Story - memoirs of a Hungarian vampire

Greetings stranger. I have not seen you around here before. A dead relative is it? I thought so. You can hear me can you not? Do not pretend you cannot. You want me to come into the light? Hah. No such luck, my friend. I do not like the light, or rather; the light does not like me. Perhaps you should come into the dark. Come, I will not hurt you, yet…That is it. Your eyes will adjust in time. Do you see me now? I am a strange creature, am I not? This skin, these eyes, these ears, these teeth…I am quite different to you, you see. You see my skin? So pale and ghostly, and my eyes so dark…so very dark. Do you see that my ears and teeth are more pointed than yours? Yes…For I am not human, you understand. Not any more…

How strange I must seem to you. A boy, all alone on a bench in a cemetery, so late in the night. I have my reasons. Would you like to hear my tale? I thought as much. Listen well, and I may be persuaded not to kill you. Oh, and believe me, I do not jest.

It began three hundred years ago, in Hungary, my homeland. I was born to a rich family: a young mother and a wealthy father, both in high status, in a house with many servants. I was a beautiful babe, so I was told. I had hypnotic eyes, my features were as perfect as those of a statue, but I was pale and thin. I had a blood red birthmark on my right shoulder, which I still carry now, in the shape of a knife pointing downwards. It would have been a fine life for a young boy, in our mighty house in the silver mountains, far from normal woes. I would have been a wealthy young nobleman with great estates to look after. But that was not to be. You see, my parents discovered very early on that I was not normal. When my delighted father took me out into the garden to show me to the servants, I began to scream. My lips and gums bled. My skin cracked and little streams of blood began to pour down my body. These terrible effects did not subside until I was carried back indoors. It was the sunlight that coursed it, every time that sun’s golden rays hit me I bled like red ink from an overfilled well.

My doctors were baffled. None could understand why it happened. They concluded it must be some sort of punishment from God and could offer no cure but to keep me in the dark and feed me blood to refill my veins. Priests denounced me as possessed but they could not drive the evil from me. I was doomed.

That was the childhood I faced. My days were spent in a cell in the cellar, sparsely lit by candles and with little furniture. Let me describe my cell to you: it was small, it was damp, and the air was unbreathable in summer when it was too hot and was freezing in winter. There was one high window at the very top, barred on the inside and boarded up on the out to prevent the sun from coming in. This window was level with the ground outside and to try to cut out the light altogether, flowers and shrubs were planted around the boards, but the light was unfazed. The gaps between these boards were gaming grounds for those hateful golden shafts that seemed to slip through only to torment me. My bed was of hard wood, forced into a damp corner where the water dripped through from the kitchen. There was a chair for Stanna in the far corner, and another chair for myself in front of a small table for writing or dressing or whatever other use I could find for it. There was also a tiny wardrobe where my ragged collection of clothing was housed. It was not that my parents did not provide me with good clothes, they were equal to anything my father wore I am certain, but I ripped them easily in my regular fits of temper or pain. My nights were spent outdoors, breathing the fresh air and watching the world bathe in the silver light of the moon. I always knew I was not normal. The servants crossed themselves whenever I passed and I rarely saw my parents. My nurse gave me little glimpses of the real world in her speech, so I knew of the sun and family life. I call her my nurse, but she never nursed me. No woman would suckle me in my infant months, and now my nurse was merely the lady who helped me to dress and changed my sheets.