Blood

Listening to Seba's footsteps patter away, Otto looked around his room. There was a coffin, a pile of clothes in one corner with a camera and some salamanders in a cage carefully propped on top. They had quite obviously been left by the girl, Sarah. The room was cool, he loved it, at least these 'vampires' knew enough to make their rooms cold and cellar like. He paused, mid-thought, and sniffed, there was a stench of b... bl... b-word, along with a less powerful odour of food, ale and sweat. Otto gripped the twist of black ribbon concealed in his jacket and hummed rather frantically. He decided that a lie down was in order, and got changed into his night clothes. [1]

He opened the coffin and lay down inside. His thoughts immediately started chattering in his head. He tried to organise them and listen to each one in turn. These so called vampires had nothing of the vampires he knew back home. They looked like pale, scarred and muscly humans who knew very little about hygiene. This was very different to the elegant vampires they had back home in Überwald. The only thing they had in common with him was their pale skin, Otto didn't even drink the b-word.

And then, there was their confusing politics. They had several princes, that was understandable... but where was their king? Maybe he'd meet him tomorrow. Vancha and Darren didn't look like brothers, they didn't even have similar accents. Larten was probably the closest to a proper vampire, since he did have the cape and he spoke quite elegantly, but the scars on his body ruined the effect. There was something else that was weird... They had beating hearts, all of them. It wasn't tempting though, weirdly, they seemed to have poisonous blood. But their hearts were beating, nonetheless.

So these vampires... They were not undead. Yet they slept in coffins, strange, but then again, they were very pale. Except Vancha, he had very red skin, but the rest were pale, so maybe the sun did harm them. Otto shrugged mentally, he was going to have to get used to this, Sarah hadn't said when he was coming back.

...Or that he was coming back at all for that matter.

But he knew that dwelling on such negative thoughts rarely paid off, so he shrugged once more and fell asleep.

It was the kind of sleep that only undead people have. It was really deep with absolutely uh... well... It's kinda like being dead, basically. Only you wake up. But obviously waking up isn't part of the sleeping and zombies wake up from being dead but that doesn't make it sleep so... He slept really deeply. But not like a log because he wasn't made of wood.

Phew, that was complicated.

And then, he - WHAT? WHAT ABOUT ALL THAT EFFORT I PUT INTO THE DESCRIPTION? ...AAAAAAAH! - woke up. He got out and a yawned, he got dressed and did all the morning-y things people tend to do when they wake up. Except brush his teeth (or fangs). He got dressed into a some of the clothes that were lying in a pile and fed the salamanders. He picked up the camera to take with him, along with the cage. He walked out of his room and down the tunnel towards the hall.

Vancha was already there, standing on his own with a meaty bone in his hand. He waved as Otto approached the table.

"Hungry?" he asked, gesturing at the table. It was covered in in plates of cooked and raw meat, with some bowls of broth with strange leathery things sticking out. There were jugs of water and b... bl... b-word.

"Um... Yes, but vat is zis broth, zere?" Otto pointed to a bowl.

"Bat broth," Vancha dipped some stale bread in his and drank straight from a jug of... b-word. Otto sat down awkwardly and bit into some of the bread. It was disgusting, and he wasn't used to eating so many solids, but there was no way he was touching the b-word or the bat broth. The very thought made him shudder, that would be cannibalism. Vampires that ate bats... How could they be called vampires?

The b-word sat there, very invitingly on the table. He wouldn't even be hurting anyone if he sipped it... No, he couldn't think like that. He hummed a tune, thinking of hot cocoa and his fellow black ribboners.

"Your eyes are glowing red," remarked Vancha in a conversational voice. Otto glared, it wasn't fair. This man was calmly drinking the b-word and openly mocking him for having morals. "Want some?" he laughed, "Oh sorry... I forgot, you don't drink the b-word!"

"I don't vant zat b-vord, I'm not a stupid sucker anymore... Unlike you," retorted Otto. Vancha laughed again.

"Why, though? I mean, you are a vampire, right? I understand no draining," he shuddered at some bad memories, "But no blo- b-word, sorry, that's ridiculous! How do you survive?"

"I... You don't drain? Zat... Veil... Isn't it a bit of a vaste? I mean... Zer... Ze... You just... Not zat I do zat sort of stuff anymore, but, you'd think zat you'd find it difficult to stop yourself and... veil... it's rather difficult to do so many people in a month... But I don't do zat sort of stuff anymore!" Otto stammered.

"...Oh Charna's guts! Your kind drain everyone? I... Well, I knew that was vampiric legend, but... Yeah, I think I understand why you stopped. Here, I suppose we don't need so much, how do you stand it though?" Vancha stopped smirking. Otto's eyes went a bit normal, distracted by the question.

"Zere are... vays, zis is vun of them." He picked up his camera. At this moment, Darren arrived with Larten.

"Ahah! Perfect timink!" he grinned widely, "I shall give you a demonstration off my camera!"

Darren laughed, "I know what a camera is!"

"Well I don't, shut up!" replied Vancha.

Otto bossed them about, getting them in the right position, making them smile and so on, until they were all looking very awkward. Then his picked up the salamander cage and his camera, then hit a huge mallet on top of a salamander. The light flashed and Otto shrieked in pain before crumbling to dust as a picture fell to the ground.

Darren walked forward to have a look at it, "...uh... We're in the picture, there isn't a blur or anything..."

Larten gasped, Vancha couldn't understand but Larten had seen cameras before and he knew that they couldn't take pictures of vampires. Something about fast moving particles...

"What are we going to do about the dust?" Vancha pointed at the pile.

Larten picked up a card that was propped neatly on top of the pile. It read:

THE OWNER OF THIS CARD HAS SUFFERED A MINOR INCIDENT, PLEASE PUT ONE DROP OF BLOOD FROM ANY CREATURE ON THE PILE. YOU MAY NEED A DUSTPAN AND BRUSH. THANK YOU.

But of course, Larten had no idea because he couldn't read. Darren could though, and he read it aloud to Vancha and Larten to clarify what was happening.

Vancha grinned and walked over to one of the jugs of blood and poured it over the dust before Darren could protest.

Otto immediately rematerialised and sniffed, "Zat..." he said slowly, "Vas a very stupid think to do...". Vancha shrugged. Otto yelled suddenly, "Get me an apple! I NEED SOMETHINK TO BITE INTO!"

Darren turned, grabbed a piece of row meat and threw it at Otto, who bit into it. Vancha laughed, he saw no danger in this weird vampire, there were barely any humans in the mountain and anyway, there was loads of blood for Otto. He could have as much as he wanted.

Otto shuddered and mutterend, "I think it iss best if ve go somevere else now." He felt horrible, every piece of him was screaming at him to just empty every blood jug in the room. This was why he rarely went back to visit his friends in Überwald, most of them thought he was stupid anyway. They just didn't care about his pledge, but he had his morals now. Fighting his nature wasn't easy, but he managed so long as idiots like Vancha kept him away from blood. Nowadays he managed to control himself, he'd even seen a person's head crack open and he's remained calm, but something about this place just made him feel safer. That wasn't good. He felt like he could drink all the... b-word in the room and never harm anyone. But of course, the blood had to come from somewhere.

[1] Do vampires have night clothes? Or do they just sleep in evening-wear? Nope. Apparently they have pyjamas just like everyvun else.