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They found themselves ensconced in the dimly lit Corner of an Italian bistro, a haunt from their shared history, where many a night had withered away over glasses of the devilishly good Lacrimæ Christi. Yet, as they sat, not a specter of those lost evenings came forth from the crimson depths; rather, an unsettling presence wormed its way into being, peering out with serpentine eyes that sent icy tendrils crawling along her spine, rendering her mute, spellbound.
As their feast appeared and the server retreated to a hovering distance, Reginald initiated the evening’s discourse with a casual grace only a true cosmopolitan could muster. Nonetheless, as he delved deeper into his monologue, an intense fervor overtook him and his eyes danced with a fiery passion resonant of an oracle seized by vision.
"Forgive my hogging the spotlight," he began, his voice resounding with import, "but what I must unveil will undoubtedly secure your undivided attention. Picture me as a youth—at age five—recall the photograph?"
Her reply was unspoken but clear; every chronicle of his existence was etched into her memory as if by steel.
"In my tender years," he went on, "I wasn't exactly considered prodigious. Dull might be apt because my consciousness needed external sparks to ignite. But upon my induction to school's hallowed halls, a peculiar transformation ensued within me. Instantaneously I transformed into the shining star amongst my peers. Not unlike today—I'm sure you'll agree—I've somehow always become the centerpiece of whatever realm I find myself in."
A silent agreement was all Ethel offered, hypnotized by his charismatic presence. Through his words she glimpsed an inkling of reality—a truth in its embryotic stage—veiled and barely discernible.
Reginald raised his goblet to the flickering candlelight and dispatched its contents in a single swig. Lowering his voice almost to a whisper he resumed, "Like some supernatural shapeshifter, I seem able to mimic the hue of those around me."
She cut in quickly with a tone laced in skepticism and dread: "Are you saying you possess this eerie ability to assimilate others' innate talents?"
"That's the crux of it, right there."
"Whoa!" she gasped, a tidal wave of realization crashing over her. For the first microsecond, shadows of understanding flickered in her mind's eye, revealing the sinister undercurrents that had dragged her down into this nightmare. Even more chilling was the revelation of Ernest Fielding’s presence—a presence that now screamed danger.
His attention was piqued by her trembling form, his gaze piercing through her like a scalpel peeling back layers of thought.
"Hold on now, just hold your horses," he said with a thin grin slicing across his face. "That's just scratching the surface. That little trick? Anyone can do that with a bit of focus. But my real mojo? It's all about filtering out the toxins—anything that ain't serving my endgame gets dumped. It wasn't no walk in the park getting to this point; it took blood, sweat, and facing down some personal demons. But standing here, glancing back at all those crisscrossing paths I took...it's kinda like one of those faded tapestries where suddenly you're able to pick out every thread and you see there’s some grand, twisted plan woven right into the chaos."
As he spoke these words, conviction quavered in his voice, and I tell ya, he had this eerie vibe smoking around him. He reminded her of a cult leader, cloak whipping in an unholy wind, a man who'd spill innocent blood without batting an eye if it would satisfy the ravenous gods he worshipped. Her skin crawled with both terror and a mesmerizing pull toward this human enigma. As she absorbed his every word with a mix of reverence and dread.
But then—the guy was full of surprises—Reginald’s demeanor took a sharp turndown Normal Street as his voice mellowed out and he started yakking about like they were just two old pals shooting the breeze on his porch.
My first significant friendship was with this kid who had an uncanny knack for numbers and equations—the kind of talent that made high school math teachers get all misty-eyed. We met in the hallways of academia, where algebraic formulas were Greek to me. We hung out for a few weeks, and before you knew it, our roles reversed. Suddenly, I was the one with numbers dancing in my head, pulling off math tricks like a pro. The kid? He turned into a walking brain-freeze, stumbling over his words in class until he was damn near crying. Cold-blooded as it may sound, I dropped him when he lost that spark. But hey, ever tried a wine that's been sitting half-open for way too long? You know, it loses its punch—the essence goes MIA.
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That’s how it goes when we connect with someone; there's something elusive captured within them that can just fizzle out. And when that something—the very quality we didn't realize we were seeking—vanishes, they become about as intriguing as stale bread. It doesn't matter if it was the best part of them or not; once it's gone, it's gone. Maybe they changed or slipped up somewhere down the line. Or maybe I just sucked that secret ingredient right out of them, like some remorseless psychic vampire.
