The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

MEMOIRS OF A FORGOTTEN

Entry 2





I see you survived another night dear journal but, remember this; ever closer are you to the flames than ever I have been. Your pages are marked with the toxin and poisons of my life. If I have not torn you apart by the end of my cycle I dare not think about what horror your words will play upon the next human mind I inhabit; then again maybe they too will find happiness in madness and born ignorant of me.



Madness... Oh how I wish I could slip back into the bliss that is ignorance of what I am, where I am and all that has led me here. Often I miss the woman I had become when I killed my true lord. She was happy, guilt-free, not whole or complete mind you without me... But she was happy, happy with a life and dreams truly of her own. I was blessed to be her, once upon a time.



At the times I think upon her, I hear my true Lord's words at my cradle telling of rebirth and cycles of life and how the human body becomes a host for our forgotten souls. When I think of her as the sun rises over the crest of the horizon, I wish I was her again. I wonder in the back of my mind if she was the woman I was suppose to become.



Had I not remembered any of my past cycles, where would I be now? Would I be sitting at a dead end desk job working eight to six, barely able to scrape enough by to pay the rent and keep a child fed?



...Children...I had never wanted to be a mother. I found myself too different from the true humans to wish my traits passed on. In fact when visions of the past clouded my mind sending my cool chill murderous scream slicing through the night, I had vowed I would not pass my horrors on. The thought of a child going through everything that I remembered including having the thirst... Terrified me. I would not suffer upon my children the horrors of living a life akin to mine, without a guide, without a mentor...Without a third parent as I was blessed with having.



My Lord told me in his experience children of an old soul, whether the parent realizes they are or not, do have the capability of being a host of an old soul. Often however, he stated, that the child is just another carrier of the ability to host and that only rarely would the child manifesting signs that their parent held a old soul. Though both child and parent could themselves be vampiric. He said it was basically unlikely that my child would be like me, saying that it was simply "not often" that the child of an old soul would have one as well.... however, he did mention there were exceptions and that glimmer sent me into panic and swore me off from giving birth.



Only now that I am no longer vampiric does my heart ache that I did not have children when I had the chance. The years get lonely now. They did not use to be but the chill of silence when I awake... It eats away at me and I long for laughter in my halls. The cries of j...



Your pages crinkle as I write that, as if furrowed in some confusion, journal. It's irritating and it is interfering with my writing and enjoyment of my non-existent children.



I wonder what it is that has you so hesitant to accept my ink. Could it possibly be my saying "I am no longer vampiric" yet before I have scribbled upon your surface the words "I am also a vampire" in the previous entry? I would laugh at you had you been a human, unknowing of the world around you and under your nose but since you are merely the toxins of my soul transcribed in an accursed book that dares the flames of my fireplace, I will attempt to explain.



My life under the watchful gaze of my true Lord was that of the vampiric, meaning Vampire-like-but-not-fully and not of the life those of the forgotten race known as vampires lead. My essence craved the energy of life in whatever form it could take; with my mind or with my knife from the willing, did not matter for I would feel weak and pathetic without sating that hunger. I did not need to fulfill that ache in my being, I could deny it and wrap myself in madness as it fought itself free to feed, but I could eat, gain energy the way all humans do and be able to go about my day. However food would not fill me, for always there would be this throb in my essence and the feeling akin to being tired after a marathon but never taking my shoe of the ground.



My third eye was opened, and often would I feel and be able to manipulate the emotions of others without a word spoken. I was able to draw from them, making them lethargic in their tasks. I was able to pick up images from them they would hide and see the little truths they deceived themselves of. If it were not for my true lord, I would have fallen into madness of being unable to decipher my emotions from others, when the veil over that inner eye was lifted.



This is vampiric as it was for me, for I cannot remember the definition my true lord gave me. I was slightly different in my vampirism, I was also a host, an old soul, and my mind was plagued by images of pasts I could not fathom. Visions that seemed almost dreams for they could not possibly be true, would etch themselves across my eyes daring me to lock myself away and call myself insane. My true Lord would claim to his dying day that I was not.... Insane.



I was happy in the madness of ignorance, when I was that woman waiting tables and dancing. I was the happiest when I was insane and unknowing of myself, unknowing of the Forgotten races and unknowing of Vampires.



