ESC joy and new fic
THE ARK ARE OFF TO THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST IN HELSINKI!!
Yes, yes, yes. This is so good. Ola Salo will bewitch the whole of Europe, I'm rather sure of that. *happy sigh* Oh, Ola. *silly grin*
Also, NEW vampire short story by Yours Truly! :D This time it's NOT about Ryan, my dearest vamp, but about one that I knew practically nothing of until I started writing this...
Edited and translated from Latin by L. Antonius Mauricus
The Final Words
Part I
This is my last will. My confession.
I wish to tell you about a period of my life that I myself find very tragic. I want others to learn from it, so that they do not commit the same mistakes as I did. I will try to make it as short and painless as possible (which I suspect will be difficult), but before I begin, please listen to this:
I was not born as I am now. I was not born with the urge to drink blood. I was not born with a body that does not age. I was born a human, just like anybody else in this unfair world. I was given the name Marcus Laetonius, Laetonius being my family name. Later on I received the nickname Falco, since my nose was somewhat crooked and reminiscent of a falcon’s beak.
My life then was a common life in a Roman city, among beggars and merchants and nobles. It was a lively city of the smaller kind. I’m afraid to say it is dead, abandoned, since half a century ago. The plague struck it, and the few survivors decided to flee. A wise decision.
I have visited the ruins a few times.
The places where I used to play as a child.
The alley where I shared my first kiss with a pretty girl.
The brothel where I lost my virginity to a seductive prostitute.
The place outside the city, an empty country road seldom travelled, where I lost my life.
I was stabbed by thieves, like so many others before me, and all my money and the possessions I was carrying were stolen. They left me to die, and I did. Everything would have ended there if it was not for someone wanting me to live again.
I was revived by one of the blood-drinkers, another Roman citizen who went by the name of Antonius. I will not tell you the exact transformation from dead human to living blood-drinker, except that his breath in my lungs brought me back to life and that his blood in my veins made me feel a hunger, a thirst, completely new to me. It was frightening at first, because except the urge to bury my teeth (whereof some had become pointed) in some poor human’s neck, there was an incredible change in the way I percepted the world around me.
My sight was much improved, just as my other senses. Sounds and sights could be overwhelming, and together with the sixth sense that I seemed to have developed very soon after my revival, my mind was heavily burdened. I became better at sorting out all of the different impressions as the first months went by. Antonius taught me how to read people’s minds as well as how to fly, how to make myself invisible to unperceptive humans and how to make the best out of a life where you had to hurt and sometimes kill to feel physically fine.
I spent many years travelling, with or without Antonius. I was finally able to see the world that I had read about with my own eyes, and I enjoyed it immensely, in my own silent way. I travelled throughout Europe, seeing how far our Empire had stretched. I reached Germania, with its vast forests and steppes, and spent some years with the tribes there, learning more about their culture than anyone from my city would ever learn. I let my feet wander wherever they wanted to, and they led me on to the green Western lands of the Celts, and later on to the countries in the far, cold North where the people lived very primitive lives indeed, and to the Eastern part of the world, from where the Roman Empire imported the finest silk and spices that could be found. I realized how very small my world had been until Antonius had made me one of his kind.
The only thing that bothered me during these years of movement was the trail of dead human bodies which I left behind me. The animalistic instincts that I now had prevented me from feeling disgust when sucking the blood from all kinds of human necks, but afterwards, I could not help but feeling sad for removing those humans from their families. What I did was evil, I was fully aware that, but still I was thankful for the second life I had been given.
I returned to my home city rich on experiences and secret knowledge of the world. I somehow felt complete, and decided to stay close to my home in the near future. I had no urge left to see the unfamiliar parts of the world. I considered myself a content man who had in his possession everything he would even need.
I had never been so wrong in an assumption before.
Part II
Without warning, I fell in love. This was when my decay began.
Her name was Valeria, and to me she was the most beautiful creature in the universe. She was a human of twenty or so years when I first saw her. She captivated me with her long, dark curls and deep pools for eyes, and I knew I was going to make her one of us. I waited for thirty years before she died, and then I revived her, like Antonius had revived me. I poured my breath into her empty chest and made her breathe again, and when she woke up, the wrinkles in her face were gone and she was a young woman of twenty-five years once again. She drank of my blood and truly became one of my kind.
I taught her the ways of our life, and she accepted them. When I explained things to her, she would look curiously upon me with those lovely eyes. We could be anywhere in the world; in dark chambers lit only by torches and candles, on marble balconies drinking wine in the light of the full moon, high upon green hills with the sun shining down upon us while we sat talking in the high grass - we could be exactly anywhere, and everywhere she watched me with that special look, making me ache to hold her.
I was madly in love with her, and had been so for what felt like an eternity. I told her so one day, embracing her, and my heart exploded in my chest when she embraced me back, whispering softly that she loved me deeply as well, that she had done so from the very moment she woke up from what should have been an eternal sleep. And I, who had thought I was happy that time when I returned home from my travels! That feeling of completeness was nothing compared to what I felt now. Valeria was my lost soul mate, and now I knew I would never be happy without her, because if she left me, she would take a piece of my soul with her.
Our relationship started out as a romance full of passion. We loved, we fought and then loved even more strongly. We were mad about each other, so fascinated by our combined life, so intense in our love it could not have been healthy. We found victims together, making the drinking of their blood an act of love and devotion for each other. We shared our source of life, just as we shared everything else. Such was our relationship for many years.
