Chapter 8

Upir’s Cold Embrace

It is 8:26 AM. The date today is the sixteenth of July. Thirteen days left until it is my birthday. My father goes out to the clinic for his check up every two weeks on Fridays. I hope I will at least get some good coffee instead of the usual doo-doo dog water at the convenience stores’ coffee machines that are too cheap for my taste. Well, that has always been the usual coffee I get, which is rare actually, only if my father takes me outside with him on some such errands. I had another sleepwalking episode that I vaguely remember as I was confident I could lucidly do that while remembering it only as a dream. But I had no luck, such again for another attempted failure.

It is always travelling across air and sea, in a ship or through the aeroplane, and sometimes even through trains or vehicles on land. They are always at night, and the only dawns I’ve seen are the times before the dream ends, that is where I almost can see the sunrise, painting the pitch-black sky with its cool hues of greenish blue across the purple sky. Such a beautiful art that God created every morning, and once the sun finally rises over the horizon, I know it’s already time for me to leave, have myself be brought back to my bed, and have myself awakening from such a beautiful dream.

Are they sleepwalking episodes? Because for one thing, vampires in the Philippines are known to sleepwalk, remember not a single thing, but I’ve mastered enough ascendance through spiritual practice between life and death, mixing it together making the concept of the undead. To the point of having to remember my sleepwalks to be remembered as hallucinations of deep sleep.

However, such things could happen because of dreamwalking, as I’ve already mentioned. Back then, I was always being witnessed sneaking out through the night’s cold air that embraces the living in their sleep, as people see me running on rooftops, and sprinting at the speed beyond light. Amazed, shocked, confused, and probably given the impending sense of doom, they knew they had to tell my family. And it happens in the daily as soon as I wake up in the morning, being asked by my family of such deeds of why would I do such a thing at night, especially the fact that I’ve always been seen to bring a knife. But I tell them that I swore I do not remember such a thing.

But already more than five of my coterie, where a group of vampire friends back in highschool swore they experienced the similar phenomenon, making them question their reality. That is until I told them it’s about the vampirism that has infected the core of their minds, thus controlling the body to have them feed in the night.

***

It is 10:18 in the morning, currently at the date of the seventeenth of July in the same year as the usual, as you expect it is still 2022. Last night, I thought I could still at least give humanity a chance, but no. Because a group of people asked me to open up about my mental issues just so they could mock me, make fun of me, bully me, discriminate me with their “He watched too much Joker”, “He’s so edgy”, and laughing hysterically about my traumas, and told me “No one asked, no one cares.” when they are the ones who kept pressuring me to talk about personal matters when I am already uncomfortable about it and what I did was to cast a vampiric hypnosis through the speech of trickery, that I didn’t have to use my eyes, only just the mouth and the mind. First I read their minds, then exposed them. As they felt guilty, I used my trickery (an old ability, the first one I had since the first night I turned into a vampire), in order to increase their current emotional state to let it all out, exposing their true nature. That is until they got banned for shouting at me to go kill myself and they meant it as they go mental and bat shit insanely angry. That happened inside a video call on a social gaming platform, in a server full of Filipinos, as you would have expect from a casual behaviour for such types of people in this country full of arrogant fools who thinks beating up old people and robbing mentally handicapped people is the coolest thing in high school and they brag about how many people they stabbed until someone full of charisma proves he’s done such things, they will envy such.

I am disliked mostly by these types of people, and they are everywhere mostly in the Philippines, to the point I am not even exaggerating, which brings my father the best reason to lock me up. It’s not that I am mentally ill, it’s just that people outside here in the country of the Philippines are crazier than I am that takes advantage of anyone disabled, or disadvantaged in any way. No one cares at all, they are selfish and they love taking advantage of kind people. You may think this type of behaviour is also in your country, whether you’re in America, Europe, Australia, etcetera. But the thing is, the majority, I mean, MAJORITY of the people here have that behaviour, that even adults over 25 don’t have such maturity. I may sound I exaggerate, especially with Bipolar Disorder, but I am not the type to have a histrionic personality to convince you all about the behaviours and the mindsets here.

Especially that I attract to these types because of my appeal and presence towards people around me. I just have this effect on people, a vampiric effect that lingers into their heart, soul and mind that they can’t put a finger around it. I have a passive psychic ability as a vampire I call Trickery, as I’ve mentioned before, it induces any current emotion they have, but I’ve mastered it more than enough that I could change or manipulate anyone’s emotion. It is the subtype of vampiric hypnosis where you can manipulate people’s thoughts from compelling them into doing what you want to control the masses.

The best and worst part of this ability, Trickery, is that it has an after effect that anyone that has been affected will fall into a mental illness that is either temporary or permanent damage depending on the person’s willpower and how long it will last for them. It depends, and it varies. Although this is somewhat just like subjugate, which is another term I call vampiric hypnosis, which is Dracula’s mesmerise since he turned Mister Renfield bat shit crazy for blood and everlasting life in the famous movie since Valentine’s day of 1931, just to get Jonathan Harker’s bitch stolen by an old man from a long-distant relationship before e-dating even existed to begin with. Daddy Drac did it before it was cool, it was never cool to begin with.

I’m getting off-track, forgive me, it’s the caffeine.

Anyway, subjugation, or the vampiric hypnosis, has an after effect that lingers into people’s hearts and minds for a long time, but it is not permanent until they find a way to get rid of it or eventually go away on its own. The after effect of the vampiric hypnosis is somewhat craving and yearning for the effects during the hypnosis, it makes them feel like they had a nicotine withdrawal, but it could feel worse than that depending on how powerful the master vampire uses it on the human servant.

***

“What will you have in five-hundred years?!” -Vayne

…

I realised that I can’t keep the people who are close to me for all eternity, and if I were to turn them into a vampire, they would suffer the same agony as I already am and will forever. Having Vayne, my soulmate, which is literally inside my body controlling me only during my sleepwalking phases, is always that one voice in my head that is madly in love with me. Ever since I turned into a vampire, she appeared as a Gothic Lolita with a fashionable black dress with purple lining from the Victorian era. She had sharp long fangs from top to bottom, crimson red eyes that has other warmer colours that spirals around her eyes that makes me feel entranced that glows no matter how powerful the sunlight is, her skin was pale, literally white as snow, and her hair is a very long wolf cut that reaches down to her feet, and short heeled strong leather black shoes.

We were having so much fun with our romantic lives together. That is until my brother took me to the psychiatrist and was diagnosed with schizophrenia with a split personality type delusion. That is when I took the pills, as I was forced to, to the point that I realised that Vayne never existed to begin with. And I realised I was never a vampire to begin with, that is until more and more traumas happened almost every day because of such a horrid life. I spent my time writing to relieve stress and emotions.

That is until Vayne came back, my belief in my vampirism came back because I was hungry for blood until I killed someone just for blood, which is a secret I take to my grave. I lost a part of myself ever since that happened. I could not control myself at the time, and I felt guilty in the aftermath.*

I can’t keep dating real life people if I already have Vayne…

“I don’t want to die alone.” I murmured to myself.

“When you die, we’ll finally be together, Master.” Vayne responds.

I took the pill, and she dissipated from the existence of my reality. My mind finally went quiet for the first time, and my brain was peaceful… goodnight…