Verinotte Hollow

#2019-07-12 04:16:41: 

#2019-09-15 03:01:03: 

#2020-01-01 03:45:55: 

#2020-01-01 03:45:58: 

#2020-02-13 00:22:00: 

#2020-02-13 00:22:06: 

The centuries had passed by me like the hours on a clock. Time was meaningless, and the whole world around me seemed to move in slow motion. Flowers blossomed and withered. Trees grew into forests, only to disappear and reappear with age. Empires would rise and fall, buildings and cities would crumble, leaving only rubble and ruins where former civilizations had once existed. It seemed that I alone was immortal, unaging, cursed to witness the death and decay of every single person, place and thing I ever loved. I would never suffer their fate, nor experience their final resting place. I was revenant, vrykolakas, striges, the undead. I was both God and Devil, cursed for all eternity to sustain myself on warm living blood like a preying mosquito, waiting patiently, lurking silently, stalking my victims like a wolf amidst the sheep.

For decades, I was tormented by my own loneliness and by my overwhelming sensitivity to everything around me. Even the black widow spider spinning her lovely web, it all sounded like the strumming of guitar strings to me. I could taste the wind in my mouth. I could smell the approaching rain, and feel the green grass growing beneath my feet. I could even see in the pitch dark on a moonless night, the pounding heartbeat of my victims causing great nausea, headaches and such horrible discomfort that I would fall into a fit of madness and rage. What was I? Man? Beast? Something inbetween? It took several timeless years for me to adapt, and many more still to accept what I had become. Cursed by the gods, I am no longer anymore human than a corpse. I am Ambrogio Tenebrios, the myth, the legend. Feared by many, and hated by many more still, I am the monster of grown men's nightmares. I am a vampyre, and I am the only one of my kind, the first and the last, doomed to an eternity of loneliness and despair.

Or so I thought...

I soon found out what Artemis had meant when she sealed my fate. By consuming the blood of mortals, I would grow more powerful as they would weaken and parish over time. But what if they drank my blood? What then? I soon discovered that I was not alone. I could actually choose for myself a clan, a family so to speak, giving the gift of eternal life to whomever I so desired. Oh, I had my fair share of fun and excitement. My clan would come to be known by many names over time as their numbers increased. In my hometown, they became known as the Knights of Florence or Florentines, and in Ephesus they were called the Selenites or the Children of Selene, while others referred to themselves as the Order of Ambro, but they were all my doing. Yet little did I know that by giving them eternal life, that I would bestow upon them my gifts as well, and the ability to turn others, who would also turn others, and so on and so forth until the lineage was so thin that they could no longer procreate. Like a terrible virus they spread throughout the world, one city after another, branching off and forming clans of their own, until one sect became rival to another, and the precious life blood of my flesh and bones would spill like wine from their veins.

I also soon found out that I was not the first of my kind. There were others, though few in number, but they were far older than myself. I had searched the globe for someone, anyone, but never with any success. One dead end led to another, and there was no sign or trace of anything but myths and rumors which led to nowhere. I did not find my elder. It was by a twist of fate actually that he would find me. I stood there on stage, entertaining my mortal audience who sat in the stadium smiling as I hypnotized my prey with the sound of my violin, gazing into her eyes as I hypnotized her. How softly did I play? I don't remember. But as I looked up from her towards the crowded balcony, I noticed him standing there staring down at me. But his stare was different. I don't know why he was there, perhaps because we both had our eyes on the same meal. But after my show was over, I hurried as quickly as I could to go find him. I chased him through the crowded exit hall, but I lost him in the crowd. Just then, he whispered my name telepathically, and I turned around to see him standing there right in front of me, grinning at me.

Varkylox...

Varkylox was not what I thought he was at first sight. He appeared to me younger, a magic that I myself didn't have or need. Varkylox apparently wasn't ageless like me, but required some mysterious manipulation of unseen forces which I understood, but did not possess. He was certainly my elder, but he appeared no older than me, and I was eternally stuck in the immortal body of a young man who just turned thirty. I wondered what else was different about him. Was he also allergic to sunlight and silver? Could he also charm others with music as I do? I decided to find out. I reached for my violin and started playing. I watched him dance slowly to the melody as I played the Göetia on my strings. He mimed his way towards me, lifting his cape before suddenly vanishing in a colony of tiny winged vampire bats, though it was more like a dark cloud than anything, before appearing upside down on the archway above me where the bats resumed the shape of a man. He continued to dance as he walked around the archway and vertically down the wall, twirling in a circle while whirling his cane. I too had similar abilities, but I was a better composer and musician than a dancer, and I found myself almost in a trance-like state, continuing to play my song as he urged his performance, taking me under his spell.

It was by fate that I had met Varkylox, and we would soon become close friends, almost like brothers-in-arms, though I never truly felt like I had any control. For the next few centuries, Varkylox was my mentor. He told me about his sire, an ancient vampire named Lamech Bin Metselah who existed long before my time. He told me that there were others -- other revenants and gods of the undead, and that many branches and families existed both openly and in secret. Varkylox would stay at my mansion in Florence, teaching me how to use dancing as an obscure form of magic, and how to create illusions with my mind. He taught me other methods of will-bending as well, and we often played with swords together on occasion. But eventually he started becoming more distant over time. Then one day, he left me a large treasure chest of 800,000 gold florins and just disappeared into the forest. I never saw my old friend again after that. I used the money he gave me to build castles all over Europe, to be used as safe havens in the remote hidden rural mountainous places of the world, far away from civilization where wild animals still roamed freely and mortals were in danger of being hunted. I then set out to go find others like my kind, and other vampires like my old friend Varkylox had described.

Traveling only at night, I journeyed far and wide, transversing different lands and realms until eventually I found myself along a dark winding dirt road leading over shadowy shallow hills through an unfamiliar foggy dark forest. A pack of white wolves seemed to stalk me and follow me through the trees at a distance, yet I felt more protected by these creatures than afraid. The owl, the possum, the raccoon, the noisy frog, all of these animals brought familiarity and comfort to me as I neared a small dark hollow within the woods, following the smell of freshly fallen cherry blossoms to a large tall wrought iron gate which seemed to be old and overgrown with mossy foilage and thorny vines. Curious as to where I might be, but seeing nobody around, I decided to grasp the ornate metal ring door knocker on the iron gate and knock to see if anyone would answer. The rustic looking metal would creek sharply as I grabbed the ring and knocked twice, slowly, but firmly... Tap... Tap... "Hello?"

#2021-08-07 03:48:58: 

#2021-08-07 03:49:04: 

#2023-09-26 22:49:37: 

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