I DON'T CONSIDER MYSELF as a creature of words. As far as I am concerned, they have little use for the purpose I once thought I served. Since I first came into being, I left that to the other part of me. That was the whole point of this, there being a him, and there being a me. Separation of responsibilities.
At least that's what I first thought. That there was a point and a purpose. That there was some sort of balance in myself that required things to be so. Turns out the rules I thought existed were more arbitrary than I first thought. So, here I am, ready to tell my side of the story.
My name is Xian. Despite the fact that I have lived a life before this one, that life belonged to another who shared my name. Even though I do remember that life, that existence, that was not me. It's not that I'm distancing myself from the old me, though that would be the easy assumption. It's simply that I am myself, and he was another.
I am the Other.
The other Xian, the other me, he's not the old me either. He does relate to him better, at least when he started remembering the life before this one. He even believes that he should embrace or at least accept who he was, who we were. That really doesn't matter to me. Things are just the way they are.
Heh. Eventually these pronouns are bound to get confusing. Much as I'm not much for words, I will try to make things easy to follow.
I am Xian. That's all I have ever been. I was born, if that is a word for it, when the one who I used to be died and became a vampire. One way of thinking of it is that I was the vampire that should or could have been, but that's oversimplifying it. Then again, I do prefer simplicity to complete understanding.
When I was formed - made, transformed, created, take your pick - it was out of the fragments of the old mind that shattered when the old me died. When I died. The power that fueled the change, that brought it about, recreated, restored, built, again take your pick, chose to do things differently with me, with us. Or perhaps it made a mistake. Or forgot a step. Or ran out of juice. I'm not sure, and it doesn't really matter to me.
What happened was, those fragments weren't brought together to create just one mind in one body. Elements divided, mirrored, combined, re-formed, and so on, such that at least two complete, separate, but linked minds came into being. I was the first to actually awaken, fully aware that I was a vampire. I did not know everything that I know now, but I was neither confused or worried. Instead, I was confident. I was powerful.
The other me became almost the opposite side of the coin. Paranoid. Confused. Scared. Unaware of even my existence, and for a while that served me well. But despite his fears, he struggled to find awareness, knowledge and wholeness.
He is not me, but we are the same. He struggles with things of the mind: philosophy, existence, memory, morality. I just am. I struggle with survival. I react, I observe.
I shot the sheriff. Or, rather, the guard. He had nothing to do with it other than sharing the same body. He was pleasantly distracting himself through the use of our new found power to access the CrowNet and the World Wide Web with just our mind. So I decided to take us for a spin. And I found it necessary to kill that guard. I do not find it necessary to explain why.
I'm the one who is unafraid to do what must be done. I'm the one who takes the driver's seat when the other me can't handle things, and would rather think things over. I am action and he is thought, after all.
It's not that he is weak, or cowardly. As much as he is he and I am me, and we are all together, we are Xian. We are, in a way, facets of the whole. He is the one who is afraid, so I don't have to be. I am the one who is strong and confident so that he can be afraid and paranoid. He plans, I react.
It's not just about a division of skills or power. We know almost as much as the other, save that I am fully aware of him, and he, as of yet, is not yet aware of me. That will soon change in time, when he is ready. We share the same skills set, though he is the better hacker, and he enjoys it. I handle the guns and knives, our movement and grace, and I love it. And so on.
I am the Other, so that my other can be who he needs to be. He is my other so that I can be what I need to be. We are what we are so that we can be who we need to be. I am Xian. We are Xian.
The Other
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Xian
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Re: The Other
THE POSSIBILITY THAT WE are clinically insane has crossed my mind. At least once. As much as I am not the thinker between the two of us, I do have access to our faculties of thought, and to the memories we share, which includes the many many many volumes of things Xian is curious about. Typically, I don't care about those things. But I do know them, because he knows them. Much like he would probably know how to use a gun because I know how to, and have practiced nightly when I have had a chance.
Of course, I usually consider myself too lazy to follow the rational philosophizing and logical thought exercises that Xian seems to enjoy. That is his role, after all. And as I have said before, I am the part of us that prefers action. I am the part that skips the logical steps, and makes intuitive conclusions. I am the part of us that reads to the end, and forwards to the exciting parts if things don't catch my interest.
So, when I say that the possibility crossed my mind, it was really a fleeting thing.
But even if we are insane, what does that change? At the risk of sounding a little bit like him, I say that if we are insane, we are still what we are. It doesn't change the fact that I exist, and that he exists. It doesn't change the fact that there may or may not be others around here with us. It doesn't change the fact that he is he, and I am me, and yet we are Xian.
Besides, who in this world isn't at least a little crazy?
I usually dislike explaining myself. That's more his role, that's more what he's made to handle. But I have decided that I must do this, and hide this journal entries among his own, in the hopes that Xian will read them, and finally understand what is happening to him. To us.
He thinks, and I act. Sometimes I can act without him realizing it. Many nights, in fact, sometimes when he is even aware of other things happening. Like the night when I killed the guard in the video. He was, in our mind, researching something or other and watching a video. He believed he was resting safely in Charlotte, our sire's home. I was looking to go out and stretch my legs, and practice old skills that were growing dull.
And so, that video.
I hope this will make him less paranoid, and help him understand. I do hope that he doesn't panic, and that he doesn't come to the wrong conclusion that this is all some elaborate hoax. That someone had hacked his secure file server floating in the CrowNet, and managed to effect this charade.
