Morning came with a rising sun and singing birds for some, but for the people who found the pile of seven bodies in front of the morgue, I imagine it began with a blood curdling scream. I suppose you would assume that I would retire to a coffin and sleep the day away, but those are simply stories. I don’t sleep in a coffin, live in a mansion or castle, or wear capes… anymore. Okay, I used to live in a castle in the fourteenth century, and capes were in style for a few years, but I have never once slept in a coffin, nor do I ever intend to. In fact, I don’t sleep at all. During the day, I throw on a hooded coat and wrap any exposed skin in bandages. Most people in town just assume I have burn scars or am deformed in some tragic way. Because of this, most will give me a wide birth when crossing me in the street and avoid eye contact if possible. That’s fine with me, the less they look my way, the less likely they are to notice anything that might give me away as not being one of them; human, that is.

I was born in the year 792, but since the year 823 AD, I had not been fully human. I was only a monster masquerading as a man. A beast that stalked indiscriminately throughout the night. The personification of death made flesh and cursed to wonder from village to village feasting in a futile attempt to satiate an endless hunger and deep fury. In the year 823 AD I was attacked by a creature known to my village, and others like us, as a “Bestia Krwi.” It was a beast with the strength of ten men, huge leathery wings as long as a wagon, and the face of a demon bat. It resided mostly in the mountains, but every year, on the night of the solstice, it would fly down and take one person from one of the villages in its’ territory. No one knew for what reason it did this, perhaps to eat them… well no one but me knew. I unfortunately found out the hard way; by being its’ victim that year.

I was walking home from a hunting trip that night with a group of others from my village. All these centuries later and I still haven’t been able to remember any of their names. Whether it was random chance, by the beast’s choice, or fate, I do not know, but in a flash I was lifted into the air with the creature’s razor-sharp talons sinking into my shoulders. Its’ shrieks rattled me to the bone and popped my eardrums. I cried out in pain but couldn’t hear anything come from it; I was deafened. As it dragged me to its’ domain in the sky, I saw a glimpse of the faces of my comrades. Looks of shock, confusion, fear, and sadness adorned them. I passed out soon after, whether from fear or pain I don’t know.

I woke up just as the creature dropped me into a nest made of twigs, dried leaves, and bones. Some of the bones were human, but most were animals I think, though it was no comfort. I attempted to crawl away from it, but my efforts were fruitless as it bit my leg and did something that today I am all too familiar with… it injected me with paralyzing venom. I tried in vain to keep crawling away but may hands and feet wouldn’t move. It was as if I had great trees sitting atop my body pinning me down and preventing me from even crying out for help. I’ll spare you the gory details, let’s just say I was a living dinner. Unable to scream, I was forced to watch as it ate me. I surely would have died if it had finished, but something startled the monster and it abandoned me, flying away into the night. It wasn’t until later that I even bothered to ask myself what could have been terrifying enough to scare such a beast.

I laid there, slowly bleeding from the holes it left in my legs, arms, and neck. Eventually, after three hours, I regained the use of my body and made my way down the mountain as fast as I could. I limped, crawled, and eventually started to run down the mountain side, until I tripped over my own wobbly legs and rolled a bit. With great effort I forced myself back up and continued back towards my village. When I arrived, just before daybreak, I was met with the smiling faces of everyone in my village. I was the first person to ever come back from being taken by the Bestia Krwi. Once someone noticed my wounds, I was taken to our healer and given medicine after which I again fell unconscious.

I awoke the next night, after the sun had set, with a deep and ravenous hunger. It was unlike anything I had ever felt before, I felt it in my bones. It was as if my very soul craved some unknown substance. All I could think of was getting that thing, it consumed my every thought, but I had no idea what it was. I stumbled out of the healer’s hut in a haze of raw emotions: hunger, confusion, anger, joy… every feeling a human could have or come to know was flooding my mind in those moments. But the strongest one of all was that bottomless hunger. I fell to my knees and a kind old man, whom I had known my whole life, came and helped me to my feet.

