(Author's Note: This chapter has been finished for several days, but it took me a while to get it posted because my sims just didn't want to cooperate for the necessary screen shots. I ended up taking a few shortcuts to get what I needed. While the story up to this point follows the game play to the letter, from here on out it deviates slightly.)
Part IIIThe first rule of survival is no different for us than it is for you: to live, you must eat.
Feeding was a process with which I struggled at first. Not because of the morality of it…no, I found myself oddly estranged from such concepts, and the distance grew with the passing of the days. I don’t believe this was a conscious decision on my part. It was more a part of my new state of being than anything else. Only one in a long list of things I was to lose.
Actually, I had spent most of my past life with my nose buried in books, and despite my recent rebirth, very little had changed in that particular respect. In fact, I still have several large bookcases brimming with innumerable volumes of literature, all of which I have read cover to cover at least once.
This left me socially inept, and thus I was at a disadvantage when it came to hunting. It was not at all uncommon for my quarry to escape my grasp, without me enjoying so much as a taste. There
are alternatives for us, and it is nothing so complex as financing the development of “clone blood” or raiding plasma banks…but still, for most of us, there is nothing quite like the real thing. For some time, I survived by drinking this vile liquid.
Public speaking classes were suggested by a few of my newly acquired friends, and by this point I was willing to try anything. They did help to get things moving, but honestly, there was no substitute for experience and the self-confidence gained from my first successful feeding. By way of public outings and private parties, I practiced and refined my technique until it was elegant in it’s form and flawless in it’s execution. It wasn’t long at all before there were few who could resist my enchanting allure.
I had it all at this point: I was lionized as a brilliant physician who was at the top of her field, and with that came all the money, fame and friends that any sane person could possibly want for…immortal or not. But like anyone who has ever had everything they’ve ever desired thrown at their feet, I found my existence to be lacking.
Life is not about nourishing your “wants.” No, that is a hunger that is
never satisfied. But even immortals have needs. We, too, have emotional cravings, such as they are, and they need to be appeased as well. In short: my heart
ached for one, single kindred spirit to share the joys of my life with. And so, my finely tuned hunting skills found themselves a
new use, as I set out to fill that cold emptiness in my heart.
Then, it appeared as though a miracle had manifested itself in my life, and the void was suddenly filled. It was almost as though the universe itself, in a moment of uncharacteristic compassion, personally delivered him to my door so that I might finally know contentment, despite my shortcomings. Dedrick was the congenial companion I had desired for so long.
Had I maintained any regard for trappings and protocol of high society, I might not have even considered him as a suitor. As I was busy with my career and meager social circle, I had little time for managing the cleanliness of my apartment. Thus, I hired a cleaning service and he was the housekeeper they sent. But while Dedrick was not exceptionally great at his job, he was charming, kind and somewhat handsome. I could tell he cared little for things like wealth and status, and the fact that I was a Night Walker mattered to him even less. He liked me for who I was, not
what I was.
Yes. He was a Day Walker, like you are.
We shared many an evening out before we came to the decision to marry. It was a beautiful ceremony, held after sunset so that my friends and I would be more comfortable. Of all the astounding things that I have accomplished in my life, this was the most prodigious of them all, by far.
I devoted my life with Dedrick to elevating him to heights he had never imagined he could reach. And it’s entirely possible he would have never reached his potential without my sponsorship. He often credited his success to my endless benefaction and encouragement.
“Without the support of my beloved wife, Veronika,” he had said many, many times, “I would be nothing.”
But he was mistaken: it was I who was nothing before I met him, and I have been nothing since he departed.
I apologize, Day Walker. This is very difficult for me to relate to you. Countless years have passed, and my heart is still broken. You see: he would not come with me.
He choose to continue to walk in the sunlight, as it was my decision to remain in the darkness. Many times I begged him to join with me…to accept this gift that I was given, too. But I could not change his heart any more than I could fix the moon in the sky above my head to prevent the break of dawn. He feared what the transformation might alter within him: because I loved the man he was, he dared not risk becoming something else…for I might somehow cease love him. But how could I not?
So I was forced to stand there and watch, day by day, as he grew old and died as I remained steadfast and ageless. It was a full and rich life from his perspective, but to me it happened in the blink of an eye.
I still visit him, up there on that hill, where he rests peacefully as my existence painfully endures. I occasionally curse him for his illiberality…but these are hollow words: I know full well that
I’m the selfish one.
When I think of my departed beloved, it always takes me back to that night in Elvira’s apartment. ‘The cruel joke that is life,’ she said. I remember her words well, and I never understood them as perfectly as I did on the day that I was robbed of my Dedrick.
It was life’s way of reinforcing in me that, no matter how deep into the darkness I fled, I would
never escape it’s tyrannical punch-line.
To be continued.....
