Returning to Life

Disclaimer: Characters and Premise are borrowed from the show "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer."

The first things I'm aware of are the smells. It's not the alley outside of the pub in Galway; I know that right away. The ever-present tang of salt is gone from the air. I'd never noticed its presence, but I notice its absence. That smell had been a part of my word since my birth, and now it was gone. In its place was the smell of wood smoke and forest.

It confused me. Everything confused me, I knew time had passed without my awareness, unimaginable time. I could sense a profound wrongness in my body, but I didn't understand what it meant.

I opened my eyes and saw nothing familiar. Then a man spoke to me, he asked me if I hurt, promised me that more pain would come.

I couldn't think why he hated me like that. I didn't know him, hadn't done anything to deserve this boundless hate.

Then he told me what I'd done. Told me I'd killed people, so many people. I didn't, I hadn't killed anyone. Then it happened, just like he said, I remembered, every face, every scream. One hundred and forty-five years of atrocities. Act I couldn't have imagined yet I had committed them.

In a matter of seconds I went from being a foolish boy to a monster beyond my own comprehension.

My mind didn't wantto except it. As the memories filled me, my mind tried to flee from them. I couldn't deal with the memories. How could I? The mortal I'd been wasn't anyone I was proud of, but he'd never hurt anyone. He was the one that had to face the demon's actions and he didn't survive it.

The mortal I'd been, Liam, died twice in truth. His body died under Darla's fangs in Galway. What she didn't get, the gypsies resurrected that night in Romania only to have it crushed under the weight of the horrors they forced him to face.

I was quite a disappointment to the gypsies. They hadn't gone to all the trouble of cursing me only to watch me slip into catatonia only minutes later.

It took them several more years and a number of spells, but in the end they had what they wanted. I had my soul and my sanity, they took from me the ability to find refuge in the dark, silent places in my mind.

After that was done they let me go. For almost a century I wandered, nameless, alone.

For years I had no peace no, refuge, no identity just pain and memories. The memories filled every moment of my life, I mourned my victims endlessly. It was my reason for existence, to be a living memorial to my victims. To grieve for those long dead, whose names had been forgotten by the world.

Thanks to the demon's cruel games I knew so much about them, their hopes their dreams, their fears. Frequently, the demon had known his victims better than their own families had. Where other vampires saw humans as little more than cattle, my demon had reveled in learning their passions. He treasured the memories of their horror and bequeathed it all to me.

Better than anyone I knew what the demon had taken from them when he took their lives. My victims were beyond any help, all I could do for them was regret and suffer.

Around me the world changed and I hardly noticed. It didn't concern me, my purpose, given to me by the Rom was to remember, to grieve. It was how they intended for me to spend eternity.

But time passed and the sharpness of the pain faded. Its endless, unceasing presence dulled my nerves. In the end the pain itself feared me from my torment.

The demon laughed at the crudity of the Rom's torture, he was a master at it, they were but amateurs. They didn't recognize the need for the torturer to allow his victims occasional respite, else they loose the ability to feel pain.

Given long enough, pleasure becomes less than a memory, pain ceases to hurt as the victim forgets what it is too not hurt. Both pain and pleasure are meaningless without the other for comparison. Without the contrast neither is real. Overloaded senses tire and fail to function, leaving the victim nothing but emptiness. That was the state Whistler found me in.

He offered me hope, stirred my curiosity, gave me a new purpose, one that could relieve the pain with distraction. He warned me that coming back to the world would hurt me, and it did, viscously. But after so many years of numbness even pain was welcome. It felt like being alive again.

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