Illusions of Soul

As humans, we never really know what tortures we have the ability to exact. We barely even scratch the surface of what lies inside our minds. It takes only a slight warping of our selves to gain the ability to do things that seem horrendous to us when we have souls.

If you have ever wondered, they are good for something.

The things that I did to Paul Jr.’s mother are things that I now protect women from, but then it seemed good sport - to do to Paul’s wife what he’d wanted to do to me.

It makes me shudder to think about. It makes me truly ill. It makes me want to be gone from here, from myself.

Which is why I’m not.

My life, the everlasting nature of it, is my punishment. It was a punishment before I even did anything that deserved to be punished. But now, I allow it to go on, because no one has it coming more than I do.

When I left, the police had no leads. Not all that surprising. And because they had no leads, it is only natural for them to come to the conclusion that the missing son is somehow responsible for the deaths of his mother and his sisters. They hate having to think that. It doesn’t feel natural. It doesn’t feel acceptable.

It’s neither of those things… but they are right. And they are wrong.

The boy did kill his sisters, just as Paul Jr. had done. I am certain of that. By me, that fact is undisputed. But he is not responsible for their deaths. At least not as he was. Not the boy from the picture on the wall. That boy was dead before his body committed the horrendous acts for which they now place blame. The police hold the boy on the wall responsible, because, as much as they hate the idea of it, they want to believe in the alternative even less.

And the one act which they cannot wrap their minds around, the one that seems too stomach-churning to even deliberate on, he didn’t carry out, but they will never know that. And they blamed the pills on him too, the sleeping pills that killed his mother, the prescription bottle beside her that was emptied and poisonous. They assumed she was forced to swallow them. No surprise, considering the condition she must have been found in.

But neither the boy, nor his mentor, committed the act of the woman’s murder, though they had every part in her death. What the police won’t ever know, because they don’t want to ponder all of the merciless possibilities is that the woman was left alive, lying shattered in a room with her dead twins, and she found just enough strength to get to the medicine cabinet, gather her means, and do it herself.

Paul Jr. was so eager to indulge my fantastic whims. So eager to bring me anything and everything that I asked.

So I asked for his sisters.

Like a dutiful puppy, he went to fetch them for me.

And I found his mother. Right where she should have been. In her bed, asleep. She gave a start when I awakened her, but one look into my eyes made her fear dimish instantly, her desire arise. I wasn’t unwanted. Which is why I made sure that it hurt. Pain is still pain, and a touch can become rapidly unwelcome when it causes enough. I caused her more pain than she probably ever thought to fear. She hadn’t only suffered enough by the time Paul came. She had suffered more than enough. She had suffered too much. She had suffered irreparably. Because I was still angry at her husband.

And that’s why I ordered Paul to kill his sisters, to drain them dry right in front of her. She was sobbing, trying to turn away, but my hand on her chin kept her face turned toward the sight, and human curiosity wouldn’t allow her to close her eyes. So she watched.

She was already torn and bleeding and afraid, and now she had to watch as one of her children gleefully took the lives of her other two. She had to watch, because I was still angry at her husband.

And when I was finished, when Paul was finished, when I felt satisfied in my revenge, I did the cruelest thing I could think to do.

I let her live.

This is when the darkness comes forth.

Again.

It is hardly a new trend. If anything, it’s an old one.  Things have a way of being nauseatingly repetitive.

The darkness is where I lived. By choice. For quite some time. Not quite some time by human standards, but for several human lifetimes. Not for years, but for hundreds of years. Then I broke free. The possibility that I would one day return has been here, hanging over me, ever since.

If there is any solace, it is that I have not made the trip of my own volition. It is not my weakness or renewed wantonness. It has been demanded of me.

But not of you.

If you fear the dark, you are free to go.

I have been absent. Not from this place, but from this Earth, from myself. It’s called a soul sojourn. Of course, such a title is misleading, because no matter what traits I may exhibit, no matter what thoughts may flow through my head, I am aware of my constant state of soullessness. No matter what, that never changes, and no matter what, I never forget.

In a soul sojourn, one’s body is present, but his or her essence moves to a different plane. There are ways to do this. Humans always have a problem with such possibilities, but it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. During a soul sojourn, you are open to the universe, to creation, to life in all its forms, completely receptive, and answers will come to you. But getting there isn’t easy, and it could kill the truly weak. It is, though, the only place where I knew I would find that which I was seeking, my next destination.

