Rebirth & Awakening

(TRIGGER WARNING: Gore)

The last thing I remember feeling was the searing heat from the enemy bullets that riddled my body. The GPO, now crumbling and set ablaze by cannons, was surrounded on all sides and we were on the verge of defeat. All was lost. The Irish people, for whom we did all this, were against us. They could not see our sacrifice for them. I can only hope that they will see it someday soon. I felt that our actions were all in vain and that what we were fighting for was all for naught. My comrades and I, however, decided to make one desperate attempt at a last stand against General Sir John Grenfell Maxwell and his troops. This gave our leaders ample time to retreat and escape to Moore Street, where they would regroup and set up their new headquarters.

I felt hot molten fire course through my veins and tasted something vile and metallic in my mouth. I knew I was done for. I sputtered and coughed up blood as the red lifegiving fluid oozed out of every bullet hole in my body and pooled in my throat and lungs. Then the darkness came and Death took me in His arms like an old friend.

Or so I thought…

As I lay there in the darkness, as still as Death, I could hear the scampering tiny feet of the beetles, moles, and rats as they dug tunnels and burrows in the earth. I could hear the footsteps of men walking somewhere above me. They sounded like giants stomping about and the leaves and twigs that crackled and snapped beneath their feet sounded like cannon fire in my sensitive ears. I also smelled death and decay all around me. It was so nauseatingly overpowering that I almost choked and gagged at the smell. I steeled myself and ignored the smell, trying my hardest to concentrate on determining my location. I focused on the sounds around, above, and below me to determine where I was. My concentration, however, was soon broken by simultaneous sensations I felt in my body. First, there was an insatiable hunger in the very pit of my stomach that made me ache horribly. It was a hunger that I, along with my family and the entire Irish nation, had felt before during the Great Potato Famine; but this time, it was intensified and magnified twentyfold or thirtyfold. It felt as though I had been fasting in the Judean desert for far longer than forty days and forty nights. And then there was the burning thirst in my throat. It was on fire. It was as if someone had taken a blazing hot branding iron, forced my jaw and my mouth open, and shoved the thing down my throat. It was an unquenchable thirst. I needed a drink. I also felt an intense pain in my gums and in my teeth. I felt them lengthening, stretching into razor sharp points like knives. Merciful God! What have I become?

I opened my eyes to find myself in a tiny room only big enough to fit me. Its walls, ceiling, and floor were made out of pine wood. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, realization dawned on me and crashed down on me like a gigantic wave out on the ocean. I was in a coffin. Was I dead or was I alive? Had there been a mistake? There was nothing in my chest. My heart was dead, silent, and unbeating. I checked my pulse to make sure I was not mistaken. I was not. I had neither heartbeat nor pulse and I was as cold as Death’s icy grip. What sorcery was this? I was dead and yet I felt even more alive than ever before. I inhaled and realized I had not been breathing but it did not bother me, not in the least. I found that I was able to exist without breathing a single breath of air. This gave me an advantage. I did not have to conserve my breath because I had none. Surely this would work in my favour as I dig my way out of this wooden prison. I formulated a plan in my mind. I was going to punch the lid of my coffin repeatedly until it broke apart and then I would claw and dig my way out back to the surface.

And so with all my strength, I punched the lid of my coffin. Once, twice, three times… First it cracked then it splintered, raining down a hail of sharp wooden shards on me, along with an avalanche of damp black soil. I pushed the soil aside until I was able to form a mound. I tore off the remaining pieces of wood with my bare hands and clawed my way out to freedom, digging upward until I reached the surface. When I finally broke through, I took in large gulps of breath through my mouth and nose, even though I had no longer any need of it. It was human instinct, still, I suppose. I pushed myself up and out of the earth, crawling out of the hole that I had created. My uniform was soiled and caked with earth from my efforts, not to mention dried blood from my bullet wounds.

I straightened myself and stood up but soon recoiled and almost fell backwards. The sight of the crosses on all those tombstones around me struck me and paralyzed me with fear. I understood right then and there what I had become. Unclean. I had become a creature of the night, damned for time and all eternity, cast out and cut off from the very holy presence of my God. I ran through Glasnevin Cemetery, dodging tombstones and mausoleums, averting my eyes from the crosses and stone angels that stood tall like holy sentinels guarding the City of God. With my newfound strength and speed, I jumped the iron fence that enclosed the cemetery and ran through the city streets. I was saddened to see my Dublin in ruins. Stones and bricks were scattered all over the place and there was broken glass everywhere. The city had become a warzone and it would take months to clean up. In the distance, a bell rang four times, announcing that it was now four o’clock in the morning. The bell was followed by a volley of rifle fire. At first, I thought there was still some pockets of resistance—that a company of rebels had not yet heard that our efforts had failed and we had surrendered. The Rising was over. And then it hit me. Those weren’t from pockets of resistance. Those were British guns. Our leaders were being executed.

Fueled by my rage and the burning unquenchable thirst in my throat, I ran through the ruins of the city in search of my prey. Any British soldier was ripe for the picking. Before long, I smelled one and smiled menacingly. He was patrolling the streets. Creeping up behind him noiselessly, I jumped out of the shadows attacked, throwing him to the ground. We tangled and struggled on the jagged street. He pulled out his pistol and fired. Searing pain coursed through my body like I had been struck by lightning, but to my surprise and his, I was alive. My new body ejected the bullet out of my wound and closed up on its own, healing itself.

“Demon!” the soldier cried out. “Wh-wh-wh-what are you?!?”

“I am your judge,” I said, opening my mouth wide to strike. “Jury, and your executioner.”

“Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!” the frightened man screamed. “Somebody help me!”

I soon silenced him with a bite to the neck and he flailed beneath me like a dying fish on the floor of a fishing boat. As blood flowed from his wounds and into my mouth, I was filled with life and energy. I was dead and yet I was alive. I was more alive now than I ever was before. I was free. The burning sensation in my throat faded as I became more and more satiated and full.

Finally, my enemy’s movements slowed and weakened as his heart gave out. He lay still beneath me, lifeless and bloodless. I stared down at his corpse and decided I did not want to Turn him into my kind. That would be too merciful a death. I decided he needed to die. With beastly ferocity, I pierced his chest with my fingernails and dug deep until I reached his cold, dead, unbeating heart. I yanked it out of the hole in his chest and devoured it, deeply inhaling its invigorating smell.

What am I? Who am I?

My name is John Daniel O’Donnell. Irish rebel. Vampire.