Path of the Vampire forum

AS I REMEMBER THESE THINGS, something stands out: I remember these memories as if they really happened, and I am convinced that they are true memories, but I feel no sense of attachment to these visions, these dreams. I can identify that the young man is myself, but the events may as well have happened to an actor in a film, or in a play. I've seen the events, but I don't feel them, except as an outside observer.

Not the strangest thing to have happened to me, and I think there is some literature about that with other victims of memory loss. It is a little disconcerting, but if these memories are true, at least I have a glimpse of who I was before the change.

And as many philosophers have said, in one form or another, one has to remember the past to better understand the present, and to better survive the future.

The best I can do is trust and believe that these memories are indeed true memories; finding understanding and enlightenment can come later. As it is, as I am in a state where healing is my priority for my body, I can let my mind just sit back and watch the show, so to speak.

HOW MANY DAYS has it been since I stirred from this place? Wounded and afraid, I huddled in the darkness of this safe haven, only my mind free to view the returning memories, or to seek out knowledge through the web. At times, I would send messages to my sire, Charlotte, or her sire Keara. I am not completely sure what I have sent, though I believe I cried out to both when I was wounded.

I can see people pass me by; I say "people" but I believe they are vampires all, save perhaps that one human whose blood made mine burn. He's around often, his relationship with the others yet another question unanswered for me. I think I saw him speak with Keara once; she has passed me by, perhaps even cared for me, while I've sat here.

I think even some of the others, vampires, people, I did not know, stopped to care for me. I think one even offered me blood. I don't think I responded much. I feel distanced from my body as much as I feel distanced from the memories that have been returning. But day by day, I feel closer to both, closer to being myself once more.

Charlotte has also been here, I think. I've sensed her presence, and I've seen her face. It was a comfort when I first realized she was, a comfort to see she has stayed more often than not.

I barely register the others' faces, I can barely bring myself to open my eyes. I wake during the night, only to sink back into myself. Sink back into memories, into remembering. During the day, I am trapped in my dreams.

THE POWER OF this last memory, this last dream-recollection, has left me more than a little bit shaken. It was more personal, something I felt a deeper connection with. Previously, it was like I was watching another act out my memories. I this one, I was both watcher and participant. For a while, it even felt like I was experiencing my death all over again; and when, in the dream-vision, I died and looked out into the comforting darkness, I felt that my spirit was more than willing to dive into the abyss and never come back up again.

I experienced again the sensation of the turning, the act of becoming a vampire, something I had once forgotten. The first drop of Charlotte's blood, catching me at the point of death, halting my spiral into the deep darkness. The empowering force restoring my body, repairing and replacing that which it didn't need, amplifying that which it so desired, bestowing that which was now mine to possess.

I felt the new strength come to me again, the memory of the blood completing my transformation. And when I woke, I felt better, and I was no longer afraid.

I felt more whole, more myself, though I still felt a distance, a separation, from my previous life, I could now recall it, or at least enough pieces of it. As strange as this distance seems, from a psychological perspective, I think that is how it should be. I am no longer that young man, much as an adult is no longer the baby they were when they were born. And yet I recognize that I was, indeed, he.

I knew as well that I was recovering physically, and at a rate that was quite rapid. I am sure that it is in no small part due to the assistance of my sire, Charlotte, and her sire Keara, and the seeming legion of vampires offering assistance, or just a sign of support or recognition, that passed me by as I recovered, adamantly staying where I had fallen in the corner of the family haven. I understand now, that this place is one such place, and that the artifact that Keara had left for me had taken me here in my time of need.

When I bothered to check today what had happened to the deep wound at the right side of my skull, I was pleased to feel that new skin had completely regrown to cover it. I could even feel that my hair had grown back, at least in part. I don't consider myself to be vain, but this fact pleased me, I am unashamed to admit. Beneath the skin, I could feel soft tissues that I assumed would soon develop into hard bone. And beneath that, perhaps even the damage that I assume was inflicted upon my grey matter was healing as well.

There is still pain, of course; perhaps the pain will even last longer than the actual wound. It does appear to be so for the wounds I had received on my shoulder nights before. Perhaps that is part of the legacy of our kind, a way to encourage us to avoid such damage, despite our bodies capacity to withstand it. Though if this is true, then it would mean that we eventually develop an aversion to pain. That doesn't seem to be the case, at least not for me, at least not yet.

