Dead or otherwise life goes on...
Every year a coven of these bloody wanna-be-undead cosplayers board what has become known as the "Train to Transylvania". They gallivant around in Victorian-era garb while taking part in a vampire based fantasy game where they either attempt to turn as many others into vamps or elude those that have already been turned. Most of the fun involved in this bloody game is derived from the fact that none of it is real.
The first time I'd boarded this "Train To Transylvania" I'd thought it would have been quite the cosplay adventure, or at least a nice break from the bleak reality of my bloody wage-slaving existence. I'd dressed my pale flesh in my most esteemed vamp inspired garb with hopes of out-witting other cosplayers into being
turned by my deceptive tactics. From the moment I'd boarded the train it had seemed as if this nightmare-motif masquerade would be a dream come true.
Each boxcar had been decked-out in full Draculaesque style. The rooms all had coffin shaped beds, darkly tinted windows, red light bulbs, decorative bats hanging from the ceiling, eerily creaking doors, and all of it clad in funeral black with cartoon-blood crimson accents. All the mirrors were actually visual-monitors equipped with cameras. Each of them used facial-recognition based programming to render your visage invisible amid the rest of the faux-reflection. I'd been thoroughly impressed at how every detail had seemed to complete the fantasy in a most immersive manner, and it had all felt as if it were so very...
REAL.
Once all passengers had boarded, the train had begun trudging its way across eastern Europe on a three night journey to the infamous castle of Vlad Dracula himself. The first scheduled event on the ride was an orientation dinner. Train-staffers informed all of us cosplayers of the rules to the game over red wine and fine steaks that appeared bloody-as-hell in the red lighting of the dinning-car. For desert they'd served the most delicious black-cherry milkshakes any of us had ever had.
The rules imparted to us were simple. Underneath of each cosplayer's plate a card had been placed face down. Each card identified the player as a vampire or a vanquisher. Vampires would earn points by
turning vanquishers. Vanquishers would earn points by vanquishing vampires. Ten points were awarded for each vanquishing or turning.
In order to
turn a vanquisher, a vampire would have to use the false-fangs provided in the commemorative gift box each player had been issued when leaving the dinning-car. These false-fangs were actually retractable dongles that could sense pressure and human pulse when applied to flesh, and they had been calibrated to reference location-data so as to identify the intended victim as either vampire or vanquisher. If the bitten subject were a vanquisher they would be changed into a vampire in the system, lose all previous vanquishing points to the vampire, and be forced to continue playing the game as a vampire. However, if the victim were actually identified as a vampire in the system, both the biter and the bitten would be vanquished, lose all previously earned points, and continue the game as a vanquishers.
Vanquishers were to use the wooden-steak dongles also included in every gift box set to apply slight pressure to a vampire's torso. Doing so would cause the train's data-system to render the vampire vanquished. The vanquisher would receive ten points, take all of the vampire's points, and the vampire would continue the game as a pointless vanquisher. Should a vanquisher apply the steak-dongle to another vanquisher both would lose all of their points, and could only continue to gain points in the game once a vampire had come scavenging along and turned them.
When the train had reached Transylvania the game was to end with an announcement over the train's intercom. The vanquisher and vampire with the most points were to be awarded prize money, special merchandise, and have their picture posted on the train's auspicious website homepage. Should only one vampire or vanquisher be left with any/all points that player would receive double the prize money and merchandise, and their picture would be featured on the website with a special gold banner around their image.
After having learned the rules and stipulations of the game I had gone directly back to my room in order to strategize. It had seemed to me that most of the other cosplayers would likely spend most of their time either timid in the seclusion of their room or anxiously in less compromising situations to minimize the risk of losing points. In the later parts of the game everyone would become more frantic and less cautious while hoping to capture some bloody last moment's triumph.
I'd initially been designated as a vanquisher and had decided to appear as careless prey to more aggressive vampires. I'd planned to have used the mirrors/monitors to test cosplayers' faces for verification since the system would automatically render vamps and vanquishers accordingly. This would have allowed me to have easily racked-up early points on less careful vamps without exposing myself to too much risk. Even in the worst case scenario I'd thought that if I'd made a mistake and someone had turned me then I'd only have had to have transitioned into being a vampire sooner rather than later.
