1. Theo One

Life sucks, and then you die. Then, if you're particularly unlucky (like me), you come back the following night and learn that you can never see your friends or family again, or the guys in charge'll take off your head or burn you alive.

Great stuff, huh? But wait! There's more!

You come to find out that the asshole who did this to you is crazy, something about an ancient curse dating back thousands of years. And, as a rule, when he does to you what he did, you yourself go insane.

Yeah, I know, I sound perfectly normal, but we'll get to that. I'm not irrational, I'm just not an "I" anymore, technically. I'm an "us." There's two other bitches floating around in my head, that have come along and made themselves manifest and take control of the body when they have something they need to say or do.
I've gone to a shrink. He tells me that they're the incarnations of my innocence and my sense of self-preservation. This says to me, "yep, you're nuckin' futs." He respects that I don't want to tell him exactly what brought them along for the ride, though he gets the idea that it was a drastic tragedy (dying tends to be that way, methinks). He also says that it could be worse, some people don't get to have their sanity even one-third of the time. Yeah, doc, I guess, but I'm not much for optimism.

I've been friends with a professor who teaches night classes in some kind of literature or another at a college outside of the city since before the whole mess started. Older guy, really nice. Kind of eccentric. He's got this thing where he's constantly quoting from like every novel ever written ever, and though it's kind of irritating after a while, you learn a bit from it. He's also afflicted with my condition, so I've been sticking close to him. From what I've been told, he was at one point the ruler of Barnes City, and I don't mean he was the mayor. He actually owned the place and everyone in it, though most people didn't know it. I've been living with him for like forever. Well, no, six years or so.

His name is Steinbeck. Mine's Theo One, if I haven't said that already. It used to be Theodora back before I didn't have Theo Two and Theo Three to worry about. I couldn't convince them to choose other names; they can be stubborn like that.

Now, considering that the other two people in my head are really there, you can argue that my split personality stuff isn't a true madness, even though I'm sure it's in the books as being that. I just have to share my body with a pair of new consciousnesses, though I can reason perfectly well. Thing is, is that Two and Three aren't my only problem. I hallucinate. Constantly. And I get flashes of insight into other peoples lives. I have to concentrate, usually, but sometimes they come to me freely.

I can guess strangers' names with little to no problem, and sometimes I can get a glimpse of the thoughts on the surface of their minds.

Those aren't my only tricks. My senses are all more than perfect. I can make it so people don't ever notice that I'm near them, if I'm careful enough. The next best thing to invisibility, that. I can take a slug from a .44 magnum to the head and walk away from it. Granted, that sort of thing puts me in a bad mood, but hey. What doesn't kill you leaves you open for someone else to give it a go the next time, right?

Yeah, I know I'm all gloom'n'doom. That's just an aspect of my personality I'm having a hard time letting go of. I like to think that I'm better, now. I used to hate everything about my existence. I didn't take very good care of myself. Every mind-altering substance I could get my hands on, I used. Then I drove home afterwards. "Die young, make a pretty corpse," right? Right.

I'm a fucking gorgeous corpse.

Erk, see, did it again. Really, it's not so bad as most make it out to be. I've got quite a few friends that look out for me, and me, and me. Oh, and superpowers. Superpowers are the shit. The whole surviving off of the lifeblood of other people and the lack of sunshine are downers, yeah, but I'm enjoying life now that I'm dead.

I've said that already, haven't I?

Eh. No big deal. Moving on.

Barnes City. It's a great place, a melting pot of undead. Got everything from those people like us, Dr. Steinbeck and his sort (who do magic – it's fun to watch, and I'll have to tell you about the Sabbat pack that ran into his Floating Hand Grenades of Doom later), the Sabbat and their creepy cultist bullshit, and the Camarilla, who can't wrap their minds around the idea that Steinbeck doesn't want to be the primogen, nor does he want the chantry under their control. We have, he says, been doing well enough staying on the down-low on our own without an iron fist lashing out when someone fucks up and putting everyone on edge.

On account of the fact that he's got his own Clan, and the Brujah who hang out in their pool halls and the Nosferatu in the sewers ready to fight with him, the Camarilla learn to leave him alone when he wants to be. There's only those three clans in the city, and they're all Anarchs. The Camarilla don't want a war, they've already got the Sabbat to deal with.

Me, I don't really care either way. I'm just trying to get by. Suppose that makes me an Anarch, but I think that we (all my selves included) could survive no matter who's in charge. When the fighting started, we joined Steinbeck because he's our friend. That's what's important, isn't it? It was only one night's worth, and when it ended, we went back to enjoying unlife.

We'll get to that story later. 'Till then, we'll just babble on like I'm doing now.