Path of the Vampire forum

(OOC Note: This is a dreamscape sequence with the rp power)

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

Roderic: I was sure I'd seen this guy before. The way he walked and the way he kept his left hand in his jeans pocket, like he was protecting something or had something he couldn't show the world was familiar. Too familiar. I follow him about half a block down, working slowly on a cigarette, glancing up at things from time to time to keep his attention off me. Not that I was overly worried about it, as I trailed a lot of people in the last decade or so, but it was always better to be overly cautious and aware of the surroundings you were in. I flick the ciagarette away, disinterested in it for the time being and more interested with the guy in front of me. He stops, but I knew that, because as he stopped I stopped too. This seemed all too familiar, like I've lived this before. Was that possible?

Paige Fforde: Paige's evening ritual was of the upmost importance. If one thing went slightly wrong, it ruined the young vampire's entire evening. This part of the ritual involved feeding, and it was all wrong. She "walked" on the sidewalk without making any noise because she levitated at least a millimeter above the ground at all times. For the sake of not getting caught, she had to pretend to walk. For the sake of keeping her existence secret, she also had to feed on someone she normally wouldn't. It was maddening. She had been trailing the man with his hand in his pocket for some time, but he always seemed farther away the closer she got. It was as though Paige was in a dream and space was playing tricks on her.

Roderic: The man stops to tie one of his shoes and so I move to the other side of the road. I look both ways, even though I'm sure getting hit by a car wouldn't kill me, because I'm a vampire, which was both a blessing and a curse it seemed, but if I got hit by a car, it'd hurt at least. And how would I deal with the guy once I got him alone? It was then I notice some other people. A woman all alone, two girls walking and what seems to be doing what women do best, gossiping and a guy heading in to a store a few stores down. I don't pay him any mind, or the girls really. The woman either. She's not my type, none of these people are. They don't fit my criteria. The man gets up and I'm following him once again, this time I pick up my pace just a little, as I'm across the street and if he saw me, he'd not be bothered by some guy across the street by some shops. He turns a corner and I feel satisfied. Finally, we're getting somewhere. He's heading towards homes and away from populated areas.

Paige Fforde: Paige was having trouble keeping up. No matter how quickly she walked, she seemed to be going at a snails' pace. Her orange eyes were alight with annoyance and glinted with rage. She did not realize that she was dreaming, such a thought didn't even cross her mind. Faster and faster she walked, and when the man was alone and about to enter his home, she levitated right at his back with a soft growl. Suddenly there was an obstacle, and she bumped lightly into it and floated backward. The man let himself into his house without noticing either of the vampires. Growling, Paige glared up at the obstacle. She almost had her meal, and now she had to go in and get him with uninvited guest. How would she be able to resist playing?

Roderic: When his house came in to sight, I knew it, like I knew the back of my hand. How many floors it was, what color the outside was before I had even seen him turn up the walk to the house the male would claim as his own, if he had any pets; which, he didn't. Not married, middle class male who enjoyed watching reruns of jeapordy at night. I'd be doing him a favor if this was as good as it got for him. I climb up the stairs and see a woman, the same woman that was by herself. She's not familiar. I'm certain she's not supposed to be here. She is not his wife or his kid. But she walks up to his house like she owns it and is familiar with it. What was she doing here? Was she going to try and take what was rightfully mine? I knew this house and this man because I tailed him for at least a week: so I beleived), so who the hell was she to come and try and take what was mine? I slip in to the shadows with my shadow abilities and quietly climb the stairs. I say nothing to her, but I do try and work my way around her and in to the house, where I know the man will be sitting, in the front room, watching his show.

Paige Fforde: When the person she had run into ignored her, Paige knew that she was either dreaming, or having some kind of vision. The realization struck her like lightening. Yes, this did not happen by chance. The adolescent had been questioning the use of her existence if she couldn't kill the way she wanted to. It was never gratifying if she couldn't kill them in the comfort of their own homes. This man was some kind of ghost, and she followed him into the other's apartment. The fact that he entered without permission just confirmed it to Paige: he was a Shadow just like her. He knew something she didn't about not getting caught. About cleaning up, perhaps. She would observe him.

