The Chains of Humanity
PROLOGUE
"Love is a vampire's greatest weakness, and we are not weak."
"No matter how easy it is to turn it off, it keeps trying to fight its way back in. And sometimes I let it."
"We choose our own path. Our values and our actions define who we are."
"But I haven't lived at all!"
"I can handle myself."
"It's difficult to separate your feelings. Love, lust, anger, desire, it can all blur into one urge. Hunger."
"I will always look out for myself. I did what I could to survive."
"Hunt. Prey. Kill. It was all I knew."
"The worst day of loving someone is the day that you lose them."
"I've learned to adapt. I don't need to be fixed. I don't want to be fixed."
"She didn't make us monsters; we did that to ourselves."
"And I'd like nothing more than to get her back. Because the...the girl that she's become...that...that I've become...is different. Somehow...darker. Who I am, what I want..."
"I made a choice that I will regret for the rest of my life. Now let me try to fix it."
"I'm not human. And I miss it. I miss it more than anything in the world. That is my secret. But there is only so much hurt a man can take."
"Life is too cruel. If we cease to believe in love, why would we want to live?"
"I'm lost."
"Go right ahead. Laugh at the girl who loved too easily."
"Is my love not enough?"
"I don't want to die."
"That was the only time I've ever thought about being human."
"Because the only one I can count on is me."
"Because when people see good, they expect good. And I don't want to have to live up to anybody's expectations."
"I do not believe in love."
"I used to think the worst feeling in the world was losing someone you loved, but I was wrong. The worst feeling is the moment that you realize that you've lost yourself."
The chains of humanity. The emotions that bind a vampire for eternity. The only thing that keeps them connected to sanity. A vampire can pretend, but they will always feel, no matter what. There will always be inevitable pain. When it can turn off as easily as a switch, it's never completely gone. It's always...lingering, a fragment of a memory of what is used to be like to be human. The decisions are each vampire's choice to make. What they decide does not determine who they are, but rather, who they are becoming.
There will always be grief.
There will always be desire.
There will always be trust.
There will always be envy.
There will always be courage.
There will always be hope.
There will always be guilt.
There will always be hunger.
There will always be revenge.
There will always be shame.
There will always be kindness.
There will always be loyalty.
There will always be betrayal.
There will always be pity.
There will always be happiness.
There will always be sorrow.
There will always be anger.
There will always be hatred.
There will always be love.
The chains of humanity.