At first my efforts had indeed worked quite well. I'd racked-up over a hundred points in just the first hour of the game. I'd only taken a break from the game in order to have used the lavatory in my room. It was in fact my biological urging that proved to have been my undoing.
I'd entered the lavatory and had nearly completed my necessary unpleasantries when something other than the smell had struck me as having been terribly wrong. With my fancy pantaloons around my ankles I'd noticed that one of the bats in my room was not only moving, but its eyes were dead-set on my bloody own. As I'd stared into the visceral oblivion of this deathly creature's murderous black eyes it had not occurred to me that this thing was in fact REAL.
With a sudden burst of black my pupils had exploded beyond the bounds of my earthly eyes into one eternally blind infinity as the demon-thing had flung itself upon my bloody throat. My bloody voice had involuntarily begun to exclaim "HOLY SHI-", but before full sound or syntax could be conveyed this horrid-thing had pierced my throat with its icy fangs. I was then rendered both eternally and irredeemably lifeless and unfeeling in a way that I might have initially described as far beyond dead.
The bite had immediately rendered me into a most estranged and disembodied form of paralysis. I'd felt numb, lifeless, cold, hopeless, and devoid of all identity and mortality. For some short but seemingly eternal moment I'd remained seated upon the commode, envisioning my body as a frozen heap of some black silhouette from the distant perspective of some detached and unfeeling set of soulless eyes. It had not been until a hand had reached forward from the blood-quenched and shadowy body of those same lifelessly watching eyes that I'd come to realize what had transpired.
From that moment on I've been ethereally alone. The beast gave me no exposition on the true history of vampires, offered me no comradery, afforded me no real courtesy whatsoever, and merely vanished back into the black shadows of the abyss from whence it had been derived. Since that moment I've felt no warmth from any soul, not of mortal blooded man, nor shadowy spectre, nor my own immortal self, and especially not of any divine entity. Instead I have become astutely certain that this cold world is devoid of these things, and once the mirage of blood has been drained from our earthly delusions there is only death and perpetual motion.
Since my cold hard realizations have come to me through the truth of my bloodless perpetuity I've been filled with an increasingly vindictive thirst. It is not a thirst for blood in the same way a bloody soul might thirst for water or hunger for food. No, this is a thirst without yearning, need, or purpose. My thirst is merely the functioning of a vacuum that exists in this earthly dominion. That vacuum is the emptiness of the flesh framed life, the hollowness of those souls that still deceive themselves into believing that they still bloody live, and the emptiness within all consciousness living, undead, or otherwise that sucks, and preys upon, and drains the minds of all those cursed into thoughtful perpetual existence.
My unfeeling thirst has brought me perpetually back to the very place where it had become known to me. In darkness I board the Train to Transylvania ahead of all the bloody cosplayers that will doom themselves into boarding during the early morning hours. When they board I will watch with the same eyes that a cattleman might have when the livestock is paraded down the line at an auction. I will observe these bloody passengers with a keen discriminating gaze capable of piercing through all their fleshy-facades and peering into the tender composition of their very essence.
In the few short years in this abyss of time extending from the moment of my turning I've become deftly perceptive of what bloody mortals might refer to as their very soul. As I watch all of the prospective prey clamor aboard this infernal train I listen to the music of their cacophonous prolixity and jejunity. From this I can extract the equivalent to the scent of essence known to provoke predators into pursuit of prey. The more empty the bloody creature is that I encounter, the greater the compulsion to prey upon them.
It becomes almost instantaneously clear that this train will serve as quite a feast for my bloodless thirst. All of these bloody cosplayers are immersed in conversations of political non-sense, vapid world news and events, vacuous tabloid exploits, and trending memetic anemia. None of them say anything with so much as an overtone of individuated vitality. Just as I am about to conclude this observation as fact, one solitary voice faintly explodes under the empty roar of all these other bloody cosplayers. This one voice lets out an almost inaudible sigh in response to this vacuous crowd of will-be prey.
This sigh echoes in my lifeless mind incessantly. It seems to resonate eternally with some lost and unremembered part of what I once was. My mind is taunted, mocked, and punished by this revolting fist of a murmur. As it echoes on and on my thirst becomes fueled by a most ravenous rage. None of the other loud bloody nobodies seem to even exist at all in this horrid oblivion bound with me to the same irrelevant destination. All that exists now is the emptiness that surrounds me and this deeply effecting and torturous sound.
