Please forgive me, dear reader, for I am far from a reliable source. I write this not to be believed, but to be heard, only to be heard, and if you read this, and believe it, so much the better… And yet, I pity you, for what I am about to tell you, no man should ever know.
First off, let's begin with an introduction… I lied. I can't introduce myself, for I know not my own name. Please call me Mel Ann Cholia. That is what my master calls me. He scorns me, and derides me for being so miserable when I have been given the honor of serving him for all of eternity.
How I despise him, though… No. That's also wrong. I love him with every beat of my heart, and yet I also hate him with every fiber of my being. More even than I despise myself, my hideous, deformed body, and my eternally, and damnably tainted soul, I. Hate. Him.
His wicked smile, his razor sharp teeth, his hideous, yet somehow beautiful countenance. I love and yet hate all of them. They make me want to vomit, and yet make me want him more, bless his soul… No! Curse his soulless shell to the fiery pits of Hell! May he burn in the flaming Abysses of Satan's Den!
I do not expect you to understand this bizarre duality. Even I do not understand it. I only know that approximately once every week, he orders me to come into his chambers, where he stands at a gurney, sewing bodies together.
Sometimes, the bodies are still living, in which case, they are shrieking in agony, fear, and revulsion. Sometimes, they are dead, in which case, they are already hideously deformed, and probably died after he began his slow and sadistic tortures on them. I call him Lord Albert Bardroy in his presence, as that is what he demands of me.
However, out of his range of hearing, I call him many things, as he has gone by many names throughout the centuries. Master is all I am fit to call him, though as one of the more sociable of his kind, he has had many aliases over the years. He began a murder cult under the name, Zamiel and he is one of the most prolific, sadistic, and monstrous serial killers in history, having more than 5,000 bodies to his name.
Whoever, or whatever he is, I do not know. I call him 'vampire', because he drinks the blood of the living, those he calls 'Kine'. I remember when I first tasted his blood. No. Not blood. I can't call it blood, because it is fundamentally different from what we have coursing through our veins. Liquid power. Perhaps that is a good term? I wouldn't know.
I am not a writer by background. I am… What am I again? Or rather, what was I? I remember one thing, and one thing only about my human life. I remember the night it happened. I think I had a family, because I was playing with two young boys and a younger girl in a field behind our house when it happened.
A strange weapon came out of nowhere, as if having fallen from heaven itself, and impaled the poor boy (I cannot remember his name) through the neck, severing his spine. Then, a monster flew down. It was in that chaos that I remember first seeing him.
An angel of death, a demon of destruction and horror, with a face so hideous it was not to be believed. Wings, jaundiced, leathery wings, sprouted from its back, and on its head was a pair of long, wicked and barbed horns. Its spine protruded from its back with evil looking spikes on each vertebra, and though he was dressed as maybe a farmer or a traveler, he was certainly formed straight from the Devil's bosom.
The next few hours are slightly hazy to me. However, I remember two or three other creatures of similarly frightening countenance coming into the yard. None of them had wings, and if I have seen them since, I do not recognize them, nor perhaps would I want to, because as the night wore on, they all seemed to take great pleasure in torturing my once beloved family as I watched, tormented into madness while those demons before me cackled madly.
Then, the one I know as Master turned to me, and said 'have you had enough? Did you enjoy what you saw?' My family was dead and hideously deformed before me. They used some kind of wicked magick in order to warp my family's features.
They would seal and unseal their noses and mouths so that they could not breathe, and who I can only assume was my wife would thrash and writhe, trying to beg for air, and only after long, long moments, would they unseal her lips, using jagged knives made of bone, causing her to shriek in agony.
Maybe she was simply a friend of mine, though… Because I do not remember whether I was male or female in life. In fact, that last night of humanity was all I do remember. Do you see, somehow, Master erased my memories of my life, leaving only the nightmare of this half-life, this cursed life for me to think about. I have certainly gone mad, but I do not begrudge him it. I cannot begrudge him disciplining me.
He does it because I am incompetent and unworthy. I do not deserve his love or affection, and he hasn't the time to waste on a failure such as I. So I do not waste his time, and complete my tasks to the best of my abilities.
I carry the dead and 'reborn' bodies down to the cellar, where they may sit for eternity, I do not know, as I cannot bear to look for too long, lest my tortured mind drive me even further into the welcoming arms of madness. But I cannot go mad yet. My master still needs me, and he may yet see fit to spare my miserable, wretched life.
He has hinted for weeks that he is sick of my failure, and is ready to end my existence. I brought him a present. I killed an entire family of people and used my limited talent in flescrafting, and stitching to create the most 'beautiful' sculpture I could from their dead forms.
Then I lacquered it, and put it in the best light I could and left it there for him to see. I did not wash the blood off. I thought that the paint made it all the more beautiful. He disagreed, though, and ordered me to remove the eyesore that I created from his sight. Surely he will punish me now for my audacity and idiocy
I hear strange words being uttered around the shack in which we live. Tzimisce, Vicissitude, Kindred, Vitae.
I have learned enough over the years to understand, now that Vitae is what flows through vampiric veins. It is what I drink once a week when my master demands it. It is what gives me my superhuman and hellish abilities, and my inabilities. It gives me my 'immortality', for I can only guess that I have been alive for hundreds of years.
