be fangful

 

Seems it’s been a while since my last confession, but, in my defence I am a vampire and not known for contrition nor actually confessing. Well, not in the sense where it’s supposed to come with some remorse. I mean, why would I, a vampire, feel remorseful after half-draining someone of their blood? I always leave them alive, if not a teeny bit disorientated for a while.

That’s the nature of vampires, after all we aren’t supposed to have souls, which is why they say we have no reflection, suggesting that our reflection is like a manifestation of our souls and without a soul you can’t have a reflection in mirrors, or widows, or water or highly-polished brass or silver or whatever. Basically, it would make it a nightmare putting on one’s own makeup or doing one’s own hair. The way around it of course is to get someone else to do it, not always easy when you all live in shadows and so many are too busy biting people and enjoying afterlife to the full. Yes, there is such a thing as an afterlife, see, I’m living, sort of breathing and albeit undead, proof. The breathing we do is mostly for show, we don’t actually need to breathe, being vampires and all, which is really useful for swimming.

Oh, and by the way, all that nonsense about reflections, it’s just that, nonsense. We have one that’s just as visible as yours, but we do have a trick up our sleeve. We can make it vanish when we need too. It’s a party-trick really and all the better for sneaking up on people. The soul isn’t in our reflections anyway, nor is the reflection our soul. It’s in our shadow. That’s one of the reasons why daylight is anathema to many vampires. I say many meaning not all, because some of us are elders and have worked out how to be daywalkers. Sneaky, huh! No, of course I’m not going to tell you how we do it, what do you take me for? If you knew you’d only do something silly like try and come up with a plan to prevent it. Where’s the fun in that for me?

I can do all the things, pretty much, that you can do, and more. More, because becoming a vampire opens you up and taps into parts of you that may be dormant or lain hidden for centuries, abilities and such. It does also heighten everything for us, like strength, speed and such things, but also emotions and temperament, all of which become more deeply felt and as such we spend years learning to control and live with it. Like the obvious, our hunger. It’s crazy and never-sated completely but we teach ourselves not to get too greedy and accidentally kill off our food supply, i.e. you.

There’s more to us than meets the fang, and don’t believe all the stories which are exactly what they are stories, myths, fairy tales. But, remember, some of them are true so beware, beware, there’s bound to be a vampire out there somewhere and you are likely to pass them on the street or sit at the next table in a café and never ever know. We are cunning you see.

© Anan Eebus