I knew after the killings, whoever is responsible for these acts would move on, because, after my binge, I left the place I’d always dreamed of escaping. But just like that continent, here there are so many places to move onto next. I also knew that, on sojourn, I would feel them. It would be only a matter of time. That many vampires rising at once is a difficult sensation to ignore.

And I knew that it would happen. Because it was a long time before I took to killing again after that first night. With Paul Jr. at my side, we made off toward the south, where we didn’t take time to torture. We were far too busy siring an army.

They’ve made to the east though, the person who is doing this and the boy from the picture on the wall of the house. And now I will move as well, only this time I follow.

But first things first, I must find blood. A soul sojourn is not easily entered and is hardly a revolving door. Once you are in, you are in until you are out. It’s like a state of hibernation. And it’s been nearly three weeks, and now… I am famished.

I knew that Paul Jr. would be the easiest way in for me. I had some notion that he had a crush, so when I came knocking in the dead of night, it served his fantasies to let me come inside.

And he did.

He let me into his family’s home, into their place of safety, which I promptly took from them.

But first I took Paul. It was of no wrongdoing to him, the way that his father’s attempts had been to me, but I knew it would still offend his Biblical sensibilities to give in, for as long as his Biblical sensibilities were still intact. But they faded quickly, under my hands, and then I whispered the words and my daggers sunk in.

I still didn’t know what they meant then, but I found that I could recite the same words Haydn had recited over me instinctively. Then I drank until death was closing in on Paul. I could feel it as surely as I could feel his desire, and then, when I knew that he was almost gone, I pulled my daggers out and I kissed him. And the energy transmitted back and forth between us. And I felt him grow strong out of me.

Then, he looked up at me, and he was someone else, something else, and I knew that he would follow me as I had longed to follow Haydn. To have such a willing servant, it was powerfully intoxicating.

“Let’s go find your family,” I said to him and he smiled, his lips still smeared with his blood.

I wonder where the boy is now.

Of course, he is no longer a boy.

Or he is forever a boy.

Whichever way you choose to look at it.

I saw his picture on the wall at the house. He looked seventeen.

Is that why this family was chosen? Did someone go door-to-door, searching for the exact family dynamic of an already gone father, subservient mother, seventeen-year-old son, and two small twin daughters?

They must have, because the universe doesn’t happen upon this much coincidence.

My family may not have been worth any extra effort on my part… but Paul’s was.

Perhaps I should have felt that Paul had already gotten his punishment, but that was Haydn’s rescue, not my vengeance. And my need for revenge had suddenly become something irrepressible, due, I’m sure,  in no small part to my new ability to exact it with ease.

And perhaps I should have felt that Paul’s family had no culpability for the actions he committed, but I still blamed them. I blamed them for letting him pretend that he was safe, that he was righteous. I knew them all well and not one of them warned me against his dark side. Not one said, “He’s not what he seems. Don’t trust him.”

The argument could have been made that they weren’t aware of the dark side any more than I was, but it didn’t matter. The justification for their torment was enough for me, because I was now someone who didn’t need one at all.

I did hope that I was wrong, but I knew that I wouldn’t be. When I went searching for more bodies, more death, I knew that I would find it. I knew that, along with the man in the fire and the woman staked to the wall, there would be other victims, more merciless scenarios.

There were.

Two miles from the house I went to visit, there was another house filled with murder. An entire family exterminated through cruel and torturous methods the same night.

I knew that there would be more, because the night that I killed Helen’s parents, I wasn’t finished.

I didn’t return to kill my parents. From what I’ve learned since, it’s the first thing that most vamps do when they’re sired. It seems that there is almost a maniacal urge to punish those people who have reared us.

But I never went back.

Why?

Was it because I didn’t hate them?

No. I did. As much as I don’t like to acknowledge it, even when I was human, I did hate them. I still do.

Was it because I didn’t think that they deserved it?

No. I thought that too.

As gloomy as it may seem… as unfeeling… as ungrateful… as cold… I didn’t return that night to kill my parents, because I simply didn’t care enough to spare them my energy.