I was a fool to believe anything like that could last forever. Things began to change. Valeria began to change. At first, her tantrums, which she had on a regular basis, became more frequent. Usually they were followed by hours of making it up to me with a great amount of kisses and love, but now she only walked away, locking herself up in some room or another if we were in a house, or running away from me if we were outside. She wouldn’t come out of her room or return home for days. I desperately longed for her every minute she was gone, but I knew better than trying to comfort her or find her. That would only make it worse. The only thing I could do was to wait in silent agony.
It did not take long until even her tantrums disappeared. She replaced them with silence and a strange, haunted look in her face. It made me very worried, but now and again the old, passionate, curious Valeria would shine through, and it was those moments, however few they were, that kept me calm. I did my best to love her without conditions when she was in one of her silent, depressed moods.
When I think back, I am quite sure that nothing I did would have helped her. She had turned into some sad, unhappy creature unable to give or receive love. It did not matter what I said or did. We were doomed anyway.
One day she was gone. I woke up at the crack of the day, smelling the cool spring morning air that floated in through the open window into my Spartan bedroom - we had not shared a bedroom in a few years - knowing Valeria was not in the house. Our villa by the sea, all white marble and terracotta-coloured stone, had lost the sweet but troubled scent of my dark queen over one night.
She had torn away a piece of my soul when she left, and the pain ripped the rest of me apart. The realization of having lost her was too much, and in a matter of days I was on the verge of going mad. I knew there was no point in searching for her, because, as always, that would not have helped anything. Valeria was not the kind of woman who wanted to be found and saved. She would have regarded it as an insult to her independence. Because I knew this, I remained where I was, lying in my bed, refusing to go out and search for a human whom I could drain to the last drop of blood. I indulged in the pain of dehydration, ignoring everything else.
Our kind don’t die if we don’t drink blood, but our bodies slowly fade away into something like a skeleton with skin draped over it, and we will be in horrible pain for about a month until we fall into a sort of coma. Only large amounts of blood can make us come alive again then. That kind of coma is what I went into for many months of my life.
I had dreams during that period, dreams which desperately made me want to awake, but I couldn’t. I was not able to steer my thoughts along a certain path; my brain seemed to conjure up frightening images of its own. There was no end to these dreams; they came to me constantly without breaks.
I dreamed of Valeria, of course. I saw her being torn apart by blood-red thunderbolts that came from a black sky. I saw her beautiful face, the skin melting away and revealing a demonic skull with fire where the eyes should have been.
I saw myself, walking alongside her, my hair let out over my shoulders, almost as long as hers, my eyes light when hers were dark. We were so similar, yet so different. We were following a path that led to the sea, where a storm raged. The light slipping through the dark clouds was sickly yellow, and the great ocean waves had assumed a dark, grey colour. Valeria and I were walking toward the sea shore, where furious waves hit the colourless sand again and again with tremendous power.
Suddenly this sea of dreams was still, and black, thick ropes - at least it looked like ropes in my imagination - emerged from the now calm water surface. I stood still beside my beloved, watching these tentacles come closer, sliding through the strange light like snakes. They stopped in front of Valeria for a second before swiftly twirling themselves around her motionless body, dragging her into the ocean. I just stood there, watching the storm commence abruptly again.
My love was now on the bottom of a sea of raging madness, dragged there by something which I did not understand. Then, suddenly, I was back in the dream with the red thunderbolts again. It all started over, and I watched strange and frightening and downright disgusting scenarios, new ones added to the old collection each time, all of them including my beloved Valeria.
Part III
I don’t know how long I would have remained in that horrible world of nightmares if no one had come to my salvation. I don’t remember how it was when the dreams started to fade away. I simply remember waking up, my body very stiff and dry, and seeing Antonius’ worried and intellectual face hovering above my eyes.
Apparently I had been devoured by my nightmares for almost a year. I smelled the air, and yes; it was spring, as it had been when I first threw myself on my bed in agony when Valeria left me. Antonius had given me doses of his blood for several days and continued to let me drink of him for a few more days. I slowly turned warm and almost didn’t recognize the feeling of being alive and breathing, blood running in my veins once again.
My creator watched over me for a few weeks, serious as always, stern but caring. Eventually he left me on my own, trusting me to find myself a human every third day or so who could provide me with blood. I did not disappoint him. I took care of myself, living alone for many years in the villa by the sea. I slowly recovered from the terrible loss I had suffered, getting more used to not having Valeria by my side for each day that passed. I did not know if she was dead or alive, even though I suspected her to have died during my coma. I based this assumption on the empty feeling in my chest. Of course, that feeling (contradicting itself by not being actually felt) could be there because of my detachment from everything and everyone. I was a very lonely creature at that time, frightened to let anyone come too close to me in all senses.
Eventually I decided to travel again, but this time I had a very different purpose compared to the time so many years ago, when I simply wanted to see the world. During the years of isolation in my villa, I had done some thinking. I had realized I would not be able to continue living if I did not get to know what had happened to Valeria. I still believed her to be dead, but I had to know for certain, or I would go mad once again.
First, I went to Rome. This was the city where Antonius spent most of his free time in libraries and archives, copying documents and collecting information that he thought might be useful, translating it to many different languages. I told him I was going to travel again, searching for the truth, and I asked him for help, wondering if he knew anything about where Valeria had went after her disappearance. Of course he did. Just like he knew so many other things that he did not tell unless you asked him.
We left Rome together very soon after my arrival there, going north. We flew most of the time, far above the trees on the hills, invisible to anyone looking up from below.