Roderic: For some reason, it seemed I didn't have my knife with me. Had I lost it? Had it broke? Whatever had happened to it, I knew it had been disposed of carefully, but why hadn't I replaced it yet? I let the man get comfortable in his couch, letting him think he was alone. The woman, if she came in that was, would stumble on to something she really shouldn't. And then I'd be forced to clean up two messes. I move through a narrow hallway and to the left where there is a kitchen. I needed a knife and kitchens had those sorts of things. I see a butcher's block with a variety of different sizes and shapes, and I don't go for the fat, big one. No. I got for the long, skinny one. I like drawing things out. The big one could damage too many organs at once. Where was the fun in that?

Paige Fforde: Paige roamed the apartment until she found the human sitting and watching television. The program was in English, but the native Russian understood most of what was being said. What to do next? He was not her usual type. He had no family to torment, no large home to feel safe in, just this sparsely furnished apartment. If he was not a blood cow, she would have felt sorry for him. Instead she leaned in behind him and sniffed his hair. When he turned, she was already ducking behind the couch silently and the man dismissed the playful gesture as nothing more than a draft. She could hear the vampire moving in the kitchen and kept laying behind the couch, hovering a few inches from the ground in her leggings and baggy shirt.

Roderic: I wasn't ready to leave the kitchen quite yet. Sure, I had my knife, but there'd be a mess. Couldn't have that, could we? I didn't much care for seeing my victims on the television, unless it was months later and their body was so decomposed that they couldn't tell how they died, or who they were until they got impressions from their teeth. So I rummaged around in the kitchen looking for trash bags. I found some and grabbed 6 or 7, then headed out of the kitchen. I saw her again. Was she really here? She didn;t seem to care I was in here, so she couldn't be his family. But she wasn't doing anything from what I could tell. So was she really here, or was I imagining her? We'd find out. By this time, all my movements in the kitchen had made me fall out of shadows, so once again I focus on not being here and trust that soon, no one could see me as I get to work, lying down garbage bags behind the guy, on the top of his couch and eventually at his feet, still seeing her here and working around her as best as I could.

Paige Fforde: Whenever he came close, Paige offered the other shadow an animalistic growl that was too low to be heard by the human. In fact, the human was conveniently and blissfully unaware of the way the stranger was setting up the room. There would be a lot of blood. It was going to be incredible. Licking her lips, she peeked up behind the couch and licked the back of the human's neck, then ducked. His face registered confusion and then shock when he finally noticed that the area around him was covered in plastic bags.

Roderic:I heard a growl. I was sure the guy didn;t own a dog. I'd been here before. Been here and killed this guy before. I was sure I had killed him before. I remember using this knife and the way his face looked at me when he knew he was dying. Yet, here he was. What. or who was growling? Not the woman? It didn't sound human, exactly, but I was sure there was no one here but us three. It seemed that even though I was in shadows, the bags hadn't gone unnoticed. Well, that was unfortunate, for him. The guy got up with a few choice words on the strange phenomenon he found himself in and started heading for the phone. I seemed to know that was what he was going to do, because before he could get to far, I was crouched down and drawing the blade across the back of his ankle as fast and as deep as I could, which caused the man to stumble to the ground face first.

Paige Fforde: While the man's scream was beautiful, she couldn't have it waking up the whole apartment complex. Dream or no dream, vision or no vision, Paige sprang into action and tore off the man's shoes and socks. She stuffed the bloody sock in his mouth and tied it there with shoestring, then glanced warily at the other vampire. She could see him, they were both shadows. "I am not real," she told him, then glanced down at the human and stroked his face with her long bony fingers. "I am not real," she purred. It didn't seem to comfort the distressed human, who was bleeding out of his lacerated ankle. His sobs were muffled by the sock gag. Paige licked one finger and reflected on how she could hear her own voice now. Normally she couldn't speak above a whisper without pain, but here she was talking like before her sire damaged her throat.

