Awakened Dawn

One:

2021:

Delusions piled atop one another. The darkness of the crypt only seemed to hold my body inside the tomb ever so slightly now. Beyond all logical explanation, I had worn down the runes and magiks confining me. Restlessness tore away at my fragile psyche. Time was an endless expanse without a single divide in my suffering.

Torment had scarcely been invented which could measure to endless and measureless darkness and hunger. My throat burned for blood and my stomach rumbled for sustenance. I had never thought to gander how one confined to a coffin might experience the passage of time. No one who had immerged from a sentence of involuntary sleep had never been the same as before the coffin.

The only saving grace of my delusional state was how many times I had been forced to relive my precious Abigale’s murder. The dry taste of her killer’s blood was still upon the back of my throat even until now. Whilst I could recognize why Alexia had been forced to lock me away like common prison rubbish, my experience was hardly befitting one who dedicated her entire existence to the service of her people.

My mother was a highly placed lady of reputation in the Irish Clan. Our Vampyr line predated even the mortal Celtic druids. We and the fair folk inhabited the Iles of Britannia for as long as humanoid beings have walked this earth. The humbling blow of being imprisoned for your lunacy, when you had such a highly revered line, there were no words to describe this experience. No logic and no prowess of mental fortitude could wrest me from the endless nightmare of my accursed existence.

Beyond all hope, beyond all reason, I lay shackled in torment to the very thing which should have killed me. Madness and irrational fear dominated my body and mind as if they were childish trinkets to be dangled about frivolously. Void of absolute unending quiet which seemed to stifle out all hope of life. No smell, no taste, nor any other sensation teased. Everything that existed, was all manifest in my mind. At first, I lost myself in the delusions. In many, I saw Abigale married and I held her young as they cried for their first blood-milk. My heart ached and splintered anew every time she was shot full of musket balls before my mind’s eye. Eventually, the delusions always ended in Abigale’s death.

Perhaps, it was the body’s defense mechanism to keep me from falling completely inside one of the fantasies. While dearest Abigale was still seemingly living and breathing, I was still free to delude myself into the many endless possibilities life once could have unfolded before me. Alexia was as much my heart as Abigale, but that did not seem to tether me to reality any better. It would seem my mind was caught between the one I couldn’t save and the one who imprisoned me for my own good. There was little fortune left for me. All I could gaze upon in the real world was the brutality and the malice which held me to my chains.

BOOM!

My world echoed and my ears ached. My teeth rattled as the deep drum roiled through my body painfully. Beyond the stunning confusion, there was something visceral to this pain. Something which fantasy couldn’t create. Nor had fantasy ever managed to manifest anything I had never experienced in my own life. Even the visions of my Abigale were of her as I remembered her, even when I saw her as a mother. There could be nothing in this universe that did not already order itself in my original reality.

BOOM BOOM… BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

Riotous and blisteringly hot, it was so loud, I couldn’t begin to make out the how, but the what became clearer as I heard an orchestra of strange stringed ringing sounds, not a viola or a violin, but something comprised off that concept. I had heard lyre which came a hair closer in sound, but this was deeper, richer, and crisper. There was something almost like the crashing of thunder upon my ears.

The noise was blissful and welcome destroying all trace of the former silence which had stifled my existence for ages beyond all measure. My fingers moved as if of their own volition. The sound was antagonizing me towards action, reminding myself of what I once was, the Lower Queen of the Vampyrs of Britannia. I was the daughter of the proud and noble line which traced its origin back to the first of my species.

I did not require all my power at my grasp, only a single flash of it, like sunlight in the earliest hour of dawn. Beyond all grief and all heartache, I pushed my fingers on my right hand up, and I resisted the urge to remain inside this unnatural state of grief and delusion. If one daughter kept me in here, it was the other which helped foster the strength inside me to shatter the remaining runes on the coffin lid.

The stone of the cover flew out, and I heard screams and the scent of strange ales reached my nostrils.

Light so blinding it threatened my new vision. I felt like I was bleeding from my sockets it was so agonizing. My eyes had not beheld so much as a trace of starlight in ages beyond counting!

“What the hell is she?!”

One of the humans exclaimed as I caught the delectable odor of young blood. They were youthful, ripe, and in their s****l prime, or so my nose told me. I could almost put them at my daughter’s age, if not for the fact that they smelled slightly more mature. That suggested the age of humans might have shifted slightly since last I experienced the world. They perhaps lived slightly longer now. I could not explain the information, only that my species takes in exorbitant amounts of knowledge and worldly understanding.

