Vampire Suspicion E-Book

Luna Lehikoinen

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 188

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Vampire Suspicion -Different vampire story The novel is a story of great principles and living by them. When a vampire starts doubting his own vampire being, it's all going to be messed up soon. While you're still packing with the longing for love, serial murders and acceptance of one's own differences, the plot is ready to condense into the final act, where gothic style emerged plays a big part. The turn-of-the-century Victorian London is being shown to a vampire community whose sense of community is beginning to tear up due to dissent, the story also reflects on the theme of loneliness and faith.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Epilogue

I

Under the city of London, hidden from the light of the day, there is another world – the underground world. As the century was running low, one night in October, a figure dressed in dark was standing before an underground door. Under his arm, he squeezed the latest issue of the Daily Telegraph. Behind a sturdy wooden door, there were voices of heated debate. The young man moved the hood out of his head and opened the magazine as if to be sure of something else. In his thoughts, he once again paused to stare at a front-page headline that read: 'The story of Count Dracula is just a myth – immortality in all respects proved impossible'. While he was about to knock on the door, it opened.

-Hey, so you've read the news, too? Noted the tall young man at the door, looking at both the person who came and the magazine tightly. You could read in his eyes like on the front page of a magazine what the room was talking about. The others now also turned to the door and muttered their low greetings.

-Yes, I am, I almost dropped my eyes out when I noticed the headline on the front page!

-Damn it. Nosverathu, what do you think? Someone asked the newer from the farthest corner of the room.

-Frankly, I have not really been able to form an opinion from my confusion, Nosverathu replied.

-But you read the whole news, didn't you? Of course, it is only a reporter's report, so the actual research has been explained in the references. We cannot rely on just a middle-hander conveying an impression.

Talked to someone in the middle of the crowd trying to keep their voices calm.

-But the quotes in the article – albeit short clips – are probably genuine and the report follows general ethics when it comes to newspaper news. You can't deny that it gives a pretty plausible impression, even for me it impressed me so that I felt uncomfortable for a moment, laughed tall one with a pretentious sound.

-Yes, but it can only be an ordered scam, and who knows about the reliability of the quotes in the end. Ad fontes comrades, be the original source now available!

-Ad fontes indeed, can even the original source be trusted?

-But how could anyone really suspect that a magazine enjoying reliability was guilty of misrepresented information or even a modified truth.

However, all the facts seem scientifically justified, proclaimed serious-looking figure in a quiet voice.

-Ye-es, if any of us happen to be seriously in the “science faith”, this information is quite unambiguous to him.

The conversation in the underground basement room was overly heated among the entire horde of 30 vampires gathered in each room. It seemed that no one had missed out, but that the incident had mobilised all members of the community that evening, that night of the weekly meeting. Nosverathu had arrived most recently. It also seemed that what was really at stake was how to deal with the news, the news that called into question their very existence. Worse still, it suddenly succeeded in jeopardizing the most important, their faith – the one on which everything was built. Of course, it should have been self-evident that such news appeared on the front page of the country's main news bulletin, vampires would have been mainly shrivellating and mischievous with a smile. It was this paradox that made the character who had been silent so far very pensical. He sat alone in his chair a little off the beaten track and watched the situation. The community that was gathered in this basement room consisted of exactly thirty or three still fairly fresh vampires currently staying in London. They had chosen one leader from among their number, a person with absolute authority over others. This leader vampire always said the last word, naturally he was also the oldest. It was 1898 and the leader- vampire Laesthath, in his own words, had seen historical times change over the past five centuries. He had seen revolutions and wars, famine, plague disease, and other human struggles. He was born a vampire in a German state one moonlighting night when the first snow floated out of the night sky. From the land of Saxony, he travelled all over Europe, ending up staying in France and Paris. He witnessed with his own eyes the French revolutions, the emergence of the Enlightenment and Napoleon's rise to power. Naturally, as Laesthath had such a life experience, his views were greatly respected by other vampires in London, which he rarely spoke out loud. He himself received the blood of another vampire in his veins on that moonful winter evening and thus became immortal, but at the cost of living in the shadows of the night. He hadn't seen the sunrise in almost 500 years. He, Laesthath now stepped out of his secluded observation post and everyone's eyes were drawn to him as if nailed. It was quiet like in a grave.

