Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[removed]

When I changed, the vampire that sired me explained things to me. I was stronger, faster, more durable, had a range of abilities unobtainable for humans such as shapeshifting, and no longer needed to sleep. All the "lore" surrounding vampires were fallacies spread by them to divert suspicion. Running water? Not a problem. Garlic? A delicious addition to any meal. Sunlight? Actually less deadly than when I was human, and definitely none of that sparkly fairy bullshit that was popularised by that one terrible series of books and films. Crosses or other holy symbols? Ineffective. While no longer impeded by the creep of time or illness, we can still be killed - though it is considerably more difficult than killing a human. The one truth is the thirst for blood. We do not die without it, but it intensifies until we begin to lose all reason. Go long enough without, and we devolve into animalistic creatures that hunt and feed without caution. A fully grown adult can sustain me for roughly a year if I fully drain them, before I begin to feel adverse effects; small feedings more frequently is better, as I can avoid killing that way.

He also imparted a few warnings: do not feed indiscriminately; avoid killing the innocent; do not feed on high profile individuals; always wipe the memory of those I feed from; do not expose us by using my powers carelessly. As long as I didn't risk exposing our society, I could do whatever I wanted. His final words before leaving me to figure out what I wanted to do with my new life were cryptic at the time: "Remember, you are what you eat." Vague bastard could have explained it more clearly! Instead, I am now realising exactly what those words mean.

I've spent the last 150 years as a vampire, learning everything I could, dabbling in sports, making a name for myself before "dying in a freak accident" and starting a new life with a new face. I've been a professional athlete, a university professor, a cardiovascular surgeon, and myriad other things over the course of my life. And throughout it all, I've stuck to hunting the scum of the earth for my sustenance. Murderers, rapists, abusers, you name it I hunted and killed them. One a year, the worst of those who escape the paltry justice of the mortals. I suppose I fancied myself a bit of a champion of justice, an avenger if you will. I was doing a service.

Recently, though, I've realised that I've changed. I'm no longer hunting and quickly killing them. I'm stalking them, always at the edge of their perception - an ever present shadow that vanishes the moment they're consciously aware of me. I find myself enjoying the fear I inspire within them, the look of terror in their eyes as I finally corner them, the desperation as they try to fight off the inevitability of their punishment. I torment them, breaking their resistance and will with my superior abilities. One of my powers is illusionary visions; I can make them see things. So I show them the greatest horrors of the various hells that humans have believed in throughout history. I take the form of terrifying demons and creatures that should exist only in nightmares.

It seems a diet of the sadistic has had an impact on me. Personally, I don't see this as a problem.

[removed]

I could hear the bass strings thrumming. A beat tap-tapping in my head. The blood flowing in my veins. I sucked a long breath through my cigar--Cuban, imported--tipped my hat to a dame striding past through the lamp light, her heels ringing like an iron-shod horse in the night. The cracked asphalt glittered wet in the glow of the streetlamp, a thousand shining coins all vying for my eyes. Church bells tolled out the hour. The priest would not be returning. Not tonight, not tomorrow. I could hear the tune picking up between my ears, Leonard Cohen's melodic growl vibrating my chest, mixing with the scent of cigar, touching the dark.

If you are the dealer, I am out of the game. If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame.

I could feel the last parting struggle. The priest thrusting his crucifix in my face between his last dying gasps. The bass thrummed. Bum bum bum bum, boom boom.

"O pater ubi est?" the priest had cried; Father where are you? Father was not looking. He had not looked in some time, His sons trembling and falling on their knees, forgotten. Who's sons? God's? Wind tugged softly at my suit jacket, a child pulling at his father's coat. That child was long gone. I had not looked back. The Lord would forgive, the preists had said. Cohen's voice drifted with the wind,

If thine is the glory, then mine must be the shame. You want it darker. We kill the flame.

The soft yellow lamp flickered over the church front, the Son of God hanging in anguish on the cross over the door. The late sprinkle had left rainwater collecting, which now rolled over His twisted face. Tears of the abandoned God. I sucked another breath through the cigar, studied it, feeling a stab of shame. These priests...

My mouth still tasted of the last one's blood, mixing with the rich tobacco, an odd hue of flavor. But not altogether repulsive. Repulsive. The priest in confessional. His voice still grating through the dark wicker window.