“Jeeze, we totally woke the dead!”

Another softer voice sounded. She was not startled like her friends, she moved closer to me. Not exactly the best decision for her right now. Not if she wished to keep her beautiful neck intact.

“B…back, girl, I can smell your blood. I do not wish to maul the first human I have witnessed in ages.”

I said, hoarsely, as I struggled not only to resolve the information crashing against my senses, but also to fight back the primal urge to rip into her throat and feast. Vampyrs might not require more than a chalice a day to survive, but you try being starved as long as I have, and then we can talk about my restraint issues.

“Her teeth, OMG, is this a joke? What, she’s a flippin’ vampire! I mean, rawr, you guys totally got me!”

The girl said, her tone bespoke amusement and a deep-seated belief in fantasy. I did not need to understand most of her exact words to decipher the syntax of her comprehension. Not to mention, I had been re-learning human language for over three centuries before this damn box happened to me.

“Anne, we had nothing to do with this!”

I heard one of the young men say, and I forced my eyes open again. Through the blurry fog of tears, I saw the slightly distorted image of a perfectly lovely and stunning creature with raven hair and the most curious bright blue strips, as if she had used clothing dye to recolor her locks anew. There was an amazingly loud and rebellious air to her look of dark leather and coarse black fabric trousers and her metal spiked belt. Either this was a very strange new world, or this young woman was acting out in a very loud and very deliberate fashion.

“My God, her eyes!”

The one they referred to as Anne said, suddenly surprised. The other girl, I noticed, was close to the crypt door now, cowering in true fear. Fortunately for her, her bitter fears actually made for a pitiful taste to my species. We preferred our blood freely given as a gift or in the throes of passion. Nothing accentuates s*x better than blood for us.

“I am vampyr, please move back, you sassy little lass.”

I told her, and her eyes seemed to widen.

“Jesus, she’s like either really a horribly thorough practical joke or else…”

Anne’s eyes turned behind me, and she moved closer, ignoring my warnings.

“What the hell are those. It’s not Nordic Runes, but they are similar?”

She asked, and I croaked out, “Fairie glyphs and runes. They keep us in hibernation once we are placed into a coffin.”

I explained, despite the usual urge to hide what I was being my first instinct. These strange young mortals had already witnessed me rising from a grave. What the blood devil could I possibly spoil for them now?

“So, vampires and elves are a thing.”

She commented and I detected a slight note of incredulousness.

“Stop moving closer unless you wish to find out just how real we are, you proper little minx, you.”

I said, not entirely sure why I was being so crude with the girl, other than the fact that she was bound and determined to get herself eviscerated.

“If you’re a vampire, then how the hell has your kind hidden amongst humans for this long. I mean, one trip to the dentist would make you a dead giveaway! Am I right, you guys?!”

She asked, and I frowned, not at all sure what a dentist would possibly be doing near my pristine teeth. I recalled the barbaric practice of human dentistry. It was about as much a medical practice as mucking out the stalls and just as messy often. Barbers with sharp and oftentimes bloody utensils.

“We simply don’t show them to you, except when we are falling out of coffins after, what year is it?”

I asked, breaking out of my speech mid-thought, and Anne looked truly shocked.

“Anne, please move back. They are freakin’ glowing! Red, glowing, and not human!”

The other girl mewed out in a miserably terrified tone. Part of me was amazed she had not taken off as a field mouse yet. I suppose she feared I might become a lady hawk and pounce upon her mid-stride.

“It’s twenty-twenty-one. What, you serious? I mean, the old Amish look is pretty convincing and all!”

Anne said and I scoffed and said, “This silken dress was hand-tailored for me by the King of England’s own bloody tailor!”

My tone roared as I recalled my final stay in London. I had a liaison with a princess who was engaged to be wed. She was not entirely convinced of her proclivities for her husband-to-be. As was often the way back in those days, women simply endured the process. She sent me off with a beautiful black silk dress so I might never forget our time together. I did not exactly love her, but I certainly made a lot of love to her.

“King of England…”

Anne trailed off, and I frowned in confusion.

“Two-hundred-and-one years!”

I exclaimed in shock. We had never kept someone more than half this duration in stasis! Part of me wanted to smack my daughter, but then the realization that she was out here somewhere, hopefully alive and well, was enough to sate my need for strong words or confrontation.

Anne seemed to finally grow curious and potentially shocked.

“Wait, you’re for real?”

She asked, and I said, “Everything about me is real, of course! Your strange use of the English language is bloody perverse, child!”

She snorted at me, and leaned in closer, licking her lips subtly.