Then Ethel looked at me with those hauntingly dry eyes and asked with a voice shaking like autumn leaves in the wind, "Do we just throw people away?" There was this tremor running through her as though she had seen a ghost, and her grip on her wine glass could have crushed stone. Looking at me then, with my grin pulling at the corners of my mouth like I was death himself bargaining for souls, I must have seemed straight out of King's own tales—a veritable Prince of Darkness darkly magnificent in her terrified gaze.
But then I snapped back—returned to my urbane mask as smoothly as flipping a switch. My smile shone benevolent and reassuring as I topped off our glasses with an amber liquid that held false promises of warmth. With a contemplative sip to seal our shared silence, I dove back into the past where there was always another friend looming on the path ahead.
They all became part of my journey—like hitchhikers picked up along a lonely road—each adding their own shade to my story; some colors vibrant and others dark whispers of things best left unspoken. Life taught me quickly: control your destiny or be swallowed by it. So control it I did—handpicking those who would orbit around me as if selecting ripe fruit from a tree—all while an indefinable power brewed beneath the surface of my consciousness, brewing and growing like storm clouds on an endless horizon.
"That's the thing about power," she said, her voice heavy with dread. "Its terror lies in how quietly it sneaks up on you. If I hadn't been its prey, if I hadn't felt its teeth sink into my reality, I might have laughed off the mere idea of its existence."
"The force that strikes unseen, shrouded in shadows, is always more petrifying than an enemy you can size up," she continued. "Yet, wouldn't you say there's a strange kind of mercy there too? Imagine the pain if you were fully awake to the horror nibbling away at your life."
"But I refuse to accept it as a total defeat. For every push, there's a pull, right? Even now, it’s like some twisted sense of equilibrium has to be maintained. You've got to have left something behind in exchange for what you snatched away from us."
"In life, for every action, there’s always an opposite and equal reaction—that's a given. Yet nature loves to toss in curveballs. Take radium; it spits out energy like it's got an endless supply tucked away somewhere. It defies my understanding sometimes," he mused. "But then you've got those top-brained science folks who’ll swear on it as gospel truth. So why buck against the notion of some colossal, greedy sponge lurking out there in the cosmic shadows? That balance has got to swing both ways. In this big puzzle we're all a part of, for every soul oozing energy like a broke faucet without losing steam or falling dry, I'll bet my bottom dollar there’s one that just takes and takes."
She shivered and whispered hoarsely, "Souls like vampires..."
He fixed his gaze on her sharply and said firmly, "No, don’t wrap them in that myth." In that instant, he seemed to swell with an inner fire, his presence engulfing the space between them—radiant and terrifying as though he’d borrowed light from the very stars themselves.
The power she spoke of was chilling, the kind that crept up on you with a whisper and left you quaking, unsure of why you were afraid. "It's the invisible thing, the silencer in the darkness," she began, her voice crashing like waves in a storm. "It's terrifying because it doesn't march at you head-on. If I hadn't been its prey, my belief in its existence would be nothing but smoke."
"The stealthy enemy that strikes in shadows is always more daunting than any threat you can see and size up," she continued with a somber intensity that seemed to darken the room. "Yet, there's a twisted kindness to it. Consider the torments spared from your mind had you been aware of what was taken from you."
Her eyes searched the air as if uncovering hidden truths. "Yet I can't help feeling that it wasn't a complete, irreversible theft. Nothing happens without a push back, an equal force. Even us—a give and take must exist; there has to be some unknown reciprocation for everything that you've wrenched away."
"In life's grand equation, this push and pull plays a pivotal role, unquestionably," she concluded with a steely edge. "But no rule is absolute—look at radium, endlessly gifting energy without retreat or depletion; our brightest minds have grappled with this and come to accept its truth. So why balk at the thought of an immense force that solely consumes? Somewhere, it surely lurks. Every marvel in our tangible realm has its mirror in the mental expanse—a grade of souls like radium exists, radiating ceaselessly without dimming or growth. Conversely, some souls are insatiable sponges; absorbing endlessly without limit."
A shiver raced over her as she baptized them with a name: "Vampire-souls," she whispered through trembling lips, her complexion turning to ash.
"No," he asserted firmly, rejecting the term and rising above smaller men in both stature and spirit. His countenance ignited, rivaling deities in their celestial halls.