Written by NightElflady

For five long years, I've travelled the globe trying to stay alive. You may think that is not long, but I assure you that when every single second of these 43,800 hours is spent wondering if your next breath is your last, it is a very, very long time indeed.

I haven't slept during these five years, either. 'Impossible', I hear you scoff. Well, it would've been - had I remained human.

Yes, therein lies the irony.

Along with my partner, John Taylor, I once hunted what I've become. I was oddly braver then, perhaps even over-confident, thinking I was invincible. With every weapon imaginable in my arsenal to eradicate the vermin which feeds on men, women and children, I considered myself a force to be reckoned with. How deluded was I? Infinitely!

The creatures of nightmares, stories, books and films, the things you thought were merely mythical creatures birthed from medieval naivety and ignorance, are, in fact, a reality.

I talk of vampires.

Are they beautiful? Mystical? Capable of transforming into other creatures, flying and running at tremendous speed, or evaporating into mist? Fuck no! They - we - are nothing more than cannibals with a ferocity that would put a pack of starving wolves to shame.

We reek! Our hair and nails are unkempt, our skin hangs from our bones, like something seen in the concentration camps of WW2, but unlike those poor souls, we are armed with razor-sharp teeth.

We excrete what we ingest through our very pores. Bloody footprints pave the way to our dens. Yes! You'd think, therefore, it would be easy to wipe us out, to extinguish the blight on humanity, the pestilence that is vampyr. But no. In numbers, we have strength, and our hunger drives us like a finely tuned Harley on an endless Route 66.

But, I know I am now the hunted. I am not given to heightened senses; I don't possess super-human sight or hearing. I can barely sniff out my next victim, let alone a potential executioner. I just know I am also the prey because I was a relentless hunter of the undead back in the day.

Everywhere I look, I expect to see John holding his M1911 at my face, or his Burner 415 Crossbow with silver-tipped bolts aimed at my wasted heart, or even wielding the samurai sword I gave him as a present, to separate me from my head.

You'd think the likes of me would not be fretting about such a thing. We are harbingers of death, yes, yet none of us wants to don the dark shroud of oblivion. We seek to survive at all costs; it is our sacrament, our destiny, our - curse.

However, I am sick of being on alert from the merest scuff of a boot, a noisy group looking for a fight, or even a neighbourhood cat knocking over a dustbin. It's not because I fear death, but I worry that my next challenger shall be my friend, my long lost lover, the man I adored more than life itself.

John and I killed hundreds of vampires over the years, but unbeknown to us then, thousands more rose from vampire venom.

We were blazé, cocky, believing we were unconquerable. We joked about what we would do if one of us fell foul to the contagion. But never did we think either of us would. Then, one fateful night, we were overrun by the most virulent brood of bloodsuckers, and I was initiated to the putrid existence of the undead. I begged John to run; there was no point in us both dying - or worse. Then I watched through blood-filled eyes as he made his escape.

I honestly didn't know if John survived; had he evaded becoming like me? I equally didn't know if I hoped he was still human - for Man is on the road to extinction.

Yet still, I played scenarios through my insomniatic brain, imagining what would happen if we crossed paths.

I am not fluid, swift or even remotely graceful. I move like an over-wound mechanical toy, animated and jerky. But, threaten me, and my hunger surges like adrenalin, reaching every repugnant fibre and nerve-ending of my wasted body. It somehow energises me. I still don't understand how because my only source of nourishment is human blood. But I now recognise the fact that my holier-than-thou crusade when I was human was nigh on pointless.

And so, as I now look into those blue eyes which once adored me, I wonder if he even recognises me. I stare at those big, strong hands which once held me with such tenderness, at the body which loved me with unbridled passion, and I know that I will fight as I have never done before.

As to which one of us will win - well, it depends on who succumbs to the fruitlessness of it all.