Crimson Time

I awake in the darkness the same way each night. For a moment I do not know where I am, who I am, what I am. For that brief span of time--no longer than a single, sorrowful second--I am as I once was, normal, mortal. The faces of my once beloved flash across my eyes like the silver lightening on the plains of my homeland, left behind so long, long ago The faces dance like ghosts, splintered fragments of warmth gone cold. I wish, I do not wish, they could be with me now.

And then, just as my nostrils fill with the sweet smells of life, it is gone. It is crimson time, once again. My pale hand pushes up, filled with lingering anguish and throws back the black, lacquered wood. The lid slides open, and in the dim hiding place I smell the raw earth and hear the sounds of the others stirring from their graveyard sleep.

Crimson time. It fills my eyes with the vision of blood and washes away the last reminders of my forgotten humanity. It fills my senses with the hidden lust of the night, the lust for eternal life.

I now stand with the others, communicating without words, acknowledging the need that can never be satisfied and never stopped by the sweet offer of death. And as the last grip of protection the sun offers the world slowly fades away, into the night we fly....