Just an odd side-mention: I did earlier seem to spit out what appeared to be small splinters or slivers of bone. I felt them on my tongue, and left them on my hand for a while before dropping them to the floor beside me. How they got into my mouth is a mystery that I think I am willing to leave unexplored, something I am not ready to consider at this time.

Anyway, it is truly a wonder how my body, perhaps all our vampiric bodies, are able to do this. Admittedly I had received quite a bit of help, not only from Charlotte, but also Keara, and a vampire I think was named Lorde. I must remember to thank her as well. But all in all, my body somehow remembers how it should be, how it should appear, and how it should function. And apparently has the capability to restore itself.

Little wonder, I guess. I was raised from death, after all. I guess we all were. And I remember the words I had recorded here before: I am more than just my body.

I know that I must look like a decrepit, disheveled mess; until I wakened tonight, I felt fear and despair, and I think I must have sat her in a fugue, my mind hiding from the world. But I do feel renewed, I do feel reawakened. I still feel weak, but I feel stronger in more ways than just in body.

If my heart still beat, I would actually say that it was good to be alive! Heh.

THEY SAY THAT POWER CORRUPTS, and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. If this is true, does it follow then that all of us vampires, who eventually develop powers far beyond what normal humans are capable of, will eventually become corrupted? Does it follow that, if we aren't already evil, that we will become evil? That the ultimate destiny of all vampires is to become monsters?

There is a lot of basis for this in human history. Noble rebels who become despots when they replace the people in power. Young politicians, righteous in youth, then corrupt in their old age. Decent employees who were trusted by the company, only to become a tyrant in management, or even steal from the company they were once loyal to. Many other examples that seem to prove that, given enough power and authority, any human can and will eventually become corrupt. Evil.

A monster.

And what more supernatural power? The ability to control minds and affect people's hearts. The ability to heal greivous wounds, and destroy minds and bodies. The ability to change shape, affect electronic media, create visions, and many others that we vampires may possess. I've witnessed a few, can imagine some others, have some of my own, and likely have not seen what many others can do. Would these supernatural abilities not eventually corrupt even the most innocent among us? Will these abilities that already make us different, perhaps even greater than the humanity we left behind, change us into creatures corrupted by the power we bear?

If it is true that power always corrupts, then it seems that is our eventual fate. Though I have seen evidence that this need not be so.

I cannot imagine my sire ever becoming a monster. For all her failings, for all her imperfections, I don't see it. And for all the power that I can feel, for all the fear I have for her strength, I can't consider my grandsire a monster either. And she, I believe, has been around for a long while.

"Sometimes the only reason that need they do, is what we are. Sad but true that is." she said to me, as we spoke about the hunters who had so recently caused me grave injury. To my knowledge, I told her, I had done nothing that would merit their attacks on me. Her suggestion drives a surge of righteous anger into me, though it is not an anger that I can act out on.

If it is true that these vampire hunters only hunt us because of what we are, and not because of what we do, then they are monsters as well. Perhaps corrupted by their own power, or even their own self-righteousness. Their belief that their faith and reason is the only truth, the only right way, the only thing that matters.

But I can't claim to know them, of course. I really don't want to make the same mistake that I believe they are making. But I do remember sensing their anger, and their desire to kill me. And I still bear the scars of the wounds they have inflicted, for no more reason than from what I am.

I've written before that people have a tendency to vilify those that they consider their enemies. They will accuse them of acts they have not done, will twist the truth to reflect their bias, will turn them into monsters. Monsters that could not possibly have any sense of good, could not possibly be righteous in their cause, could not possibly have the right to exist. People can tell outright lies to others and themselves to create monsters of their enemies.

With this in mind, I believe that people make monsters of others, so that they do not see the monsters within themselves.

There is another thought that says the only way to fight monsters, is with monsters. Monsters are able to do anything and everything, and the only way to defeat an enemy that is like that is to be willing to fight in the same way. Alternately, it is with greater understanding of the monstrous, that will allow one to fight the monsters. So, in order to fight a monster, one must be a monster.

Putting the two together, people make monsters of themselves in order to fight the monsters they have made of their enemies, so that they do not see the monsters that they have made of themselves.

What does that make me, reborn into this life of a vampire? Perceived as a creature of darkness and death, one that must take blood to survive. One that preys on the humanity that once I was part of? I did not actively choose this existence, though I am not going to give it up without a fight. I live in the darkness because I will die in the daylight. I take only as much blood as I need to survive. I prey with care, I avoid the kill. Though admittedly not entirely out of any overwhelming sense of empathy.

