Inspiration for Don't cry and Top died. In the basement, probably. It's smelling strange down there…

Anyway! This is a collection of one-shots and less which have no connection but the topic: VAMPIRES! Vampires have recently possessed me and no amount of garlic can drive them out.

This stuff will probably never come in any of my stories, so I'm posting it. Just so.

Bethesda's. We know.

He walked in the cave, waited till his eyes had adapted to the darkness, and attacked.

There were two; one Altmer, one Dunmer, both of them female. They hadn't heard him come, but when he entered their shadows, they turned around with a hiss. The High Elf charged with an axe in her hand, while the Dark Elf stayed behind. She raised her hand, and the man felt his strength leaving him.

His right hand caught the Altmer's, the one that held the weapon. She screamed in frustration when her axe hit the wall and fell from her grip. Her left hand shot at the man's throat. With nearly incredible speed he drew his head back, and her sharp claws ripped at his cheek. He felt blood run over his face and with a smile, he threw the woman against the ground, like she weighed not more than her axe.

When the sound of her snapping neck was gone, he suddenly held a crossbow in his hands. The bolt hit the other woman between the eyes and, like her sister, she disintegrated into fine grey ash.

The man took a small, leather-bound journal from his pocket. He dipped a finger in the wounds on his cheek and smeared some of the blood on a page, next to a similar red stain, then took another sample from his hand. Carefully he described his fight in a narrow but clearly legible handwriting on the next page.

In the next hours he cleaned the front part of the cave; he carried the women's ashes out as well as the remains of their victims, washed the bloodstains as good as possible out of the bed, brought candles and blankets, cleaned one of the desks. When he was finished, he lay down and closed his eyes.

For the next three days, he mostly slept. After every two hours, he would check his temperature, take a blood sample and test a few reactions, for example on sun- or moonlight and the taste of blood. He wrote down his symptoms: loss of concentration, exhaustion, near the end of the second day fever.

When the last hours had come, he suddenly woke from a nightmare. Heat had been flowing through his body all day long, but now he felt like bathing in lava. He wanted to write it down, but when he reached for the journal, he was hardly able to move a finger. His hand fell back on the furs of the bed and he concentrated on breathing.

The man didn't have to wait for long: The heat increased further, every fibre of his body seemed on fire. His muscles clenched and he shivered.

When it was over, he opened his eyes and smiled in the darkness, and his eyes glowed softly like new-lit candles.