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Here, today, I opened my eyes....I have found something in the darkness behind the closed lids that I no longer wish to view.
But, when upon my eyes fluttered gently to a squinting stare, yet still all that I can see is the dark.
For a long time I did stare, unmoving, unyeilding to my fear.
Thoughts spiral and twist accross my emaciated conciousness...deprived of ecstasy for so long, it takes long hours to remember even if I still exist.
What is this emptiness which calls me back to the stupour?
my head....it hurts.....
...I stretch a knarled finger outward and scrape it gently against something rough, but yeilding to the gentle pressure...slowly, as muscles long atrophied begine to feel a resurgence of energy flowing faster, urging it forward...I wonder how long has it been...my memories are empty, as though a theif in the night has come into my being and robbed my fragile mind of all its images once held in posterity...I baulk at lost thoughts of joy and wonder....I sense the utter loss of my life before the now that I have become...but still, the tangible essence slips irritatingly past the periphery of my vision...more pain...
...the throbbing subsides and I gather my thoughts again.....more pain now, reaching along my arm like an ice cold rivulet of water slowly caressing its way between empty folicles and lumpy scars, until it reaches what must be my elbow and there, a blossoming explosion of pain brings my hand alive into a fist which rapidily begins to flex its fingers to a sound...odd though it is to my ears? No, not ears, not sound, but the vibration of long siezed joints creaking through my body...I allow the hand to relax and it falls with a muffled thud....
...time passes...how much, I cannot tell....I should move, but this lethargy asks me why? for what reason have I to take myself from this confine and back out into the world?
I can feel the heat of the day, can almost beleive that the sun still shines upon me...but alas, it is only the burning fire of my newly awakened nervous system which drags my tired soul back from its reverie...
an itching sensation...sharp, yet tempered to a dull ache by the somewhat enjoyable realisation that I have missed being a part of the world, as a lover would welcome back a faithful partner, so do I welcome the resurgence of my blood, tingling gently now as it moves inexorably toward the reaches of my limbs...
...lost in the moments, it is some time before I recover my compusure to continue my deliberations...
...my head feels as though it might explode...pressure is building and sharp pain begins to pierce the smothering weight and then suddenly, a sound as though silk were being torn and a clenching of my jaw and I know that my teeth have become exposed...but why now? I cannot move, I cannot feed myself...then I realise, soft touches of what can only be blood are spattering on my lips, their temperature almost imperceptively warmer, with each passing drop, they become more regular and hotter...and after a long moment which seems to last hours, I feel a gentle breath so close to my face that it cools my lips even as the first mouthful reaches them...urgently, I swallow my first taste of blood in so long, my throat aches with the effort, but yet, as soon as it is gone, I feel the need rise up within me...my neck strains as I try to lift my head, but cannot...
...the slow steady pace of the drops continues...my mouth is again half full when I feel the brush of something soft against my now swelling lips...a kiss...as gentle a kiss as I could imagine...slowly they enclose my lower lip and a slight pressure pulls open my mouth as far is it can go at present and I notice that the drops have stopped now...then the release and I almost beleive that I hear the faintest whisper...but then I feel the empty space above me and I know that I am alone again...so I drink and I sleep once more, resigned to my captivity and pondering thoughts of where I might be and the identity of this benfactor? of mine...
I am awakned by a sound...yes, it is a sound, my ears seem to have either grown or been released from whatever force has held them silent. It is a sweet sound, a tinkling, shrill, yet slow and measured, as though a choirboy were whistling to himself...
After a while, I begin to understand those sounds more, they seem to call to me, as though a question were forming, puzzling me and igniting my curiousity...I want to see who, or what, is creating this almost serene, yet strangely discomforting lilt, but I am caught fast in whichever binding holds me, has held me here for so long...
I try my hand again, this time able to lift it somewhat higher and more freely than before. I can feel the touch of a rough cloth on the tops of my fingernails, tantilisingly, I am unable to grasp the material, so after just a few scrapes, I submit to my captivity.
Hours pass...my time sense is recovering now and I can judge the passing of the moon as the most minute tug on my aura, slightly distending it, almost imperceptively stretching it, just a fraction of an inch, but enough that I can realise...my mind seems sharper now...I turn thoughts toward escape, my first inclination to do so, having felt so tired in the past few nights, it is a welcome relief to have such motivation to extracate myself from a prediciment which I cannot even remember being borne into...
That sound continues unabated and I now begin to feel infuriated by its insistance that I pay my attention to it, rather than my own musings...clearer notes are sounding now, almost into speech, but indescribably complex patterns swirl, rising and falling faster now and I fear that it may drive me mad...I press against my confines and make to utter a sound, any sound, just to break up the inseccant noise!
but although my tongue moves, it is barely felt, no taste, no sense of touch inside my mouth...no air to expel, I cannot even feel my lungs...are they rotted away too? how long must I have been here? I think years, without doubt, decades? a possibility. centuries? unlikely, for the fast changing nature of mortal 'development' would have surely meant my discovery...although one would hope not...
the sound stops abruptly and I pique to attention...then a voice, certain and confident in its force, asks "Well? Care to provide me with a response?"