Firstly, anyone who would do that would need to know that it's even possible to create a secure file server in telepathic air. Secondly, they would have to know where in the "air" its even hidden. Thirdly, "secure" isn't just because it's hidden and difficult to find. This group or individual would also have to be able to forge videos, or, worse, so dominate a mind that Xian really did do something forced upon him by another. (Well, technically true.) This group or individual would also need to be good enough to leave breadcrumbs for the video to be found. And then, lastly, why and who would even bother?
Well. I've already expressed more than I actually care to.
No, Xian, this is no prank. I am your Other, and I do indeed exist. I am not out to get you, I am not out to take over. I am a facet of us, a part of us that exists because we need me to. I am, indeed, you. After a fashion.
Who do you think really mauled that Hunter?
Of course, I usually consider myself too lazy to follow the rational philosophizing and logical thought exercises that Xian seems to enjoy. That is his role, after all. And as I have said before, I am the part of us that prefers action. I am the part that skips the logical steps, and makes intuitive conclusions. I am the part of us that reads to the end, and forwards to the exciting parts if things don't catch my interest.
So, when I say that the possibility crossed my mind, it was really a fleeting thing.
But even if we are insane, what does that change? At the risk of sounding a little bit like him, I say that if we are insane, we are still what we are. It doesn't change the fact that I exist, and that he exists. It doesn't change the fact that there may or may not be others around here with us. It doesn't change the fact that he is he, and I am me, and yet we are Xian.
Besides, who in this world isn't at least a little crazy?
I usually dislike explaining myself. That's more his role, that's more what he's made to handle. But I have decided that I must do this, and hide this journal entries among his own, in the hopes that Xian will read them, and finally understand what is happening to him. To us.
He thinks, and I act. Sometimes I can act without him realizing it. Many nights, in fact, sometimes when he is even aware of other things happening. Like the night when I killed the guard in the video. He was, in our mind, researching something or other and watching a video. He believed he was resting safely in Charlotte, our sire's home. I was looking to go out and stretch my legs, and practice old skills that were growing dull.
And so, that video.
I hope this will make him less paranoid, and help him understand. I do hope that he doesn't panic, and that he doesn't come to the wrong conclusion that this is all some elaborate hoax. That someone had hacked his secure file server floating in the CrowNet, and managed to effect this charade.
Firstly, anyone who would do that would need to know that it's even possible to create a secure file server in telepathic air. Secondly, they would have to know where in the "air" its even hidden. Thirdly, "secure" isn't just because it's hidden and difficult to find. This group or individual would also have to be able to forge videos, or, worse, so dominate a mind that Xian really did do something forced upon him by another. (Well, technically true.) This group or individual would also need to be good enough to leave breadcrumbs for the video to be found. And then, lastly, why and who would even bother?
Well. I've already expressed more than I actually care to.
No, Xian, this is no prank. I am your Other, and I do indeed exist. I am not out to get you, I am not out to take over. I am a facet of us, a part of us that exists because we need me to. I am, indeed, you. After a fashion.
Who do you think really mauled that Hunter?
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Xian
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Re: The Other
WORDS AND MORE WORDS. As much as I do not consider myself a creature of words, I do know their power. And I'll admit, I am starting to appreciate why the other Xian finds them quite useful. Not that I plan to use words overmuch, or that I plan to think as much as he does. Words here will help explain and create clarity of thought in myself, and possibly my other self, once he finds these entries.
While I am unsure when that will happen, I am certain that he will eventually find these. The time will come when he'll review his journals, perhaps start to finish, and his analytical mind will realize that there are more entries than he thought there were. Then, he will seek the entries that he did not remember writing himself.
I am starting to share my other's talent for distraction.
The night that people are calling Black Thursday, I was awake at a level greater than I normally am on typical nights. Even before the earthquake, I had a feeling of foreboding; it was I who encouraged us to go for the long walk. Not only to turn his mind from examining the video over and over, which would have bored me greatly, but also because I felt that I needed to be elsewhere.
True enough, when the earthquake was done and the damage cataloged, the apartment building we had taken as a temporary haven had suffered at least some damage. Specifically, the level above our room fell, taking out the section of the room nearest the window, and taking most of the bed as well. While I cannot say we would have been injured - I would, after all, have used my superior reflexes to take us to safety - it was much better to avoid the situation.
Which is not to say that I expected the earthquake. Only that I felt something was coming, as I felt it in that last dream with the woman in blue. The light coming from the horizon, the image of a sunrise, seen through a vampire dream. A sign of danger and death. At least that's how I saw it.
I will also take some credit in taking us to the safety of the Lounge, though I will admit to taking a back seat once we were safely there, away from falling glass and breaking streets and rising waters filled with trash and debris. No, most of what happened there was his fault, if there is any blame at all to be passed.
While I am unsure when that will happen, I am certain that he will eventually find these. The time will come when he'll review his journals, perhaps start to finish, and his analytical mind will realize that there are more entries than he thought there were. Then, he will seek the entries that he did not remember writing himself.
I am starting to share my other's talent for distraction.
The night that people are calling Black Thursday, I was awake at a level greater than I normally am on typical nights. Even before the earthquake, I had a feeling of foreboding; it was I who encouraged us to go for the long walk. Not only to turn his mind from examining the video over and over, which would have bored me greatly, but also because I felt that I needed to be elsewhere.
True enough, when the earthquake was done and the damage cataloged, the apartment building we had taken as a temporary haven had suffered at least some damage. Specifically, the level above our room fell, taking out the section of the room nearest the window, and taking most of the bed as well. While I cannot say we would have been injured - I would, after all, have used my superior reflexes to take us to safety - it was much better to avoid the situation.
