Young Writers Society

If you want to know the truth about the undead, then it should first be understood that it is not a concept to be romanticised. There is no seductive charm acquired by the existence, no chilling, fairy-tale like love life that comes with the package of eternal unrest. In fact, assuming that love is just a mere feeling triggered by the variety of chemical functions and movements within our shells love is not relevant to the undead. Because our bloody interiors no longer reside within us, are no longer alive.

One hundred years it’s been, One hundred years since I last took a lively breath. I was hunting in the woods for Deer. Deer to feed my family. I was an only child, and lived in a lonely cottage alongside my frail Mother and Father. Tough. We lived at least 10km away from the nearest town, so ironically I got less human contact with people other than my parents, more than now. Funny. There were however, friends I’d made at school when I went. But after my ninth school year I had to leave so I could help Father with the farm, so the friends I’d made then dwindled over time.

At the peak of sunrise, I’d wake and carry out my daily routine of embarking on a beast hungry journey through the woods. Ignorant of the kind of beast I’d have a close encounter with, a closer encounter than imaginable. Father would remain in the field at home, tending the plants, harvesting the corn. Mother would be cooking, brewing up a hot pot of porridge for when the men returned from their duties.

The way I recount my past sounds quite pleasant now, but at the time it was all too dull to be bearable. It was just the same black and white routine. Every single day.

If you’d asked me to tell you about my life one hundred years earlier, I would’ve explained bluntly and quite gloomily how absurdly plain my life was. But now I question, is plain so bad as compared to barren?

My one highlight for the day used to be trekking up the mountains, searching for our meals and clothing. The mossy, wet river scent enticed my nostrils, and allured my tastebuds into tasting the abundance in harmony, causing them to dance to the sweet taste of nature. The chill of the morning air excited me, calmed the tension provoked my restless boredom. The leaves and dirt on the ground would crunch together musically at each step I took. Slightly startling the birds of the woods, urging them to tweet and chirp quite rhythmically. The walk was a lot like a song being composed each morning, every time with a unique twist of a conclusion to take home to share. But one day, the story would never come home.

The fog, another misty beauty, thick and refreshing. Much like floating snowflakes, that tantalise the brain with a soothing frosty aroma, serving as a relaxant. I loved the mist, the exhilarating anticipation that accompanied it. What would come into view next, the deeper I travelled?

One morning, I awoke earlier. Anxious to explore, aware it was the height of white-tail deer breeding season. It was still dark, the sun had delayed it’s awakening. Off I went, to roam in the woods. I reached the half-way mark on the mountain trail, when the beginning of my death….began. I don’t know why, and I don’t know how, but above in the trees, I heard the sound of something heavy aggressively rustling through the branches. Moving threateningly and uncontrollably against the wind, towards me, this frightening movement in a split second, screamed desperation, desperation to achieve, to satisfy, to quench.

My hypothesising concluded when the rush of winter air penetrated me with fear. Or so I thought it was the winter air, but it was too quick and horrifying to be so, even quicker than a rough wind. I could not rise, and there was pain in my neck, a throbbing pain, as if I’d been stabbed brutally with a fork. And so I finally noticed that something was plastered against me. The wind seemed to grow stronger, but then it wasn’t the wind, but the airy sound of relief stricken breath, inhalation and exhalation. Breathe which cried hopeless gratitude and survival. At each breath, my vision dimmed and slowly I fell into a terrifying fatigue. And before I collapsed into blackness, my eyes caught sight of a silhouette of what appeared to be man. But man it was not, man it had been, but man it now was not.

I had been severed. Severed of my heart and soul. Life and breath. No more would I be privileged to call myself a man, now I was a beast. There isn’t much need in explaining what I became, because I’m sure you know. I arose later in a fit of panic, drowning in sweat and tears. The last tears I’d ever shed. I rolled around the soil with dread, now agitated by the once serene sounds of nature. It was all amplified now, attacking my ears loudly with hate. I couldn’t get up, I was paralysed, exploding with emotion. Fear, anger, cheer and dread, all combined into one, which equalled surreal discomfort. This was the process of my emotional withdrawal.

After what felt like a millennium passed, my debilitating fit stopped, and once again I sank into unconsciousness, after what seemed like a moment later, I again arose to find myself sizzling like a steak from the glare of the sun. Yes, that is cliché’ but it was like that. I knew it was the sun, because it felt as though the sun’ usual warming blaze was completely directed at me, but closer, thus hotter. I quickly escaped the scorching fire, and retreated into a snake hole, luckily big enough for me to fit. And there I rested, for days until hunger striked.

