Monster POV

The sun isn't out today. I find it relaxing to come out into the open on cloudy days. I spend a great deal of my time inside. Only coming out at night gets depressing. Days when it is overcast gives me a respite from claustrophobia of being inside. Unfortunately, life has been like this for a few centuries now. Ever since my conversion, I have had to adapt. People think they truly know what it is like, to have long life I mean. Many people believe the myths and legends. Many people simply ignore the lore and old tales, they choose to live in the here and now. I no longer truly know what to think. I mean when it happened, or when I was cursed depending on how you look at it. I have learned to live with the limitations of being a vampire. Yeah I said it out loud or did I? Perhaps I just thought it to myself .

In the year 2025 the world is filled with new and marvelous technological advances. In the year 1765, not so much. That was the year I contracted a rare viral infection. Vampyrus Contagio I think is what the scholars called it. Despite the books, folk stories etc. Vampirism as I call it, is not a rampant plague on humanity. No Vampires do not live forever, even though it can seem like some of us do. The condition has been around since recorded history. I have a rare genetic disposition that allowed the virus to take hold in my body. I am now the undead, not true either. I have a low resting heart rate; my normal rhythms are all jumbled up. No, I don't drink blood as a general rule, at least not in the way movies have portrayed it. I require blood to sustain myself, perhaps because the virus makes me anemic. Animal blood seems to do just as well as human blood. I do not live in a cave or bite people in the neck. At present, I am a auditor working for a city office. I am an accounting weiner! I have been many things in the many decades I have lived. I was a farm hand when I became infected in Virginia. I know right, not Romania, or Prussia, somewhere exotic like in the stories. I was working on a farm slaughtering animals. I am not really sure if being exposed to animal blood or bile lead to my infected state. All I know was that when I was 25 my life changed forever. I had a wife and 2 children at the time with a 3rd child on the way. One day I am working on a farm, the next I have a rampant fever and end up in a coma. At some point they thought I had died because they buried me in a pine box. I woke up a few days later famished with hunger and 6ft under the dirt. Getting out wasn't an easy task, I was fortunate that it rained the night before I woke up in my own grave. I did not quiet understand what had happened, or why. I just knew that I had to get out of the box. So out I crawled, soaking wet, covered in mud and ravenously hungry. Fortunately for me but not so much for a few wild forest animals, I was able to hunt down some prey. It was still dark and gloomy when I rose from the crypt of the living dead. I had hard decisions to make and had to make them fast. It was one of the darkest times in my life and not something I enjoy thinking about. I do have some unusual abilities. I possess a heightened sense of smell, acute hearing and the ability to see at night like a cat. The down side is that when I use the vision, my eyes turn a yellowish green. Probably a side effect of my condition. The world really doesn't know people like me exist, at least the world at large. There are more unusual creatures than you might imagine. I am unsure how many people are afflicted with Vampirism. I know that Sasquatch exist, but is just a advanced form of primate with a depraved sense of humor. Werewolves aren't really wolves, they are just people with an overabundance of hair forced to live in solitude because they scare people to death because of their dog like attributes. I have harnessed my unique condition. I have worked as a criminal investigator. I have been a reporter, being able to hear a fly buzzing from a half a mile away comes in handy. I became a scientist once and pursued a cure for my condition. After about 20 years I became bored and moved on to something else. I cannot have any children, likely attributed to the virus. I have followed my offspring from my former life. I now have over 140 great great great grand children. It has been hard to watch them from afar, but I often found it best to avoid getting too close to my former family, lest one of them be cursed to the same fate as I am because of the same genetic condition that landed me in my current state. I just seemingly exist day to day, hoping that normal might return someday.