Can I see the monster within myself, the monster I can become? I think so. I do have the capability to overwhelm almost any human and take their blood and their life. I am a creature that can kill. But then, I can say that of almost any normal human anyway. Humans are creatures that can kill. They can choose to do it.

So I guess the question is: can we vampires really choose not to kill, or will we reach a point that we will be forced to kill by our natures? I will admit that I do not feel the impulse to kill, aside from the disgust I feel for these so-called vampire hunters. But I cannot say with certainty that this will always be so.

But does that potential in the future condemn me? There is that science fiction conundrum: would you kill or incarcerate someone for something that they may do, or will do, in the future? Even before they have any inkling that they will even do it? Who would be willing to kill even the most despicable tyrants as children? As infants?

What kind of monster would you be to destroy an innocent, to prevent that innocent from being corrupted? From committing a crime? Even if it were to save so many other innocents in the future? Or should there be found another way, a better way? There are many stories of this in science fiction; the question remains a theoretical one, a matter of intellectual exercise.

But I am no intellectual exercise. I exist, and I have done nothing to deserve destruction except to become what I am. I may do great injustice in the future. I may kill, steal, destroy. But I have not yet done so, and I do not plan to do so. (Well, except maybe the steal part - I may as well be honest with myself here) Do I deserve to die?

By what right do these vampire hunters claim this to be true? By what rationalization, divine instruction, or crazed religious fervor, do they justify their monstrous actions? Do they even see the monsters they have become, in order to fight the monsters that they claim to see? Are they willing, conscious sacrifices to the altar of monstrosity in order to do what they believe to be right? Or are some of them monsters that simply enjoy destroying monsters, that would create new monsters to fight if there were none.

Would they destroy themselves, if they realized what monsters they have become? Or do they destroy us, so that they do not look within, and find the monsters they have themselves been hiding?

What lies these humans tell themselves!

WHILE THE ISSUE of hunters is still a sore spot for me, I find that their behavior, while admittedly an expression of one of the things it means to be human, has not soured me from the rest of humanity. I do understand that humans, as we vampires are, encompass a range of personalities, beliefs, psychoses and contradictions. There are generalities among both races, but unlike other species in the world, there is a great amount of variation.

So, even after everything, I still find myself curious about humanity. Even after I have regained a portion of my memories, I do think I would still enjoy watching them as I did before, imagining their lives and secrets. Living vicariously, sharing the joys and pains of their lives while hidden in secret, issues of race and species left behind.

And while I do make use of the words "race" and "species" I am also unsure if these terms really apply. Actually, I'm almost convinced that they technically don't, though I don't understand all the science involved in defining a race and a species. But I guess these words will have to do, being the closest words to the concept of our vampiric existence. And if I use the word "evolution" to also describe how we are made different, I do so knowing that it isn't just some natural process that has made us what we are.

We are a whole different species, forcibly evolved from humanity through a mechanism or power that is as of yet unknown and incomprehensible. Ha! Eat that science!

Of course, I also concede that it is simply very possible that our understanding of things, having come from the human way of logic and reason, has just not yet been moved to the point where we can define what we do by the science of this time. Another writer has said, and I am paraphrasing, that what we don't yet understand we call magic. And maybe that's all it is - our existence is considered mystical only because our understanding has not reached the point that we can define how we do what we do.

Or even define how we are alive without being alive for that matter. Again, the word "alive" is an approximation of the concept. By virtue of our mobility and sentience we are alive. We do procreate, after a fashion, though by a different means than most other living things. Our existence is also contingent on feeding, much like any other living creature on this planet.

But, I think, as far as human science is concerned, we are dead bodies that are animated by some unknown force. Even thinking about it this way sends chills through my spine still. Not that I don't accept it: yes, I am quite dead, having no need to breathe, eat, sleep, and many other things that typically describe the living of the human species. From a viewpoint of humanity, I am a dead human.

But from the viewpoint of vampires, I and my kind are very much "alive."

I will admit though that it is possible that we are, in a way, simulacra. Copies of our original forms, our original minds, that have managed to, and here I use the word again, evolve into something else. In theory, though not a scientific one of course - I won't claim any scientific expertise - its possible that when we died, the thing that used to be us moved on, went away, and left behind only a reflection or copy of ourselves. A copy so good that it believed that it was the original, and continued to live, so to speak, as if it were.

But if a copy is perfect, if it is exactly as the original, then who can say what is the copy and what is the original?