When flying, we simply rise up into the air, and then soar very fast in a certain direction, easily fighting the force that usually keeps us on the ground. It is will that drives us upward, forward. I do not know how it works, except that with my will, I can move myself in the air, just as I move myself on the ground with my feet. Nothing about us changes physically just because we are floating in the air, and the invisibility comes to us by simply wanting not to be seen; everything that we wore or carried was affected by this invisibility as well, and no one would be able to sight us. It is all very practical, and Antonius and I could speed north several times faster than any horse could run.
We reached the north-east part of our home peninsula after barely a week. From above, we could see the trees growing yellow and red, their leaves preparing to fall off later in autumn. It felt as if the approaching winter was represented in my heart. I felt it grow colder, more distant from my brain for every hour that passed. My feelings froze with the first snow that fell in the mountains we crossed. No blood from any village girl could warm it up. I was on a quest for a truth I practically already knew, and I longed for the bliss of oblivion.
After having crossed the mountains, we went east for two weeks. Antonius led the way; I was simply a follower. The landscape shifted below us; green hills became yellow fields, which became mountains and hills and mountains once more. When getting somewhat close to our destination, we left air and started travelling on the ground again. We wandered for days among even more hills, an area populated only by a few people living in scruffy villages far apart. I found it very calm, and the scenery was more dark green than typically autumn-yellow and brown, because these hills were densely covered with firs, several of them many hundred years old. I felt young in their presence. It was a refreshing feeling; to feel like a child, innocent and free, for once.
One day, just after both of us had shared the blood of a young man hunting among the fir trees and hidden his body away among some dry bushes, Antonius told me there was only one day left before we would reach our destination.
“I can feel it” he said. I did not know what he meant. Not yet. I was still empty of all sorts of feelings.
Things changed as we went on, though. While wandering through an ancient forest the morning after Antonius’ revelation, the first rays of the sun reaching through the treetops and shining on our faces, I did begin to feel something. A pull, deep within, dragging me forward, very lightly at first but more strongly for every hour that passed. Once I tried to turn around and walk back. I couldn’t. Now I was being pulled backwards instead. Antonius gave me a knowing, dry smile that did not reach his pale eyes, and we walked on in the direction I knew we both were being pulled.
In the afternoon, the fir trees began to grow further apart and eventually we reached a vast clearing where the grass was dead and yellow, bright as gold in the sharp sunlight. This was our goal; I could feel it. There wasn’t anything pulling me forward anymore. I followed Antonius in silence toward the centre of the clearing, strangely relaxed. I knew that whatever I would find in this faraway place, so far from any real civilization of the Roman kind, I would be content afterwards. If this was not rewarding, Antonius would never have led me here; I was sure of that.
Thirty or so boulders of the smaller kind, all of various shapes, were placed in what looked like a random manner across the middle part of the clearing. As we approached them, the sun hid behind a small, white cloud, and the grass beneath our feet lost its golden tinge. Antonius stopped beside one of the boulders, resting his hand upon its rough, grey surface. I went to stand by his side, gazing out on the little collection of large stones.
“We’re here” my creator said with a sigh. “Welcome to the most secret graveyard in the world. The place where those of our kind can rest in eternal sleep, not ever having to worry about being woken again.”
My gazing transformed into staring. I saw it now. Gravestones. In the middle of a forest, in the middle of nowhere. Incredible.
“Is she here?” I asked, feeling the ice melt away from my heart and making it frighteningly vulnerable. “Is she... resting here?”
“She is” Antonius replied curtly. “We can find her, if you need proof.”
I nodded. I followed him, as I had done for so long, from boulder to boulder. He walked around each of them, bent slightly forward, looking for something on their sides. When we came to the ninth or tenth boulder, he uttered a soft “ah”. He straightened his back and met my eyes, beckoning for me to come.
“Here” he said, pointing at the stone. “Her initials.”
I looked. Carved in the stone were two letters; “VV”.
“Oh gods” I said weakly. Antonius caught me before I fell to the ground. He held me upright and I clung to him, knowing I would fall through the earth if I let go.
“This is where her body lies” my creator continued, gently patting my back. “Her head lies beneath another boulder.”
I froze. Before I could say anything, Antonius continued, with a voice without feeling;
“That’s how it’s done here. When we want to die, we ask someone to cut off our head, and then the the head and the body are buried in separate graves. It’s more of a ritual than anything else, really. The head and the body can’t grow together again once they have been separated, as a hand or a leg can. But you already know that; I have told you before. Some of us are doubtful, though, and it was them who started the tradition here. They didn’t want to risk waking up again just because their body usually heals on its own accord. And that’s how it has been since the first of us were buried here. Most of the people getting here are too depressed to care about whether their head and body are buried together or not, so the tradition is still alive...”
I said nothing. I was not exactly in shock, because what my creator said was fairly reasonable. What I felt was sadness. Here, in front of me, below me, was the proof of Valeria being lost to me forever, once and for always. To actually know she was dead was very different from believing that I knew it.
Antonius squeezed my shoulder.
“Do you want to make sure it’s her?” he asked, his voice softer than before. “We can find her head as well. It should be around here somewhere.”
I knew she would have hated me for it, but what did it matter now? I had to be absolutely certain. I must recognize her somehow.
I nodded.
Part IV
The sun had disappeared completely, hiding behind great masses of grey clouds, when we started to remove the earth from the grave of my beloved. Or rather, Antonius started to remove the earth. I couldn’t. It made me feel horrible. My creator worked for the both of us, using the power of his mind to lift large chunks of soil out of the land. He stood on the edge of the hole that had been created in the ground, his arms crossed over his chest, only his eyes moving. I sat further away on the grass, sadly watching the man who had lived so much longer than I and would live so much longer than I. I was doomed, he was not. He was so much stronger than I would ever be. He was dry, serious and cynical, but when it really mattered, he had some of the strongest helping hands I knew of, and I greatly respected him for that.
