"Eternal Friendship P.II - Survival" by Sebastian A. Meusel

"Since you´re gone, I´ve been lost without a trace.
I dream at night, I can only see your face.
I look around but it´s you I can´t replace.
I feel so cold and I long for your embrace.
I keep crying,
baby, baby, please."
(The Police: "Every Breath you take")


"My God! What have I done?!"
This cry broke from my dead throat and filled the dark empty air of the seedy backally. It´s echo seemed to fly forever through the void between the Houses on both sides of the filth filled street. My emotions were raging inside me like monstrous beasts, banging against the wall of my human sense and breaking it like mere paper. I was frightened and at the same time loathed myself for what I had just done. With these words I too wanted to force the vile liquid out of my body. Wanted it begone from my system, out of my mouth and mind. Wanted to scream out against the gruesome act I´d just done. But to no avail, it could not be. The blood burned my insides and ensured my survival. And more screaming woud´ve caused too much unwanted attantion. And that could not be. The small, motionless body of my first victim lay before me and all my willpower and the loving, but forcing hand of my beloved companion was needed to bring me back to my senses. To get me to remember that this young woman was still alive. That I hadn´t killed her. I had not taken her life. Not that it mattered much to me. I had done something to her wich was to say the least... unnatural. I´d raped her. Forced her life out of her to use it for myself. I bowed down to her. I feared to hear no breath, but there it was. Soft but regular. She would survive the experience. With no memeory of what had happened. Maybe she would think she´d been mugged or raped. Wich in a way was true. Or just imagine herself tripped and unconcious, from too much alcohol. I coudn´t tell and I wouldn´t know. As my teacher had said, everyone made up his own story. Exept when you told them what to remember. But that was for another time. The cold hand of my companion was placed upon my shoulder, forcing me away from the scene of my crime. But I couldn´t help and looked back. There she lay in a heap of garbage and filth. A human beeing, her life changed from that moment on. But she wouldn´t realize in what an imense way she had influenced the life of her fellow humans. She had given me sustenance. She had given her blood to me and thus ensured my survival and the doom of my future victims. But I was responsible for my own actions, as any man should be. But who was I to be so bold and force myself upon another humans live? I wasn´t human anymore. I was a vampire.

"C`mon. Your yelling will bring the whole neighbourhood down on us. Let´s get outta here."

She took my arm and I let myself being led to our iddling car a few feet down the street. Numb and totally absorbed in my own thoughts. For the first time tasting a fraction of a victims life upon my mouth and in my guts. I still saw that moment of primal fear in the eyes of that young woman as she´d realized in what trap she´d walked open eyed. As she´d realized that she´d given herself over to a demon. I would not forget those terrified eyes. But an instant later her expression changed from terror to lust. The bite of a vampire numbens the mortal senses and brings with it the illusion of pleasure. For the better of the victim, as I told myself. But the terror had been there. It was undeniable. How could I live with that guilt. As we drove thruogh the night, my thoughts driftet back to the beginning of it all.


After that memorable evening of our reunion she´d been with me a couple of times more. We spent whole nights together at my flat. Her telling me about her new life and I telling her about her friends and her parents who still thought her dead. She was aware of the terrible risk she took in convining in me. If ever one of her eternal "companoins" would find out that she confessed to a mortal, we both would be dead a few hours later. So I kept her secret deep within my heart just as I had kept my love for her from view all those years. As well as I kept the secret of her "unlive" away from her parents. I wasn´t easy. More then once I was tempted to tell them the truth. To tell them that their daughter still existed. "Lived" in a way they could not comprehend. Just to ease their pain and their grief. Hell, even I was hard pressed to understand that I was talking to a dead person. But I couldn´t. I told myself that the revelation of an "undead" daughter would surely bring the old folks to an early grave. So I played charade to all of the poeple around me. And I seemed to succed. And who else than the undead themselfes would belive such a story? Who would belive the things she told me? That her Kind secretly ruled the earth, since the dawn of mankind. Ensured their own survival by manipulating Nations and peasants alike. But still they feard us humans. They were afraid of us, because we outnumbered them by far. And that was a force even they could not withstand. So they´d cept their existence a well guarded secret. For millenia. Yes. Who would´ve belived?