Perhaps I am still mad....



Bah! I grow tired of this attempting to explain my mortal self through human concepts that do not completely grasp or encompass all of the being that I was! It infuriates me the limit of language to express experience! To express life! Especially a life so different yet so similar to those of a true human! The anger coils about my brain that a mere book has dragged from me an attempt at explaining the unexplainable except through being born to live it! Except by living through it!



I should toss you into the flames and be done with it! Watch as your pages curl beneath the hot tongue of the flames until there is no more of my venom in the ink that is your blood and your flesh that is my story.



... ... ... ...No, dear Journal, looking down upon the page I realize the emotions of the vampiric I surround myself by in order to keep myself safe spur my pen to write so hostilely. They, like I was so many years ago, struggle to define themselves within the constraints of myth, of legend and the limitation of the words all the human languages arm them with. They are a next stage in evolution, where the human mind and soul play a more active and demanding role of their being.



For me, forced to use the term Vampire, I am simply one more evolutionary misstep that for my kind ends in a dead end. My kind cannot evolve any further than our mind allows and what the body of what we were allows; the vampiric by being still human have the ability to evolve past my state, without even entering it wholly. Without being tainted by the mutagen that makes me barren and long lived, the vampiric hold one of the many keys of mankind and hold truly the fate and continued survival of both our species, human and Vampire alike.



I am too weary now to launch into another debate with you, Journal... I must feed to keep up the disguise of not being a Vampire and only just another one of the many mortals who are vampiric. It is more taxing on me to hide from those who are vampiric than true humans. I must put up more shields around my psyche to keep them out and put on more mannerisms that hide me. I sigh when I think that maybe one day i will be lonely enough that I will confide in one of them.... my vampiric friends or maybe go so far as to confide in a true human and end up either way just like my Lord; dead, with my head paraded about a circle of my rivals for my "error."

MEMOIRES OF A FORGOTTEN

Entry 1.





In short I am the by product of an experiment conducted by one the forgotten races, vampires, in the study of the human soul. The study of the human capacity of mimicry in regards to the vampiric, how it related to the vampiric condition and how it related to the much conjectured vampiric soul. Though I do not know his bloodline, my creator one might say, was indeed a vampire and was far older and more temperate than most I have come across even now that I am also a vampire. To me he was as much of a parent, a guide, a mentor and a friend as my own flesh and blood. I grew up mortal under his watchful eyes and the obedient ones of my parents, his pets, as the term is coined. I grew up mortal, knowing of the forgotten kind and the forgotten ways for my creator had seen in me something he had been searching for, an old soul.



Even as I clung to my mother's breast he would stare into my eyes and tell her at length about them. He would sit in his chair opposite her and tell her over and over again his theories of how the soul transcended from mortal death into the immortal form and when true death stole that form, the immortal soul moved to the heavens and repeated its cycle. The immortal soul would then be reborn into a few rare humans who possessed the capacity to host the old soul, until of course they themselves became changed. He believed that these cycles continued until the soul learned all the lessons of life and that once the immortal soul completed all its life cycles it would return to the void and become the substance for new souls with no previous lifecycle knowledge to be born. "Only the immortal soul, one touched once during a cycle to the life of the vampire," he reasoned. "Could return to learn the vast knowledge that was mortal and immortal life. "His theories of course were shunned and mocked by his peers but nonetheless he continued in his obsession, thus breaking tradition and teaching me the entirety of his knowledge. Absolutely, convinced I contained inside me one of these old souls. Even to this day I still have troubles fathoming his meanings.



Most lessons I indeed caught on very quickly as if having prior knowledge I knew not wherefrom, where as others such as operating a teleporter boggled my mind. I was quick to learn traditions and old knowledge but such mechanical marvels of this age seemed beyond my grasp and I must admit. often frightened me. It was thus that I grew to adulthood, under the care and guidance of a vampire and into the life of honor, respect and responsibility that came with my parent's station in our lord's home.