"Dominus poenitenti non ignoscit." The Lord does not forgive the unrepentant. That was me the father had accused. Bum bum bum bum, boom boom. The bass resonated in my skull, Cohen sending up his chant,

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name. Vilified, crucified in the human frame. A million candles burning for the help that never came. You want it darker.

Maybe the priests were right. I gazed upon that weeping God, suspended in memoriam over those church doors. Holy water, crucifixes, forgiveness and blight. The dark seemed to press in around me, curling at the fringes of the streetlamp's golden cast. I had become some stoic, some old philosopher. A lone sinner cowering beneath the only light in the dark. Wet leaves and tobacco softly touched the air, the church creaked in the mild breeze. Death waited around the corner. I could feel it. Judgement in the air. Fire and brimstone. I cracked a smile beneath the hard cast shadow of my hat under the lamp, I could imagine my noir stance, sharp teeth sparkling white against the black suit and blue lagoon of the night, a striking pose. Did the priests think of themselves this way? Calling the Lord's might in front of the masses--the shepherds of the flock--arms raised high like an avenging angel to strike down the sinner? Now we were too much alike, those holy men and I. Weeping and forgotten. A vampire's unquenchable thirst turned away the face of God. Tap, tap, tap, the beat echoing down the street, blood dripping on the floor.

I saw myself, a child alone in that cold, dark confessional. The priest on the other side, "Christus pulsat, respondebis filio meo?" The Lord knocks, will you answer my son? His blood still wet my tongue. That child was lost. Bum bum bum bum, boom boom. The bass sounded out from the church tower. Which side of the confessional was I on now?

I took one final pull from my cigar, tipped my hat to that Son of God hanging above the church. I strolled out of the lamp light into the cold, wet dark, Cohen's voice settling my heart,

Hineni hineni, I'm ready my Lord.

-----------

Thanks for the prompt OP. Hope this is somewhat enjoyable, listening to Leonard Cohen's "You Want it Darker" set the scene as soon as I read your prompt, not sure that's really what the song's intentions were but... Hopefully the Latin is correct, I pulled it off a translator :P Edits* A line, grammar.

It all started out so well.

I had wanted to flee into the woods and let myself fade before ever biting anyone, at first. After a short while, though, I decided that I could find a new purpose.

The one who turned me said that my superior strength and immortality came at a cost beyond avoiding the sunlight.

I thought it was a joke. “You are what you eat.”

Before I realized how wrong I had been, it was already too late.

I went after the worst criminals in the city, draining them completely so that they couldn’t come back in the same way as I had. I would be damned for my murders—but wasn’t I damned already? At least this way, I could put some positive points back in my ledger.

As time went on, I became less discriminating. Murdering the worst of society could only last for so long before those people began to hide.

The streets began to empty at night.

But still, I hungered.

One day, after catching a petty thief and leaving them lifeless in an alleyway, I realized just how far I had strayed from my original mission.

There was only one way back.

The child couldn’t have been older than seven. She had just won a teddy bear at the carnival ring toss, and she gave it to her younger brother as a gift. Then, she ran off to the next game at the carnival on her own…

By the time that I recovered enough goodness in my soul to realize the extent of my atrocity, she was already gone.

If you liked this, check out my subreddit! r/NicodemusLux

This was where I expected this prompt to lead.

It was easy. It was simple. It was so, so straightforward.

They can't run. They can barely walk. So they can't flee me. And hide? Ha! Their hearts might as well be big, thumpy locator beacons.

So I went after the easy food. People so lazy, so obese that they had trouble moving. People who would barely get out of bed, living in only one room, hiring a maid to clean the house and buy the groceries.

Dead easy to catch. A bit harder to wipe their memories, because even seeing a stranger was an Event in their eyes; but when I was the maid, then who could they tell? Their online friends would think they were joking, and they never see anyone else...

...but then it began to catch up to me.

I go after the obese, the lazy, the indolent.

What am I becoming?

Well, let's just say that my weight is currently three times what it was when I first became a vampire, and I no longer care to exert my vampiric strength to go anywhere...

~ You Are What You Eat ~

Be careful of getting too selective, they said. You are what you eat, they said. The original Count Dracula (who wasn't even a real Count, by the way) had made a habit of snacking on pompous, self-aggrandizing aristocrats, and look where that got us, they said. Well, what do they know?

Not many people actively seek out vampirism. Most tend to get attached to things like eating garlic and sunbathing and walking into a church without bursting into flames. But for me, being turned was an opportunity.