Which is not to say that I expected the earthquake. Only that I felt something was coming, as I felt it in that last dream with the woman in blue. The light coming from the horizon, the image of a sunrise, seen through a vampire dream. A sign of danger and death. At least that's how I saw it.
I will also take some credit in taking us to the safety of the Lounge, though I will admit to taking a back seat once we were safely there, away from falling glass and breaking streets and rising waters filled with trash and debris. No, most of what happened there was his fault, if there is any blame at all to be passed.
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Xian
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Re: The Other
JUST AS THE OTHER ME listens to the songs of cyberspace and the music of minds and thoughts, I listen to the music of the moving form. He finds great interest in the virtual and the intangible, as for me it lies in the physical and tangible. As I've said, we have our overlaps, but we also have our roles to play.
Mine is the movement and grace of muscle, sinew and bone. I hear the music of blood, breath and heartbeat. And I can see how the mind sings before a body dances to follow its song. If I am waxing poetic when I have said that I am not one to use words, let it be just proof of my romance with the physical form, matter and energy, the physics of movement and stillness.
From the beginning, I studied my own body, taking in how my muscles moved, how each bone reacted to the other, how my blood coursed without my heart taking a beat. Then I watched my sire, observing how she moved, her graceful dance as she taught me those first nights. Then I watched others of my kind, of my bloodline, and observed the differences and similarities in our physical forms, tried to observe the wills that drove our bodies to movement, and emotion, and desire.
As tied as we are to our physical forms, it does seem that we are much more than just reanimated bodies. We are dead things, this is true, though our bodies, for the most part, resist the summons of entropy and decay. Besides this, our muscles and bones respond to different mechanisms than those employed by those with the standard definition of life. We need take no breath, our blood circulates with no heartbeat, and yet an energy drives us to movement. An energy that they say we take from our consumption of the blood of the living, something that we must steal from them.
But what causes our forms to move? What drives muscle and bone? What allows us to be dead, and yet still possess a shadow of life? What brings us back from the death that could not claim us? Is it merely the blood of our sires, and from their sires before that? The answer seems true, but also a little lacking.
I believe what we are are creatures of will. Yes, we are brought back by the blood of our sires, but it is our wills that allow us to rise, without it the unnatural energies would dissipate. We consume the life force of others, but without our will that life force would not be able to drive us. Even our various powers and abilities are expressions of our will, and how we can enforce it upon the physical world the way we have forced it upon our bodies.
We may have physical forms, but we are not merely physical beings. Without our will to drive us, push us, cause us to move, allow us to choose, then we would be merely whispers in the wind, one time here and the next, gone.
Mine is the movement and grace of muscle, sinew and bone. I hear the music of blood, breath and heartbeat. And I can see how the mind sings before a body dances to follow its song. If I am waxing poetic when I have said that I am not one to use words, let it be just proof of my romance with the physical form, matter and energy, the physics of movement and stillness.
From the beginning, I studied my own body, taking in how my muscles moved, how each bone reacted to the other, how my blood coursed without my heart taking a beat. Then I watched my sire, observing how she moved, her graceful dance as she taught me those first nights. Then I watched others of my kind, of my bloodline, and observed the differences and similarities in our physical forms, tried to observe the wills that drove our bodies to movement, and emotion, and desire.
As tied as we are to our physical forms, it does seem that we are much more than just reanimated bodies. We are dead things, this is true, though our bodies, for the most part, resist the summons of entropy and decay. Besides this, our muscles and bones respond to different mechanisms than those employed by those with the standard definition of life. We need take no breath, our blood circulates with no heartbeat, and yet an energy drives us to movement. An energy that they say we take from our consumption of the blood of the living, something that we must steal from them.
But what causes our forms to move? What drives muscle and bone? What allows us to be dead, and yet still possess a shadow of life? What brings us back from the death that could not claim us? Is it merely the blood of our sires, and from their sires before that? The answer seems true, but also a little lacking.
I believe what we are are creatures of will. Yes, we are brought back by the blood of our sires, but it is our wills that allow us to rise, without it the unnatural energies would dissipate. We consume the life force of others, but without our will that life force would not be able to drive us. Even our various powers and abilities are expressions of our will, and how we can enforce it upon the physical world the way we have forced it upon our bodies.
We may have physical forms, but we are not merely physical beings. Without our will to drive us, push us, cause us to move, allow us to choose, then we would be merely whispers in the wind, one time here and the next, gone.
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Xian
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Re: The Other
TONIGHT I WATCHED a young woman, as she searched the rubble of her old home. I am unsure what attracted me to her, why I woke up from beneath Xian as he walked the city streets, to become aware that she was beautiful, and she was sad, and she was lonely.
I passed her on the street, and I first saw her face before I instinctively reached out to her with my mind. Her memories were chaotic, emotional, conflicted; it was almost like love at first sight. Time slowed as I watched her, dressed in winter clothes, dirty like many of the survivors, bearing that same look of guilt, care and sorrow on her face as I've seen in many others.
But, unlike many others I've looked at and looked into, she caused me to wake, allowed Xian to slide into the back of our mind smoothly, calmly, that neither of us really noticed until I became conscious of the choice to turn around and follow her, though cautiously and carefully.
I did not want her to feel threatened, and I didn't think that I was seeking her out to taste her blood; I will admit that the thought crossed my mind, but will deny that it was my primary purpose. I still don't know what my purpose was in following her, to tell the truth. The only thing I know was that I wanted to follow her, and so I did.