So diligent was his training and education of me in the forgotten realm that from birth my mother's milk was tainted also with her blood. He fostered in me the desire and thirst of life's blood in such a way that I had no knowledge that I did not truly require it to live. Nonetheless, my blood chilled and I grew weak if I did not sate that desire in a timely manner. My essence often screaming at me that though I did not need it, it demanded the energy of life's blood. I know now that my Lord did it so that when the real thirst occurred I would knew how to temper it without frenzy, like many a newborn or un-counseled fledgling. My abilities of the mind also grew under his tutelage, though I had a natural knack as one might say for manipulating the energy flow through a person's chakras... It was under his guidance that while mortal I learned control.



With this control and all my remembered knowledge combined with my Lord's teaching led me not to question my being different from the others in his court. Nor did my abilities and his trust in me grant me an ego of superiority over the other mortals. In fact, my knowledge and my abilities made me feel weaker, feel vulnerable to the true humans because my third eye lay exposed for all to see and prod at unknowingly. Only now do I realize his raising of me as close to him as he could make me and my old soul would allow while I still remained mortal, was to prepare me for when the council demanded my turning. No mortal was allowed to know the true breadth of the knowledge I contained by simply being born. In their eyes I was an abomination and went against what they knew and accepted as doctrine. I was thought to be no more than a human plaything of an insane fool and I needed to be put down because no mortal should know what I do, did and had the ability to do. My Lord hoped to prepare me for when the council demanded my death, either mortal or into immortality.



He trusted me, my Lord did, above all others in his court because I knew no other life than that which he had crafted and allowed my old eyes to remember. I did not know of a life that was not bound to the forgotten ways and thus could not know of or be tempted to move out on my own. My loyalty was beyond thought and above question to my third parent, my mentor and my friend. So much so that he would keep nothing from me and often use me as a soundboard for his frustrations and theories. Thus in my mortality I knew and learned more than many a fledgling would learn from any sire for only one thing did he keep from me, the rest he told and taught me all.



The one thing he left my mortal mind in darkness about was that my very existence was a secret. Never told me that had the council known I was still actually mortal, my Lord's life would be forfeited to his rivals if he did not correct his error. The day the council found out, came on the eve of my twenty second year. That morning my Lord had received a letter from the council to end my life; at the time I did not question the order to burn the letter, nor think to read its contents before doing so. So I obediently and willingly in that one matchstick, I signed my Lord's death warrant unknowingly.



The following night, my birthday, like a thief in the night my Lord's rival descended upon our home, slaying all before him in his quest for my Lord head. His army of brutish pets, cruel fledglings and vicious generals slaughtered my parents and all I had held dear, without mercy or regret on their brows. In the blood crazed frenzy that was that night, only my Lord and I stood alone against the horde when the dust of the initial attack settled.



It was then in that room surrounded on all sides that I had first realized that my Lord had come to not view me as an experiment but as much more; perhaps daring me to think, he valued me as the daughter he said he could not have physically fathered. I had been angry at him, demanding that he should have accepted the council's demand, should have killed me so as to prepare himself for the battle that was going to rage before us; yet, my Lord refused. Even though I saw him consider it, he refused to do so, telling me. "Live, live one more day and you will do right by me. If I am to perish, do not avenge me."



Those words haunt me even now because later in my life the decision which brought me to my life now would be motivated by vengeance over his death.



In the ruins of the shattered door, my Lord and I fought bravely until I was pinned against a wall, held to the cold brick and forced to watch the battle of high lords before me. In the cruel and vicious battle that would determine our fate my Lord fought valiantly and would have proven the victor had his obvious fondness for humans had not been exploited by the rival. Just as I had signed the death warrant of my Lord with a single match stick, I was the instrument of his execution when my cry of pain, as my ribs shattered below a balled fist, disrupted his victory stroke and allowed the rival to slay him before my eyes.



In the rival's victory celebrations, parading about the circle with my Lord's head in his palm, the guards holding me relaxed their grip enough to allow me to escape. I still do not know by what luck I got past the horde but the rival did not pursue me. His orders were to deliver my Lord to death and to take me at his leisure either into the fold or to kill me. Absorbed in his victory, he allowed me an extension on my life and did not chase after me.