Blankly, I wonder if I have missed something, perhaps I am confused, but I did not hear a question...or perhaps the sound, or music or singing or whatever it was, was an enquiry or some sort, from one who mistakenly believes me capable of speech...sorry, I think to myself, but I need more of your delicious nectar before I can attempt communication with you, my tormentor...
For two days now I have been left alone...the hunger has grown to such a knawing ache that I have chewed through my lip several times now...damn this person, whoever they are...they will surely realise the cost of their mistake in bringing me here to this place...wherever this place is...
It is many hours before I hear the sound of footsteps, but lightly, indicating someone of small stature, or particularly lithe, but not the footfalls I would recognise as belonging to one of my kind though...far too clumsy...the voice again, but not female...a man? Interesting...I will enjoy feeding on him in such ways that he would not forget, were I to allow him survival.
"Time for breakfast!" My captor cheerfully announces...no cheers soon, my tasty morsel...
I sense the drop even before it hits my mouth and I know that it will not be long before I am strengthened enough to break free of this binding...just a few more nights of playing the wounded and trapped beast and then...
But for now, I drink the precious sanguine liquid which brings such ecstasy to my being.
My captor has been silent of late but has ensured that the flow of that exquisite, yet so essential, nourishment continues, albeit intermittantly.
It is obvious that he, or they, have an idea of the power which is contained within each of those small globules for me, as I am being kept close to unconciousness and am still unable to realise any movement from below my chest...
I suspect that I have had an introvenous line for a period, although it has been removed now, I can still feel the hole which it has left, with a bandage wrapped around to stem the flow, as I am obviously as yet incapable of self healing, even for such a pinprick as this.
This thought startles me, for already my senses are expanding out into this world, I feel the movement of the moon, the spin of the earth, the background hiss of a million voices just outside my hearing, every movement, sound and breath of this person who seemingly taunts me...I can almost see his mind, in fact, I can almost reach the astral plane, even with so little sustenance having been received, I feel strong, but yet, there is a doubt damning my positive flow...what is its source?
...It seems that my vision is returning, albeit slowly, painfully...
The faintest shadings of light glimmer just out of focus and struggle as I might, I cannot seem to make my eyes catch up with them...a sense of touch has also returned to my face, my head, my mouth....I can feel that I am bandaged and blindfolded or hooded and a taught cable of some fashion, thin, yet no doubt strong, encircles my neck as a snare might trap a woodland animal...
Animal?...is that how my captors view me?
am I as hunted game to them?
...a terrible inkling comes to my mind at this thought...am I trapped here to be kept as food for some diabolical ritual which they have planned, where I am to be the main course in a buffet of blood and gore?
Or maybe I will be just the starter, for I can see them gaining little from the empty husk of mouldy flesh and cracked bone that I must surely be. Perhaps I am to be fattend for the feast...perhaps...but for now, I can take solace from my crippled state and know that I must be of use to these....people...or else I would not be here....but for what reason have I been kept, stored like some butchers choice?
I feel that soon, I will get my answers and I fear that I may not like to hear them...
With a start, I came to...something odd had happened to me...pain, yet unlike that which I have ever felt before...more like...fire coursing through me, yet numbing...somehow...soft.
It is some moments before I smell the acrid choking scent of burning blood filling my now gagging mouth...a snarl and gnashing of my teeth brings forth a gutteral, almost feral sound...what are they doing to me?!
For some hours I feel this sensation and the awful, putrid experience of knowing that it is my own blood which is aflame and I pass through many states, from the intial anger which built into utter fury, then into a calm melancholy serving only to further my depression and eventually into resignation as the realisation that it is not I who is being burned, but merely my blood...perhaps in a censer of some fashion and it brings a modicum of releif, however unpleasant the odour remains...
It is a frightening thing for one such as I to beleive that they are burning, that these will be the last moments, but thankfully(?) I yet survive...for what reason though? My patience grows thin and I seek answers within the dark place from which I came, but alas, I appear to be alone even there where I had known so many(?)...
These fragmented portions of sweet memory are slow in their returning home...and it grates upon my soul(?) so many questions this night...
I search myself for knowledge of rituals that make use of the blood of my kind and find nothing. I search for any readings in the essence of the cloth which covers my shame...but again, nothing more than the dull mind of vegetation...
Sounds are more frequent now...I hear the preperation of something metallic, the distinct clanking steel upon steel...a whining, drilling screech...construction perhaps?
The time comes soon now...I can sense it...I feel the tug of future echoes of doom rippling past, as though I were a stone cast into a pool...peace at last?
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