She walked slowly down the street, small backpack over one shoulder. She didn't seem lost and wandering, and when I looked into her memories, I found that she did indeed have a destination. I dropped back to give her some privacy, and so that I could see her clearer, but I followed her all the way to the ruins of her home: a low-rent apartment building that had partially collapsed.
Clean up crews had already gone through this wreckage, and apparently managed to locate all the known residents. By her own memories, she had found out that they had finally moved on, and she decided she wanted to take a look, try to save what little she knew she could. Perhaps find a keepsake, a precious tiny thing, a small memory of better times.
She picked through the rubble on the first floor, some of it already moved around by emergency personnel. Some of it had even been cordoned off, a section that led to the basement and was still deemed unstable. I saw her look into the darkness that used to be her building's basement, as if curious and considering looking in. But I saw that she only had a tiny flashlight, and she deemed it insufficient to push away the darkness. Or perhaps she realized it was too risky, or perhaps she believed her courage would not be able to take her into the shadows.
Whatever it was, she turned away, and began to wander around the broken building.
I am not sure why she really hoped to find anything. There were countless pieces of metal, cement and wood all over the place, deforemed plastic, broken electronics, glass, porcelain, PVC, electric wires. It was as chaotic as her mind was, with little hope to create an sense of order. Needle in a haystack comes to mind.
And yet she looked, and she carefully turned over small bits of cement and debris to see what was beneath, and even picked up a few things to examine them closer. Yet for the longest time, she put everything back, and kept nothing in her backpack. And yet, she went on, as hopeless as it seemed.
That's the nature of hope, I guess. Even when everything seems hopeless, hope can win out.
Finally, her eyes caught something, and she knelt to pick it up. From my vantage point, I could not make out what it was, and I was by this time to far to scan deeply into her mind to see for myself. But I saw her smile, and cough out a slight laugh, then rub a wayward tear from the corner of her eyes. Whatever it was, it was exactly what she was looking for, perhaps not consciously, but exactly what she needed to find tonight.
She placed the small broken item into her backpack carefully, and began to walk back the way we came, perhaps to the shelter she had come from.
I watched her, not knowing my purpose, not knowing why I found her beautiful and sad and lonely and significant enough to follow. And I realized that perhaps this was also something that I needed to find tonight.
I allowed myself a small laugh, and started walking to follow her; I told myself I wanted to make sure she made it to her destination safely, but I think I just wanted to prolong the feeling of having witnessed something significant, even if I didn't understand its significance.
I passed her on the street, and I first saw her face before I instinctively reached out to her with my mind. Her memories were chaotic, emotional, conflicted; it was almost like love at first sight. Time slowed as I watched her, dressed in winter clothes, dirty like many of the survivors, bearing that same look of guilt, care and sorrow on her face as I've seen in many others.
But, unlike many others I've looked at and looked into, she caused me to wake, allowed Xian to slide into the back of our mind smoothly, calmly, that neither of us really noticed until I became conscious of the choice to turn around and follow her, though cautiously and carefully.
I did not want her to feel threatened, and I didn't think that I was seeking her out to taste her blood; I will admit that the thought crossed my mind, but will deny that it was my primary purpose. I still don't know what my purpose was in following her, to tell the truth. The only thing I know was that I wanted to follow her, and so I did.
She walked slowly down the street, small backpack over one shoulder. She didn't seem lost and wandering, and when I looked into her memories, I found that she did indeed have a destination. I dropped back to give her some privacy, and so that I could see her clearer, but I followed her all the way to the ruins of her home: a low-rent apartment building that had partially collapsed.
Clean up crews had already gone through this wreckage, and apparently managed to locate all the known residents. By her own memories, she had found out that they had finally moved on, and she decided she wanted to take a look, try to save what little she knew she could. Perhaps find a keepsake, a precious tiny thing, a small memory of better times.
She picked through the rubble on the first floor, some of it already moved around by emergency personnel. Some of it had even been cordoned off, a section that led to the basement and was still deemed unstable. I saw her look into the darkness that used to be her building's basement, as if curious and considering looking in. But I saw that she only had a tiny flashlight, and she deemed it insufficient to push away the darkness. Or perhaps she realized it was too risky, or perhaps she believed her courage would not be able to take her into the shadows.
Whatever it was, she turned away, and began to wander around the broken building.
I am not sure why she really hoped to find anything. There were countless pieces of metal, cement and wood all over the place, deforemed plastic, broken electronics, glass, porcelain, PVC, electric wires. It was as chaotic as her mind was, with little hope to create an sense of order. Needle in a haystack comes to mind.
And yet she looked, and she carefully turned over small bits of cement and debris to see what was beneath, and even picked up a few things to examine them closer. Yet for the longest time, she put everything back, and kept nothing in her backpack. And yet, she went on, as hopeless as it seemed.
That's the nature of hope, I guess. Even when everything seems hopeless, hope can win out.
Finally, her eyes caught something, and she knelt to pick it up. From my vantage point, I could not make out what it was, and I was by this time to far to scan deeply into her mind to see for myself. But I saw her smile, and cough out a slight laugh, then rub a wayward tear from the corner of her eyes. Whatever it was, it was exactly what she was looking for, perhaps not consciously, but exactly what she needed to find tonight.
She placed the small broken item into her backpack carefully, and began to walk back the way we came, perhaps to the shelter she had come from.
I watched her, not knowing my purpose, not knowing why I found her beautiful and sad and lonely and significant enough to follow. And I realized that perhaps this was also something that I needed to find tonight.