I fell into madness at all that I had witnessed, all that I knew. I now had to function without a mentor, a parent, a friend and a legal way to sate my thirst. The horror of it all sent me into shock and I quite literally awoke from the nightmare another person. This person had no knowledge of the vampiric, vampires or the forgotten ways and races; nor could she even remember her own name.



The person I became in my madness wandered the world scraping by what little she could, waiting tables and dancing at the clubs. She wandered the world with an ache in her soul that not even the heartiest of meals could sate. This woman would spend all her spare time absorbed in the latest textbook she had acquired and soaking up the knowledge of ages, intent on remembering who she was but finding next to nothing of the memory of me returning. Her curiosity knew no bounds and her scholarly demeanor even while dancing attracted the crowds. She would be able to recite full poems and other fancies for her exotic patrons in languages and rhymes long forgotten. Her hips would move unbidden to dances of old without a thought from her mind, to delight and entertain but not one word or thought of the forgotten knowledge hidden deep in her mind, where I resided, would surface. I was happy in my madness, though I knew of trivial sorrows of day to day life and an ache, which was the thirst unfulfilled, making me eat veraciously. Being the woman of madness was the one point of my life and even my changed life up to now, that truly I have never been happier.



It was in the clarity of seeing the rival again and hearing his laughter that shattered my madness and plunged me into the darker, more cruel hell, of reality. He had come to see if truly I had forgotten everything and thought to entertain him-self with my amnesia if it were true. The woman I had become entertained him in her dancing-cage. She spoke flowery poems in languages forgotten to human ears and recalled long stories of epic battles for him to close his eyes as if remembering; but, it was not until she made a joke in an old tongue that his body shook with laughter and I was given horrid freedom from my madness. His laughter, the same as it had been standing over the corpse of my Lord echoed in my ears and shattered the glass prison of my insanity that kept me sane and kept the woman in control of my mind.



Unable to control myself with the wave of memories flushing back in my minds eye, I gave myself away by accidentally speaking a tongue only the forgotten races knew and proved myself lucid. Even then, by some sick twist of fate he found even my sudden uncontrollable fear amusing, he played with my mind, taunting me and threatening me from outside the bars. So entertaining must have been my quivering and my brave and my stupid comments were that he left the club, leaving me untouched and whole.



The woman of my madness had made her life here, in the town I awoke in, but in my return I could stay no longer in the place she called home. I ran. This time I ran in search of a Lord, one that would teach me the rest of what my Lord had tried to; one that would awaken my third eye again and strengthen its abilities. Most of all, I ran in search of a Lord of the forgotten races who would teach me how to kill the rival.



It was in my town hopping that I indeed found such a Lord. He taught me in exchange for my protection during his sleeping hours. He fed me both in food and in my blood thirst that had returned with my memory; a trait he found most amusing in a mortal. I told him of my tale, of what lead me to him and how I was able to identify him for what he was. He seemed amused and shocked at the breadth of my abilities as if not quite fathoming that they were possible in a mortal; wanting to know as much about me as I wished to know of the rival, this Lord took me in.



If only I had known now that I had, as I had done to my lord, sign my own warrant and had become the instrument of my own execution. If I had known, I may have kept running and sought again the comfort of the woman of madness the mercy of insanity. If I had known perhaps I would not have betrayed my true Lord's final wish.



This second Lord who I bound my service too was not as forthcoming as my third parent. This Lord held secrets that though he held them deep, I could feel him keeping them from me. Once when I had come close to the truth and accused him of knowing more about the rival then he let on; he disappeared. He vanished for a couple days until word was sent to me to return to him at a place of his choosing.



I was no fool I knew it was not safe for me to return to him, but having no other place to turn and unable to return to my state of naivety, I went and embraced my probable death. He promised me I could have remained mortal and left his charge unharmed but I knew that to be a lie; my true choice lay only in being taken by force or to accept my change willingly. I hated him for that.



He revealed to me that he had on his absence come across my rival and found him far powerful than I would ever defeat while mortal and if I would choose through him to enter the life of the forgotten, he would teach me how to defeat the rival. With mortal salt tears I cried, over my betrayal and accepted willingly his siring of me. Seeing my defeat and his victory assured in my eyes, he agreed to allow me one more sunrise; even then in that one more day I could have ran but instead I prepared for my funeral, for truly it was indeed my funeral.



