Romania—Strigoiul [The Romanian Revolution, 1989]
Romania couldn't be counted among the living. He was dead.
Hunger killed him.
Tortures in jail killed him.
The fear caused by the Securitate killed him.
Isolation killed him.
He lived in a dark tomb for twenty-five years. Left to rot. In a dead silence. Alone. Until his eyes opened in the dark.
You know what they say: if someone doesn't die in peace, they become strigoii. Cursed. What did they expect? They brought this on themselves.
And the best thing is that they didn't see him coming. He took the appearance of an itsy, bitsy, tiny, insignificant flea nobody paid attention to and even crushed when spotted without any remorse at all. Among his people, on the other hand, he took human form and he looked like in the old times: the same strawberry blond hair, the same particularly long canine teeth, the same smile. All changes were inside.
He had maggots inside of his brain.
He was hungry.
Blood, he needed blood.
He went after those who took his joy, his life, his spirit. His boss. His old hag of a wife. He would take their blood in exchange.
When they saw what he intended to do, what he had become, tried to appease him with reasons. It didn't work. Then they tried to get him back into his coffin and seal it with nails, cut his head off. No, it was all useless.
His boss became terrified. He would have never thought Romania could be scary. He used to be so nice, such a merry fellow...Hah! Whose fault was it? He was all of that when he was alive—until he was killed, by someone he trusted in, who was supposed to guide and protect him.
He was scared of him and that was a nice appetizer. He made sure to capture him and do things quick, for he was so hungry, so desperate, so willing to get his well-deserved revenge—but he enjoyed every second of his fear, treasured it, squeezed the most out of it, before he finally threw him into the executioners' arms.
Every bullet impacting against his body and his wife's made his smile widen a little bit. The roar of the guns was music to his ears.
The bodies fell to the floor and he lost no time kneeling down and licking the blood, drinking it, chocking on it.
He rose, his red eyes gleaming, a purr in his throat, blood falling from his mouth and staining his clothes. Satisfied. Complete.
Just a little precaution. He ordered a loyal friend to fill his boss' house with garlic. The old man was not going to receive a proper burial (scraps belong in the landfill), and he wanted no competition.