So now, 100 years later I am still standing, still roaming the Earth in my dead form, unable to interact with the living, or feel anything human. My only purpose is to carry on, live on, so I don’t die again. Survive among the living, feast on friends. There is nothing else I feel, nothing works anymore. I’m completely barren of anything inside, anything ‘alive’. I live in a thick, hollow tree trunk, saturated with filth and wild bird excrements. I often rotate trunks, so not to get caught by hunters.

Let me be bluntly honest, as a young man does, I used to masturbate frequently. To the deliciously heated thought of Sarah Louis ( a woman I was once acquainted with) naked in my arms. I used to melt, and cough pathetically with pleasure, just at the fantasy where I’d bring her down and come all over her. The blood rushed, creating unbelievable arousal. Yet when I reminisce about it now, the memory does not trigger any of those feelings at all.

It’s gone. All gone. I’ll never feel that again, because I have no more blood to rush. Never will I ever ejaculate into a woman. And so badly did I crave that experience. Everything is cold and emotionless. I’m not even depressed about it, I just feel obliged to share.

I see things differently to how I used to, my vision fades when I’m hungry. And all that floods my mind is death and blood lust. I kill and feel nothing. When I feed, I feel nothing but satisfaction from quenching the thirst. I even murdered my own parents, because they were the closest in range at the time. They were my first unfortunate victims, but not the best. The older humans are bland in taste. You’d think I would of felt guilty, and resisted. And I tried, but it couldn’t and didn’t. I just wanted a drink.

So I killed them, and being my first victims, a horrid mess was made in the process. I remember dragging my weak self across the field, limping, where I could see my father herding sheep. And when he caught my starving gaze, he leaped toward me with thankful shock. “My son!” he shouted endearingly “My dear boy!” He wept, I saw.

And that was that. He got close enough for me to kill him. I panted aggressively, not removing y bloodshot gaze from his. When he reached down to help me up I ripped his head off savagely, and chewed his veins and arteries like a petty dog chewed a bone. He didn’t even have time to scream, there was only a brief moment of surprise that he was able to have felt, which I noticed from the sudden change from a beaming smile to a wide mouthed breathless scream.

I didn’t cease to devour my Father until; I reached the brittle and crunch of his bones. I was slowly regaining energy again, but it still was not enough for me to advance into my old home to kill my Mother. She had heard no racket.

It was for a few long minutes that I lay down against the grass, resting with relief, tired after a filling meal. But my eyes did not close, instinct ordered me to pin them towards the cottage door, where my Mother would eventually exit from. She came out from the cottage, ringing the dinner bell for Father. Her eyes searching for any sight of him, as she usually did. But then I imagine, among the green her eyes locked on the red blotch in her vision. The blood bath in her backyard.

I couldn’t help but stare at my next victim with an exhilarating hunger, I remember I chewed on my own lower lip, I was so hungry. How I wanted to tear her into two and gnaw on the muscle in her breasts. A different kind of treat this time. She let out a horrified shriek of disgust, dropped the bell and ran for her life, screaming, towards the woods. She didn’t recognise me, I knew that. But that was probably better anyway. I pulled myself up clumsily an proceeded to hunt her down, running, motivated by the terrible hunger that throbbed within, increasing my speed abnormally. I caught up with her instantaneously, and she could feel my presence, because the volume of her shrieks increased as I got closer. Finally, she tripped over a log and went and slammed her head into rock. Knocking herself out, ceasing the screams. That made it all so easy. I felt not attachment for her. You’d think I would’ve took the time to observe her and reminisce about all she had done for me when I as a boy, but I did not. I launched onto her neck without any hesitation and clawed her eyes and neck, ripping out flesh and muscle, dribbling it into my mouth. She tasted better than my Father, she was younger. When it was over, I just got up and left, unaware of where I could venture. There was no beauty now, so little need to explore. My home became the woods, and forever the woods will it be.

And so the countless days passed, until today. Where I feasted on many a human, and thoroughly appreciated the taste. For that is the only thing I enjoy now, drinking the blood of my former brothers and sisters. No matter who they are, just as long as my pallet is satisfied.