See, I'd always been unpopular. My school career was an endless parade of mean girls making my life miserable, just because I wasn't as cool or as pretty as they were. I thought it would end when I graduated, but the working world was no better. Those same mean girls grew up and got jobs in HR or as executives, and used their power to make my adult life suck just as much as my childhood.

They had to pay.

Preying on them was ridiculously easy. And I can't even begin to describe how satisfying it was the first time I cornered one of them, greedily feasting on her terror as she realized this wasn't a joke and there was no escape, just before going for the kill and devouring every precious drop of that sweet, sweet lifeblood. Knowing that she had sustained me after everything she'd put me through almost made it all worthwhile.

I'd never felt as powerful as I did then, and I wanted more. The whole thing was like a drug for me. High on revenge, high on power, high on a sense of invincibility. And nobody would miss a few mean girls. If anything, I was doing the world a favor.

Before long, I'd taken care of all my old bullies and was now on the lookout for worthy candidates. I wasn't quite sure where to start, so I decided to pay my old friend Edna a visit. If anyone could appreciate what I was trying to do, it was her. Both of us had had a rough time in school, and every time I saw her, she looked just as rundown and put-upon as I felt.

I managed to catch her just as she was leaving work. She looked as world-weary as usual (and what on earth was going on with her hair? She looked like Medusa!). Pulling up next to her, I called out, "Get in, loser, we're going shopping."

Edna raised an eyebrow at me, but climbed in the front seat anyway. I have to admit, I wasn't quite sure why I said that. When I'd driven up to meet her, I hadn't had any concrete plans in mind for where we'd go. But I figured shopping was as good an activity as anything. Since I'd been turned, I seemed to have an increased appreciation for it. Just because I'm undead doesn't mean I can't look good, right?

"You look different," Edna said after she'd gotten settled. She was studying me with a small frown on her face.

"Oh, yeah," I said, grinning. "I've been turned. It's pretty cool."

Edna's frown deepened. "No, I don't think that's it."

I rolled my eyes. I hoped she wasn't going to be talking in riddles all night. This was supposed to be fun. I pulled into the mall parking lot, and we hurried inside. There might be fewer hours of daylight in the winter, but it was too cold to linger outside regardless.

Unfortunately, Christmas season also meant that the mall was crammed with people doing their last-minute shopping. Snot-nosed brats ran around all over the place, screaming and carrying on while their tired mothers who'd all seriously let themselves go tried to drag them from store to store. I noticed with satisfaction that some of the brats looked frightened when they caught sight of me. Perks of being a vampire, I thought, baring my teeth at them and laughing when they scampered away in terror.

"Oh, my god, Edna, look at that woman," I whispered, pointing out an obese woman in a bright red sweatshirt. "She looks like a stop sign. Same shape and everything." I started to giggle, but for some reason, Edna didn't join me.

Instead, she raised an eyebrow in clear disapproval and gave her head a slight shake. "That's really mean," she said. "What's gotten into you?"

I could tell by her face that I was about to get an earful on sensitivity and fat-shaming and whatever else — Edna was great at lecturing people. Probably why nobody liked her much in school, I thought. Though this was the first time she'd ever directed one of her lectures at me. What was that about?

"Whatever," I said, waving a hand. "Come on. I need some new shoes."

I caught her glancing pointedly at the shoes I was wearing, but decided to ignore it. It was obvious to me that she wouldn't understand those shoes were hardly new any more — I'd already had them for more than a week. But she never did understand fashion.

I gave her a critical once-over. Since we're already here, I thought, I might as well give her a makeover. "You know, you could use some new shoes yourself," I mused, returning her pointed glance. She was wearing a pair of ratty old sneakers I recognized from high school. But instead of looking ashamed of herself, she continued to frown at me as I led her through the mall.

For some reason, she didn't seem at all willing to shop. Even though it was obvious she needed new shoes, she kept saying her old shoes were "fine." Then, when we went to the clothing stores, she kept complaining that all the clothes I picked out for her "weren't me." It was a total buzzkill.

"Look, Edna," I said at last. "I was trying to be nice about it, but you need a makeover. You could at least be grateful I'm taking the time to help you out."

Edna's eyes flashed. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but for the last time, I'm happy with my own style!"

"You call that a style," I couldn't help sniping.

"And that's another thing!" she raved. "You haven't been all that nice about it. You've gotten mean lately. You're acting like those same nasty girls you used to complain about!"