I allowed myself a small laugh, and started walking to follow her; I told myself I wanted to make sure she made it to her destination safely, but I think I just wanted to prolong the feeling of having witnessed something significant, even if I didn't understand its significance.
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Xian
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Re: The Other
DAYS LIKE TODAY I feel like pranking Xian. He's been reading something about biology, and thinking about the possible relationships of human biology and vampire para-biology, as he's started to call it. So, of course I ended up tuning him out as best I could.
But today he's thinking so loudly. Excited about something or other that he's realized and trying to get a grip with. Even looking into related subjects and so on. So I shoved him to the back of our mind, and he, naturally, wrapped himself in his illusion that he's safe at home and simply lying down and roaming through the CrowNet and the Web looking at stuff. He even hacked into some research facility to get at some files, still imagining he wasn't taking a walk.
Me? I took a walk. I put on a heavy jacket, since the weather was nowhere near mild, and made sure to pack my small handgun in case I got "lucky" again tonight. Then I put Xian on "relax and hide" mode, which I figured would give me a few hours to myself. I could still hear him a little bit, I will never understand his excitement, but that's part the point of us, but it was a lot easier to ignore him this way.
We both enjoy taking walks, for each our different reasons. I think I've said this before. I like the feel of it, the movement, the changing sights. Even when the sights are mostly destroyed buildings and rubble that hadn't yet been cleared out. In the dim streetlights, and the haze from the cold, the image is calming, reflective.
Not that I really reflect much; though I guess I do remember things better like this. And see? I ignored the easy joke about mirrors there too.
Tonight, there was only myself and the street, and how it felt like to find the wreckage beautiful. Mind, I don't like that there were many who died and were injured; I'm not particularly sadistic or cruel, though I think I can be. But there is a beauty there that I can appreciate, without really thinking about why it is so.
And I don't care to explain why it's so. That's just the way it is, and I take it as it is.
I almost thought I would follow somebody like I followed that girl some time back, but there wasn't the same kind of spark as I'd felt that night, and I wonder if that was a one-of-a-kind thing. Going back to something Xian wrote about siring, and why vampires did it, was that it? Was that my sign that I subconsciously wanted to sire her?
But these thoughts are his domain, and all I did was walk on. And despite how that may look to anybody, that's all I wanted to do tonight.
That and think about how I'm going to prank Xian for making me listen to him think about all that para-biology stuff.
But today he's thinking so loudly. Excited about something or other that he's realized and trying to get a grip with. Even looking into related subjects and so on. So I shoved him to the back of our mind, and he, naturally, wrapped himself in his illusion that he's safe at home and simply lying down and roaming through the CrowNet and the Web looking at stuff. He even hacked into some research facility to get at some files, still imagining he wasn't taking a walk.
Me? I took a walk. I put on a heavy jacket, since the weather was nowhere near mild, and made sure to pack my small handgun in case I got "lucky" again tonight. Then I put Xian on "relax and hide" mode, which I figured would give me a few hours to myself. I could still hear him a little bit, I will never understand his excitement, but that's part the point of us, but it was a lot easier to ignore him this way.
We both enjoy taking walks, for each our different reasons. I think I've said this before. I like the feel of it, the movement, the changing sights. Even when the sights are mostly destroyed buildings and rubble that hadn't yet been cleared out. In the dim streetlights, and the haze from the cold, the image is calming, reflective.
Not that I really reflect much; though I guess I do remember things better like this. And see? I ignored the easy joke about mirrors there too.
Tonight, there was only myself and the street, and how it felt like to find the wreckage beautiful. Mind, I don't like that there were many who died and were injured; I'm not particularly sadistic or cruel, though I think I can be. But there is a beauty there that I can appreciate, without really thinking about why it is so.
And I don't care to explain why it's so. That's just the way it is, and I take it as it is.
I almost thought I would follow somebody like I followed that girl some time back, but there wasn't the same kind of spark as I'd felt that night, and I wonder if that was a one-of-a-kind thing. Going back to something Xian wrote about siring, and why vampires did it, was that it? Was that my sign that I subconsciously wanted to sire her?
But these thoughts are his domain, and all I did was walk on. And despite how that may look to anybody, that's all I wanted to do tonight.
That and think about how I'm going to prank Xian for making me listen to him think about all that para-biology stuff.
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Xian
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Re: The Other
BLESSED PEACE AND QUIET tonight; he's filing the data he gathered last night, and not screaming in my head anymore. Thankful of this, I decided I wouldn't prank him after all. Besides, it probably wouldn't have been funny anyway.
Still, I'll keep some of my ideas about maybe doing it in the future if he annoys me again.
Of course, with his mind on auto-pilot, he's also allowed himself to believe that he's simply roaming that apartment of ours, stretching his legs and so on. The truth was, I decided to take another walk, but this time someplace a little more secluded, and quite a bit more dangerous.
The Quarantine Zone. Charlotte had taken me here some time ago, before I had even met Keara - I wonder if she realizes that I'm literally two minds? Possibly, since she has quite the ability in telepathy as well. Charlotte likely suspects, but neither has said anything.
Anyway. the Quarantine Zone. The QZ. The place most normals believe is the epicenter of what they believe was a viral plague that hit the city last year. I wasn't here yet, of course, but I was able to read up on it a little, and Charlotte did tell me a little about the place. Short story: there are zombies here, the real deal, made by some big bad who isn't a factor anymore in the city. They're dangerous if you stand still long enough, and fast only if you're not careful.
I'd been here more than a few times before, even Xian was aware at least a few of the times. But most of those times, I was in charge, and when I was, all Xian knew was this place was quiet and dark, and someplace it was good to sit and think in.