“There ain’t nothin’ childish on my body, Lass.”

She threw the word back at me, obviously queer to her usual vocabulary. There was something erotic in her lack of fear towards me. It was ill-advised, but still very much thrilling.

“Not to sound ungrateful for your waking me and all, but if you do not assist me in safely procuring blood, I might not be able to hold my thirst at bay forever. Perhaps a tiny spot of soup or something nutritious as well?”

I inquired of them, and Anne seemed to finally begin to realize this was no joke. She was still not truly afraid like her friend, but I felt the chills crawling across her skin. Her obvious shock was palpable to my heightened senses. Keen as I was, I felt the pull towards her neck growing stronger. I also felt the venom dripping from my fangs which were prepped and ready to dose a human and then feast.

“Please, slowly back out of this crypt and shut the door firmly behind you. I do not wish to cause you lot any harm.”

I told them, and the first two were already out the door by the time my plea was launched. The second male was more reluctant, but Anne stood firm and sucked up her fear.

“How about we just get you to a hospital. I mean, if you’re not obvious about it, you could sneak into the blood bank and swipe a few bags of blood in their storage.”

She told me, and I blinked at her.

“Since when do triage centers store the blood? What is a blood bank?”

I asked, and Anne’s eyes widened fractionally.

“Right, because if you are being honest, which you appear to be, then you have not seen the world in two-hundred-years. Oh boy, this should be exciting for both of us!”

She murmured in a very sarcastic tone, and I felt my gut threatening to cannibalize itself for food.

“Can you eat animals? Because blood from a butcher is a lot easier to come by.”

She inquired, and I shook my head widely.

“Not right now. I’ve been too long without food of any kind. If I had to guess, I would say I might last the hour without murdering you or anyone else. I would genuinely like not to add to my lengthy list of regrets.”

I told her, and I felt the hot-cold mix of remembering Abigale once more. I didn’t have time to allow myself to grieve any longer, nor could I simply cease functioning. Beyond all understanding, I could not fathom how I was still in control of my faculties. In my lifetime, I had witnessed many a vampyr lose themselves to their primal urges if starved to the point of danger. The wards and runes inside the coffin had spelled me so as not to desiccate from my lack of blood intake. In fact, I had never heard of a single vampire releasing themselves from forced sleep. Right now, I did not possess the free time or energy to give that a proper think. All I could think about was food.

“I can eat human food, but I need blood most of all right now. Food can wait for later.”

I told Anne, and I was not able to explain why I felt I could trust her and ask her for help. The alternative at this point was taking what I needed from her by force. Nothing about that was appealing to me. No one deserved to have their very life essence stolen away. Blood was sacred to my kind.

“So, off to the blood bank, and then I will introduce you to the Burger King.”

I frowned at that, and said, “Dear Lord, do the Colonies have a monarch now?”

Anne looked at me with a startled look and she snorted loudly and shook her head widely.

“No, no, Burger King is a food place that sells incredibly good stuff, even if it is greasy and will add to your ass weight, but that’s a whole other point altogether.”

Nodding as if any of that made more sense than a simple comprehension of a food vendor, I tried to pretend I was more in tune with my young friend. Everything she said seemed to have implied meanings that were all queer to my ears.

“Follow me, and we’re going to have to get you out of that dress before long. Or else someone is going to get the wrong idea about you and try to lock you into a psych ward.”

That, I did understand, since sanitariums were common enough, even in the times I lived in. Hell, there were even a few such institutes that dealt with vampyrs with troubled minds.

“Not to be confusing, but where was all that very loud and chaotic music being played?”

I asked, and I could see Anne being forced to think backward in her head.

“Oh, the music, that’s on this.”

She held out a glowing contraption with vivid color and pictures of some form of modern artwork. She then moved through a long list of words that held no meaning to me in context. I recognized the words themselves and names, but none meant anything to me.

She soon pressed a triangle on the picture itself, and suddenly, the deep sound of fast beating started once more. The drum sounded a lot like a massive native drum beaten during their many dances, ceremonies, and rituals. The mad sounding violin or other stringed instruments played equally as ferociously and the voice came in with deep growling animal sounds suddenly.

“That most certainly could wake the dead. It’s rather ghastly, and yet I am in love with this chaos if, for no other reason, it helped me force myself out of my slumber.”

I confessed to Anne, and she nodded and pressed a pair of horizontal lines and the loud chaos stopped.

“That contraption, what is it?”

