Part 3

We continue now, from where we left me last time: In a cave, regretting what I had done to those unfortunate people…
As the days went by, I got this horrible thirst. The thirst could not be satisfied. It drove me to the debts of sanity. I felt the Beast rising within, trying to take over. I had to feed.
The village, from which I had fled, was just on the edge of the forest I had taken up residence.
I waited until nightfall to strike. As soon as the darkness covered all of town, I went to town.
At the time I wasn’t picky of who and where I fed, so the first person, who got close enough, was mine to drink. The unfortunate person, who was to clench my thirst, was an old lady. I knew her, she had spent most of her life churning butter and by the looks of it, she had helped herself to what milk or butter missed the bucket. But that didn’t matter now, all I could think about, was the blood in her veins… The beautiful taste of metal when the blood hit my tongue… As those thoughts crossed my mind, I started hunting her, if you can even call it a hunt, as I just tackled her, and dragged her into the woods.
She was my first, so I was anxious, and that didn’t do her any good. Because I was so inexperienced, and didn’t understand the strength my new body had, I bit her as hard as I could, resulting in me standing there with half or her neck in my mouth, and her twitching on the ground… Most unfortunate… So my first feeding was half success and half failure, the success being me getting the blood I needed, and the failure consisting of her dying from… well, you can guess why…
Not being totally heartless, I picked up her body and brought it to her family, so she could get a proper burial.
When I returned to my cave, something wasn’t right… I was neither tired nor shocked that I had just killed a woman I once knew… The change to full fledged kindred had begun…
As I sat there in my cave, with the sun right outside the entrance, I wondered if any of the myths were true… So I made one of the most idiotic decisions of my afterlife - I stuck my hand out into the sun… And that’s when I discovered that we Lasombras are extremely sensitive to sunlight… The sensation I had is hard to describe to someone who hasn’t tried it. If you can try to imagine millions of needles with acid on their tips, being stabbed thousands of times into the most sensitive points of your body… As you can imagine, it’s not very comfortable.
Under a hundredth of a second, my new body realized the pain, and withdrew my hand with lightning speed.
As I looked upon my hand, I leapt in shock, knocking my head on the “sealing”. My hand looked like a bowl of sticky rice badly shaped as a hand, over poured with tare and some blood involved… I can assure you, when you see that when you look down at your hand, you would be just as shocked as me… But, luckily, it started healing almost immediately, and I realized that I had to wait until night, so I could get some blood before it could heal completely.
I then sat in the darkness of the cave, waiting on the night. Just sitting in the shadows can be a very boring experience, so what better activity than to stare into thin air?
While sitting there staring at the wall, I felt like I was focusing on something, something different… Then something strange happened. The shadow moved. At first I didn’t believe my own eyes, but when I did it again, the shadow moved yet again. I tried to keep my focus, and it started to move even more. By nightfall I could make the shadows move at my command, making it take different shapes, and when I really wanted to, I could make it come of the cave wall and move around. Without knowing, I had discovered my clans’ unique discipline, obtenebration, which allows us to manipulate shadows. This had to be tested in the real world.
As I, for the second time, ventured out of the woods and into town, I decided to try a different procedure than last time… Maybe I could avoid causing another death? And maybe I could see how useful obtenebration could be. As far as I knew, a whole new world had opened for me.
Because it was so late at night, nobody was out of their homes so why not scare them out?
I finally found a house that looked suitable for some “scare tactics”. With my newfound dexterity my new body offered, I crawled through the biggest window, (or hole in the wall, as you would define it these days), and crept into the closest room. That room belonged to the children, and one of them looked at least 20. I hid behind the bed and poked her head. She was now awake, and now it was time to have some fun.
As she opened her eyes, I focused on the shadows on the wall, shaping them like a person, just standing there. I now felt one of the best things in my afterlife: fear.
I could hear her breath and heartbeat speed up, I could smell her fear… it was wonderful. But something would be more wonderful, and that would be feeling her blood slide down my throat - I had to have it!
I made the figure move towards the young girl. I could hear her lips tightening, her vocal cord “turning off” - Now was my chance!
I stood up, revealing my bloody shirt and disfigured arm… The look she had in her eyes that very moment - it was priceless!
I got onto the bed, kneeling on her chest. I leaned down, caressing her neck. I couldnt wait anymore, and I did it. I felt my teeth gently sliding through her soft skin, her blood slowly flowing through the little holes created by my teeth. It was the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted. The taste of fear can easily be placed amongst the sweetest spices. This was definitely not the last time I was going to do this. I felt her heart rate slow down, and I removed my mouth. You would be fascinated to see how fast the puncture marks from the teeth of kindred close up. Only a few drops of blood escaped before the holes in her neck closed up, and I thought: “Why should delicious blood go to waste?” as I licked the blood from her neck.
She looked so peaceful, just lying there in the deep trance like state the bite causes.
“Maybe being kindred isn’t that bad?” I thought as I left the house, feeling truly satisfied.
The following days I repeated my behavior, scaring woman while I fed on them. But slowly I heard the people in the town talking about what was happening. That was the end of this town. If I was going to stay here, it would be a lot harder feeding, which wouldn’t be as fun.
It was time to move on to the next town.
Being kindred was starting to grow on me. As I learned more about obtenebration, I started to wonder what more “talents” I had.
And so this story ends.