--The following transcript was a live chat roleplay--

Roderic:She wasn't real? She was acting real. She was scrambling around like this was her mess to clean up. I look down at the male, then back at her. I want to touch her, just quick enough to see if she was real, but the man wasn't completely down for the count. He could crawl away. Slither away. And he was trying to, too.She was scaring him, or maybe I was. Didn't matter. He couldn't get away. Or get off the garbage bags. Most people believed going in the front way was the most effective, but the back could be too. Organs laid in the back, like...kidneys. So, I plunge the blade in to his left side of his back, about where i think the organ is and hope for the best. Kidneys were vital to a person. Sure, you could live with one, but not without two. He screams in to his sock from the pain, but I don't really hear it. I've heard too many screams in my life to have it affect me.

Paige Fforde: Paige narrowed her eyes at the other vampire. If this wasn't a dream, she would have attacked him. She growled, it had been too fast. The human was twitching, dying. She dug a couple of fingers into the wound in his kidney and twisted them. His warmth was leaving his body already and he was in too much of a shock to do more than gurgle around the gag. Was this the secret to not being caught? To do it quickly? But the fun was over, what was the point anymore?

Roderic: I frown as she makes herself at home in my work. She was like an animal and I wasn't so sure I liked it. This wasn't my kill. It was now our kill. I never worked with someone before or allowed someone else to take part in my works. "Who are you?" I ask as I put the blade in to the floor, through the garbage bag, stunned. It wasn't possible that two people could be in the same place, want the same thing like this at the same time, was it? "If you're not real, what are you?"

Paige Fforde: She looked sad for a moment, then angry. "I don't know," she growled. She knew that she was not being helpful. For a dream the other vampire seemed confused. "We are the same," she finally ventured. "You can hide in the shadows like me, and." She took the dying man's cellphone out of his pocket and shone the light at the stranger. "You cast no shadow." He was the first other shadow that she formally met.

Roderic: I knew what I was. I didn't know she was the same thing, let alone a vampire either. "You know this guy?" I'm intrigued as to why she's here or what made her want to be here. Was she following me, or was she following me? I grab the knife out of the floor and slowly jam it in the other side of the guys back. This didn't seem right. I didn't kill him like this before. She wasn't here. "This isn't right." I say as the knife slowly decends in to his flesh. "Last time was different. But how can we be here? If I've already killed him?"

Paige Fforde: "I think this is a dream," the girl speculated in a thick Russian accent. Her orange eyes studied him suspiciously for a few moments. It wasn't personal, she was just cursed to be animalistic and territorial, and constantly struggled with not making a scene. Getting a job had helped, but she still needed that gratification. When he stabbed the human again, she nodded in agreement. "It isn't right. You should have let him suffer more. Now I have to kill again."

Roderic: A dream? I didn't understand. Was she some sort of guide or something? Should I follow her? "No, I mean I'-forget it. It's not always about suffering. It's about being efficent. I plan to make something out of him." I point down to the body of the guy that's still in pretty decent form. "Won't be any good for my exhibit, but maybe some sort of canvas with his flesh for a lawn chair. What do you think?" I ask the woman with orange eyes, certain she's more than a vampire.

Paige Fforde: She'd had orange eyes all her life, because of the heterochromia iridium. When Axel turned her, the secondary color had vanished entirely, leaving her with the orange eyes of a beast. At times they took the form of an aye-aye, but for now they were humanoid, with an Asian fold that made the Russian girl an obvious mixed breed of some kind. She seemed to know that he was looking at them, but was used to it and ignored it. Instead she ran her hands over the cold flesh of the corpse. "I suppose," she grumbled quietly. "I liked him better alive." So this possible guide differed from her even though they were the same. She was not disappointed, though. She was distracted from her hunger. Was he really going to make the human into a piece of furniture? She never would have thought of anything like that.

Roderic: "What would you do with him?" I ask, interested. Why I'm interested, I don't know, but I can't see any reason for keeping him alive, when the end result was kill him. "Are you in my dream, or am I in yours?" It's possible this could be a dream. I've never dreamt of kiling someone that I already had killed before, but the subconscious was a thing many tried to understand, but so few did. Not even my therapist could understand it all when I was a kid.