And so we spent our nigts locked up in my rooms. Sometimes we watched TV if there was something we both took interest in. But mostly we kept each other companie and talked about our lives. I must admit that we had a wonderfull time. Her tales were thrilling and her company a pleasure to me. For with every moment we spend together my love for her grew. Despite the fact that she was a "monster", an unliving creatuer of the night. No, she wasn´t all that. She was still the woman I had loved so long ago. Even though she had changed in some ways. Not only had her diet changed a little, no she was calmer now. More suplte, more carefull. Admittedly sometimes she seemed a bit paranoid to me. But who couldn´t understand that? In a way she seemed more mature. Where there had been an uncontrollable lust for live, there now was a tender longing for the things she couldn´t do anymore. She convinced me to take pictures of the parks and the city by daylight and sunsets and sunrises were her favorites. I a short while I had my rooms covered with pictures of the sun. She loved it. It was the only think she really and mournfully missed. But the expectation of living for etenity, evrytime filled her with a fraction of her former self. She looked into her dark future with bright eyes banishing the eternal night.The only thing she missed was someone who felt like her, someone to share her dreams, her new emotions and her new world with.

Her "father" Gustave dé Taranier had seen all these things, had "lived" them centuries before her. For him they held no real interrest. He was still fascinated with her and seemed to love her in his own way. But more as a priced posession then as a person. Not that he was suddenly cruel or unattentive or didn´t care for her anymore. No way. But he showed a certain lak of inspiration and ambition. He´d seen everything and done everything. He was listless and sullen. All her "new adventures" seemed boring to him. More often then not he left her on her own in their world. In spite of the fact that he was responsible for all her actions and could be held accounted for all her failures. So if ever it came to light that she talked to me, he was too doomed. If it was real trust or simple disinterrest she could not tell, but she hoped he wasn´t to disapointed with her. So she spend most of her time away from him with me. I truly felt honored but a but frightened too.
I treasured every moment with, though she couldn´t come too often, for faer of discovery. But that wasn´t important to me. I loved her and was more in love everytime I saw her. It was a strange situation. I was looking forward for a dead peron to visit me... Ha, what a Tale to tell. Our meetings sometimes had a surreal touch. She loved to fool me with her newly found abillitys. Like she´d done on our first meeting. Sometimes she vanished in a blurr bevor my eyes just to reapear a second later with glasses and a bottle of wine for me. Or she read my thoughts just to prove she could and finished my sentences for me. She never ate in my company. I was quite thankfull for that. She loved to tease me. And to play cat and mouse. But in time I learned to expect her caprioles. Sometimes I even managed to surprise her. Every morning after our meetings I returned dead tired but glad to my workplace.
We both deeply regretted that we coudn´t go out. Oh, what would I´ve done to just go to the cinama with her one time. Just one time. But the risk was to great. But then she came up with an idea.

I had to become a part of her society. A part of the eternal nightlive that existet beyond human perception. Her servant, her Ghul, like she called it. A person sustaining on the blood of a Vampire. Drinking it like a potion of eternal life and youvenility. My life would be prolonged extremely, I would age much slower and I would become much more powerfull. Taking part in the abillityis of the eternals. But I would have to be her servant. There was no other way. Because the blood would bind me to her. More then my love for her could ever do. A mystical bond, enslaving my will to her and her kindred. I would become addicted to her. Only living on her mercy as long as she or any other vampire was willing to give me a bit of his own.
She gave me some time to think it over.
And I thought about it. I too would see everyone I loved grow old and eventually die. I too would have to live a secret live, away from the prying eyes of human society. But I would be only a toy to the eternals. A mere "thing" belonging to one of them. A thing one could as easyliy craete as break. In the blink of an eye the older ones could destroy me, if it just suited their mood. But I loved this woman, more than anything in my life.

Then came the day she asked me how I had decided. Eagerly awaiting my response to her offer.
I denied.

Her reaction to this showed me everything I loathed in an existance as a "supernatural beeing" and how much she had truly changed inside. She raged and spat like a mad beast and her fury nearly cost me some of my furniture. After this ordeal she vanished.
Seh was gone again. I had disapointed her and maybe it was better this way. But I loved her. My heart ached. My soul felt like beeing torn apart. I missed her. I nearly went mad with blaming myself for loosing her again. And fearing that she´d confessed her secret to her "father" and was destoyed and that they were coming for me already. It went so far as that for a few weeks I couldn´t leave my flat for faer of beeing murdered by those vampires she´d told me about. But then I realized someday that, if she´d told anyone of our meetings I would be long dead. I wouldn´t have survived the first week after she´d left. I reajusted my life and went on with it. But still I missed her. Her company and the feeling to be needed. God, how I missed her.


