I feel a little preface is in order.
I wrote "The Death of a Vampire" when I was 12. I'm still extremely proud of it. It was intended to be one out of a series of three vignettes, but the other two refused to cooperate until recently. "Blood and Thirst" is the second of the three vignettes which I finally managed to finish in February. (It only took me seven years. XD) However, after I had gotten it all edited and perfect, my word processor nuked itself and completely corrupted the file. What you will read here is the painfully retyped version based only on what little I could remember. I'm still not entirely satisfied with this version (the original was perfect ;.;), but it's as close as I can make it.
Now, "Blood and Thirst" is the piece I would like the critiques to focus on as I would like for it to follow in the vein of the compellingly tragic tone "The Death of a Vampire" has. Keeping a consistent tone between the vignettes is one of the major issues that I've had, so suggestions and such focusing on that would be much appreciated. And, maybe then, it won't take me another seven years to write the last one. XD
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The Death of a Vampire
They say that a vampire dies if exposed to sunlight. I suppose that is true, although vampires do not perish in a spectacular burst of flame like the stories say. (It would be quite hazardous for the vampire community at large if everyone were so spontaneously combustible.) Oh no. The reality is quite different.
Imagine for a moment that after centuries of hiding away in the cold dark of the subterranean caves that wind their way through the bowels of the earth, you come upon an exit to the world outside. It is night, and the stars shine brightly down upon you, a sight you have not seen for many lifetimes. You forget yourself while gazing at those fiery spheres, your mind wandering to the half-forgotten years spent living with your kin upon the face of the earth. Suddenly, a bright, blazing light appears from nowhere. Its intensity blinds you, burning your darkness-adjusted eyes. The agony goes on until you think you would either die or go mad, until it eventually fades away.
When you open your eyes again, it is as if you have been sent to heaven. The colors surround and overwhelm, the birds sing raucously their morning songs, and the sun gently kisses you with warmth. Never again will you be content with the darkness - forever will you be doomed to seek the light. Rife with grief at every sunset; fearful, hateful of the dark of night; the strain of these emotions will their toll, and eventually, you grow weaker, greyer, transformed into a sunken bag of bones, old.
And then you die.
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Blood and Thirst
Imagine an eternity of loneliness.
Now make it reality.
Centuries of loneliness, centuries of loathing, enemy to everyone, foe to anyone – this is the fate all vampires face.
Now imagine that you are a vampire, and that you have just discovered a means to lessen your suffering, a method to ease your pain.
The discovery would be accidental, of course. After all, you were just defending yourself, your continued existence, pathetic as it is. The instinct for survival runs strong in all of us, like it did then. Driven by necessity, you fought tooth and nail against your attackers, until they were finally driven back by your ferocity, their blood lingering on your tongue.
And the taste of their blood was glorious.
Heady and intoxicating, sweet and tasting of summers spent under lazy suns, of companionship and laughter, home and comfort, it tastes like life, and for one blissful moment you regain all the things you lost. But when the taste fades from your tongue, what then? A return to the pit of despair that is your existence, the loneliness, the emptiness, the hollowness of before.
And that would be unbearable.
So every moonless night, you creep out of your clammy cave and slip through the city, marking your targets, each of them young and vivacious, filled with hopeful dreams, and wait patiently for the perfect moment, that particular instant when they become most vulnerable, before snatching them away for a tiny bite.
But soon enough, one small bite is not enough to slake your thirst, so you take a larger bite, just a little more blood, and bit more, and some more, until you reach the point where the blood from just one body is not enough – you need two, three, four to even begin to quench your thirst. But the thirst is merely satisfied for the barest of moments before it returns, renewed, with doubled intensity.
You dare not skip a single night for the pain, the agony, of going without is too much to bear and survive once more. You slay many to quench that omnipresent thirst, but it continues to grow and grow, a never-ending gnawing need.
And so you continue to kill to feed your thirst, your addiction.
Oh yes. Blood is an addiction, one you slaughter for – slaughter, and enjoy the act of slaughtering.
The death toll rises uncontrollably, yet you continue to kill until every man, woman, and child within your reach lies dead, their blood drained to slake your never-ending thirst. You murder until every drop of blood has been wrenched from every single corpse, until there is no more blood to be had.
Until you are forced to face the fact that you have become a monster.
