A/N: I have no idea where this is going, or indeed if it will go at all. I've watched the Cirque Du Freak film (2009) once, and this was written at 2am the day after. I've never read the books, I can barely remember the minutiae of what little canon I do know.

So this now falls to the interest or disinterest of the readers. Depending on the response I get this will either stay as a oneshot - a sort introductory passage in a book that does not exist - or I will go and properly interact with the canon, and see where the idea leads.

Everyone's life ends in death, there's no way around it. Eventually, you die. But what most people fail to think about is what happens after that. And I'm talking some religious tale about heaven, hell and purgatory or similar. I'm talking about the undead, you know: vampires; the creatures that fill every childhood horror tale and scary movie; the wolf men, the shifters, the demons, the monsters, the freaks.

The world you only get to see once you die, and only then if you're unlucky – or lucky, depending on who you talk to. For me, in the beginning at least, it was curse, something I didn't really want or understand.

The first thing you need to understand about vampires is that like all the other freaks, they've been highly mythologised; many years of extrapolations have led to a highly enhanced version of the actual thing. The first, and most obvious myth, being a vampire does not make you prettier, or keep you young forever. Na-ah, you still age, if you don't drink pure enough blood on a regular basis. And you'll look just like you did were before you were 'Turned' or to use the proper term, 'Blooded'.

Blooding a vampire is the process mundanely known as Turning, the blood of the sire is mingled with the blood of a human, usually through the fingertips. When the blood reaches the heart it begins to attack the body, using the human haemoglobin as a carrier to the other parts of the body, breaking down and changing most of the fundamental systems.

The whole process takes about three and a half minutes, give or take. And it doesn't always take, it isn't known why but about 23% of the human population is immune to vampiric blood, they always have been. You're just really unlucky if you're one of the 17% who mutate, then there are three paths: you become a vampling, a vampinese or a tralis. Vamplings are literally vampiric children, they have very poor impulse control, little emotional control and are generally nuisances. Vampinese on the other hand, lose near all of their capacity for logic and reasoning, they are consumed by bloodlust and often don't live long. Those that do, are truly terrifying creatures, as they have managed to become strong enough, fast enough to kill anything that tries to hunt them down. The last, tralis, live as little more than indentured servants, and that's being kind. In all my years I have only met three tralis that could do more than directly follow the exact orders of their masters.

The next important myth is that vampires must feed on human blood to sustain their 'un-life' as it were. (For ease, I shall refer to all vampiric species henceforth as vampires.) This is not exactly correct, human blood is merely one of the easiest available food sources. In reality, the best blood is pure blood. Now, there are many different kinds of pure blood, and depending on your tastes you may prefer to feed on different species. But in general, vampiric blood is the strongest, followed by any non-human entities and then humans, followed by animals. But that's only in general. For example, a vampinese may prefer blood that is pure evil or devilry; that's easy to find in humans. Not so easy is pure strength, pure wild and pure fire. Every entity's blood has a different purity. Pure confusion is the most common, and largely useless, except perhaps to tralis, who have no preferences whatsoever.

Preferences often change, over the long years. As for me, when I was first Blooded I preferred rage, in my fourth through seventh centuries I favoured greed – there was a lot of it at the time, and now, I am more refined, freedom is more to my taste.

Many things have changed since I was Blooded, on the eve of the New War. In fact I was involved in sparking it - not one of my better moments - but still, it bears a mention in this tale. I was seventeen when I was Blooded, by a vampire named Crepsley, weird ass name I know, but he was Blooded in 1803. Things were different then. I was Blooded as part of a bargain; in return for my services as an errand boy at the Cirque du Freak, Crepsley would save the life of my closest friend – there had been an incident with a spider, it's an unnecessarily complex story. Suffice to say, my friend didn't have the best of judgement, and did something endlessly foolish.

My death was faked and I disappeared with the Cirque. Only my friend didn't exactly trust the truth of my death, only helped by the meddling of the wannabe Earl. He had always been obsessed with vampires and the undead, he wanted to become one more than anything else. He was rather upset at my seeming betrayal, even though I wanted nothing to do with the Cirque. So when the Earl offered, he had no reason to refuse. He became a vampinese – I should mention quickly that if you're Blooded by a vampinese then you are far more likely to become one.

You see, the Earl wanted to start a war, he wanted to rewrite history in his image, rule the world etc etc, blah blah blah. We've heard the same speech from every megalomaniac super villain out there. Only he actually had the means to do it with. Specifically, Steve – my ex best friend – and myself. We were manipulated into fighting, only I was rather terrible at it and had to be saved. Up until that point I had staunchly refused to drink blood of any kind and thus was incredibly weak. My sire was exceedingly unhelpful, he forgot to explain I didn't have to drink human blood, just blood in general: preferably fresh.

I first drank blood that night. The blood of a recently turned vampinese full of rage, I'm sure you can see where this is going. The events I shall detail to you now are what broke the first truce between the vampinese and the vampires and marked the beginning of the Division of Ranks.

… … …