When ages fell to dust, he remained.

Because of her blood. An unwilling sacrifice.

But he didn’t remember that. It was insanity that overtook him and in those few, short moments the small life, a light in his darkness, was put out. The flame of a candle, gone in an instant.

All he knew was that one night she was there and the next she was lifeless.

His grief was unimaginable. He’d planned for them. For a love unending. How lucky he was that the Fates saw fit to send her back to him, so soon after she was lost. First his beloved, her name he could no longer recall. Dead to a fever. Then, reborn. He was already transformed then, watching for her to appear because she’d promised she would remember and find him. And she did.

The unintended child of his parents, who were both too old to conceive by all accounts and so he knew it was once again the Fates. He watched from afar, as they thought him dead, lost to the same fever that claimed his beloved, and he did not want them to know what he’d become.

A vampire.

A creature of the night, sustained by the blood of the living. A horror of frigid, frail skin and bones.

When she was born he did not know it was her; he was interested to see the child who would help to fill the obvious hole in the heart of the household, but that was all. Wealthy though they were, the gold and jewels could not replace the lost son. The family would die with him.

Instead, they would live on through the little miracle.

She would have to marry, of course, the name would be lost to time, but she was still something.

When she was four the fever claimed most of the household. Their parents and the staff. The others ran in the night, leaving behind the young child whom they assumed would pass like the rest, but he was watching and he stole her away.

Even then, his mind was blurring and he meant to leave her elsewhere, an orphanage at the cathedral, but then she said things she could not possibly know. She knew his name and who she saw before she was herself.

And before she was her last self.

And who she was at the beginning because she hadn’t managed to forget yet.

She never loved him as he did her, he did not think her capable. His feelings remained despite her pessimism and candor. She was so much more than this world deserved.

Life, Itself.

He did not know why she took on flesh, she would never tell him. He thought she was fond of him sometimes and in other moments he knew, he knew, she felt nothing at all. She did not care for him and she never would.

But he cared for her and now she did not remember.

She may learn to care.

Or perhaps she would not because she insisted she would not and she could hardly be mistaken. He did not believe it possible, though he hoped he was wrong.

He waited for her once she left, but she did not return.

And now that he’d found her she did not remember.

She did not remember.

It may drive him mad.

A different delirium than he’d faced before, at the start of his long life. There were missing pieces now, so many that the puzzle would never be completed. It was a fact he long ago accepted. The past would fade for him as it did for all, yet he retained more than they did. He was above them and he could not remember why.

There was a place in his mind that he would not tread. Halls of hidden things. She told him about her own mind, the way she was trying to hide from herself within it, and he adopted her practices. All the things he wished to forget were lost in a labyrinth and he would not seek them.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Cædmon.”

His name, softly spoken as he returned to the mansion on the outskirts of a country town. They bowed in deference when he passed and fell to their knees as he took his place upon the throne.

“I have found her once more,” he announced and the silence was broken by the sharp drawing of breath, “and made contact directly. Begin preparations. We must be ready when she returns to us, as her prophecy foretold.”

Given to them by herself and she did not remember, but that was of no consequence. Life had her reasons and her knowledge. Luna she was called now. A child.

“You succeeded,” he murmured. “And I will give you the peace you desired.”

She would never tell him all of her plans or her reasons and he had no right to ask. She was a deity in her own right, far above his humble station. How she came to care for him at all he did not know. When he was human and dying she saved him.

The first vampire.

He supposed she must have done so again as he descended into psychosis. Obsessed with blood because the cold of the undead was too much to bear, seeking warmth wherever it may be found. He did not recall what he’d done.

It was the rare individual who was able to overcome and continue onward into a world ever-changing. They surrounded him now, brought together by this accomplishment, and he served as their leader. A king. A natural role that he fell into without ceremony. They followed him without coercion and they fought the war together. The loss was narrow and the fight was not initiated by themselves; they would not win without the help of Life and they knew it.

Luna.

He did not know where she was during the war, whether she’d come through again in another life. He was without her more often than not. Through wealth and poverty, she lived because…

He was not sure.

What she wanted at the end of things, she would not tell him. Why she chose to encase herself in the flesh of humanity, though he had his ideas, was unknown. And that was her privilege. How could he, a mere mortal in the beginning and now still vulnerable to an extent, press a goddess? She owed him nothing. That she trifled with him at all was astounding.

The prophecy was hers and he knew it to be so because she was the one who made it. He’d found, through the ages, that she left other pieces scattered through time and in no particular order.

The mansion stood hushed.

As daylight broke he and those who followed closed themselves in darkened rooms, black curtains hung thick over every window, and the ghosts slid silent through the halls. Remnants of memories, acting out the lives they once belonged to. An exorcism would have rid the place of them, but they served a purpose.

The building was well and truly haunted and that kept it safe from intruders.

Undying though they may be, the vampire race was not invincible, especially when unguarded in sleep. A piece of wood to the unbeating heart and that was the end.

Despite living for centuries, he was not sure how he persisted. How others continued. Decay was kept at bay by some invisible force and they moved. They spoke. They planned to overthrow Society, the civilization from which they came that turned their backs upon them when they were no longer something they felt they could understand.

Families and lovers long dead, those who continued to live beyond the madness were left to wallow in depression. To some degree or another, they all suffered. With no end in sight life quickly became meaningless, and yet they were afraid to finish it. Cowards, all of them, and those who lived here accepted that. There were others on their own, roaming until they came to the same conclusion. They fought to find meaning where none existed.

As for Cædmon, he found his purpose in Life. In the clues she left behind as she lived and died endlessly and in reliving the time he spent with her in both her forms.

As his lover, she was largely uncaring. He was sure she felt almost nothing for him and remained because she had nothing else to do. She did not even try to run from the fire, though she saved him.

Her screams as she burned haunted him even now.

As his sister, she was less aware of herself. She knew she was not human as he was, but the process of forgetting her true role was underway. She was very much like a child who was perhaps a genius. Her mannerisms were odd and their parents did not know how to handle her. They died, of course, leaving the child destitute. How she died he did not know.

When she was perhaps ten years old, those memories were blurred, he passed from life but awoke again. He, like the others, did not know how one became a vampire, though they supposed it must be a desperate wish to remain. He knew that he could not bear the thought of leaving her alone. She would not survive without him.

But derangement claimed him sooner than he knew it could.

He woke with his mind returned, far from home, and quickly returned believing that he would finally, finally, be able to care for her properly.

He found her lifeless and still. Drained of blood.

Ælfwynne.

She was a child small for her age, due he knew now to the lack of proper nutrition, who did not ask for anything. She hardly cried as an infant and hardly smiled as she grew.

He knew her to be his dead lover reincarnated because she told him of things she could not possibly know, which of course meant she was Life, though he was soon sure she had less knowledge of that than she did previously.

Now, as Luna, she did not remember at all and he wondered if that hadn’t been her goal all along. He would never make the mistake of claiming to understand her, however. He’d done so when she was his own and he’d never seen a look so cruel.

She was often irritated with him.

Yet he loved her still.

Perhaps he'd gone mad long ago.