As I mentioned earlier, it is now 2025, I have worked for the government in the past. Being a numbers cruncher is not as interesting a s being a covert operative for MI6 ot working for American military intelligence. My condition almost got me killed a few times. Once in Caifornia, a mob tried to lynch me. I was able to get away by the skin of my teeth. Yes I can be killed, not easily mind you but if you remove my heart from my body or take my head off, I will not be back. I have seen one of my kind killed with a landmine before, he did not regenerate. I watch the world change . I keep a low profile now as a finance geek. Despite the fact that I am incredibly rich, I find it best not to draw attention to myself. That is something else I learned early on, if I was going to be a member of the dammed sort of speak, I might be able to afford the finer things in life. Remember when I said that I moved on from my family once I realized that I was kind of screwed. Well I became a thief and a smuggler for a bit and did quiet well. Then the revolutionary war broke out. So I disappeared into the frontier until the whole thing blew over. I did from time to time leave gifts for my former wife. I would include a letter saying that they were from a distant relative who felt bad about her crap luck. Not long after I died, she married my cousin, but I still felt the need to look out for my family. One of the things that I did while I was hiding out in the wilderness was run up on Big Foot for the first time. The first meeting wasn't exactly a stellar success. I was helping myself to a deer when something hit me in the back of the head. I woke up in a cave tied up with leather bindings. I broke free easily enough, but the stench nearly knocked me out again. You remember how I said Vampires have heightened senses, well I found out that when you are knocked out cold, it takes a moment to reorient yourself, meaning regain your composure. When I composed myself, I found myself inside a labryinth of a cave system. It took me hours to find my way out. I didn't encounter my host or captor immediately after emerging from my drab accommodations. It was midday when I came out, luckily I was in thick forest that mitigated my exposure to direct sunlight. I know what your thinking, I would have burst into flames. Not exactly true ,but not all together inaccurate either, think really bad sunburn. My condition leaves me succeptable to severe skin irration from full direct ultra violet rays. In 2025 it is easily explained away, in the 1700s not so much. So back to my first meeting with a Sasquatch. After lingering near the entrance of the cave I had just wandered out of for a brief period, I caught the aroma that I had experienced in the cave, but not to the extent I had been previously overwhelmed. I climbed a nearby tree to observe and devise a plan. Much to my suprise, the big lumbering furry creature walked by the tree and then turned and looked up. It then spoke, and said in what I recognized to be a Native American tongue, you can come down, I know your are there. Stunned, I jumped just over 20 ft out of the tree to the ground after a moment of brief hesitation. I know, how did I understand the creture? One of the side effects of my transformation appears to be the ability to adapt quickly to your environment. I had been in the wildneress for a bit and had picked up the naive lingo. I found it useful and was able to converse with my 6ft8 friend, well sort of. Once the creature knew I was not a threat, it lead me back into the cave and out the otherside. Apparently their species can find their way inside complex spaces by smell, trust me you really don't want me to explain. Just suffice it to say that I moved through the labryinth faster the second time. I spent roughly a month with my stalwart friend before departing with a local native tribe. The creature did learn some English from me and a bit of Latin. Over the centuries I have encountered them occasionally and now speak to them fluently not only in their native tongue, but in English and a few other languages as well.

Life can become mundane for someone who has lived going on 3 centuries. I am aware of a some of my kind that have lived much longer. The oldest of us that I am aware of is over 900 years old . She doesn't really socialize much with anyone I am afraid.. She is very reclusive and is beginning to show the signs of age. Now don't get me wrong, she still looks amazing for just over 900, but in normal terms, you would think her around 50ish. I have had many lovers and one or two long term relationships in my time. Occassionally, I have revealed who or what I am to close friends. One or two even toyed with the idea of joining me in my journey as a Vampire. Much to their dismay, I could not help them. The disease doesn't accommodate just anyone. It picks you, you donot pick it. I guess you can say that it is a cruel trick of fate. I was not what a person would call evil. Some would say I am dammed. Through all of my studies in philosophy, both eastern and western, I find writings alluding to the history of my kind. I have even found formulas for supposed treatments. My own exploration into what at the time was modern science have lead to some amazing revolutions about who and what I am. Yet, for all my endevors, I am still trapped watching humanity roll past ever so slowly. As I scarcely age and look a the world through the prisim of a wine glass filled with blood.