It was ironic, really; seeing the man I loved the most uncovering the remnants of the woman I loved the most. Ironic and tragic. I did not know whether to laugh or cry; perhaps both would be suiting. I buried my face in my arms for a few moments, silently contemplating this. I could not think for long before I heard Antonius call my name, and I looked up again.
“Come here” he said. “Take a look. Verify it’s her body.”
I rose, staggering before I found my balance. A large heap or dark soil lay beside a rather big, angular gap in the ground. I took the few steps needed before I stood at the edge of the hole that was, in fact, a grave. On the bottom of it lay a skeleton without a skull, clad in the last remnants of a red dress covered with soiled, white embroidery. I recognized it as Valeria’s. It was all the proof I needed.
“Where is her head?” I asked, sounding less solemn and more unaffected than I was. Antonius gazed at me, a bit sadly, saying:
“Look for a stone with two V’s again, with a skull next to them.” He pointed vaguely at the surrounding boulders before lowering his hand again, giving me a compassionate look. “Do you want me bury her again?”
“Please” I said, my voice emotionless.
It didn’t take long until I found the next boulder. It was smaller than the first, and smoother, so the carvings were easier to discover on this one. I spent ten minutes staring at it, wondering what I would find beneath my feet, beneath the dead grass. Antonius finished his work, making it look like nothing had been touched, and joined me. I took a step back, and he started removing the earth with mind power once again.
I watched as pieces of earth flew into the air and landed just an arm’s length from us. I felt something final in the air, something that could not be ignored. This was it, for the last time.
I took a deep breath as I saw a glimpse of white in the dark earth. Carefully, my creator brushed the rest of the earth away with an invisible wind. When the skull of Valeria lay there uncovered, he let it rise up in the air until I could reach it. I looked at it, at the empty eye sockets, the still shiningly white teeth, the corner teeth pointed and slightly longer than the rest, making the skull look demonic, and the hair, dark and tangled, still attached to the top of the skull.
It was her, that was sure. If I had had any doubts before, they were gone now. I kissed my fingers and held them out towards where her lips used to be, hesitating just a second before I pressed them lightly against her teeth. They were cold.
“Rest in peace” I whispered, retracting my hand and letting Antonius lower the skull down into the soil again. This time I watched him lifting the earth back from close by. This was my last goodbye, and I did not want to be far away from my love then. When the last grass-covered clod of earth had been put back, I fell backwards, landing hard on the ground, crying out my pain.
Part V
Antonius carried me away from the gravestones, past the clearing and into the forest again. The sun had begun to sink by now, giving the trees a tinge of red. I was laid down on the soft grass that grew among the firs as well, not only in the clearing. I cried for hours and hours until night came, and the clear sky was filled with stars and the white, full moon emerged from the treetops. Antonius held me all the time, passing over some of his strength. I stopped weeping around midnight, probably just because I had no tears left to shed. The lack of tears made me calmer, though, and eventually I just sat there, face to face with my creator, questions suddenly appearing in my mind, questions which I realized should have been asked earlier.
“Tell me” I said, my voice faint and husky in the darkness, “how did Valeria know about this place? I never told her. I never even knew anything about this.”
Antonius looked serious as always, his eyes glimmering slightly in the moonlight.
“Those who ask questions get answers” he said, “and Valeria asked.”
I was silent for a few moments, not knowing if I should be surprised or not. Of course Antonius had told her where to go if she wanted to die. He was, after all, the one who many of our kind turned to if the wondered something, anything. It was obvious now.
“She was unhappy” my creator continued, making me meet his gaze again after having letting my eyes wander to the bright stars above. “She loved you deeply, but she was unhappy and the last years she couldn’t express her devotion to you. She felt she wasn’t made for this kind of life, so she asked me to help her to end it. I told her about this place, where we can go when we want to die. There is a village about ten miles from here. There are humans there who take care of your execution and burial, just as their ancestors did more than two hundred years ago. The villagers know that a special kind of people come here now and then, wanting to die. No questions are asked, because they know what to do.”
He paused, looking away.
“I was one of the... founders of this graveyard. I realized not everyone was happy with their lives as blood-drinkers, some of them my own creations. I wanted to give them a place where they could finally rest, far away from everything. As you saw out there, there are quite a few who weren’t content.” He laughed; a short and dry sound with a trace of sadness in it. He looked at me, the hint of a smile on his thin lips, barely noticeable in the faint moonlight.
“You never told me about this” I said, only a little accusingly.
Antonius laughed again, and said;
“You never asked.” Pause. “But now you know.”
After that, we sat looking at each other for a while, then rose and began our voyage back home, flying west high above the dark forests.
Part VI
I have now returned to my villa by the sea, but I will not stay here for much longer. I have sold most of the furniture and found a buyer for the house and the surrounding grounds. Antonius will inherit the contents of my library, and he will find the rest of my will together with this document. Hopefully he will let others read it. I am afraid it didn’t become short, or painless, as I intended it to be, but I hope future readers can learn from it. I do not say falling in love is a thing to be avoided at all costs, but I do beg you to be careful. To become too attached to someone, too obsessed, is painful; pain disguised in pleasure. Valeria ripped away a piece of my soul, and the wound hurts. I have now decided to retrieve that piece and sooth my soul in the only way I see possible.
I am going to the graveyard in the east again, and this time I am not going to return.