-Brothers and sisters, I understand your turmoil, but at the same time I also see enormous weakness. Trembling with fear, because that article, with its own so-called truth, now makes you doubt even yourself, your faith and your convictions.

Laesthath's voice carried over the entire room and had power, even though it was not fierce but rather calmly emphatic.

-Do you realize now that you are afraid because you fear the worst – a lie. That's what you're shaking that you've been living a lie all these years, that you've been allowing yourself to be deceived. That article has now upset you and doubted what you've been through, what you've seen and felt.

The leader vampire paused to monitor the impact of his speech on the audience. He saw a bunch of handsomely dressed young vampires. In a word, it was an impressive sight and it was at that moment that Laesthath more clearly than ever realised how impressive it actually was! Laesthath was about to continue when someone else had time to break the silence in the room.

-We all respect you as a leader vampire. After all, you are our oldest and our role model. Everything you've told us, we've really held. But now, if you'll excuse these words of doubt: Is there anyone who's been by your side to see all these steps and can prove them. In fact, is there anyone among us who's been with you for more than 10 years, Laesthath?

-I do not think we should doubt what we have been based on for so long... There was another voice, though a little cautious and muffed.

-Even the idea seems creepy... that we really would have... From me, it makes the blood clot. Can we talk about something else?

Suggested by a vampire- lady.

-Damn it, I think we need to be able to talk about this very hard thing sensibly and analytically. There was a slightly accelerated sound range in the middle of the crowd.

-Good, I think it's right that we dare to face our fears!

There was an answer.

-Well, we can test it with you right now! Do you really dare to face your fears; We'll tie you in front of that door and wait for the sun to rise, and I think it'll come!

Played tall young man.

There was loud noises that weren't really picked up by who thought. It seemed, however, that the sceptics were gaining the upper hand, as the representatives of the defending speeches quietly retreated towards the back wall of the room, clearly less numerous. Some of them looked at one of those who had spoken of overcoming fear as threatening, and as a few were already taking a step towards it, the leader's clear gesture prevented such an experiment this time.

-Brothers and sisters, do not make the mistake of rising up against each other!

-Yes, let us not go up against each other....

That night, in that basement room, suspicion was tearing apart before such a unified crowd. On the one hand, a large part wanted to face the truth, how unpleasant it may have been, and on the other hand, a small part still seemed to doubt the reliability of the entire newspaper article and wanted to believe more in themselves. The fact was, as one vampire above reported, that none of the crowd witnessed Laesthath's earlier life stages, and none of them had lived as a vampire for more than ten years. But what, from the outset, had led this extraordinary crowd to this underground apartment, the apartment where blood was now weighed between faith and unbelief?