I asked her, and she shrugged and said, “My phone, it is a personal communication device. Imagine being able to press a combination of numbers on this device and it will send a signal to the corresponding person at the other end of that code number’s connection. You can literally talk to anyone anywhere, so long as you have their phone number.”

My eyes widened and I swallowed as the enormity of this world’s changes were already beginning to seep into me.

“So, I could use that and talk to a person in London or Ireland if I knew the number code of their portable device?”

Anne nodded, and I whistled as she opened the door leading out into the pitch black of a lovely and noisy evening. The New Orleans graveyard was weathered, older, but still very much the same as it was in my day. However, just outside the gate was an entirely alien world rushing into my every sense at a rapid pace. MY pulse was beating harder, and my eyes were constantly being burned by the many bright lights around the streets.

Glowing signs were advertising what I could only guess were wares and other goods. The air smelt and tasted odd. What caught my focus most was the massive metal carriages rolling around without horses.

“Heavenly Father, I don’t even know what to make of that!”

I exclaimed, and Anne smiled in amusement.

“Well, you’re going to have to try, because we’re going to be driving in my car.”

She pressed a smaller object, and I heard a strange sound and one of the red carriages nearby lit up and glowed yellow twice.

“That one is mine, please come over and climb in. I promise it won’t eat ya.”

I managed a very weak grin that did not expose teeth. Being a vampyr, I had learned to hide my horrifying grin away from mortals. They saw our fangs and there was usually no reasoning with them that we were mature beings capable of restraint and dignity. Anne seemed to be one of the very few exceptions to this. She appeared to know what I was, yet she did not believe I was real. That made little sense to me right now. Unless humans believed us completely extinct. That fear sent another wave of panic through me, as I thought about my elder twin, Alexia.

While I hardly felt inclined to show up at her door right now, I knew I needed to see her with my own eyes and soon.

“Just pull the door handle up gently and the door will open.”

Anne instructed me, and I nodded at her and allowed her to believe my pause was in fact confusion as to how the door opened. She was nice enough, but I was hardly ready to bear my soul to a perfect stranger.

“My most sincere of thanks for all of this trouble you have put yourself to on my behalf.”

She blinked at me and said, “You know, a simple thank you would have sufficed. Just keep it simple. We don’t often use that many words to convey a simple thanks anymore, keep that in mind when you talk to more people.”

She told me, and I nodded, as I pulled up on the door gently and it popped open. I did not need to be instructed that this was a seat, because carriages had seats in them.

She climbed into the other side which had a small wheel, like one on the helm of a ship. I guessed the application was of some similar concept. She turned a key into the side of the wheel, and something thundered at the front of the carriage. I might have felt perturbed by this, had I not just heard many other thundering carriages in my extremely short, but educational, jaunt from the grave I had been hibernating inside.

This was not my world. It had changed so completely. I was ill-prepared for this reality.

Not one of my delusions could ever have conjured any of this!

My musings turned morose, as I reaffirmed to myself that this world was so terribly queer that it could only be real. I was not such an endlessly imaginative person to conjure all of this substance from nothingness.

The carriage rocked forth and shot out with a squeak of the large black wheels. Anne grinned as her foot pressed down on something at her foot’s reach. I realized soon that it was a control of sorts.

“That thing you are tapping with your toe, it controls the pace of this carriage?”

I asked, and she gave me a wide-eyed look once again like my words were bazaar to her.

“Um, the pedal gives it gas.”

She said, and I blinked at that. I guessed the pedal was the thing she tapped, and gas meant speed or something similar.

“Gas means it goes, I assume?”

I confirmed, and she chortled and said, “Oh, you are a quick study!”

I smiled at her, exposing my canines.

“We are known to be intelligent beings. We spend countless years constantly adapting to the ever-expanding mortal world around us. If we were savages, I do believe one or both of our peoples would have been extinct by this period.”

Anne gave a nod of agreement and said, “Yeah, I mean, you’ve not had a drop to drink in two centuries, and yet my throat is fine. That tells me a lot about your nature, even if those are some very nasty looking bad girls in your mouth.”

I blinked in confusion and she said, “Those teeth are scary. We can broach modern expression later, or better yet, I can just sit you down on Google for a few days and let you work it all out for yourself.”

She told me, and I blinked, not missing her offer of hospitality.

“I am not sure what to make of your kindness, aside from the obvious curiosity I detect.”

She grinned wider now and said, “Curiosity and sympathy that you seem to have no place to call your own right now.”

She said honestly.

“Everyone deserves to have at least one person in their corner.”

She said, as the carriage rolled faster towards this large triage center she was determined to take us both to.