Then after one year had come and gone, she was suddenly back.
I was sitting at the bar in one of my favorite pubs and didn´t even realize someone was next to me, until the bowl of peanuts in front of me was pulled to the side. I looked beside me and there she was. Grinning like a cat and her hair glittering with raindrops from outside. My mouth dropped open and with a quick motion she fliked a peanut into it, causing me to cough and bend over. Patting my back she spoke with a laugh.

"Hey, long time no see. Just don´t die on me now, eh!"

I was totally taken aback. As I regained my breath I fiercely hugged her and we held each other for a while, ignoring the bemused looks of the other customers.
We took a seat at a far off table and I bombarded her with questions. She listened to them all but answering none. All she told me was that she regretted leaving me in such a fury and so unexpected, but she´d had to be allone.
What she then explained to me left me speachless and more frightened then ever.
She had used the last year to be a "good childe" to her "father," and her charm and the wapons of women to seduce him into allowing her to produce progeny of herself. A chlide. A new eternal. ME!

Again I nearly choked, this time on my drink. What was she thinking? If I hadn´t said yes to beeing her slave, how could I agree to beeing her "childe"? She smiled at me from behind the candle wich stood between us. I was silent for a lomg time and when I asked her to leave me alone so that I could think it over I nearly expected her to get mad again. But she cept her calm outsides. Her eyes though belied this. There was fury in them. Hot and utter hatred. I had again denied her will. But I calmed her with the promise to think eveything trough and this time to be serious about it. She left after giving me the nunmber of a cellular phone that she said was save to call if I wanted to speak with her. I took it and watched her leaving my live again. After that I sat a long time in that pub, considering the just heard and pondering my decissions.

A few days later I called the number she´d given me and had an electronic voice box to tell my thoughts to. I asked her to meet me in that same pub again a few hours later. She turned up about half an hour late. Just as she had in mortal life. Old habbits die hard they say.
After she´d settled in her chair I coudn´t say any word for a long time. I just watched her. Her beauty and her grace. I tjought of what she ment to me and of all the things we´d done together in living days and at night. Eventually I took my heart in both hands and said:

"Yes."
She looked at me like I´d just laid out an eleventh commandment in front of her. Unbeliving she asked if it was my last word and real decission. I coudn´t resist grinning sardonicaly. Hey, she´d offered the "eternal freindship" so what of me accepting it. Yes, I wanted to be with her. I wanted to be a Vampire.I loved her. If only she knew.
She stood and hugged me with such force I feared for my rips.

After we´d both had calmed down a little she asked the essential question.
How?
I had to admit back then I hadn´t much cosiddered this fact. What would I tell my parents and friends? How would I explain my sudden change in sleeping habbits and eating? She laughed at that and promissed me her help. We stayed and discussed these problems until early mornig hours. Then she had to leave, but we met again and eventually came up with a plan.


We finally came to telling my parents and friends a lie. I would "go to America for a few years". I had had this Idea on my mind since a few years back so it would be at least "convincing". Admitted, it wasn´t the best of ideas but the most praktical. She and a few of her "friends" would take care of correctly stamped and send letters i would write from "overseas". The prime reason however was my inability to simply vanish like she´d done years before. I couldn´t bring myself to inflict so much grief and pain on all our friends and especially my parents again. She often told me jokingly that I was too soft hearted but eventually I preserved. She too didn´t want anyone to suffer again. And I knew how we felt back then. So I would simply "take on a new job in America" and write from time to time. Until further plans were needed.
We spend three month with preparing everything for my departure to the "new world". Lord it wasn´t easy lying to all of them but she was a great help to me and then the day of my departure came. My parents made a point of getting me aboard the flight and so we said our goodbyes at the Airport. Them expecting to see me again in a few years. I fully aware that they were never to see me again. Oh Lord it was hard.
With tears in my eyes I climbed aboard the flight to Paris, were I was expected to catch the flight to New York. But as you can think for yourself I didn´t fly to America. In Paris I took a prepared fligth under disguise back to Germany. With false papers and everything. I couldn´t help but feel a bit like James Bond.
Back Home she was expecting me and we drove back to her house, both not saying a thing. Back at her loft I locked myself up in her guestroom and tossed my sleepless body around in bed. In the morning I left early to watch the sunrise one last time. It´s colors were fresh and clear, just as though mother earth wanted to discourage me, to persuade me to stop in my traks to eternal darkness. But I was determined. Back in the city I walked into a restaurant and orderd the finest meal avalieble just to taste it one last time. I took my farewell from live and the daylight hours before plunging head on into the darkness. The last evening I spent crying in my Bed. Locked up in my room, contemplating my fate. The next day I didn´t eat a thing, she´d told me that i would make it easier. Then came the evening we had planned for all those month. I sat on my bed and waited for her to come for me.