M. Laetonius Falco
Signed on October 27th in the year of 224
Yes, yes, yes. This is so good. Ola Salo will bewitch the whole of Europe, I'm rather sure of that. *happy sigh* Oh, Ola. *silly grin*
Also, NEW vampire short story by Yours Truly! :D This time it's NOT about Ryan, my dearest vamp, but about one that I knew practically nothing of until I started writing this...
Edited and translated from Latin by L. Antonius Mauricus
The Final Words
Part I
This is my last will. My confession.
I wish to tell you about a period of my life that I myself find very tragic. I want others to learn from it, so that they do not commit the same mistakes as I did. I will try to make it as short and painless as possible (which I suspect will be difficult), but before I begin, please listen to this:
I was not born as I am now. I was not born with the urge to drink blood. I was not born with a body that does not age. I was born a human, just like anybody else in this unfair world. I was given the name Marcus Laetonius, Laetonius being my family name. Later on I received the nickname Falco, since my nose was somewhat crooked and reminiscent of a falcon’s beak.
My life then was a common life in a Roman city, among beggars and merchants and nobles. It was a lively city of the smaller kind. I’m afraid to say it is dead, abandoned, since half a century ago. The plague struck it, and the few survivors decided to flee. A wise decision.
I have visited the ruins a few times.
The places where I used to play as a child.
The alley where I shared my first kiss with a pretty girl.
The brothel where I lost my virginity to a seductive prostitute.
The place outside the city, an empty country road seldom travelled, where I lost my life.
I was stabbed by thieves, like so many others before me, and all my money and the possessions I was carrying were stolen. They left me to die, and I did. Everything would have ended there if it was not for someone wanting me to live again.
I was revived by one of the blood-drinkers, another Roman citizen who went by the name of Antonius. I will not tell you the exact transformation from dead human to living blood-drinker, except that his breath in my lungs brought me back to life and that his blood in my veins made me feel a hunger, a thirst, completely new to me. It was frightening at first, because except the urge to bury my teeth (whereof some had become pointed) in some poor human’s neck, there was an incredible change in the way I percepted the world around me.
My sight was much improved, just as my other senses. Sounds and sights could be overwhelming, and together with the sixth sense that I seemed to have developed very soon after my revival, my mind was heavily burdened. I became better at sorting out all of the different impressions as the first months went by. Antonius taught me how to read people’s minds as well as how to fly, how to make myself invisible to unperceptive humans and how to make the best out of a life where you had to hurt and sometimes kill to feel physically fine.
I spent many years travelling, with or without Antonius. I was finally able to see the world that I had read about with my own eyes, and I enjoyed it immensely, in my own silent way. I travelled throughout Europe, seeing how far our Empire had stretched. I reached Germania, with its vast forests and steppes, and spent some years with the tribes there, learning more about their culture than anyone from my city would ever learn. I let my feet wander wherever they wanted to, and they led me on to the green Western lands of the Celts, and later on to the countries in the far, cold North where the people lived very primitive lives indeed, and to the Eastern part of the world, from where the Roman Empire imported the finest silk and spices that could be found. I realized how very small my world had been until Antonius had made me one of his kind.
The only thing that bothered me during these years of movement was the trail of dead human bodies which I left behind me. The animalistic instincts that I now had prevented me from feeling disgust when sucking the blood from all kinds of human necks, but afterwards, I could not help but feeling sad for removing those humans from their families. What I did was evil, I was fully aware that, but still I was thankful for the second life I had been given.
I returned to my home city rich on experiences and secret knowledge of the world. I somehow felt complete, and decided to stay close to my home in the near future. I had no urge left to see the unfamiliar parts of the world. I considered myself a content man who had in his possession everything he would even need.
I had never been so wrong in an assumption before.
Part II
Without warning, I fell in love. This was when my decay began.
Her name was Valeria, and to me she was the most beautiful creature in the universe. She was a human of twenty or so years when I first saw her. She captivated me with her long, dark curls and deep pools for eyes, and I knew I was going to make her one of us. I waited for thirty years before she died, and then I revived her, like Antonius had revived me. I poured my breath into her empty chest and made her breathe again, and when she woke up, the wrinkles in her face were gone and she was a young woman of twenty-five years once again. She drank of my blood and truly became one of my kind.
I taught her the ways of our life, and she accepted them. When I explained things to her, she would look curiously upon me with those lovely eyes. We could be anywhere in the world; in dark chambers lit only by torches and candles, on marble balconies drinking wine in the light of the full moon, high upon green hills with the sun shining down upon us while we sat talking in the high grass - we could be exactly anywhere, and everywhere she watched me with that special look, making me ache to hold her.
I was madly in love with her, and had been so for what felt like an eternity. I told her so one day, embracing her, and my heart exploded in my chest when she embraced me back, whispering softly that she loved me deeply as well, that she had done so from the very moment she woke up from what should have been an eternal sleep. And I, who had thought I was happy that time when I returned home from my travels! That feeling of completeness was nothing compared to what I felt now. Valeria was my lost soul mate, and now I knew I would never be happy without her, because if she left me, she would take a piece of my soul with her.
Our relationship started out as a romance full of passion. We loved, we fought and then loved even more strongly. We were mad about each other, so fascinated by our combined life, so intense in our love it could not have been healthy. We found victims together, making the drinking of their blood an act of love and devotion for each other. We shared our source of life, just as we shared everything else. Such was our relationship for many years.
