Final Battle

Call me Roxanne Hounds. Well actually I prefer X these days. It has that ‘not any more’ ring to it. Like me. I’m no more. Apparently. Maybe I should give you a brief history of me and what life’s like in 2213.

*          *           *

You went through life believing in a lie. A lie that protected our world from the truth; vampires. For centuries you laughed at the tales of Dracula, screamed at the actors playing the Count, shivered in fear at the stories of Vlad the Conqueror and stared in disbelieving horror at so-called vampire graves, never knowing, never thinking that they may exist.

Under the dark carpet of night they hunted, picking the weakest humans to charm, to seduce and, finally, to kill. You consider yourself invincible, top of the food chain, but you’re not; they are.

They hunted freely, dangerously cutting your numbers down. Someone needed to take control; cue the elite vampire Aristocrats. Powerful, ruthless and rich, they mingled with your aristocratic families all the while knowing they were above all that they were forced to respect. So in control of those they ruled over, they believed they deserved to reign over the rest of the world, including the humans. None of the vampires knew what they were getting themselves into. The world watched in fear as England sank under Aristocrat rule, the starting point. If even that great kingdom couldn’t stand against these supernatural creatures, no one could.

Buckingham Palace was the final blow. With no place to run, the Queen, who’d held so much land in the palm of its human hand, watched in agony as everything and everyone around it fell to these great creatures before it was dragged from it home, blubbering. The world stared on helplessly as Her Majesty fell, dead. It was the last human of influence to die. That was in the bloody year of 2010

Centuries later and the Aristocrats have succeeded in taking control. Ironically, they’ve succeeded so well they’ve failed. London remains the centre of their power, a beautiful, utopian-like city full of some of the most powerful vampires in the world. I would love to say that I live there and that it is my family that practically rules single-handedly, but I can’t. As I said, the Aristocrats have failed. Poverty stains washed up cities, only the rich and powerful have any humans left as a food source and many vampires live on ignored. Like my friends. Like my family. Like me.

I decided to tell you all this, my new friend, in the hope that you would understand the pain I’ve felt at the hands of the Aristocrats and the reason you must stay on your world. Not all that pain though has come from them though; some has in fact been caused by my parents.

*          *           *

I remember the first time I fed. It was a warm, thick day, the kind of day I’ve learnt to hate. My mother had been out all night finding a supple throat for me to bite into so I didn’t hurt my teeth, new as they were at the age of five. She awoke me in the morning seeming pleased with herself, but instead of a glass of rich blood taken from some poor rodent, in the kitchen sat a scared but resigned child, not much older than myself at the time. I didn’t ask about this whole new experience; Instead of carefully choosing the tender spot at the base of the neck where the blood pounded, I pounced. Until afterwards I didn’t even know I’d acted the way I did. Instinct drove me. Since that moment onwards my mother didn’t want to know if I’d fed. She knew what I’d become; a ruthless hunter of old. My blood ran with the sour cold of my ancestors. The need to kill had forced its way into my life. That need is what led me to where I am today.

I was always shunned by my peers as a child. It was never spoken aloud why they did so, but I knew. My mind wasn’t only detached from the morals and ethics of what I did, it was a weapon. Mind control was one power that no vampire had, except me. I could control thoughts, speech, and the body, anything with my mind and no one ever realised. I could prevent movement of any kind with my newly discovered weapon. For minutes I would sit and watch everyone, memorising every quirk of the instant I stopped them. I could memorise every aspect of that moment.

The first time I used my power, there was no control and after only a few wavering seconds everything started moving again. Afterwards I worked my mind hard to control the freeze. It was amazing the freedom I had using mind control. But that wasn’t all I could do with my mind.

I was sensitive to emotions, sounds, smells, taste, and touch from day one. Everybody I knew always believed that it was because of telepathy that I was constantly able to tell what others felt. But it wasn’t. My telepathic ability continuously outmatched even my elders, but my senses were completely apart from my thoughts. Thoughts can’t tell you if someone has a scratch on their leg, or an itch on their arm. Not unless that person is specifically thinking about their problems so hard that their mind block is gone. I always know what people were feeling, both physically and emotionally just by casting my feelers out.

None of this makes me popular with the Aristocrats. None of them want to know me or discover what these powers can achieve. In fact they want me dead...always have, even before the incident that ended my life as I knew it. Even before I joined any of the riots, attempting to get the Aristocrats to take note of the lack of food we suffered from. They just wanted me dead from the day I disgraced the family name. It was all a colossal mistake but no one else looked at it that way, especially not the Lord who was out walking at the time. That fateful day was the day the Aristocrats noticed me. All because of a childish prank. The struggle with the street guards as they dragged me home was reported. The great eye of the Aristocrats hasn’t left me since.

Since then I always got myself into trouble, one way or another. Whether I meant it or not, it was always another mark against the Hounds’ name.

The last incident was the one that truly angered the Aristocrats though, and put the final dent on my name.

*          *           *

Food was running low by the time I turned seventeen. The Aristocrats sat in their palace with all the blood they needed while we were left with only one human available to us. The last human had long gone into hiding, the only reason the human was left alive.

I was wandering the streets when I heard a stone move in the alley across from me. No one else seemed to have noticed so I went to see what was happening. There it was.

The human.

It hadn’t seen me yet so I stalked it, following it around to the back of the building where it stopped and sat down to chew on the stale bread it had found. The stench of unwashed body filled my nose but more than that, the sweet, warm smell of blood pounding fresh under that weak layer of dirty skin. As was now natural for me when hunting, instinct took over. But this time something was wrong. My mind knew and wanted me to stop but my body cared only for sustaining the oxygen running through my veins, simply because of the liquid this human took for advantage. Instead of needing to dig my teeth into the neck, I wanted to. I wanted to know the power that would flow through my body. I wanted to anger the Aristocrats so much that they would finally take notice of all the riots that had so far been ignored.

Silently I struck. No words were said. I stunned its mind, sending it reeling with shock.

By the time I reached home, saturated from my feed, news had spread. Everybody stared in repressed shock after me. Even as I walked in to the house I shared with my parents I knew something was wrong. The look on my parents’ faces told me everything.

I had disgraced them for the last time.

I was out.