..... If darkness could be measured by what light failed to reach, then this, this was as dark as it could be.
The feeling of nothingness.
It pressed him from every angle - a hollowed weight that smothered him until he couldn’t tell who he was.
Feeling, emotions, names, memories, language.
He was but a mere spark of dust , in the unending darkness, forgotten, left to disintegrate excruciatingly.
Was he forgotten?
What would happen to him?
His very being was being torn apart.
His struggles were futile, he could only scream and agonize as his core was torn piece by piece.
The feeling of powerlessness was too much for his remaining consciousness to comprehend.
What would remain of him afterwards?
Nothing!
He was terrified, no, terrified would not explain the extent of the emotions he was feeling.
Horrified.
In that split second of consciousness, he prayed to whatever was out there.
I’m going to disappear, I’m going to die.
Falsities.
It had been likened to eternal sleep, a comfortable slumber meant to rest your soul and lifeless body.
What he experienced was not as preached.
It was a cruel losing battle, and he was the defeated one. No strategy would save him from the sinking ship he was on.
It wasn’t tranquil. It was losing your body functions and becoming nothing but a hollow puppet forced to watch your maker destroy you over and over with no way of resistance.
In that emptiness, there is no feeling, no hope, no fear, only the endless suffocating presence of.... nothing.
I hate it!
I hate it! I hate it! I hate it! I hate it!
Are you saying all the struggles of life, pain, boredom, growth, all I’ve lived for, were to amount to this? Was it all just going to end like this?
Then what was the meaning of my existence?
".....I won’t allow it."
I was startled out of my sleep by the skittering of small footsteps.
I opened my eyes only to be met with the bright light from the crystal lamp. It had taken a lot of begging for mother to buy it for me.
I must have fallen asleep again, from all the late night experiments.
I looked around me, the large room filled with equipment, medicines, and potions scattered around the already full table.
Yes, this was my underground laboratory.
I raised my hands to cover my oversensitive eyes from the light until I adapted to it.
"....I can’t get rid of it can I ?"
I murmured to myself.
"...chichichi," the mice chattered in response as though mocking me.
The dream. It was about my death, at least I wasn’t waking up screaming and crying as I used to when I was reborn into this body.
Seven years would be enough for me to adapt and get used to the narrowing nightmare that was my death.
"... Why do I get the dream a lot these days?"
But I knew the answer.
I had reached a bottleneck in my research.
That’s right, it was research I absolutely had to do since it involved my survival.
Longevity.
I seem to have joined the groups of delusional I used to mock when I read about them before my death.
I looked down at my legs. Legs that didn’t touch the floor. It was clearly a child’s leg, still growing.
I touched my hair, white hair that reflected against the moon, a color just as unnatural.
This was me, Lucian Bloodmoor.
I had been reborn; no matter how much I think about it, it was a phenomenon that had happened to me.
I was just a normal mortal on earth just barely of age. I didn’t know who I was , I only knew I was nothing special. To make it stranger, I was reborn with my memories intact.
... parts of my memories.
Why was I reborn?
This was a question that was etched into my mind. Maybe the gods heard my cries. As of now, this phenomenon has not happened to anyone upon my investigation, so it seemed to only have befallen me.
Even with this second chance, I wasn’t satisfied.
What if I die again?
That was the question that haunted my mind. Death was what I was scared of the most.
I had a feeling I would never get another chance if I died; this was my last chance at life. I was not going to let myself fall into the misery I experienced.
I jumped off the stool I was sitting on and walked towards the cages at the furthest corner of the laboratory.
Mice in different states of dismemberment cowered the moment I approached. It was as if their tiny little brains could remember what I had done to them.
I stood on my toes and opened the topmost cage. The mouse inside moved back to the corner ,trying to escape my hand.
It was useless, its back limbs had been cut off during one of my experiments.
"Chichichi.."
It struggled relentlessly but my grip was too tight for it to escape. I could feel my grip breaking its bones, but I didn’t care, it had finished its usefulness, and now it only had to perform its last act of service to me before it died.
If anyone were here looking at me, they would call me insane. Maybe I was maybe I wasn’t.
But I knew I had fallen into madness. Death has forced me to this point. To achieve immortality, I will do anything.
"... I’m hungry."
I muttered and walked to the table. I climbed on the high chair and sat on it before pulling the small glass on the table towards me.
I took a syringe from the case next to me and stabbed it into the struggling mouse’s veins. I watched in fascination as the blood filled the syringe.
I wondered if it would experience the same feeling I had when I died. I knew it wouldn’t, it was nothing but a mere animal. I aimed the syringe into the glass and pushed the piston.
I watched as the blood mixed with the human blood in the glass.
Vampire.
That was what I was. Something of legends, told as fairy tales to children, romanticized love story characters are just a work of fiction.
But in this world, the myth came to life. I had been reborn into a family of vampires.
But the world was a fantasy on its own.
"Ingrain"
I murmured after the two blood mixed together. Human and mouse blood.
I watched as the blood shimmered a light golden before it went back to its usual red color.
"Tastes like power."
I said out loud. I tasted the blood , this was a new experiment. I had done it while bored as I tried to come up with a new route for my experiment.
The taste was still the same, metallic.
"I guess the rat was too weak."
I couldn’t feel the difference I was expecting, but the blood soothed my hunger.
I touched my teeth; there were no fangs. That was something that made me angry. I had to wait until the right age before they would grow.
I was like a normal child and couldn’t feed on a living human until my fangs fully developed.
I waved my hand at the cages, and one cage opened. A perfectly normal mouse flew to me. Unlike the others that struggled every time I came near, this one didn’t.
It landed on my palm and looked up at me.
"Aren’t you a beauty. I have conducted this research over and over again until I’ve perfected my craft...."
The mouse just looked at me.
"Roll over."
It rolled and fell on the table, I could hear its little ribs cracking. Blood dripped from its mouth and onto the table. I leaned towards the small crates filled with different colored potions and picked up a green potion.
One of the potions I had made when I found the potion book in my mother’s study. Just change the formula a little and you have it.
Alchemy.
That was what they called it here. A craft that is both loved but also hated.
It was a craft that could destroy or uplift a human, in the right hands. It was a form of magic that could turn anything into a highly valuable item, like turning steel into gold.
That was I , Lucian Bloodmoor, studying. It was my best chance to achieve immortality.
I poured the potion on the quiet mice. Its body twitched, then it stood up again.
Healing potion.
I didn’t want to destroy my best product yet.