You see, one fateful night, Laesthath had experienced agony loneliness, such a strong longing to share something with someone like him that something would soon have to be done about it. No, he couldn't share anything with the living, in other words mortals, so he had to find a soul like him. The question of being a vampire alive or being dead is interesting, to say the least. You see, a vampire is dead to life and therefore dead to mortality. You can't really call a vampire either alive or dead. A vampire is, but not in the sense that man is. To fully understand this, you'd have to fully understand what being first is. So Laesthath had to create the creature that he would be in a way – be as well as he is. That night, he made the crucial decision to find a suitable victim. Of course, he had already spun this idea in his head many times in his solitary life, but it had always ended in the impossibility that he was simply unable to do to the other one what had been done to him himself. Now he couldn't resist any further temptation. He could kill, he could create – why not implement his creative side? For some time, he had been following his victim, who he had found to be a pleasant young man about his age. Laesthath himself had remained precisely the age and look of immortality from the vampire. However, he had great difficulty adapting his life experience and appearance to the same form. When he was human, his life experience was still very meagre. Now, instead, he had seen too much to be able to talk to a twenty-year-old on the same level. But the person he had followed was more mature than his age. At least he had experienced more by then, as if middle-blooded people of the same age. Laesthath saw him every night on the street corner he was walking along after dark. Every night you see, he went out to dinner. Usually it was just rats. But he had to get blood and a living creature. He didn't have much choice unless he wanted to stir up terror by leaving behind human limbs the night after night out. He didn't want to arouse terror or suspicion. He wanted peace, but also a partner – that's why he had to make a tough choice: you had to kill, but at the same time give a new life. The young man who interested him begged in the street, he was hungry and thirsty, and he longed for warmth and home. His life didn't seem to be worth living much. This is exactly the kind of victim Laesthath needed. One night he lured the boy up, offering money, I guess the young man assumed what might have been going on. All he had in mind was to snatch the money and flee the scene. However, he didn't have time to do that when he was first disabled by Laesthaths experienced hands. Soon the youngster had already disappeared somewhere deep when the vampire's teeth struck the carotid artery. Everything went lightning fast, accustomed – as if the movements were dictated by instinct. Finally, Laesthath lowered blood from his own wrist to the boy's lips, and slowly he returned, but never again to the life he had been in a moment ago. This is how Nosverathu was born, as this name Laesthath gave to his creation. From that moment on, the two of them became inseparable. They were each other's best friends and sometimes the worst enemies, for of course constant coexistence brought out both sides. Nosverathu both admired and sometimes hated his maker, but above all and despite everything, he deeply liked him. And he couldn't really complain, because what was the life he was taken from? He had no hope whatsoever that life would have changed for the better. As an orphan, no one missed him, Laesthath was now his father, relative and friend. It was more than he had before. But who could have guessed all the things that came out of this act? Nosverathu was unable to restrain himself, even he wanted to give immortality at the time, but he was as mature as otherwise his peers could be in his impulses and unbridleness. He discussed it with Laesthath, and together they came to the conclusion that maybe it would also bring balance to their one-on-one relationship. Together, they also chose the target. Their common child, I suppose you might say, also wanted to use his creation power in due course, and thus, within a relatively short period of time, the situation slipped out of control. Despite Laesthath's cautionary tales, new vampires were now densely ashed. Some of the strange disappearances were discussed in the press after some ill-conceived and recklessly planned creations. Laesthath noticed that it was necessary to form an organization for all vampires born and thus to control the situation in some way.

Now, in that basement room underground, the so-called children and their fathers or mothers were playing each other and engaged in an unbearable struggle inside them. And once the seed of doubt has been planted, it has the tendency to grow, crowding itself out of even the smallest gaps in the coffin cover. The seed of doubt is perhaps the most resilient of all seeds, alongside it the seed of faith needs its so-called favourable soil at a given moment, but the seed of doubt thrives even in hard soil once gaining a very good foothold. The longer someone had lived as a vampire, the stronger the foothold still seemed to be, instead the most recent cases were already ready to believe their suspicions. One of them raised his voice now.

-But which one of us has lived here even as a human being, yet alone as a vampire for thirty years? We were all very young when it happened to us. And now, it's only been 10 years. The youngest of us are only a year – if that.

Again, there was a loud talk, in which the parties seemed to be in for a heated debate. The situation seemed to have gone so far now that Laesthath could not find a way or a rebed. In the end, he got it into his head to resort to the ultimate means when it seems that the speech was no longer enough. He stepped forward, digging a dagger out of his pocket.

-Comrades, listen to me! You say you have no proper evidence, but isn't your body solely clear evidence and insurance? You will not age like others, your skin is still young as it was at that moment as you were born...

-But Laesthath good, interrupted by someone - We are still young people, we haven't started aging yet, whether we're vampires or not. We can't take that as any evidence!

-Well, good, replied Laesthath, -Since nothing else will help, here's proof!

Laesthath took a shiny dagger by candlelight and used it to put a wound on his palm bottom so that blood was dripping from it onto the stone floor. The crowd stared at the play with surprise. What was Laesthath up to now?