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I had healed from my wounds within a few hours of arriving at the village, no marks remained from the bites the Bestia Krwi inflicted on me by the time I woke up. Most of the village was unaware I ever had any injuries to begin with. Once my mind had calmed down, I left the healer and his tent to go back out with my hunting party. Of course, the healer protested but I ignored him, I was still hungry and an instinct deep inside was screaming for me to go hunting for something still unknown. My allies and I went in search for a bear that had been spotted to the south of the village. Bears were a plentiful source of meat and other resources that the village was always looking for. I know what you’re probably wondering, “Weren’t you scared?” We slowly made our way to where it was seen and found evidence of it still being around: scat and large footprints. We split into three teams of five to find it. Each of us carried spears and bows, the tips of which were bronze dipped rocks heads for extra strength.

I kept getting random scents, but when I pointed it out to my party, none of them could smell it. After an hourlong search, we, or rather I, heard the distant screams of one of the other teams. Without thinking, I ran toward the screams without remembering to alert my party. I arrived quickly, even faster than I realized in the moment, my body was starting to change, but I hadn’t yet figured that out. I had crossed well over a hundred meters, more than a football field, in six seconds and arrived in time to see a massacre. Maybe the bear had snuck up on the party, maybe they caught up to it and simply lost the fight… either way the outcome was the same, they were being slaughtered. The bears claws ripped and tore their bodies to shreds, the spears they brought were sticking out of its’ hide, but not deep enough to kill. I watched the bear rip the throat out of the last surviving man just as I arrived. And as his blood hit the ground, that hunger once again resurfaced. But in my anger at seeing the people I knew being killed, I mistook that hunger blood for bloodlust.

I launched myself at the bears blood covered body, with my spear at the ready, and plunged it as deep into the beast as I could. It went in a good bit, but the bear didn’t die. Instead, he let out a mighty roar and took a swipe at me with his huge claw tipped paw. It caught me in the side and left three gashes, but no blood came from them. I jumped back instinctively and tried to bring my spear with me, but the head of it must have been faulty because it broke off at the shaft inside the bear. And based on the reaction he had; he wasn’t happy about it. He let out a second roar and reared back onto his hind legs. I looked at the broken spear shaft still left in my had for a moment before tossing it aside. Blood spurted from the puncture the spear left in the bear, and it coated its dark brown fur. The smell of the blood hit me like a punch to the face and drove me into a near frenzy. Like an animal I lashed out and took a swipe at the bear, catching it squarely in the side, and to my surprise, it toppled over and hit the ground with a thud.

I didn’t take the time to think about what I should do next, that hunger I had been fighting to suppress took over and made me do something no sane man would ever dream of doing. My body, now operating on savage instincts, moved on its’ own. My fangs extended and claws came from my fingertips as I bite down onto the neck of the bear. I didn’t bother, or rather didn’t know to, inject my venom into it first, so I just started draining it of its blood right away. The bear tried to fight back of course, but its’ ripping claws catching my flesh didn’t even slow me down. I powered through the pain and pinned the beast, sinking my own claws into its’ hide and finished draining it within a minute. From behind me I heard something, but I didn’t care at the time.

I stood up from the bears lifeless body, my mouth dripping with blood and filled with a sense of utter euphoria. That’s when I started to pay attention to the sounds I heard behind me. It was the terrified murmurs of the party I had left behind. Looking back, I understand why they were afraid. They had stumbled upon a true horror, their friends laid on the ground, ripped to pieces, and there I stood atop a bear, completely fine, and feasting on it. Perhaps some of the assumed I had done it, killed their comrades, maybe they simply saw me as what I was, a monster. Either way, they next thing that happened sealed their fates, they threw a spear at me. The ground was covered in blood from all the dead bodies, so I was already filled with hunger. All the spear did was spur me on. I killed the men I had once called brothers in arms, not out of malice or anger, but because I wanted to eat. After I finished with them I turned my attention to the bodies that the bear had killed and drained them as well. I never went back to that village, I was ashamed, not of what I had done, but that I had enjoyed doing it.