Reminds me of something mind-blowing that I read some time ago. I won't claim to understand any of the science behind this either: when you take a hologram and divide it into two, you don't end up with two half-holograms. You end up with two copies of the original hologram. I don't mean the kind of holograms that are projected by light to simulate a 3D model of something, at least I don't think so. I refer to a principle of physics that is related to string theory, that also has some relationship to black holes and how the energy of the universe around us behaves...

I was bored that day, and I thought I could handle the science.

Anyway, I think its simpler to return to my original question without diving into things the likes of Stephen Hawking would only understand. Makes me wonder though, how someone like him would handle the transformation into a vampire. What the world could gain with a mind like that able to live forever to ponder the secrets of the universe!

Hrm. I think I've gone far enough away from my original thought that I can't quite trace where I'm going with any of this. But then again, that's not really surprising; I wasn't sure when I began what I was going to say or prove.

That sounds like the story of life.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?" She asked me, the woman in blue. We were standing on what seemed to be the top floor of a tower in the middle of a vast city. Was this Harper Rock? I couldn't say with any conviction, which I found odd but not completely so, as this was, again, another dream. But I don't remember a tower like this in the middle of Harper Rock, and I didn't think Harper Rock was ever so large.

Strangely, I think this may have been the first time that I recognized that I was dreaming while I was within the dream; in previous dreams that featured the woman in blue, I only realized the fact upon waking. Perhaps there was a certain new awareness now that I possessed; or perhaps my fears have been realized and my memories of things are changing without my noticing them. A combination of the return of some of my memories, the changing of some others, and the head wound I had recently suffered perhaps.

Or maybe it was just this one dream, just this one time.

There were stars in the night sky, just as there were electric lights beneath us, though the skies were far more silent than the city. The city itself seemed to stretch to the horizon in all directions, moving lights revealing streets, pathways, moving, breathing humanity.

She was facing away from me, with both of us close enough to the edge to hold the railings which were all that kept one from leaping down into the busy streets below. She was leaning on the rail lightly, palms down and arms relaxed. She watched the city below with lazy eyes, and before I realized it I had been staring at her for a long time, without having answered her question.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean," I finally said; I decided the truth would be preferable. An oddity, not because I chose the truth, but because, in other dreams, I understood things. Things that I would not always remember when I woke, but were clear and rational in the dream. We'd talked about a great many things in dreams, and I'd always felt like I was granted clarity by the conversations I couldn't even remember. But now I felt ignorant, but at least not ashamedly so.

She shook her head, but there was a slight smile on her face. "Understanding will come," she said. "Eventually." I noticed then that her smile was a slight deception in that her eyes were uncommonly sorrowful.

I wasn't quite satisfied by this, but I knew there would be little else she would say on the matter. For some reason, this aspect of our dream relationship I seemed to understand. For now, though, I contented myself that I was with her, and that she believed I would understand. So I believed as well.

I still do not know who this woman is, or even what she really is. In my dreams she is a vampire, but what if that's just how my consciousness perceives her as during the dream? Once I had even suspected that she was my sire's sire, Keara Aithne. But I have since met my grandsire, and I feel certain that this is not she. Aside from their outward appearances, Keara speaks in a way that is quite unique, even when we converse mind-to-mind.

Maybe I should ask Keara about her? If only I had a way to show my visions of her to others. Hmm.

I believe also that she is not just someone from my past. The fragments of memories that I now have, as incomplete as they may be, has revealed to me several faces of people important to me in the past. She is not Kaycee, or any of the women in my gang family. Or in my real family for that matter. Neither is she an approximation, or gestalt of them.

She also doesn't seem to be some artist or model I have adopted in my mind to make a construct of. Or at least that I am aware of; while I have started to trust my memories more these nights, I remain conscious that memories are malleable. But in either case, she appears only in my memories of my dreams with her.

I nodded to accept her words, and I almost ask her name. But I hesitated when she turned and faced me. With her head tilted, she seemed to be considering something, so I waited. She turned away and looked to the far horizon.

"Soon enough," she said, in her bare whisper of a voice. I wondered if this was an answer to my unvoiced question, or a continuation of her previous statement. It may have even been both.

"Look," she said, and raised one arm to point towards the horizon. I turned to look towards where she was facing, and I found that I could see a distinct light. It seemed brighter and more alive than the other lights around us, and it seemed to beat with a rhythm that was beyond hearing. Slowly it seemed to grow, taking in more and more of the horizon as I looked on. It seemed to stretch and reach out towards us; I felt a tiny sliver of fear.

"It's coming," she whispered, her voice close to my ear.

The light brightened, and my eyes opened; the day was over, night had come again.