I scoffed, but something about what she'd said made me pause. Seeing she had my attention, she turned toward a nearby mirror. "I mean, just look at yourself," she said. "You're like a completely different person."

I stared at my reflection as if seeing myself for the first time. I had changed, I supposed. The vampirism seemed to have subtly altered my features, making them more conventionally attractive, and my hair had grown longer, smoother, and lighter. The short pink skirt and sleeveless white top weren't the type of thing I used to wear, either. I did look like a completely different person.

"Oh, no," I moaned as I realized what had happened. "I've become Regina George!"

The End

Thanks for reading!

Astrid despised her nightly visits to Leon's house, resented every step of the journey to the old man's front door. But what followed the journey itself set her teeth on edge and curled her fingers into fists so tight that her fingernails drew small cuts in the flesh of her calloused palms, leaking with stolen blood.

Beyond the worn wooden front door was Leon himself, and hours of doting upon the old man. It was predictable as clockwork---Astrid would unlock the door, and Leon would be just on the other side, dressed in his flannel pajamas against the night's cold. His face would split into a smile that turned the myriad of wrinkles that crisscrossed his face into yawning canyons.

And so, they would sit at Leon's old card table---one of the few pieces of furniture the old man still owned---and the charade would begin in earnest. Leon would ramble to Astrid about the trivial details of his day. The trip he had made to the corner store, the new neighbors down the street and their new baby, the rudeness of a telemarketer who had badgered him for nearly an hour.

And in a way, Astrid didn't mind. It was boring but it passed the time. The old man had little energy at this time of night, and each story seemed to carry him further towards the endpoint of sleep. Besides...the more Leon focused on himself, the less he focused on her. The less questions he had to ask. But eventually he would ask, and Astrid would meet Leon's eager questions with a host of lies.

Because it wasn't her the old man cared about. They did not know each other, not really. Their meeting had been brief, and Leon would never remember it anyway. No, Leon was asking about Jean, with an earnest desire to better understand his son and know where his life was headed.

Jean. He was the cause of this current situation. The young data analyst with a promising career, and a newly purchased apartment now gathering dust behind a seal of crime-scene tape. The young man who had recently lost his mother, which had kindled a desperate desire to look after his remaining parent---a desire that had been passed on to the young man's killer.

Our lives are not our own anymore. And why should they be? We take the lives of others into our bodies to keep ourselves tethered to this world. It is only natural that who they were can become who we are, if we are not careful.

The words themselves were overly flowery, she believed that even now. But Astrid soon understood their practical meaning. It was one of many lessons her mentor had taught her in the nights following the moment he pulled her from the bloodstained planks of a dimly lit tavern, licking blood from her countless bar-fight stab wounds before sinking his own teeth into her throat.

Never take the lives of one's prey, no matter how appetizing their blood tastes. Drain them just to death if you must, but never ever take it all to the last drop, unless you want their life to corrupt the borderline of what defines you and what defines them. It was an important command, impressed upon her nearly as much as the need to avoid the lethal sun, and Astrid had learned both lessons well.

It had been over a thousand years and Astrid had never slipped up. So many times, so many temptations, and she had turned away each time, leaving her prey to gasp out their last breaths at her feet.

And then came Jean. This man out of millions of faceless cattle, who had proven just a bit too much. Astrid was still not sure what had precisely led her mistake, but she knew the moment his heartbeat had stopped, and the steady spurt of his blood had run dry. And only seconds after that, his memories had poured into her like floodwaters.

And so now here she sat with Leon, the killer of his son pretending to be him.

She hated it. She hated Leon. She hated Jean. And yet she could not bring herself to harm him, even in the most minute of ways. She had invaded Leon's mind with a single look into his eyes the first time she'd come to his doorstep, destroyed his memory of his son's missing person's case and impressed upon him that she was Jean.

She wondered sometimes what would happen if she simply looked into his eyes again and restored his knowledge, removed the psychic mask that told his brain she was his son. What would his reaction be if instead of a young man, he was faced with a young woman? Red haired where his son was brunette, stout and short where his son was slim and tall? And what if she went even further? To show him her true face, a nightmare of bleeding red eyes and angler-fish teeth?

But then Leon would smile, and she would see him, not as he was now, but as he was then. Younger, strong and seemingly invincible. Always there to take care of him and his mother, to show him how to throw a baseball, how to chop wood. A harsh disciplinarian to be sure, but also his loudest and most raucous coach and supporter.

And the urge would fade. Because why would any son think to harm his loving father?