And I waited.
Shivering in expectation of the coming event.
I would die tonigth. But not really. I would keep on "living", or more exactly existing. I would leave my human life behind and begin anew. A life behind the scenes of Humanity. A secret hidden life, wich no living soul could know about.
I was scared. The feeling crouched in my haert like a large cat, ready to pounce and swallow me whole.
And then she came to me.
She knocked on my door and bade me to come to her room. I stood and followed her. Nervous to the brink of hysteria.

She stood on the closed window. Looking into the depth of her reflection. I wasn´t about to desturbe her. I walked through the room looking about. It was lit by candleswich were casting a wonderfull light, there was a large Bed with fine soft sheets made of light blue silk and a large mirror beside it. I seated myself upon the bed and looked at her back. She wore a dark red govn with wich let her back bare. While I was looking at her she still kept staring at her reflexion, like into the depth of her soul, arms wrapped around herself, as if to find hold against her inner turmoil.
The candles bathed the room in warm romantic light. And As I watched her she shivered as if cold. I could not stand to see her in such inner unrest so I walked to her.
As I stood behind her she didn´t react in the slightest way. It almost seemed as if I didn´t exist anymore. She just kept staring into her reflexion and now mine had joined hers. Soon I would be like this reflexoin. Me, but not quite me anymore. As I gently placed my hands on her shoulders she spoke.

"Do you really want this? Do you really want to become a monster? I´ve told you what you´ll need to do to survive and to be accepted into our society. Is that really what you want to do?"

"All I want is to be with you. You are my friend and I have chosen to stay with you. To help you get trough this, to help you to get trough eternity."

She then turend and hugged me. I touched her cheek and looked into her eyes. Those eyes were like an unexplored bay on the ocean. Blue and green like the water of the soft waving sea. Never touched by human hands or eyes, only seen by the gods. Oh, she was so beautyfull. And I loved her so much. Would I find the strengh to tell her my feelings, somewhere in eternity?
I thanked the Lord for such a beautyfull beeing. That she existed was a sign of his grace. But that she would live eternally, was a sign of another force. A dark force that existed in the eternal shadows of the darkest night, that lived outside of gods light.
Then, soft like a feather on a breeze her lips touched mine. They were warm. She must have fed recently to make this possible. I shivered at this thought but pushed it aside. I gave in to the kiss. So gentle and tender.
I begann kissing her face. She closed her eyes and let me explore every corner of her smile. Then she did the same to me. I caressed her neck and her shoulders. She pressed her body against mine.and sudenly I realized that this would be the last time that I would pleasure this experiance with my heart beating up my throat. And that gutwrenching feeling of powerfull love for her. The last time that I even had a beating heart.
Then with slight pressure she turned us around. Me facing the large Bed, her back to it. She began walking backwards toward the blue sheets allthewhile grinning like a cat over a bird. But in her eyes I saw that unquechable fire of her soul. That light would still shine in the darkest of nights. It would never be extinguished. She led me back to the bed and as her legs touched the sheets she stopped and smiled up to me. I pushed her slightly so that she fell down to the soft covers. Laughing I nearly jumped after her. We were like children on their first night home alone. We teased each other with hands and kisses. And as the inhibitions left us so did our clothes. Finaly we lay naked, wrapped in the soft silken sheets and caressing each other. I kisse her body. Her neck, her breasts, her arms and legs, her feet and every other inch of her.
I wanted to take everything with me. Her taste and the way she felt to my touch. The scent of her hair and her skin. I wanted to take every memory that I could have of her with me into that other dark, lovless world. I knew that I would need those memorys to carry on "existing". Her Taste was better than the sweetest wine to me. Her scent was like a summers day. Her (stolen) warmth like the touch of a mother. My hands explored her body and touched heaven. My breath flowed over her skin like water from a clear, sweet mountainspring. All my emotions were in such turmoil. Did she feel the same? Or did she do all this just to help me get over to her side in this eternal battle between dakness and light? Did she seduce me like the fabled Sucubus or did she love me as a friend? Was I doing the right thing?
Her hair touched my skin like fire. Her fingers danced over my body like searing coals. Oh, how had I longed to hold her like that. With every touch of her mouth on my skin the doupts faded away. Yes, I wanted to be with her, for eternity.
Our souls had been united long ago, now our bodys followed.
All the passion that had been locked up in the prisons of our hearts for years, now flowed freely trough our bodys. We made love. We loved each other. For the first and last time. It would never again be like that. And we treasured every moment.
Then I felt her tears on my skin and I knew that the moment had arrived. I would die now. But I would be reborn. Seconds before I drowned in her eyes she made my deepest wish come true. She held me close to herself with all her might and whisperd the words I had never dared to dream of hearing from her mouth.

