A New View

Space isn’t black but purple, the stars not white but burning yellow gold, flaring brightly behind heavily tinted glass, so that just their orbs are seen. Dark matter flows through and around them every fraction of a second, the speed of the smallest particles of the universe, that truly black stuff that makes up the universe, surrounding even this capsule, making up as much of the empty space between planets as it does down on Earth.

They said sending a vampire up into space didn’t make sense, that it was counterintuitive, but I worked hard to get here, and NASA worked even harder to create a shuttle that I could survive in and observe the universe in. And they were reaping the benefits most of all, because now that I had allowed them to discover dark matter, new breakthroughs on the subject are being made even now.

Right now, as I sat here, I was marking their movements as only my vampire eyes can.

There are no planets in my near view: I have left the Milky Way. I am charting the first map out of this galaxy in search of a new home. Within only a few million years, this galaxy will no longer be habitable. The sun will blast away all its layers until nothing remains. And even before that happens, it will burn us alive. I, more than anyone, won’t be able to survive such a world. We need a new home, desperately. Even if it takes us another century to the centuries I’ve lived through.

I turn to my right, to an old weathered line drawing of Carl Sagan. Though few humen of this century know who he was, I remember. He was my Inspiration to think beyond, to reach for the stars. I have studied each individual line on his face, each of which mean nothing. But together, they create an image that can be known and understood to any thinking mind that perceives it. To me, it’s even more important. To me, it means hope.

I’m floating on a wide black three-dimensional sea out here, far further out than any human has ever witnessed. That dot that was the Earth is far behind me now, and I don’t know how long I can really survive on the amount of blood I have in storage. Survival out here is difficult but I keep my eye on the star system I’m heading for, full in the knowledge I’ll be there soon. My craft wouldn’t have woken me if I were so many years from it.

When I arrive, the time difference between me and Earth will be extreme, but my image will reach the nearest station at least a few million years to the past, when they still have some control over their fate. I beg it’s not too late.

Permanent Loathing

“Why did you do this to me?” she asked herself, crying in the mirror, body full of fat and blood, thick, solid, thumping heart in her chest. “At least let me diet first. This body is too hungry, kills too many. I’d rather starve on a hospital bed than be this.”

And she had. For ten years before being bitten, she had gone between a hundred kilos and forty, bloated body and frail one, a life of self-hatred at extremes, a life both starving and full, in a desperate dissatisfied longing to find a perfect medium and passing it constantly. She had gotten used to the misery. It felt like she had spent less than 1% in that satisfied state before she lost it again, before her feelings, like a black pit of nerves and fear and disbelief, possessed her again and that hate bubbled to the surface again, convincing her she was ugly, that she wasn’t enough, that she had to eat less and exercise more, until her ribs poked out and her eyes sunk, and they had to feed her through a tube again. Feeling so sick, she swore she’d never do that again, and she ate and ate all her body back… until she couldn’t stop. And the process started over again.

She would never be back in that bed again. She was fat forever, a vampire thirsty for blood. Perhaps the vampire who bit her knew that, had a sadistic fascination with bloodlust, liked killing, liked corrupting her. Maybe he was like a soldier, or a serial killer, and wanted her to feel the same fury.

All that blood in her memories, dripping, soaking the ground, soaking people she had known… what was satisfying about that?

He walked up behind her, skinny had she had once been, thin waist, flat stomach, and wrapped his hands around her protruding one. “Because I love you, Stephanie. I hated to see you suffer. I want you to see yourself as I see you: beautiful.”

“I’ve killed people,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “But don’t you love me too? Isn’t this worth it?”

“No. Not anymore. I loved you too. But I can I love someone who made me this?”

“Because you just do. I can see inside your soul, Steph, I know you’re in pain. But love is forever, and I think you know that.”

“I feel no love here. I don’t think you ever have.”

“Stop lying,” he said, “it hurts, you know.”

“Now you know how I feel.”

“Please,” he begged, “just love yourself. Please,” he cried, silent solitary tears sliding slowly down his face. “Please.” He put his chin on her shoulder, looking at her reflection.

“I don’t know how,” she said.

Dangerous Pair

The damned and the blessed… we are a brutal pair. Who would’ve ever thought an Angel and a Vampire would ever become lovers? Who would have ever seen it coming, this devilish, sainted union, besides us two?

The battle over good and evil not won, only settled.

Trifecta – Grasp and Burn

They were both creatures of the night, both dead, but not so. The moon in the sky burned like the sun, a few minuscule clouds covering it. It looked like the sun too, a bright round ball hanging in the sky.

They grappled on the ground, rotting flesh meeting demonically youthful skin, fangs baring upon sunken eyes.

Yet soon the vampire realised he might be joining the zombie too soon. Somehow the moon was burning the flesh, melting it away to be just as ugly as the zombie yet soon not quite as alive.

He grasped the fact too late. When had the morning come?

—

Tale for Trifecta

Trifecta – Monsoon

It was his charge to prey on his victims during monsoon, when vampires could survive very easily even in the day.

Each kill was revenge for his family. They were lost last century… drowned.

Forever young.

—

Tales from Trifecta

Friday Fictioneers – Abandoned

It had only been a few decades since she’d abandoned it. In the life of a vampire, that’s not very long, and that had only been at the start of her new life. So very few people ever appreciate the young of her kind, unlike for humans.

She had left her broken home and torn through the bush in this old ute, which then had only broken down by the fence. It was the barrier between her old world and her brand new life, and she had jumped it easily. She’d never even thought twice about it.

But now she knew better in the early night. Life was hard here too.

—

I got the idea for this from the story I’m working on. From Madison Woods‘ blog.