It was in the blood exchange that I knew the depth of his treachery. My sire had been one of the generals at the slaughter of my home. He had personally been there to order the horde in and rip out the throats of my parents and loved ones. He had been there when the guard punched my side disrupting my Lord's victory stroke resulting in his subsequent death. This Lord had been there through it all. Indeed, he had even been sent by the rival to track me down and either to kill me or turn me. Thus I entered this life willingly but deceived.



My sire had a plan for me though and now that his contract with the rival was completed, he would hold true to his bargain of teaching me. His only condition was that in turn for not killing me out right I would obey him and his Queen's rules. I did not want to die, but I knew nothing of this matriarchy of which he spoke. The concept was foreign to me, for this was the age of transporters and flying machines and my true Lord had came from an elected council not a ridged stature of codes and ethics.

Hesitantly I agreed adding my own stipulation that I may leave his charge at any time. He had laughed at me, saying I was not bound to keeping my word but that if I wished such a condition so that I could leave his charge legally then so be it.



Thus I find myself here; trapped in the madness that is reality, bound by the traditions I cannot rid myself of and locked in formalities of an insane world. Perhaps dear journal, this is just a cruel joke of my mind and one day I will awake again, human and safe in my illusions of naivety to this forgotten world.



I have not given in to my call for sleep for many days now, I shall write more at a later time perhaps. Or dear journal I may just wake from my dreams tomorrow and say a private eulogy to you as you burn upon the fireplace. We shall see.

Memoirs of a Forgotten



Pre-word



I started writing this using the various other stories i have written but never finished, as well as mixing in a few other sources. I have actually three versions of this on my computer, but this format is more post board friendly. The first version is much shorter, the second is more fleshed out which someday i hope to turn into an actual novella of sorts. The third format/version that i will post here summarises the narrative i'm to use in my fleshed out version.



The character does indeed have a female "voice" to it if for no other reason than I am female, however; do not take this to mean I am the character in the journal entries.



I would enjoy hearing CREATIVE critisim for ways to enhance or progress both the story and my abilities ( most likely illusioned) of writing to improve. However: Please! Remember this is a fictional narrative!!!! The character is the character, whereas I am my own person... asking questions of whether I am the character or if aspects of the character are like me, will be ignored. Thee hath been warned!



I will post the journal entries about once every couple weeks to allow for easier reading. Each entry itself should be take on its own accord, due to lenght. Attempting to read the entirety of the journal in one sitting will be overwhelming again, due to the length of each entry.





Otherwise than that :D

Enjoy the readings :)

Take care and be well

Ara. :)

E. VA.

Tea for… …Two?

(A twist upon Lefanu's Green Tea)





These avian doctors who loom above me are seagulls determined to mark me with their putrid, medical excrements as a foul and demented beast unfit for life. These doomsayer white ravens, with their lab coats flapping, perch upon my bed and screech rank hypothesizes as to the true cause of my malaise. These doctors, loosely called, squawk until they have raped raw my hearing, squawk as if not understanding I know not of their psychobabble. ‘Tis not illness of the mind that plagues me! ‘Tis these posturing and regurgitating owls with their incessant cawing that drives me to the madness they claim of me! I am not mad!



None of these lowly pigeons dare to listen to the truths I have told them; instead, these doctors goose-bobble their heads at one another and are lemmings, lemmings that blindly follow the vilely concocted truths of the ignominious flock to their most pitiful demises. I mean truly, these pompous peacocks believe they know entirely the realm behind the eyes, and they dare to say that all who contradict their judgments are dangerous heretical lunatics in need of burning. Their utter refusal to properly investigate my case stirs my rage into the madness they want of me. Bitterly lashed to this frigid-metal bed my rage simmers, simmers, until my blood threatens to boil over with the heinous outrage of this all. Yes! Admittedly I wish to strangle with my sharp mammalian claws their very disbelief! But! I am not the beast they claim!



I am… not… insane.