Paige Fforde: "I don't know. I've never. This has never. Happened before," she murmured. So they were both projections here. It seemed to be his memory, though. "I think that it may be your dream because you killed this man before." She started to undress the man so they could chop him up and stow him away. When he asked what she would do with him, Paige was surprised. So far, the only people who knew her exact methods disapproved, seeing her as a masquerade violation waiting to happen. "I would have played with him some more. Cut him in places that would not have killed him right away. Let him beg and cry. Stick something inside him. Tear his... Rip him apart." She kept her eyes down. She didn't want to watch her new acquaintance sneer at her like she thought he would.

Roderic: This was my dream. Why am I dreaming this? How many times have I dreamt this dream? Everything was too familiar, except for this woman in front of me. "Why?" I ask, not sure why she would do that. I don't really care outside of curiousity, as everyone had their methods and their reasons, but her reasons intrigued me. "Did he do something to you?"

Paige Fforde: She shook her head, then stroked the corpse's hair. "Did he do something to you," she asked pointedly. She did these things because it eased a hunger and pain inside her. If it wasn't done right, she grew increasingly depressed and irritable, but tonight was different. This had probably happened for a reason. Nothing romantic, but definitely profound. Perhaps this other vampire was connected to her in some way.

Roderic: I laugh and shake my head. She had wit about her, this guide of mine. That's what she had to be because she was here, in my dreams. "I didn't like the cut of his jib." I say with a shrug. "No, but it was too good to pass up." I'm sure she knows what I mean by that, as people like me, like her, like us can hear the call, that nagging, or that inkling to act and act now to subside whatever it was that was deep within our subconscious egging us on. "You don't like my work." I say. "Can I watch yours?"

Paige Fforde: She nodded guardedly, then stood. Since it was a dream, they probably didn't need to dispose of the body after all. But this was his kill, so it was up to him. "Meet me tomorrow night after you wake up," she suggested. "My name is Paige." To avoid having to explain later, she said "I can't talk like this in real life." She wouldn't be able to speak much the next time they met. But if he was really interested in her work, she would show him.

Roderic: I stand up and look down at the body. If this was a dream, then that means this guy really isn't dead. Who is he and why am I dreaming about him? Killing him at least twice? "Alright." I agree, then it hits me. "Wait. I'm in Mexico. I was looking for Jul-someone." I don't say her name because I've not found her yet and I'm not sure she wants to be found. By me or anyone. But as I say that, I don't feel like I'm in Mexico. I feel as if that's not real either, like this dream. "I'm Roderic. People call me 'Ric for short." I offer as realize she's offering to meet me while I'm awake. So she's not really a guide after all. I'm not disappointed by it, just confused as to how she's in my dreams.

Paige Fforde: She shook his hand. Of course, she didn't feel his hand, but she wasn't surprised. So he was in Mexico. He didn't live there, he was looking for someone. "When you find them, come back and find me. My sire is Axel Rosen." The vampire community was small, and that should be enough information for him to find her so they could go killing together. She was anxious about it, but also looking forward to it.

Roderic: Axel. I knew the name. He was the one banging Phoenix. How come I'd never heard of Paige before? She must be new to the Altaire bloodline, which wasn't surprising. I had some questions, mostly about Nix and if Juliet was back and I had missed her, but I doubted Paige knew. I nod my head at her offer. "I will." I had only ever met one other like Paige and like me and had gotten to observe her work. She was good at what she did, so good, I found myself wanting to be better. Better than her even. No matter how hard I tried though, my work was always getting in the mix with hers. Until I found my own niche. Like Paige seemed to have. "Deal." I would have shaken on it, but it seemed we weren't able to touch the other. "See you soon, Paige."

Paige Fforde: Paige knew little about all of that, but if he ever asked, she would tell him what she knew. She had no reason to hide information from him. She was tempted to ask how soon, because she was eager to kill her way again, after doing it her sire's way for so long, or Doc's way. Instead she nodded. "Roderic," she said, committing his name to memory. Then she watched his dream progress until the sun rose and woke them both. She didn't interfere or speak, only watched. Then she was awake on the couch in her cabin, staring at the moonlit ceiling. It was another night, but now she had something to look forward to. She felt less aimless.