Within this sigh is a yearning, a revolt, a strength, and a despair unlike all these other empty nothings. This sigh acknowledges the abyss that surrounds it, refuses to be emptied into it, and urges any and everything enveloped or consumed within this void to join against it without any need nor false hope that such things might exist or be compelled to do so. The sigh is haunting, damning, and infuriating. It reminds me of something I'd never given credence to within myself, condemns me for neglecting it, and fills my empty shadow of a soul with anger for its audacity to do so.
If I am to do nothing else in this oblivion of eternity I've been condemned to perpetuate I must prey upon the source of this voice. I must drain it of its tormenting power and erase every trace of it from the presiding abyss that immerses all things. As this train begins to drudge its way toward our inconsequential destination I swear by all the emptiness within and around me that this torment will be brought to a bloody end.
By the time all the cosplayers exit their confined cabins and make their way to the orientation dinner my bloodless thirst is insatiably raging. I have to prey upon three vapid bloody cosplayers before I can even make it all the way to the dinning car. In order to avoid any confrontation with those that I've preyed upon or potentially turned I toss the drained bodies out the caboose. After all, I've never been able to put together just how this whole vampiric thing might actually work.
When I get to the dinning car there is a radiant glow emanating from one of the bloody cosplayers. This glow agitates my eyes in the same way as looking directly into the sun, but in a more aggravating fashion as if the sun itself were deliberately abusing my eyes for the transgression of hubris for daring to gaze directly upon it. I feel as if the blood I've recently drained is boiling within me, and at once I feel both the urge to purge it from my lifeless body and feast upon this vibrant abomination all at once.
I manage to fester in this horrid state of rage until the dinner has concluded and all the bloody cosplayers make their way out of the dinning car. Somehow the source of my most afflicting agitations manages to vanish from my sensory dominion before I can confront it in all the clamoring commotion. Again my raging thirst compels me into a violent furry to feast upon the bloody nobodies aboard this train.
This raging thirst completely consumes me this time. I begin feasting upon the bloody fools without caution or discretion. My teeth just seem to gnash and tear at whatever bloody flesh is fated to come within their vicinity by some sort of violent ataxia. Bodies flail and thrash vehemently in resistance to my rampage with blood-curdling screams resounding in fortississimo as their lifeblood consents to the abyss within them and is drained away by my furry and the oblivion that drowns us all. From train car to train car I stalk and feast upon the bloody terrified cosplayers until none of their empty souls remains to be drained, and splattered, and spilled unto the already defiled blood stained surfaces of this death-drenched train.
With nothing left of the bloody hoard of cosplayers remaining aboard this desecrated train I search up and down the cars for that one radiant and resonating spirit which continues to haunt and elude me. I fling corpses out of windows, scream bloody damning curses upon everything, and continue searching, searching, searching.
This damned train continues drudging away toward the infernal Transylvania swaying and bumping along this untended track. I sneer and slander this awful ride, the slow speed of this pathetic locomotive that never seems to get anywhere in time, the vapid ugly view of nothing but snow that covers all the earth like one mass grave of everything, and all the horrid emptiness of this infinite abyss I am damned to remain within for all of eternity. Muttering begrudging nothings in search of what I cannot find I eventually arrive back at my cabin, and settle into my coffin of a bed feeling as if I'll never reach my desire nor destination. With heavy tormented eyes cast upon the black ceiling I see the words carved into the infernal surface "are we there yet". Like all the other empty things, the bats hanging from the ceiling in decorative fashion, the crimson details of the surrounding decor, the blood stained upon the walls and floors, it all conspires to mock me in my impotence to find the taunting thing that eludes me.
As I lay inside my coffin no dream nor sleep comes to interrupt my raging emptiness. My eyes remain transfixed upon the taunting words of the empyrean ceiling of this oblivion. My mind obsessively ruminates on the essence of this thing that should not be, and cannot be dispelled. My empty soul grinds against itself and I feel truly damned and hopeless in a way that no mortal bloody soul could possibly comprehend. Eternity is imbued in every plank-constant atom of each moment, and my torment intensifies beyond the numbing paralysis of my immortal afflictions.