Perhaps yes, yes maybe in my excursions into the unknown I left a part of my sanity and better judgment in that veiled realm. But truly, ‘tis this witch’s pricking to uncover the devils mark upon me and to solely prove their point, that drives me to this foolery. They create the very monster they see in me with their instruments of torture, but there is not enough torture and not enough eardrum shattering squawks that will shake from me the truth of what I see. Not enough! I say! Not even near to enough!



Even now as these birds of prey circle, seeking to devour the last of me, I see, I see their grotesque doppelgangers through the shadowy veil behind them. These raven shadows morph into beings of staggering heights; who with revoltingly pale and gangly arms reach forward for the long avian throats of their doubles. My lips pull back in a screeching laughter unrecognizable and haunting to my ears; my laugh is a screech of warning, a warning they do not heed. There is a tone in the warning, a malicious ring that causes even my old bones to grow cold and stiff in my bindings. I do not recognize the familiar sound of my own voice.



It has begun. The invasion of these demonic doubles has begun. Woe to the world that only I can see our foes. Woe to the world that no one listened when I tried to stop the darkness. Woe to the world that only I can see our fate.



My own dark-devil doppelganger was like them… these grotesque shadows…though much shorter, save for an elongated neck that stretched far to far upwards to support his disgustingly bald head. From around that neck a white band sprouted and he would flash to me all the horrid symbols of his demonic faith in an attempt to curse and banish me from his presence. My shadow would bellow at me, hollering at me in a tongue I but vaguely recognized as a form of words, nay, a mindless form of speech. Yes! My midnight bi-pedal serpent would follow me from the bus to my home. Sit across from me… Stare at me… Glare at me and drive me mad with his bead-like eyes. I was profoundly disturbed by his gaze upon me and felt gripped by the very heart of terror. I shudder even now on the cold chill metal slab of my asylum bed in remembrance of him.



It was the tea. With all the marrow in my bones I am positive it was the tea that punctured the veil of reality and thrust me into the darkness of my demon’s world. My world was sound before this green brew’s poison, and I swear upon my life that it was this vile tea that started it all. I had happened upon this demon’s elixir as one would normally learn of a curative tisane. This coyly called green tea. Bah! Demon’s broth, truly! I had but nimbly plucked it from off of my grocer’s shelf, with no more intent or knowledge truly than to enjoy it at my bedside sometime later that evening. Little knowing was I that shortly thereafter making it my habitual companion of my bedside readings, that I would begin to see shapes and images beyond the veil. At first I had thought these images were just the wicked trappings of indigestion but when my demon companion made his presence known… on one of my excursions about town… I quite believed I had indeed gone mad. My doppelganger doubled every dip, dalliance and every action I made. Where I walked forward, he walked with me like a lumbering shadow. Where I ran, he would give chase like I was prey. Forever did these events occur that naught did I receive one ounce of peace! He was always at my side, waiting, blunt teeth gnashing and wanting to tear me with those ghostly arms, limb from very limb. I plagued myself for days for the answer as to the curse upon my eyes to see him. Why? …. My answer?



My answer lay only in the tea and my amateur research into his shadowed realm. I should have left well enough alone! But so aptly punctured was the veil by that green concoction that when the dam gave way I had but little recourse than to be sucked under by the roaring tide. I shake my head against my leather bindings now, for, truly, had I never heard of green tea I would indeed be a healthier being. Or at the very least, I would not be tethered here trying to convince these dabblers of psychoses to get rid of the evil substance! I screech at the avians again but still my voice is hollow and foreign to my ears. If only they would listen! Perhaps they could still be saved!



My demonic visitations increased in such ferocity and intensity that I had forced myself to learn his language. Pfft! Language, language that was more like mindless noise and vile curses than true speech, for indeed I had been right! My demon double, this horrid pink and pasty creature, was cursing my existence, hollering profanities at me until all manners of hour had passed and wishing with all certainty of his being that I would promptly… die. Of course, of course I could not give into his request and saw this loathsome gibbering thing as a challenger to my very world, nay, my very being! No longer could I stand his vile vexation of me and no sooner than I was secure in the knowledge that he resolved to kill me, I thrust my efforts to the means by which to…kill… him.



My plan was flawed.