I was a fool to believe anything like that could last forever. Things began to change. Valeria began to change. At first, her tantrums, which she had on a regular basis, became more frequent. Usually they were followed by hours of making it up to me with a great amount of kisses and love, but now she only walked away, locking herself up in some room or another if we were in a house, or running away from me if we were outside. She wouldn’t come out of her room or return home for days. I desperately longed for her every minute she was gone, but I knew better than trying to comfort her or find her. That would only make it worse. The only thing I could do was to wait in silent agony.
It did not take long until even her tantrums disappeared. She replaced them with silence and a strange, haunted look in her face. It made me very worried, but now and again the old, passionate, curious Valeria would shine through, and it was those moments, however few they were, that kept me calm. I did my best to love her without conditions when she was in one of her silent, depressed moods.
When I think back, I am quite sure that nothing I did would have helped her. She had turned into some sad, unhappy creature unable to give or receive love. It did not matter what I said or did. We were doomed anyway.
One day she was gone. I woke up at the crack of the day, smelling the cool spring morning air that floated in through the open window into my Spartan bedroom - we had not shared a bedroom in a few years - knowing Valeria was not in the house. Our villa by the sea, all white marble and terracotta-coloured stone, had lost the sweet but troubled scent of my dark queen over one night.
She had torn away a piece of my soul when she left, and the pain ripped the rest of me apart. The realization of having lost her was too much, and in a matter of days I was on the verge of going mad. I knew there was no point in searching for her, because, as always, that would not have helped anything. Valeria was not the kind of woman who wanted to be found and saved. She would have regarded it as an insult to her independence. Because I knew this, I remained where I was, lying in my bed, refusing to go out and search for a human whom I could drain to the last drop of blood. I indulged in the pain of dehydration, ignoring everything else.
Our kind don’t die if we don’t drink blood, but our bodies slowly fade away into something like a skeleton with skin draped over it, and we will be in horrible pain for about a month until we fall into a sort of coma. Only large amounts of blood can make us come alive again then. That kind of coma is what I went into for many months of my life.
I had dreams during that period, dreams which desperately made me want to awake, but I couldn’t. I was not able to steer my thoughts along a certain path; my brain seemed to conjure up frightening images of its own. There was no end to these dreams; they came to me constantly without breaks.
I dreamed of Valeria, of course. I saw her being torn apart by blood-red thunderbolts that came from a black sky. I saw her beautiful face, the skin melting away and revealing a demonic skull with fire where the eyes should have been.
I saw myself, walking alongside her, my hair let out over my shoulders, almost as long as hers, my eyes light when hers were dark. We were so similar, yet so different. We were following a path that led to the sea, where a storm raged. The light slipping through the dark clouds was sickly yellow, and the great ocean waves had assumed a dark, grey colour. Valeria and I were walking toward the sea shore, where furious waves hit the colourless sand again and again with tremendous power.
Suddenly this sea of dreams was still, and black, thick ropes - at least it looked like ropes in my imagination - emerged from the now calm water surface. I stood still beside my beloved, watching these tentacles come closer, sliding through the strange light like snakes. They stopped in front of Valeria for a second before swiftly twirling themselves around her motionless body, dragging her into the ocean. I just stood there, watching the storm commence abruptly again.
My love was now on the bottom of a sea of raging madness, dragged there by something which I did not understand. Then, suddenly, I was back in the dream with the red thunderbolts again. It all started over, and I watched strange and frightening and downright disgusting scenarios, new ones added to the old collection each time, all of them including my beloved Valeria.
Part III
I don’t know how long I would have remained in that horrible world of nightmares if no one had come to my salvation. I don’t remember how it was when the dreams started to fade away. I simply remember waking up, my body very stiff and dry, and seeing Antonius’ worried and intellectual face hovering above my eyes.
Apparently I had been devoured by my nightmares for almost a year. I smelled the air, and yes; it was spring, as it had been when I first threw myself on my bed in agony when Valeria left me. Antonius had given me doses of his blood for several days and continued to let me drink of him for a few more days. I slowly turned warm and almost didn’t recognize the feeling of being alive and breathing, blood running in my veins once again.
My creator watched over me for a few weeks, serious as always, stern but caring. Eventually he left me on my own, trusting me to find myself a human every third day or so who could provide me with blood. I did not disappoint him. I took care of myself, living alone for many years in the villa by the sea. I slowly recovered from the terrible loss I had suffered, getting more used to not having Valeria by my side for each day that passed. I did not know if she was dead or alive, even though I suspected her to have died during my coma. I based this assumption on the empty feeling in my chest. Of course, that feeling (contradicting itself by not being actually felt) could be there because of my detachment from everything and everyone. I was a very lonely creature at that time, frightened to let anyone come too close to me in all senses.
Eventually I decided to travel again, but this time I had a very different purpose compared to the time so many years ago, when I simply wanted to see the world. During the years of isolation in my villa, I had done some thinking. I had realized I would not be able to continue living if I did not get to know what had happened to Valeria. I still believed her to be dead, but I had to know for certain, or I would go mad once again.
First, I went to Rome. This was the city where Antonius spent most of his free time in libraries and archives, copying documents and collecting information that he thought might be useful, translating it to many different languages. I told him I was going to travel again, searching for the truth, and I asked him for help, wondering if he knew anything about where Valeria had went after her disappearance. Of course he did. Just like he knew so many other things that he did not tell unless you asked him.
We left Rome together very soon after my arrival there, going north. We flew most of the time, far above the trees on the hills, invisible to anyone looking up from below.
