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Copyright reserved. No part(s) of these publications may be reproduced, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any language in any form by any means without the written permission of the author. The Price of Immortality by Aradia Nikalai 'So this is what it feels like to be immortal', I muttered under my breath. I had expected a hell of a lot more! I was no genetic quirk of fate or, more likely in today's world, science. I was not created to save, or destroy, the world; hell I don't even think 'created' is the right term for what I am. I was an accident! Not an accident of passion or rage, or even wrong-time-wrong-place. I was the type of accident everyday people have, but refuse to believe it was an accident: their instincts tell them something bad will happen and the people still go through with it. You see I was cursed with very bad judgment and a unique and weird logic. 'Cursed', that's the word. Makes me feel nice and fuzzy inside, that the only reason I am here today is because I was gifted with something beyond bad luck: gifted to a few chosen few in the world, or to some of you out there. Good luck! ' What the hell am I?' The universal question that everyone asks themselves, at least in one stage of their lives. I personally ask it every 50 years: it keeps a tiny piece of me sane. By this stage, you should be wondering what, in God's name, I am. If you know, what do you think I am? Silence! 'I knew it, you don't!' I laugh. To the smart-alecs out there, who think they know what I am e-mail me at Queen_of_the_Damned@hotmail.com. Yeah sue me! I am in love with that book, it's a classic, literally! However, back to me, e-mail me if you know what I am because I would really like to know. Those who think they know me are probably right; you have read every horror novel, wanting a cheap thrill looking for the one elusive book that would actually scare you. I'm sorry to say that those types of books don't actually exist, never have, never will: well for me anyway. Man is too scared to write down their real fears or too stupid to be scared, so they make up stories about the supernatural and things that most people don't really think 'exist', and don't write about the greatest fear that man has: himself. Do not get me wrong, I love the books to death, literally. By this stage, you should have guessed that, yes, I am, in fact, what most writers write about, a living breathing vampyre. Well, as living and breathing as the walking-dead can be, and no I didn't spell vampyre wrong that is actually how you spell it, blame Bram for that spelling. Since I seem to be in a confessing mood let me tell you a few myths about vampires that aren't true. 1. We as vampires can go out in the sun and sunbathe if we wanted too, but we don't tend to, since most of us have skin that would rival an albino, and are very easily burnt: 2. Holy water and crosses: they don't work. Come on! People of our kind were myths since before anyone came up with the 'one God' theory: 3. Yes! We can see ourselves in mirrors. As with number 1, we do not tend to, as some homo-sapiens have came to the conclusion themselves, it's a lot easier to do what we do if we do not see ourselves: 4. No! You can not stake us. In fact, we heal from any wound, the older we are, the quicker, and some people say old age has no benefits. Anything short of decapitation and we heal, having myself never been decapitated, I could not honestly tell you if we heal, but for that to even be tested, you have to be quick enough to catch us! 5. Some of us do sleep in coffins. It makes them feel closer to the tradition of vampires and yes! You can thank Bram for that stereotype, yet again. Me? I prefer to sleep in nice, black satin sheets: well whenever I'm not sliding off them. 6. No! Not all of our kind dress in black. A vampyre could be standing next to you on the beach, in a skimpy costume, and there would be a very high chance that you would not be able to tell the difference! This is the only myth I take part in. I love to dress in black, but then I always have! I was a big Goth, hardly dressing in any colour, when I was mortal. I think that's enough of my secrets, its not fair that I tell you mine and I can't get any of yours. This way it is safer for both of us, especially if you think you are the unrealistic Buffy the Vampire Slayer but back to my problem: what am I? Now I know a few of you would be answering ' blood-sucking vampyre' or 'the walking-dead.' That all good, and said, and done, but what exactly am I? I am all that and a lot worse. Now that I have already told you a few of my secrets, here are a few more. As some French person once said: 'If we are going to be damned, lets be damned for what we are'. His name has gone through the centuries, I sometimes forget the little details. Vampyres are not soulless creatures that TV, movie and books have portrayed us as: we have souls, though we are not the melancholy/romantic-hearted vampyre-like Angel - although he is a cutie. We just have had longer practice than most people, in ignoring what it says, and stands for. Nor are we the power-hungry sexually-charged vampires, as Anne Rice would have you believe, as Lestat -Tom Cruise portrayed him beautifully- and Akasha. We are all that, and a lot more, people always give us human qualities, but they forget that we are not humans, not anymore. We live and work in ways that is beyond the full comprehension of the human mind. We govern in such a way that, even with our small numbers, we could destroy the world and even with every country's soldiers and weapons. Working together, your race would not be able to stand a chance. Why don't we? You are our food, and as all humans have done before you, shouldn't we be on the top of the food chain and Homo Sapiens be on the bottom? No! For some reason Luciano, whom some vampires call a fool, decreed it so that your race would be protected from our hunger, and that we would exist in your world only as shadows and myths. Why listen to one vampyre, because he was the first? The first to fall from grace! Luciano is better translated to you Anglo-Saxon speakers as Lucifer but as I said before we were created before there became known that there was one God. I'll let you in on a little secret that no priest rabbi or minister will ever tell you: God was never the first god he was one of many. The only reason why he is the one being worshipped is because he won the war of the angels and Luciano lost. Why am I writing this down? I don't know, maybe I'm lonely, maybe I want to forget everything but still remember it? I remember, when I was a teenager and a mortal, one of my friends gave me a quiz and one of the questions written on it was: ' who would you like to meet living or dead?' I wanted to write God, now that I think back at it I would write Satan. Who wants to talk to perfection when one can discuss sin, temptation, and man? That is what I am to you, someone who was like you but now is beyond your grasp; forever! Forever is a long time, too long. Those who are gifted with eternal death are perhaps the true immortals as they have been given the privilege and ability to forget everything. Vampyres, on the other hand, are cursed to remember everything for eternity and that is, perhaps, the reason why we are the damned! The End.
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