Quickly I learned that though I could plant suggestions into his mind, he still could take no action that I did not myself take. Even our stroll and my suggestion for him to throw himself down the mineshaft did not work! My double was strong. He resisted all my attempts at ending his life and I fell deeper into depression for my efforts. It wasn’t until entirely by accident I found my salvation! By simple incident of chance while watching intently my prey, I fortunately enough burned myself upon my teakettle and heard my double cry out in pain. Intrigued, I began to test this theory. At great length, with varied implements, I began to beat myself senseless. Admittedly, there was a strange perversion of pleasure from causing him harm but to my delight, each time I struck myself or caused a welt upon my arm; my devil’s mockery would bare a wound worse, far worse than my own. I finally by mere chance had my means by which to kill this pink and hideous monster whose ghastly-denuded form followed me! I was overjoyed!



In short, since my doppelganger bore twice the grievousness of my wounds, I had set aside a night and had chosen an isolated inn to do the deed. By no means was I suicidal. My wounds would be minor in comparison where as his would undoubtedly end his putrid existence. But truly, I resolved to kill him and truly, yes, truly, I was indeed in no danger.



Alas, the avian doctor with whom I had but briefly discoursed upon a metaphysical curative for the demon, thought I was indeed about to kill myself. Valiantly, this fool came to my rescue and barged in unannounced at the very height of my triumph! The very height! I scarce believe it now but it is true. At the very height of my triumph, with my demon double laying unmoving on the floor and the sharp edge of our razor imbedded deep into his flesh, the idiot of doctor dove at me, pinning me harshly to the floor until ‘help’ arrived.



I did not need help!! I was in no danger! And I most certainly do not need to be strapped here and gawked at by goose bobbling physicians who do not know their beaks from their tail feathers. I am not insane! It is these armageddon white ravens who have driven me to the brink of this madness! The humans are real! I did not imagine the shadowed veil lifting for me to see my demonic human double plotting to kill me for my own pleasure and amusement! The humans are real damn it! I do not just imagine the vile loathsome humans! I do not just imagine them standing beside each one of these cawing and revolting avian doctors before me as the doctors again rape raw my ears with their putrid medical jargon! The humans are here! Listen to me!



I roll my mammalian eyes as the osprey fiend Doctor Hesselius perches upon the end of the bed and peers at me, unbelievingly. I wait …………and finally he speaks.



“So how are we today Reverend Jennings?” He pats my foot with a demented wing. “Still thinking we’re a monkey?”



Only the grinding of my teeth is his answer.





By E. VA

A Death of Roses





In the silhouette of crimson dagger, a rose unfolds its bloom defiantly before my eyes. I am afraid. I am afraid of my sanity, for if I am sane then surely…surely the world has gone mad. I see the dagger drawing closer… closer to the pale petal lip and I grimace. The thought of the chill cold steel against that pale, perfect lip…I look away. The dagger stops its sin-spun decent, hesitating… hovering above the rose, eager and quivering to bite deep, the perfect crimson flesh of the bud. The dagger mocks me as it gleams the light across its blade…twisting, glimmering for the proper angle at which to strike and stroke the chill length across the bloom. I am chilled. I am cold…I quiver. I turn my eyes back with morbid perversion as the dagger begins to touch that petal…caress down the pungent and perfumed rose until the dagger reaches the hub of that crimson’s life. My hand reaches forward. I attempt to save. I attempt to comfort?… the rose and caress my fingertips across its petals and body stem. I get bitten! My thumb torn by a thorn that is now crimson and defiled with my blood… a sacrifice paid to the beauty and goddess of the rose. I grasp firmly upon the stem like a jealous and spurned lover eager for the taste of revenge, though still, love was in my eyes. I goad the dagger closer. I tempt the dagger. I tease the dagger with images of its purpose. I point with my thumb and guide the flashing blade across the throat of the stem… slashing it… slicing it quickly upon the thorny body of the rose. I point to another rose… the dagger follows, eager, bloodthirsty as it slices rose after rose upon my bushes. I stand back from the bush, smiling with perverse glee at the bouquet at my feet.



“Rose?” A voice breaks me from my gardening. I look up. My husband looks to me… and smiles. “I think you need a new hobby.” We laugh and go back inside to find water and a vase.



Our laughter is the last thing the roses hear.



By E.VA.