Vampires

A woman lay dying alone in her home, while elsewhere a heart was breaking at the loss of his beloved. Praneel looked about the world, his heart hardening in anger and his eyes a mere dark slit instead of their usual bright blue. He prowled the lands, uncomfortable in his skin, with his life. His own future looked bleak and desolate. Then he felt her.

She was dying. She knew it and her family knew it too. It was only a matter of days, perhaps hours before her last breath. She tried to speak to them, her loved ones, and tell them that she would be far better off in a place of no pain and in a place full of sun and happiness. She would look over them and watch them, but pain wracked her fragile body and she could not speak. One at a time, her family left the room. Each kissed her dry cheek as they walked past. From some a tear would slip from their eyes and slide from their face to hers, leaving wet trails of sorrow. As her eyes drifted closed, she saw the shadow separate itself from the wall and move towards her bed. Even near death she could feel his pain, his hurt, and his anger. With quickness he picked her up and carried her out of the room blending once more with the shadows. Her life would never be the same again.

Angelina Delacroix, the woman Praneel saved, rose from her sleep of the damned. Her eyes blurry and glowing as her body still adjusted to the changes that ravaged her. Weakly she stood. Praneel had snatched her from the grasp of death and however much she was glad to be alive… it not without its consequences. She hungered and instinctively walked out into the world of darkness. Her pale skin stood out against the black of night. Her eyes glowed red from the daemon within who now craved for the hunt. Most stood about in the streets that night in confusion and fear of a black sky without moonlight or stars. Finding one who was alone was no difficult task and soon she had her first meal. The warm blood renewed her as the man's life dwindled away sustaining her for the moment. She looked down at what had come to pass and turned a withdrawn gaze out into the street where a crowd had gathered. Their looks of horror and fear caused the beast within her to come to life yet again and from that moment the frailties of humanity fell from her. Their looks of hatred and disgust turned her heart cruel and savage. She had been the one chosen by the voice of her dark lord, who were these imperfect godless creatures to question?

That night the streets ran red with the blood of mortality. All fell silent. The few who survived the massacre would return in the morning from other cities to find the remains of her victims, of their families and friends. They turned to leave but it was too late. They were forever bound to the city until their dying breath. This city was the realm of darkness that even Julia's light would fail to reach in the time to come and her song would not be heard here. In this place the corrupt blood of a broken god’s heart gave birth to the darkest creation of Equinox.

Before the Beginning

He slept for thousands of years, the sleep of an ancient. He slept through the period of light when the world was not even born yet. Even as the world was still without a single heartbeat, he continued to exist in his sleep of the earth. The little orb of light had not yet grown into what it would become, but he knew it would come. He waited patiently in his crypt and slept through the strife until it came. It was the death of one so beloved that it destroyed her mate’s faith in life and in love. With darkness tainting his blood he created one of the first vampires of Equinox.

Nathaniel tossed and turned deep beneath the earth in his crypt while the woman was asleep. He knew, even then, that his life was to begin again. Praneel created an immortal, one who was untrained and would unleash untold terror upon the lands. Not true death no that was his domain. Undirected and undisciplined death was all she could bring, a blasphemy to his realm. As Angelina unleashed her cruelties upon the darkened lands, the rivers of blood ran deep and true. They reached far below the surface, further than anyone could have possibly thought.

In an unmarked graveyard rested a large crypt. The engraving of a large dark wolf with jeweled red eyes framed by the shape of a shield as a crest is on his door. Inscribed upon the shield are the following words “Ne humanus crede” (trust no human) and below the ancient scripture is a name “Nathaniel Crisanti”. The droplets of blood seeped into his sealed crypt and ran down the smooth silks to fall upon his lips. The earth trembled and the midnight sky lit up with bright streaks. All who stood upon the earth at that moment trembled, even Angelina. He rose from his crypt prowling Equinox, melding into shadows, and following the scent of fresh blood. He stopped when he saw the streets littered with the dead and the dying. He heard her feasting. Nathaniel came upon her with such speed; he arrived in the shadows of a building near Angelina before she finished off her latest victim.

He knew then it was time. Time to bring forth his family and time to renew the pure blood, in time they would abolish those of her lineage. He sprung from the shadows pushing Angelina from her newest victim. Nathaniel bared his fangs and picked Angelina up before tossing her aside as he had watched her do to her prey that now littered the street. He wordlessly made it clear that she was to him as the humans were to her. Shocked by the realization, Angelina lay sprawled in the street looking up at him in terror. She had thought herself without parallel and he was her superior, Death himself.

“Be gone from here, fledgling. These are my lands and they are my serfs. You have no power here!” She watched in awe and then horror as he changed before her eyes into that of a snarling wolf. The moon chose that time to come out from behind the clouds as he howled loudly. It was the sound of Nathaniel’s howl that filled this part of the world while Julia’s song of sadness cradled the rest of Equinox. Those that could ran for cover while he crept slowly towards her, his mouth wide open, his fangs long and sharp glinting in the moonlight. She stumbled as she struggled to her feet and ran best she could. As the moon crept across the sky, all that was heard was the patter of her feet and the howling of an angry wolf.