The World of Myth Magazine

I was born in 1502 in the city of London. There was a population of around 60,000. The streets were narrow and dirty. The upper floors of the timber houses often overhung them. Therefore, it was an ideal location for mayhem and murder. Poverty bred despair and desperation spawned many low-life's. A person's throat might be cut for a few coppers.

My demise, or re-birth as my maker called it, happened just off one of those narrow streets. My drunken father wanted ale. That meant a trip to the vintners. No one drank the filthy water if possible. It was the source of so many ills at that time. I shivered as I stepped outside. I was grateful for the worn shawl draped over my thin dress. I scurried through the back alleyways. The darkness was lifted only slightly by illumination from a few guttering candles in the houses around me. That was all I had to help me find my way. The tapping of my wooden pattens sounded overly loud in the empty streets. They were worn to protect my only pair of thin duckbill shoes from the disgusting effluence and rotten garbage strewn everywhere.

I had almost reached the shop when he/it appeared. He wore fine wool and silk, a collarless doublet, cut square and low. Then there was a skirted jerkin. Over that, a loose gown, open down the front, with a large turned-back fur-lined collar. He wore hose. The ensemble ended with a pointy-toed poulaine. The finer points of his sumptuous attire burned into my retina in the time it took him to take three steps forward. He smiled at me, a knowing, intimate smile. A smile that in no way reached his dead eyes. It was as if ice-cold fingers had caressed my neck and circled it. Then I heard his voice. It was low, velvety, smooth. I forgot the ice. What I now felt, and could not fight, was the heat his voice generated, agitating deep, dark, hot tendrils within me.

"Good evening, my pretty. Who would be careless enough to allow such a sweet morsel to wander alone at night? Pray tell me your name."

"Sally, sir."

"That name doesn't suit you. You and I will be close friends, and I cannot have a friend named Sally. Henceforth, you will be known as Cassandra. Sweet Cassandra, come closer to me. I need to feel your breath on my face, and your body heat is divine."

I had no free will, not that I would have fought him/it. You may wonder why I had the instant impression that what stood in front of me was in some way not human. As I took a step back, suddenly, I could remember looking up at a tall man from the perspective of a four-year-old. He was a physician called because my father had hit me across the face. It seemed I was being too loud as I played. I had fallen and banged my head on the iron fender. The doctor that loomed over me became aware I was able to see what he was. My eyes widened and a scream fought to escape my tight throat. Very quickly he left, murmuring something about time being a great healer.

The same miasma of dank black evil eddied around this figure. I could see a subtle otherworldly shimmer from his skin, and as I looked closer, his eyes became red and I felt them pierce my mind. Excitement and fear make for a heady combination. Never have I felt so wanton, reckless and eager to please. I took a step forward, into his arms. I was held tightly, pressed close to his body. In the seconds before I felt sharp points of pleasure pierce my tender skin, I noted, with very little interest, that he had no heartbeat. Many aeons later, I came to understand the hold he had on me that night. The power was the passion he could ignite. Lust, the legal high, the rush of hormones that left me open, longing, sighing, There, at the point of my death, was when I started to live.

It was not an easy transition, far from it. I will always remember the pain, the intense red-hot pain. I was in a dark cellar, hours later, lying on a dirt floor, when I started to notice a change. Before, there had been blood in my veins. I now felt what I would later describe as electricity coursing through my body and arcing behind my eyes. At that point in history, there was no such thing as electricity. Therefore I could only compare it to a bright light. No heat, just light. Then the hunger began. I had felt hunger before, but nothing like this all-consuming, desperate need for something I could not name.

When Godefryd de Gervaux, my maker, explained what I would need for my survival, I screamed. I carried on screaming. I could not stop. Finally, he silenced me with a blow to the jaw. I will gloss over the intervening hundreds of years. Some things are best left unspoken. I came to an uneasy truce with both my maker and my new nature. At first, I wanted to die. I refused sustenance, but even the undead have a spark that will not go out. I did what I had to do at the beginning of this new, often dangerous, existence. As the centuries passed, innovations meant that blood came in neat little packs. There was no need to bite to survive. That does not mean that it did not happen, but usually by mutual consent.

I have found that in these modern times I have more than one thirst. I shiver with excitement as dusk falls each evening. On goes my laptop and I am off on a journey that never seems to end. I have hours and hours to fill. Learning not only aids the transition through each century, but it is also a joy. I revel in the light it shines on each age of my new world. There is a maxim heard in my dark part of your world, "There is many a slip twixt neck and lip." It is akin to that slogan, "Loose lips sink ships." We have to be very careful about each pebble we drop in the pool of this modern world. The ripples must be contained. Our dinner dates, i.e. dates we may choose to dine on, must be glamoured into forgetting. Too much can be found out about so few in cyberspace.

There is one bit of unfinished business that is a constant irritant to me. Unlike the little piece of grit inside an oyster, there will be no pearl to find. My maker still wanders free in the world. I cannot get close to him. In the dark hours of despair there is one thing that I focus on. My need for revenge burns red hot. Until that putrid, poisonous vampire maker meets the final death at my hand, I have a purpose. I must continue this un-dead existence, with my silver dagger and wooden stake always close by.

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