Sadness
overwhelms me as time and time again I find a world littered in shades.
Those who are dead inside bled to a husk by avaricious vampires with no
self-control.
The
careless, the greedy, the arrogant indulge their thirst without a care nor
thought for the needs of other vampires, others of their kind and even kin. In biology a predator never depletes its food
source to the point of extinction but manages it through cunning and rationing,
and yet these parasites, or shade-makers, exploit it to the last
drop of blood. Parasite is probably a
poor analogy as even they don’t aim to kill their host, the one upon which they
depend for their very survival. That way lays madness and ultimately oblivion
even for a parasite.
A
true vampires relationship with humans is one of symbiosis; a sympathetic,
although slightly skewed, understanding that they are needed, for better or
worse, and that to wipe them out one by one turning them into shades
is self-defeating and merely exposes their own weak nature. We can and do
sometimes feed upon each other but without fresh input, as in fresh human
blood, it eventually becomes tainted, the same old blood recirculating grows old
and rotten and ultimately no better than a waste product rather than food. Basically
no better than eating ourselves out of house and home and becoming cannibals.
These
shade-makers
are blood-suckers at best, not worthy
of the Vampire mantel and the more shades,
dry, empty walking husks little better than zombies, the harder it becomes to feed
or find food at all. Immortality has its
down-sides, not least the temptation to self-destruct by rampaging at the
expense of others and sod the consequences.
A vampire’s environment is no different than the human one, we inhabit
the same space and time, and as such it is not a limitless resource to be
exploited without consequence for our actions.
It
is true that ones primal instincts are much closer to the surface in a vampire
and a lot of effort has to be made to keep them in check. I suppose this isn’t that
different from when we were ourselves mortal, or quicks. Also, vampires
aren’t by nature good in the conventional sense, we are the undead after all,
though I prefer to regard myself as of the breathless. I find the term undead tends to freak people out at
parties when they ask you what you do. I suppose it is an argument as to who is
worse at the end of the day; mortals or immortals, being we both are riddled
with flaws and bouts of complete stupidity.
A
vampires emotions are heightened to almost savage levels; seeing, hearing,
feeling much more intensely and deep, the pains and the pleasures sometimes
getting mixed and mashed up in the very same breathless breath. We need constant vigilance as with such huge
power comes huge responsibility. See, more down-sides, but no one ever said it
was going to be all blood and orgies, though that happens too sometimes. That drive to bite, sink the teeth, feed, sate
ones appetite over and over, to endure the thrill of it all again and again but
greed never ended well, and usually in gluttony which leads to stagnancy and
ultimately decay, literally dust to dust or worse, starving forever with
nothing left on which to feed begging for the stake but too weak to lift one.
So we make bloodsouls;
humans we watch over and to which we provide protection, knowledge and the
tools with which to also protect themselves and in return they offer their
blood in a sustainable way, by which I mean we allow them to replenish
themselves and never drain them to becoming a shade. There’s no coming
back from being shaded. This doesn’t protect other non-bloodsoul mortals of course and as such the world of vampire is
destined to be a constant struggle between the shade-giver and the self-possesed
path of the shade-maker.(from my Vampiricalia…..)
© Anan Eebus
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