When flying, we simply rise up into the air, and then soar very fast in a certain direction, easily fighting the force that usually keeps us on the ground. It is will that drives us upward, forward. I do not know how it works, except that with my will, I can move myself in the air, just as I move myself on the ground with my feet. Nothing about us changes physically just because we are floating in the air, and the invisibility comes to us by simply wanting not to be seen; everything that we wore or carried was affected by this invisibility as well, and no one would be able to sight us. It is all very practical, and Antonius and I could speed north several times faster than any horse could run.
We reached the north-east part of our home peninsula after barely a week. From above, we could see the trees growing yellow and red, their leaves preparing to fall off later in autumn. It felt as if the approaching winter was represented in my heart. I felt it grow colder, more distant from my brain for every hour that passed. My feelings froze with the first snow that fell in the mountains we crossed. No blood from any village girl could warm it up. I was on a quest for a truth I practically already knew, and I longed for the bliss of oblivion.
After having crossed the mountains, we went east for two weeks. Antonius led the way; I was simply a follower. The landscape shifted below us; green hills became yellow fields, which became mountains and hills and mountains once more. When getting somewhat close to our destination, we left air and started travelling on the ground again. We wandered for days among even more hills, an area populated only by a few people living in scruffy villages far apart. I found it very calm, and the scenery was more dark green than typically autumn-yellow and brown, because these hills were densely covered with firs, several of them many hundred years old. I felt young in their presence. It was a refreshing feeling; to feel like a child, innocent and free, for once.
One day, just after both of us had shared the blood of a young man hunting among the fir trees and hidden his body away among some dry bushes, Antonius told me there was only one day left before we would reach our destination.
“I can feel it” he said. I did not know what he meant. Not yet. I was still empty of all sorts of feelings.
Things changed as we went on, though. While wandering through an ancient forest the morning after Antonius’ revelation, the first rays of the sun reaching through the treetops and shining on our faces, I did begin to feel something. A pull, deep within, dragging me forward, very lightly at first but more strongly for every hour that passed. Once I tried to turn around and walk back. I couldn’t. Now I was being pulled backwards instead. Antonius gave me a knowing, dry smile that did not reach his pale eyes, and we walked on in the direction I knew we both were being pulled.
In the afternoon, the fir trees began to grow further apart and eventually we reached a vast clearing where the grass was dead and yellow, bright as gold in the sharp sunlight. This was our goal; I could feel it. There wasn’t anything pulling me forward anymore. I followed Antonius in silence toward the centre of the clearing, strangely relaxed. I knew that whatever I would find in this faraway place, so far from any real civilization of the Roman kind, I would be content afterwards. If this was not rewarding, Antonius would never have led me here; I was sure of that.
Thirty or so boulders of the smaller kind, all of various shapes, were placed in what looked like a random manner across the middle part of the clearing. As we approached them, the sun hid behind a small, white cloud, and the grass beneath our feet lost its golden tinge. Antonius stopped beside one of the boulders, resting his hand upon its rough, grey surface. I went to stand by his side, gazing out on the little collection of large stones.
“We’re here” my creator said with a sigh. “Welcome to the most secret graveyard in the world. The place where those of our kind can rest in eternal sleep, not ever having to worry about being woken again.”
My gazing transformed into staring. I saw it now. Gravestones. In the middle of a forest, in the middle of nowhere. Incredible.
“Is she here?” I asked, feeling the ice melt away from my heart and making it frighteningly vulnerable. “Is she... resting here?”
“She is” Antonius replied curtly. “We can find her, if you need proof.”
I nodded. I followed him, as I had done for so long, from boulder to boulder. He walked around each of them, bent slightly forward, looking for something on their sides. When we came to the ninth or tenth boulder, he uttered a soft “ah”. He straightened his back and met my eyes, beckoning for me to come.
“Here” he said, pointing at the stone. “Her initials.”
I looked. Carved in the stone were two letters; “VV”.
“Oh gods” I said weakly. Antonius caught me before I fell to the ground. He held me upright and I clung to him, knowing I would fall through the earth if I let go.
“This is where her body lies” my creator continued, gently patting my back. “Her head lies beneath another boulder.”
I froze. Before I could say anything, Antonius continued, with a voice without feeling;
“That’s how it’s done here. When we want to die, we ask someone to cut off our head, and then the the head and the body are buried in separate graves. It’s more of a ritual than anything else, really. The head and the body can’t grow together again once they have been separated, as a hand or a leg can. But you already know that; I have told you before. Some of us are doubtful, though, and it was them who started the tradition here. They didn’t want to risk waking up again just because their body usually heals on its own accord. And that’s how it has been since the first of us were buried here. Most of the people getting here are too depressed to care about whether their head and body are buried together or not, so the tradition is still alive...”
I said nothing. I was not exactly in shock, because what my creator said was fairly reasonable. What I felt was sadness. Here, in front of me, below me, was the proof of Valeria being lost to me forever, once and for always. To actually know she was dead was very different from believing that I knew it.
Antonius squeezed my shoulder.
“Do you want to make sure it’s her?” he asked, his voice softer than before. “We can find her head as well. It should be around here somewhere.”
I knew she would have hated me for it, but what did it matter now? I had to be absolutely certain. I must recognize her somehow.
I nodded.
Part IV
The sun had disappeared completely, hiding behind great masses of grey clouds, when we started to remove the earth from the grave of my beloved. Or rather, Antonius started to remove the earth. I couldn’t. It made me feel horrible. My creator worked for the both of us, using the power of his mind to lift large chunks of soil out of the land. He stood on the edge of the hole that had been created in the ground, his arms crossed over his chest, only his eyes moving. I sat further away on the grass, sadly watching the man who had lived so much longer than I and would live so much longer than I. I was doomed, he was not. He was so much stronger than I would ever be. He was dry, serious and cynical, but when it really mattered, he had some of the strongest helping hands I knew of, and I greatly respected him for that.