I hate my 'life', and yet, I owe it all to him. Tzimisce. What is that? I am not entirely sure. Perhaps it is a type of vampire. Perhaps long, long ago, in times immemorial, they divided themselves into families, and are now forever separated along those lines.
Right now it doesn't matter, because although I was barely able to heal the beating that he gave me just last night, I have no more of this vitae in my system. He did not give me blood last week. He did not give me blood the week before. His endless generosity, and ceaseless forgiveness is running thin, and I do not blame him. I only hope that someone will read this, and understand.
My life was not mine from the moment I met him. And yet, I do not understand. He tells me often how worthless I am. Then why did he choose me? Why did he murder my family and not kill me with them? Maybe if he had, I would have been offered Heaven's rest, and would not be in this miserable existence in which I find myself. I do not know where I am right now, so I could not tell you.
However, if this reaches any Kine eyes, may you never have to go through what I did. I am praying, even now, even though I have long since given up that hope, that this is merely a bad nightmare. The pain feels so real, the misery is far from illusory, and yet, maybe this isn't real.
Perhaps I have merely been dreaming a long dream, and soon, my beloved wife will awaken me and say 'honey, are you alright?' Then, my children will come in and say 'Daddy, you were asleep for a long time. Look how big we've gotten…' I will then realize that all of this was due to the rock that hit me in the head. I fell into a deep sleep, and was unable to reawaken… Maybe it was days, months years…
I don't know. I don't care. But it's the one thin thread that keeps me grounded in reality, the hopes that maybe this horrific nightmare never happened, that there is no such thing as vampires. However, I hear my Master calling my name… He is coming.
However, I am aware that all this has been very real… All too real. I can see his shadow. Yes, vampires cast shadows. They throw reflections, and they can withstand garlic, silver, holy symbols, and can even approach priests and enter churches.
In fact, my master has often had the wondrous pleasure, he claims, of entering a church, and murdering, and 'making beautiful art' of every congregant, and then replacing them for the police to find, frozen in a dark parody of prayer for all eternity, even as I am stuck in a pathetic parody of life for all eternity.
I lied twice, actually. I know why he hasn't been giving me blood. I can feel my body becoming no more than that of a human once more. As he comes, I know my life draws to a close. I only pray that he won't find this paper. I have many hiding places in my small room, and now, I must go, for my master is too close for comfort. Goodbye.
Mel Ann Cholia
"Mel… What are you doing? I heard you talking…"
"I-I-I enjoy t-t-talking to myself, master. It comforts me…"
"I see… I do not blame you. If I were such a miserable failure, I would also need some kind of comfort."
"Thank you, master. Your understanding reassures me…"
"You should not thank me. Do you know why I am here?"
"I would not presume to know anything about Master's motives…"
"Ahahahaha! Imbecile. You have failed me for the last time. That hideous abomination you left in my lab was disgraceful! You have been in my service for 400 years, how can you call that pitiful piece of garbage 'art!'"
"I apologize, master. I have never been terribly proficient at what you call Vicissitude. If you give me another chance, perhaps I may yet improve?"
"A tempting offer, but no. I would like to introduce you to someone. His name is… What is your name again?" He demanded of a young woman, who stepped forward.
Immediately, a chill went down my spine. A cold and merciless aura radiated off of this woman like none I have felt outside of the vampires who occasionally visit Master's house.
"My name is irrelevant, Master. I will take whatever name you give me." She said politely, but with such a flat and emotionless tone that it only confirmed my first opinion of her.
"I know, but I would like to know it anyway. If you really are going to be serving me for eternity, I would like to know your birth name, irrelevant or not." Master said.
"My name is Doctor Abigail Small." She said, not elaborating.
"What were you a doctor of again?"
"Well… I specialized in body modification for a while, but I've done a little bit of everything…" She sighed. "It comes of working in an underground medical facility and I had minors in different forms of art." She said. Master grinned, his smile truly splitting his cheeks. He had far more sharp, jagged teeth in his mouth than any human should. He was beautiful and hideous all at once, and his jaw muscles seemed to flex and twitch like he was getting ready to rend flesh and bone with his teeth.
"Well… I suppose that's it, Mel… Have you any last words?"
"I would say that it's been an honor serving you, Master." I said, no longer feeling any call to keep living. I had gotten in contact with a number of Independent Ghoul Communities who were more than willing to take me in and get me started living free of Master.
But seeing Master set with a new Ghoul… Maybe it really was time for me to go.
"Of course it was. Doctor Small… Would you like to do the honors? We'll see what you can make out of her. She's… Unworthy of the art you can produce, but we'll see where it goes, yes?" Master asked. My eyes widened. Master wasn't just going to kill me. He was going to turn me into some of his art.
Surely this was an even greater honor than living by his side, being witness to the art that Master and a worthy Ghoul could produce.
"I would be honored, Master…" Abigail said, walking up to me, taking out a lead pipe and beating me across the head. All went black from there and since then, I have felt little but pain. Still, I have finally been able to accomplish something Master ordered me to do. So I am happy with my end.