"I love you."

Then she did it.
My senses left me.


I slipped into the arms of death. Into oblivion and the release from all earthly suffering. But still I was frightened and new doupts came up within me. What if she didn´t bring it to it´s end? What if she couldn´t bring herself to do this to me. To condemn me to eternal darkness. What if her humanity and her concsience couldn´t let me suffer what she had endured already? What if her love for me was stronger then the urge to be with me... or to let me go? Wich was the right way? What were the consequences of our doing? What were we doing?
I could have died in peace. I knew now that she loved me. That was all I had ever dreamed of. But could I leave her alone?
The light was near.
God help me,
Then something sized me and pulled me back. Moments before I was save with the light, darkness tore into my soul. A force so strong that it nearly tore my soul asunder. But as mighty as this dark force was, it couldn´t stand up against the light. Only a fraction of an eternal second later and I would´ve been save. Something raged trough my soul, tore on it and molded it. Formed it, crafted it in its image. Inserted a fraction of itself into my beeing. Pain. All my emotions, all my feelings were liquefied, mixed and reduced to one overpowering urge. The urge of Hunger. The Hunger. Hunger for live. A live within the shadow of the holly light. To its eternal mocking and dismay. A live perverted. A live unnatural and cold. But still live.
A life on her side. I forced myself to think of her. I clung to my memorys of her. Her scent. Her hair. Her body. Her face. Everything that I belived made life woth living. My love for her. A tiny spark of light flashed up in my soul. But the darkness couldn´t beare it. It stood between me and the light. Forcing my soul away from it. Although my emotions dragged me into the dirction of eternal rest. But I was to far now. Darkness breserved and pulled me back to eternal struggle. My soul writhed in pain. Screamed out its suffering. But to now avail. Darkness was unforgiving. And eternal. But deep within me I heard her words. Spoken out of true love and longing. My soul lay still and couped it´s hand over it´s last flickering light of love.
I stood on a high peak around me an ocean of emotions raged. Above me Hate.Beneath me Love. Behind me the darkness of damnation. Before me light of salvation.
I would have to choose.
I jumped.
And drowned
I wanted to be with her.

I awoke and my body was on fire. She pressed her lips upon mine. Holding me tight and pressing against me. Blood flowed from her mouth down my throat and ignited my innermost self. It seemd to tear me apart and to heal me that same instant. It molded me and a part of the darkness into one beeing above its unholy flame. The Pain again. It hurt. My soul and my body. Both writhed to escape that cruel union. But both never had a chance. She held me tight and close to her. My soul knew of its damnation and finally gave up the fight. The burnung stopped. She had taken her blood away.
She looked down on me. Her lips still wet and red as ruby from our last kiss. Her eyes filled with dark tears. Her face full of sorrow but I could see a spark of longing and hope beneath it all as she searched my dead face for the first signs of my new life. My dead eyes stared up at her. I could see her despair. I could see her wish to be with me. And her fear of not having done enough to revive me. But I could also see how she cursed herself for doing this to me.
Then her face brightened, like a spring dawning a joyfull smile slowly crept across her cheeks, as she saw the first flickers of returning live wihin my eyes. I was back.
We did it.

I rested, my head against her shoulder. Like a newborn baby I lay in her arms. She smiled, but still red tears rolled down her face, staining the lush covers. I listened to my body die. Felt how my heart stopped beating. Slower and slower untill it took one final beat and the lay still forever. I hears how I stopped breathing. The last breath leaving my lungs the same intstant as unseen chains were wrapped around my soul. Binding it to darkness. And binding me to the Hunger. I felt it deep within me. Felt it coil and writhe, ready to pounce on any victim I would let it. She had taken care of my hunger. When I awoke there had been a few chalices with dark red liquid and I hadn´t been awake enough to deny them. And too hungry. Oh, what have I done?
After a while we were surrounded by silence. Nor breath or pulse disturbed our contemplation. We were together. Eternally. We would live together. Would go out into the night and be predators of humaity. As we lay there the morning came up on horizon beyond the closed windows. No light would come trough them. So we lay still untill the last candle died and we fell into deep slumber.

Only to awaken the next evening.

To be together.

To survive.

--- The End? ---