Of course, I spent my time here practicing. Knife skills, gun skills - how else could I get good, short of actually going for lessons. And vampires kinda have some problems finding tutors, specially since it's harder to avoid mirrors in shooting ranges and martial arts dojos and the like. I remembered much of what I learned from Jet and the old gang, but I wasn't ever any good back then.
And I wanted and needed to be good. Good enough to stand up to a Hunter, good enough to kill one. Good enough to deserve to keep existing in this city, by taking the life of another if I have to.
So, sometimes it would be shadowboxing, sometimes it was marksmanship, sometimes it would be some rudimentary knife styles and moves. I'd probably need someone to actually teach me after a certain point, and there's a good chance that I'm not really doing some of these things right. Youtube can only teach you so much, and a lot of it's pretty much crap.
There was that one guy with the bow though. That guy's insane. And good. And insane.
Anyway. Tonight, I spent another night in the Quarantine Zone. I walked the place quietly, doing my best not to attract attention, and staying away from the military guard towers and the like. Tonight I just enjoyed the quiet, and allowed myself to just breathe in the quiet.
I would say that I reminisced a little, or at least as close as I get to doing it. But I'll only admit to having done it a little. For the most part, I just walked.
Still, I'll keep some of my ideas about maybe doing it in the future if he annoys me again.
Of course, with his mind on auto-pilot, he's also allowed himself to believe that he's simply roaming that apartment of ours, stretching his legs and so on. The truth was, I decided to take another walk, but this time someplace a little more secluded, and quite a bit more dangerous.
The Quarantine Zone. Charlotte had taken me here some time ago, before I had even met Keara - I wonder if she realizes that I'm literally two minds? Possibly, since she has quite the ability in telepathy as well. Charlotte likely suspects, but neither has said anything.
Anyway. the Quarantine Zone. The QZ. The place most normals believe is the epicenter of what they believe was a viral plague that hit the city last year. I wasn't here yet, of course, but I was able to read up on it a little, and Charlotte did tell me a little about the place. Short story: there are zombies here, the real deal, made by some big bad who isn't a factor anymore in the city. They're dangerous if you stand still long enough, and fast only if you're not careful.
I'd been here more than a few times before, even Xian was aware at least a few of the times. But most of those times, I was in charge, and when I was, all Xian knew was this place was quiet and dark, and someplace it was good to sit and think in.
Of course, I spent my time here practicing. Knife skills, gun skills - how else could I get good, short of actually going for lessons. And vampires kinda have some problems finding tutors, specially since it's harder to avoid mirrors in shooting ranges and martial arts dojos and the like. I remembered much of what I learned from Jet and the old gang, but I wasn't ever any good back then.
And I wanted and needed to be good. Good enough to stand up to a Hunter, good enough to kill one. Good enough to deserve to keep existing in this city, by taking the life of another if I have to.
So, sometimes it would be shadowboxing, sometimes it was marksmanship, sometimes it would be some rudimentary knife styles and moves. I'd probably need someone to actually teach me after a certain point, and there's a good chance that I'm not really doing some of these things right. Youtube can only teach you so much, and a lot of it's pretty much crap.
There was that one guy with the bow though. That guy's insane. And good. And insane.
Anyway. Tonight, I spent another night in the Quarantine Zone. I walked the place quietly, doing my best not to attract attention, and staying away from the military guard towers and the like. Tonight I just enjoyed the quiet, and allowed myself to just breathe in the quiet.
I would say that I reminisced a little, or at least as close as I get to doing it. But I'll only admit to having done it a little. For the most part, I just walked.
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Xian
- Registered User
- Posts: 337
- Joined: 29 Nov 2014, 17:42
Re: The Other
AS MUCH AS we vampires are powerful immortal beings, there are still more than a few things that can inconvenience us. Like a sharp, pointy object forcibly introduced to the gut. There aren't really any organs that are particularly important there anymore, and supposedly our pain receptors are as dead as we are, but wow it can still sting.
I'm not even sure how Xian's handling it; some strangeness in how we're wired now means he's still blissfully unaware that we're actually writhing in pain beneath the city streets, and not just lying down calmly in our apartment, steadily reviewing the nerdiness that he accumulated the other night. Probably has something to do with how his visual information's being processed also affects the other input to his part of our mind.
Well, he wouldn't have handled it well anyway. He did cry when we were dying, the last night of our lives. To his defense, that was a different kind of pain, and he was also mourning the loss of his own life. How was he to know that we would become what we are? That there would be a whole world opening up before us, that we would become what we are?
I guess I might have cried too.
But wounded in the sewers, I don't have the luxury of crying, or of being in pain. I knoe that my body will resist it soon enough, that the blood I have inside me is working to repair the parts of me that are broken. That soon enough I'll be able to get up and just walk out of this place with only a torn shirt to show for it.
But right now, it hurts like anything. And the reason I'm even talking about it now as I'm going through it is that this is helping to mask the pain.
I'm not even sure why it should hurt so much; bullets didn't quite hurt this way, though the blade we had shoved through our head was worse than this. Stomach ripped open, sure, blood into the sewer, yes, but there isn't supposed to be anything important over there.
Maybe there's some kind of poison, or a bad reaction to that thing's claws. Feral vampire, one of us that just didn't come back right. Brought back something more instinctual than rational. Kinda like me, except I have the words and the thoughts. It's what we are when we strip away all the thinking, and emotions, and morality I think. And it didn't like me at all, so it jumped me. Almost got me clean, but I was able to throw up a mental shield quick enough, and it just pushed me back.