Indeed, there was a play that was supposed to dispel the doubts at the latest, and in front of that fierce-eyed crowd covered in black velvet and silk, the escape of blood began to stop and eventually ceased altogether. The wound expired, and soon it didn't even show a scar. Laesthath followed the crowd now triumphantly, reading facial expressions that went from confusion to pensive, pensive to insecure, and eventually doubtful again. But the seed hadn't been killed.

-Aahh, Laesthath, you're using an ancient sleight of hand, I saw a similar thing sometime in childhood in the theater, don't believe everything you see!

The disaster had occurred within that one night and as a result of one newspaper article. Laesthath, the vampire leader, gave up hope of calming down the crowd and eradicating suspicion. He also respected everyone's free will. He rolled his eyes in disbelief in the face of all that unbelief and retreated into the shade next to the wall. This is how all those few who still wanted to believe retreated with the manager to the wall of the room. Those from whom suspicion had taken hold were caught in the middle of the room under a roof lamp. In it, they shared their suspicions with each other. Some of them now confessed to suspecting for a long time, but they had only pretended to believe. The common doubt gave the troops strength and courage.

That's when the wall clock hit 6:00 a.m. and the crowd went quiet. Time had passed by plane. Panicked, vampires turned to look at the clock. Then, as if by mutual decision, they quickly set themselves on their way.

The four vampires left in the room calmly emerged, looking at each other without speaking a word. Then they got on their way too, and they looked like they didn't want to wait too long either. Quietly, they climbed up the high stairs, stepped out onto a foggy street while the sun was still considering takeoff, and then scattered each of them.

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II

It had now been two months since this episode, which took place one night in London in October. It had happened that the underground cellar room had slowed down completely, no vampire ever went there again. Only Laesthath, the oldest in the group, could wait to see if any of his comrades would show up. In the end, he couldn't hope either. He took an old rusty key, locked the basement room and threw the key into the River Thames.

Laesthath lived in the attic of a Gothic apartment building. There had to be a whole 70 steps that not only creaked every step of the way, but also were extremely steep. It was a skill to climb them without attracting attention every night. In that sense, the apartment was realized that he had no wall neighbors. Besides, he liked the view that opened up over night in London. He didn't really have anything else to do in the long hours of the night. The neighbors were blissfully unaware of the residents who stayed in their attic. It was very draughty, but Laesthath preferred to thrive in the cold rather than hot. Again, that grappling loneliness had entered his life. In an instant, he had lost all his friends he'd had in the last 10 years. Of course, he knew how to seek solace in nightclubs and the rest of London's nightlife. But he felt different, he could not truly share the present moment with mortals. He also just swayed down the streets at night, walked along the Thames, grabbed a rat from time to time and sighed his loneliness. At home in the attic, he often listened quietly to a gramophone that heard Wagner's operas. Listening, he dug up his kaleidoscope and used it to look at the ever-changing colorful patterns – images he never tired of looking at - it was like a world that wasn't his, immortally reachable. He would never see the color spectrum of the rising sun as it went from red to yellow and it stained the sky cover purple, ultramarine and prussian blue.

In the company of friends, fellow vampires, he was able to share every moment – they all knew it was a moment in the stream of endlessness. They breathed the same consciousness, they shared the same reality. No one had to pretend, they knew each other. Laesthath missed her child Nosverathu particularly much. The one he had given birth to with his own blood. He wondered where Nosverathu was right now? Laesthath knew where Nosverathu had been during those days. But vampires can move and move from place to place whenever they want. They are not bound by the sorrows of maintenance, family ties, nationalities that bind the ordinary people. The vampire was a free being as long as he was careful not to be exposed. Since Nosverathu also had finally distanced himself from the group, Laesthath did not even want to go and see him, he wanted to give him time and space in terms of his own faith and doubt. In the early days they had even lived together, sharing an attic room, but Nosverathu was a lone wolf by nature and, over time, he wanted to retreat to his own peace. Yet they had remained close. Laesthath understood him.

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