...and then the resonating sound within my bloodless brain becomes faintly audible once more. I rise from my coffin like a beastly bat screeching and flapping its wings to vacate its intruded cave. My feet float without a sound down the aisles of the train cars until I arrive at the threshold of the cabin door known to contain the source of this now mournfully whimpering spirit.
The voice within this secluded and unprotected place seems to be composing its last words knowingly and purposely. I suffer silently beyond these words unable to intrude upon them for some unknown and seemingly ancient reason that adds to their tormenting power. As these words continue to be professed they begin to resonate so deeply and powerfully within my empty soul that it is as if they become infused with my own voice in mocking and shaming me.
Paralyzed by the prophetic immortal terror of my oblivion I hear the words of some last bloody spirit's prayer...
...as man grows older than hairs grow grey
and tires of ceaseless tortures night and day
helpless to witness all beloved things pass away
on this deathbed of life awaiting our final day
in Morse-code life support may beep away
the words "let me die some other way"
...while in a factory where sands of time are clay
that unmovingly bogs life down each weighted day
a retiree now bewildered, broken-down,and grey
clocks-out for the last time, freed from working way
then clutches chest, smells burnt toast, fades away,
and gasps to say "let me die some other way"
...and upon the slaughtered battlefields today
the virtuous last soldier standing in the way
of some nemesis that considers warfare play
looks on with blood-soaked eyes that stray
to near and far and finally back into the frey
and with those last words refused to say
"let me die some other way"
My eyes come into focus upon the mirror hung on the outer surface of the door dividing me from these words. As my ears submit to their torture, so my eyes accede to the anguish of my reflection inflicted upon me. This visage imposed upon me conveys nothing of what I've ever imagined of myself in any dream, nor nightmare, nor bloody living day. Within and behind the lines of this abomination of a man staring tormented and vengefully back at me is the shadow of some unfathomable abyss. I gaze in disbelief at the horrible monster in this oblivion that I've now truly become.
This moment inflicted up me is a curse upon the very vampiric tale of existence. Just as a bloody human soul ceases to feel the warmth of life, grows numb and number still until it has been drained from them, and only the frozen chill of death remains to haunt them until they become devoid of the memories for all they'd neglected in the days that only perpetually decay and fade-out so pale and gray until no light can bring them the slightest glint of illumination, and no shadow of grave nor death can make this darkness seem any different from the eternal twilight of the oblivion in which they are forever more enshrouded and enshrined and entombed. Vampires are not supposed to be able to see themselves for the monsters that they are.
For life is to be drained away in one way or another, and death is not to be confronted with what has preceded it. To be beyond death is to be cursed with this inability to reach back toward life or forward toward hope or out toward penance, or remorse, or mourning. This is the way of the abysmal oblivion to which all things are condemned.
Now that this thing has upset the truth of our abyss the rage within me becomes untenable. My vengeful hands strike-out at the door, shattering the mirror, and obliterating the obstacle obstructing wrath from prey. I thrust my way through the threshold and throw myself upon this abhorrer thrashing, and gnashing, and smothering the bloody soul. There is almost no resistance or protesting posed by my prey as I drain every last drop of lifeblood from its body and proceed to defile the corpse by pounding and tearing at it until only a mauled pulp of a physical puddle remains of it.
Then without forethought or consideration I grasp at the wooden pencil this mangled cadaver had left on the desk next to its final resting place. I scrawl down these empty words in defiance and desecration of all that I am. My sneering face mocking my words and damning myself for this absurd pantomime I put myself through while knowing that it is all without any enduring significance or substance.
Following this abominable folly my fist clenches tightly around the now dulled pencil used to convey my dull tale. Despite the knowledge that my chest contains no pulse, nor blood, nor heart within it, I thrust it repeatedly into the empty space where such things are meant to be. Without admonishing myself I plunge this dull thing perpetually into my unfeeling cadaver, with dissatisfaction, resentment, and an undying rage that detests both my inability to live and my impotence toward death equally. If this were truly a vampiric fiction I might vanish from the earth eternally. If it is not, perhaps I'll be damned to remain in existence eternally still with all this rage, and loathing, and torment, and...