Of course, that still left me off-balance and vulnerable. It pressed on while I tried to draw either my pistol or my blade. Got the pistol out, managed to put a few rounds into it. But it was in such close quarters that I didn't have much room to move, and it managed to knock the pistol away, even managed a small cut on my arm in the bargain.
It was fast, but I still managed to keep a half step ahead of it, enough to get my blade and finally sink it deep into its skull. Of course, at the same time, it had managed to push past my hasty shield and shove both clawed hands into my gut.
That was, maybe, a minute ago. It's somewhere near me now, turning into the dust we become when we can no longer cling to our bodies and we die. I wonder if it can come back like we do, if it'll come back right this time around. I've heard that's the reason we're all here in Harper Rock: we can come back here if we die, something we can't do anywhere else.
Ah, there. The pain's less intense now, and I can feel the beginnings of skin forming at the edges of the tear. I think my entrails are even actually sucking back inside; either way, I'm helping it along, pushing it carefully. Should be okay soon. Yes, should be.
Much better. I'll need a new shirt.
I'm not even sure how Xian's handling it; some strangeness in how we're wired now means he's still blissfully unaware that we're actually writhing in pain beneath the city streets, and not just lying down calmly in our apartment, steadily reviewing the nerdiness that he accumulated the other night. Probably has something to do with how his visual information's being processed also affects the other input to his part of our mind.
Well, he wouldn't have handled it well anyway. He did cry when we were dying, the last night of our lives. To his defense, that was a different kind of pain, and he was also mourning the loss of his own life. How was he to know that we would become what we are? That there would be a whole world opening up before us, that we would become what we are?
I guess I might have cried too.
But wounded in the sewers, I don't have the luxury of crying, or of being in pain. I knoe that my body will resist it soon enough, that the blood I have inside me is working to repair the parts of me that are broken. That soon enough I'll be able to get up and just walk out of this place with only a torn shirt to show for it.
But right now, it hurts like anything. And the reason I'm even talking about it now as I'm going through it is that this is helping to mask the pain.
I'm not even sure why it should hurt so much; bullets didn't quite hurt this way, though the blade we had shoved through our head was worse than this. Stomach ripped open, sure, blood into the sewer, yes, but there isn't supposed to be anything important over there.
Maybe there's some kind of poison, or a bad reaction to that thing's claws. Feral vampire, one of us that just didn't come back right. Brought back something more instinctual than rational. Kinda like me, except I have the words and the thoughts. It's what we are when we strip away all the thinking, and emotions, and morality I think. And it didn't like me at all, so it jumped me. Almost got me clean, but I was able to throw up a mental shield quick enough, and it just pushed me back.
Of course, that still left me off-balance and vulnerable. It pressed on while I tried to draw either my pistol or my blade. Got the pistol out, managed to put a few rounds into it. But it was in such close quarters that I didn't have much room to move, and it managed to knock the pistol away, even managed a small cut on my arm in the bargain.
It was fast, but I still managed to keep a half step ahead of it, enough to get my blade and finally sink it deep into its skull. Of course, at the same time, it had managed to push past my hasty shield and shove both clawed hands into my gut.
That was, maybe, a minute ago. It's somewhere near me now, turning into the dust we become when we can no longer cling to our bodies and we die. I wonder if it can come back like we do, if it'll come back right this time around. I've heard that's the reason we're all here in Harper Rock: we can come back here if we die, something we can't do anywhere else.
Ah, there. The pain's less intense now, and I can feel the beginnings of skin forming at the edges of the tear. I think my entrails are even actually sucking back inside; either way, I'm helping it along, pushing it carefully. Should be okay soon. Yes, should be.
Much better. I'll need a new shirt.
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Xian
- Registered User
- Posts: 337
- Joined: 29 Nov 2014, 17:42
Re: The Other
XIAN WAS THE FIRST to notice it, but somehow I always knew. That my physical form was locked in some way, that it would always return to the way it was at the time I was made into what I am now. Something about the vampiric process, I hear that it affects some of us this way.
At least I don't come back with a large bullet hole in my chest. That's how I was made, after all, just as I was dying, blood more on the floor than it was inside me. Lungs bubbling, throat gurgling. I hear that some vampires become like that - wake up each night with a wound they had at the moment they were created. Small blessings.
Xian pretty much remembers as much as I do about that moment - that he had a sense of peace, that he felt he was ready to go, but when he was offered life unending, he turned away from the light. Okay, maybe he doesn't quite remember it that way.
Does it make sense that I don't refer to him as "I" then? I think I have mentioned before that I was born a vampire, though he existed before I did. Don't ask me specifics. I won't claim to understand it any more than I'm saying I do.
Does it make sense that I'm talking to someone while I'm writing this? I always assumed that the other me, Xian - though I am Xian as well, but I guess I'm better called Xian's Other - would be reading these extra journal entries eventually. But now, who am I talking to if I'm talking about him like this?
Who else do I think could be reading this? Or have I just lost it, listening to him muttering while he sorts through his research data? Heh. I've heard that Telepaths like us eventually go crazy in some way. I always assumed it was just our splitting the way we did when I became a vampire. Maybe we can get even crazier.
I also remember that I said I didn't care for words; that wasn't exactly a lie, but I am finding myself writing these journal entries more than I thought I would. I mean, I thought I'd make a few that Xian would notice, give him a nice scare, then find some way to actually be able to talk to him. He can't seem to hear me, you see.
It's like he was made deaf to me when we fractured, while I could hear him because I was the one who was supposed to understand, the one who was supposed to be the strong one, the silent one, the one who could do what Xian himself could not.
