thoughts once again, how could it be over 1200 years from when I remember? How can this have happened? What was all this? Was it all real? If it was indeed a dream I wasn’t waking nor could I make myself wake. As the blood entered my body I could feel myself get stronger and become healthier. I could feel myself become more of what I was before I awoke in the dark. In fact I felt better and more than what I was before. And the man, who was he? I knew I could trust him, I could feel it deep within me and I knew he was there to help and was the only one that could help. I felt connected to him but no idea why. Then came the thoughts, how long had I been down there? Why was I royalty? There must be a reason for it. I was no more than any other human, or at least at the time, now I was more. I knew I was a vampire but I still couldn’t believe it, something was just not letting me believe.

Time no longer had any meaning, I had no idea how long I was in the room, crying and talking to myself. Every now and then someone would come in and change the bag, but they never spoke to me nor made eye contact with me. The skies outside did not change, the skies were dark and grey, no stars or moon. The only light were from the street lights that stood beside the road and outside every house.

The residents in which I found myself in was beautiful, from the window I could see the scrubby and un-kept garden, the worn paved path with bricks missing or broken leading to the crumbled and ivy clad walls of the mansion, from the high window I was in I could see that some of the roof tiles missing. The outside looked as if the house would crumble at any moment, derelict but beautiful. The inside was grand and did not reflect what the outside offered.

“There is beauty to everything, you just have to be able to see it,” the voice spoke to me. I stayed staring out the window, un-afraid of it, “and it seems you have been able to see it. The blood seems to have done its work as well.”

“What happened to me?” unlike before I was calm and still. No emotion, cold, “the last I remember it was 2014 and I was walking home from work. Then I awake in the dark and now this, what happened? Who are you?”

“Something happened that never should have,” he was sad. But not for what I had become, but for the time wasted as one, “vampires are real. We have been in the background of all of history. No one, not even us know how we became or how we evolved. But we exist, taking the blood of those we know we can take. The bodies thrown in pits, nothing to find of them. All humans bitten and fed on die, either during the feeding or later in the pit. But you, your body seemed to be able to take the DNA of my kind and replicate it. Change it, or rather to change you into one of us. To change a human, a mortal human into an immortal vampire. You changed in the dark and we moved on, leaving you in the dark and cold for years. Decade’s in fact, for 1276 years you sat alone. Then we came back, and found you in the dark. Your skin white and cold, veins black and body thin from nothing to eat for all that time.”

“And why does that make me royalty?” I turned round. The same cloths, the same look of him, “and who are you?”

“Very few vampires survive for very long,” I could feel the answer of who he was. But I wanted him to tell me, the time I had spent in the dark unsurprising for some reason, “few have the strength and will to keep going. Those that do, learn that time have no meaning, that years past like hours. Your age makes you one of the eldest vampires in existence, next to your maker. I was made in the year 120AD, and when I bite into you your body took on the powers and wisdom of my ages. You are…”

“Your queen, and you are my king” I said. I was un-phased “you being the oldest and I being the second eldest.”

“Indeed,” he looked at me. I could feel my emotions start to reboot, “I will leave you to reflect.”

After he left I sank down, I could feel tears come to my eyes. He dropped something like that on me and then left, he was cold. His age and seeing everyone around him die made him like it I knew. But I was not like that, to me only weeks had passed, and what I was couldn’t exist. I screamed, louder than I ever had, longer than I ever had and with more blood and pain then any human had ever shouted with. And once again I could feel it, the cold, the nothingness and the death with in me. I was nothing but a hollow shell, a mere shade of who I was. I could see why vampires never lived long, especially if this is how they felt.

“Why?” I looked to the sky outside. Hoping that something would answer me, “why have you cursed me?”

I stood and ran to the dresser, seeing myself in the mirror. The red dead eyes, the black around the eyes looking like make up and the blood red of the lips. Behind the lips fangs, long canine and shorter sharper ones beside. The pale flawless complexion of the skin, the slight darkness of the veins under it. The gold radiant hair, long and straight. I then realised that I was looking at what I was, I was beautiful. Even to myself I was irresistible, no longer the plain girl I had once been but a radiant siren, a beauty of gods, a treasure of kings.

“No,” I ripped the mirror off the wall. Throwing it across the room, “that is not me.”

I grabbed a shard and cut my wrist, it was deep and painful but this was the only way I hoped. As soon as the blood began to trickle the wound healed. Leaving nothing but flawless skin as before.

“We are unchanging” I turned to see the man, my maker at the door. I ran over to him and stabbed him in the shoulder, “it will not work. There is no longer anyway to kill us.”

“Others have before, why not me now?” he removed the shard. And as like me the wound closed and healed, “you said few live for ever.”

“The sun, pure and strong,” I glanced at the window. The smog and clouds covering the sky, the darkness constant, “the humans blocked it out with war, pollution and industry. Those that do not wish to live retreat into tombs and never come out. But you have seen and know what it is like. Would you ever return to that?”

I shook my head. He nodded, I hated what I saw in the mirror but to go back to nothing by myself in the dark, the thought was not worth thinking about. With everything I had seen, everything I was told and with what I felt I still couldn’t believe what I was.

“In time you will learn,” he picked me up. Kissing my hand gently, “and I will help you.”

“And what of your kingdom?” I asked. The strange calmness washing over me again, offering me comfort and relief, “those that close themselves away?”

“Then we will make them want to live again,” he was not deterred by it. He just as calm and as cold as I was, “and any of them that stand in our way, we will be rid of.”

We discovered that my bite could turn humans, my blood allowing a new generation of vampire to rise, giving those before a reason to live again. My humanity locked away forever, my life forgotten about and never to come again, and I was happy for it. Without my emotion I was queen, I was powerful and beautiful. With my emotion I was weak, a wreck and seeing nothing but pain. I smiled to myself, with no sun to stop us or hinder us it was time for the vampire to arise, any human not conforming to us found themselves in the darkness, nothing but a small candle creating a small light. The hole cold, the smell of damp and decay, and feel of moisture. The floor uneven and littered with the bones of old.