It was ironic, really; seeing the man I loved the most uncovering the remnants of the woman I loved the most. Ironic and tragic. I did not know whether to laugh or cry; perhaps both would be suiting. I buried my face in my arms for a few moments, silently contemplating this. I could not think for long before I heard Antonius call my name, and I looked up again.
“Come here” he said. “Take a look. Verify it’s her body.”
I rose, staggering before I found my balance. A large heap or dark soil lay beside a rather big, angular gap in the ground. I took the few steps needed before I stood at the edge of the hole that was, in fact, a grave. On the bottom of it lay a skeleton without a skull, clad in the last remnants of a red dress covered with soiled, white embroidery. I recognized it as Valeria’s. It was all the proof I needed.
“Where is her head?” I asked, sounding less solemn and more unaffected than I was. Antonius gazed at me, a bit sadly, saying:
“Look for a stone with two V’s again, with a skull next to them.” He pointed vaguely at the surrounding boulders before lowering his hand again, giving me a compassionate look. “Do you want me bury her again?”
“Please” I said, my voice emotionless.
It didn’t take long until I found the next boulder. It was smaller than the first, and smoother, so the carvings were easier to discover on this one. I spent ten minutes staring at it, wondering what I would find beneath my feet, beneath the dead grass. Antonius finished his work, making it look like nothing had been touched, and joined me. I took a step back, and he started removing the earth with mind power once again.
I watched as pieces of earth flew into the air and landed just an arm’s length from us. I felt something final in the air, something that could not be ignored. This was it, for the last time.
I took a deep breath as I saw a glimpse of white in the dark earth. Carefully, my creator brushed the rest of the earth away with an invisible wind. When the skull of Valeria lay there uncovered, he let it rise up in the air until I could reach it. I looked at it, at the empty eye sockets, the still shiningly white teeth, the corner teeth pointed and slightly longer than the rest, making the skull look demonic, and the hair, dark and tangled, still attached to the top of the skull.
It was her, that was sure. If I had had any doubts before, they were gone now. I kissed my fingers and held them out towards where her lips used to be, hesitating just a second before I pressed them lightly against her teeth. They were cold.
“Rest in peace” I whispered, retracting my hand and letting Antonius lower the skull down into the soil again. This time I watched him lifting the earth back from close by. This was my last goodbye, and I did not want to be far away from my love then. When the last grass-covered clod of earth had been put back, I fell backwards, landing hard on the ground, crying out my pain.
Part V
Antonius carried me away from the gravestones, past the clearing and into the forest again. The sun had begun to sink by now, giving the trees a tinge of red. I was laid down on the soft grass that grew among the firs as well, not only in the clearing. I cried for hours and hours until night came, and the clear sky was filled with stars and the white, full moon emerged from the treetops. Antonius held me all the time, passing over some of his strength. I stopped weeping around midnight, probably just because I had no tears left to shed. The lack of tears made me calmer, though, and eventually I just sat there, face to face with my creator, questions suddenly appearing in my mind, questions which I realized should have been asked earlier.
“Tell me” I said, my voice faint and husky in the darkness, “how did Valeria know about this place? I never told her. I never even knew anything about this.”
Antonius looked serious as always, his eyes glimmering slightly in the moonlight.
“Those who ask questions get answers” he said, “and Valeria asked.”
I was silent for a few moments, not knowing if I should be surprised or not. Of course Antonius had told her where to go if she wanted to die. He was, after all, the one who many of our kind turned to if the wondered something, anything. It was obvious now.
“She was unhappy” my creator continued, making me meet his gaze again after having letting my eyes wander to the bright stars above. “She loved you deeply, but she was unhappy and the last years she couldn’t express her devotion to you. She felt she wasn’t made for this kind of life, so she asked me to help her to end it. I told her about this place, where we can go when we want to die. There is a village about ten miles from here. There are humans there who take care of your execution and burial, just as their ancestors did more than two hundred years ago. The villagers know that a special kind of people come here now and then, wanting to die. No questions are asked, because they know what to do.”
He paused, looking away.
“I was one of the... founders of this graveyard. I realized not everyone was happy with their lives as blood-drinkers, some of them my own creations. I wanted to give them a place where they could finally rest, far away from everything. As you saw out there, there are quite a few who weren’t content.” He laughed; a short and dry sound with a trace of sadness in it. He looked at me, the hint of a smile on his thin lips, barely noticeable in the faint moonlight.
“You never told me about this” I said, only a little accusingly.
Antonius laughed again, and said;
“You never asked.” Pause. “But now you know.”
After that, we sat looking at each other for a while, then rose and began our voyage back home, flying west high above the dark forests.
Part VI
I have now returned to my villa by the sea, but I will not stay here for much longer. I have sold most of the furniture and found a buyer for the house and the surrounding grounds. Antonius will inherit the contents of my library, and he will find the rest of my will together with this document. Hopefully he will let others read it. I am afraid it didn’t become short, or painless, as I intended it to be, but I hope future readers can learn from it. I do not say falling in love is a thing to be avoided at all costs, but I do beg you to be careful. To become too attached to someone, too obsessed, is painful; pain disguised in pleasure. Valeria ripped away a piece of my soul, and the wound hurts. I have now decided to retrieve that piece and sooth my soul in the only way I see possible.
I am going to the graveyard in the east again, and this time I am not going to return.
M. Laetonius Falco
Signed on October 27th in the year of 224