Pop psychology aside, maybe he's not meant to ever be aware of me. Maybe he can't even see the journal entries, maybe something keeps him from seeing any evidence that I exist.
But then again, he did find the video of me and that guard. Those guards. He had a nice scare, I had a nice laugh. So I guess that reasoning's wrong. Or maybe, just a little wrong.
Or maybe he's now actively not thinking about the possibility that I exist. That he's purposefully denying it, that he's under a self-imposed delusion. wow those are some big words.
That kind of pisses me off.
But how much can I really hate myself?
Be thankful, Xian. If you ever read this, be thankful that you have a dark guardian angel inside you, that has every interest in seeing every possible night in the future, and has every motivation to keep you alive.
If you ever read this, at least make my job easier, eh?
At least I don't come back with a large bullet hole in my chest. That's how I was made, after all, just as I was dying, blood more on the floor than it was inside me. Lungs bubbling, throat gurgling. I hear that some vampires become like that - wake up each night with a wound they had at the moment they were created. Small blessings.
Xian pretty much remembers as much as I do about that moment - that he had a sense of peace, that he felt he was ready to go, but when he was offered life unending, he turned away from the light. Okay, maybe he doesn't quite remember it that way.
Does it make sense that I don't refer to him as "I" then? I think I have mentioned before that I was born a vampire, though he existed before I did. Don't ask me specifics. I won't claim to understand it any more than I'm saying I do.
Does it make sense that I'm talking to someone while I'm writing this? I always assumed that the other me, Xian - though I am Xian as well, but I guess I'm better called Xian's Other - would be reading these extra journal entries eventually. But now, who am I talking to if I'm talking about him like this?
Who else do I think could be reading this? Or have I just lost it, listening to him muttering while he sorts through his research data? Heh. I've heard that Telepaths like us eventually go crazy in some way. I always assumed it was just our splitting the way we did when I became a vampire. Maybe we can get even crazier.
I also remember that I said I didn't care for words; that wasn't exactly a lie, but I am finding myself writing these journal entries more than I thought I would. I mean, I thought I'd make a few that Xian would notice, give him a nice scare, then find some way to actually be able to talk to him. He can't seem to hear me, you see.
It's like he was made deaf to me when we fractured, while I could hear him because I was the one who was supposed to understand, the one who was supposed to be the strong one, the silent one, the one who could do what Xian himself could not.
Pop psychology aside, maybe he's not meant to ever be aware of me. Maybe he can't even see the journal entries, maybe something keeps him from seeing any evidence that I exist.
But then again, he did find the video of me and that guard. Those guards. He had a nice scare, I had a nice laugh. So I guess that reasoning's wrong. Or maybe, just a little wrong.
Or maybe he's now actively not thinking about the possibility that I exist. That he's purposefully denying it, that he's under a self-imposed delusion. wow those are some big words.
That kind of pisses me off.
But how much can I really hate myself?
Be thankful, Xian. If you ever read this, be thankful that you have a dark guardian angel inside you, that has every interest in seeing every possible night in the future, and has every motivation to keep you alive.
If you ever read this, at least make my job easier, eh?
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Xian
- Registered User
- Posts: 337
- Joined: 29 Nov 2014, 17:42
Re: The Other
JUST LIKE THE OTHER TIMES, it was me, Xian. The reason you feel like it's all muscle memory and reactions is, I was the one driving. You were just there for the ride.
Though when you cried - yes, you did cry, you dumb fool - I cried with you.
And I don't understand why either. Though I think I may have seen this one before, when she was mortal, at least.
I wonder if Ferals are another Path, and if they breed other Ferals? Not my specialty, thinking about these things. But I guess I do sometimes wonder, even if I believe I'm not good at it.
And you said it twice because we each said it once, brother-self, my poor ignorant Other.
Sometimes I wish you would at least acknowledge that I exist. But more and more I come to believe that, save for that one video, that one time, you are incapable of perceiving me at all. That you will always come up with some rationalization for anything and everything that I do.
I wonder if I was crying for myself as well.
Because, and I will admit it, I fear us ever dying and falling into the realm of Shadows. I fear it, though I am not made for fear, I should not fear. And I don't understand the fear, but I accept that it exists. I accept that I do not want us to die.
Because maybe, just maybe, what I am, all I am, is an echo that exists only here, and now. Maybe, if I ever die, if we ever die, even the once, I will never be, and nobody will ever know.
That thought is worth a tear I think.
Though when you cried - yes, you did cry, you dumb fool - I cried with you.
And I don't understand why either. Though I think I may have seen this one before, when she was mortal, at least.
I wonder if Ferals are another Path, and if they breed other Ferals? Not my specialty, thinking about these things. But I guess I do sometimes wonder, even if I believe I'm not good at it.
And you said it twice because we each said it once, brother-self, my poor ignorant Other.
Sometimes I wish you would at least acknowledge that I exist. But more and more I come to believe that, save for that one video, that one time, you are incapable of perceiving me at all. That you will always come up with some rationalization for anything and everything that I do.
I wonder if I was crying for myself as well.
Because, and I will admit it, I fear us ever dying and falling into the realm of Shadows. I fear it, though I am not made for fear, I should not fear. And I don't understand the fear, but I accept that it exists. I accept that I do not want us to die.
Because maybe, just maybe, what I am, all I am, is an echo that exists only here, and now. Maybe, if I ever die, if we ever die, even the once, I will never be, and nobody will ever know.
That thought is worth a tear I think.