The Variants of Vampires

The Variants of Vampires

Vampires. Everybody is familiar with them and their stereotypical quirks. Only coming out at night, avoiding garlic like it’s the damn plague. But you know the principal yet demonic act that they practice? The one act that makes them crave the one thing that keeps them sustained. The one thing that they seek so badly, they will stealth on their victims with their cunning and composure for so long, until that moment where all is forgotten and their ghastly, animalistic instinct takes over. It lasts a few mere moments, but that’s all the vampire to sustain itself on that strong, copper-scented substance that all vampires devour until they’re practically drunk with it. Blood.

Vampires will devour blood from any creature they hunt down, but what they desire truly is human blood. They make no exceptions. If it’s from a human, vampires will gorge themselves and devour it like sweet nectar. All people who are familiar with vampires know their purpose and their demonic instincts and actions to fulfil it. However, what many people don’t know, is there is another. Another variant of the vampires, if you can call them that. Over the centuries, there have many tales of a creature, with similar qualities of the vampire, that have been seen lurking in deep thick woodland, and particularly active during the colder months of November, December, January and February. They were said to have faces as cold and stiff as stone. Its eyes were black as death, its skin was as cold and damp as a trout and were so thin they might as well have been living skeletons. Unlike the regular vampire however, they were both active during the day and night, though they also retreated from sunlight. They much preferred cold, wet, murky weather. It was felt suited to them to seek out their targets by luring them into the woods, using calls mimicking their targets’ loved ones, tricking them into believing they are in danger.

Another major difference between this creature and the common vampire, is the substance in which it obsessively seeks out. For this creature craved not human blood or any other physical substance. It was the human soul. This holy essence was what these demonic beings craved above all things. The human soul, the spiritual essence that makes up of human’s spirituality, identity, emotions, memories and everything in between, these creatures sort it out with an unworldly obsession. It is said that when the victim is within the creature’s reach, for a few moments, the victim is alone, confused of finding nothing to the source of the calls they had previously heard. Then, feeling satisfied that no one is in any distress, they turn back home, when, as sudden as a lightning bolt, there they stand.

Before they can run or scream, the victim would see their themselves in reflection within those empty, lifeless eyes. They would see themselves, their whole, fulfilled selves, before having everything, from the light in their eyes, life in their smiling faces and everything from their deepest, passionate emotions to their dearest, most cherished life memories, disappear into nothing. All essence of the victims’ being, would be drained and left with nothing. They would be empty, lifeless shells of their former selves. After the victims would be found, in a vegetative state and all vibrancy gone, were shut away from the public eye and locked away in asylums, and the only legacy they leave behind, is a warning subject of dreaded children’s tales and dreary folklore legends.

You must be wondering to yourself, reader, how do I possess so much vast knowledge of these mysterious creatures, when their victims can’t recant what had happened when crossing their paths and no one has seen so much of an old footprint or shadow of them. But I have seen. I have seen the fear and unease it installs in the population, how it makes even the most educated, sharpest minds weary and superstitious. These unholy creatures, this grim variant of the common vampire, drains the life, vibrancy and goodness from whole communities and leaves the people hiding within the darkness of their homes to avoid a darkness worse than blackest of hells. I have seen them. I have seen them take the soul, take everything that is good, valued and esteemed within humanity until there is nothing. Until the soul’s being is numb and lifeless as a corpse. You read correctly, reader, I have seen the horror the creatures are known to commit, and I have not seen said horror since. Or anything else for that matter. For after the terror had occurred, it was all I could see. In every corner, every shadow, I could see. So, I had to act, and act I did. I don’t see the horrors anymore. Just the dark. An empty, bottomless pit of it. No moon, no stars, not even an ember of candlelight. Just the dark.