Kai. Not a real name- vampires never use those anymore.
Sometime in 1988. Someplace in the dark.

- - -

Thirst. A thirst for blood. A feeling so desperate, so painful, so rabid; akin to leaving bleeding scratches down forearms, a hoarse, empty voice after screaming for ages, biting the tongue until it was a mangled mess.

That wretched need to take the lifeblood of someone else, wringing them out like a towel until they were dry; depleted. An empty shell of a man.

Living like an animal was all I’ve ever known.

All I’ve ever done.

That was, until I met you.

In all my centuries of living- if you can even call it living- I saw the world in black and white. Always amongst the silent shelter of shadows. Never bothered by the emptiness felt in my chest, or the constant ache of cold thrumming in my bones. Greedily drinking up a fill and leaving people as corpses with translucent, drained skin had become habitual.

But you…

But you.

A sweetness unlike blood wafted from your being. So unlike blood, in fact, at first I nearly recoiled. That sweetness clouded my senses and softly blinded my vision, unlike the barbed scent of blood, which sharpened every fiber of me into a point, in familiar preparation for the worst.

A sweetness, like vanilla.

You were unexpected. Or maybe, in fact, I was unprepared.

It seemed I was doomed to live the life of a villain from the start, ever since I lost what made me human. And yet, because I had no one else, nothing to stop me, I gladly took up on the offer. Never once resisted, because what was the use? I no longer had the crimson blood of a human running through my veins. Like in all those fantasy books, I believed that I had become cruel; vile. Because wasn’t that what vampires were? Wasn’t that what all the authors had illustrated them to be?

My life had ended long ago.

But it started anew, once I met you.

Is it too humiliating to say that I fell in love in an instant?

Your aroma of vanilla even dyed the air sweet. The absence of the stench of blood defined you as inhuman in my eyes- but not the same inhuman used to define a merciless, barbaric savage- no, not inhuman in the sense of someone like me.

Inhuman as in something angelic, a being of higher order. Saintly, otherworldly, ethereal. Someone that didn’t belong in a world filled with thugs, tarnished with crime and populated with bloodthirsty monsters whose beady eyes spied from dark corners, looking for easy pickings of prey.

I’ve heard of legends where even monsters found love. Even those about a deranged hero who’d gone down the wrong path, and given a chance at redemption.

Besides the fact that I am far from a hero- never have been- I couldn’t help but think that maybe this was the start of something new.

Maybe I was given a chance to change, in the shape of you.

It was as if time stopped when you appeared. I felt something akin to relief rush throughout my bones, a feeling of letting loose, so similar but completely unlike the relaxation of finally drinking up blood after being depleted of it for weeks. It spread throughout every ounce of my being, and I let go of a breath I never knew I was holding. I tasted it in my mouth, but not the tangy, metallic flavor of the human lifeblood that I’ve familiarized myself with for so long. It was achingly sweet, as if ambrosia in a bottle had been tipped beyond my jaws, passing the fangs that had drained countless bodies dry, and sliding into the pit of my stomach. It settled there, oozing a warm, numbing sensation into the marrow of my old bones.

All the tension that I’d forced myself to adjust to over the course of my lifespan, physical things like knots in my back, and emotions that I’d thought were long gone ever since I lost my humanity, slowly resolved themselves.

I felt it rushing through me again. But it wasn’t blood, no, I don’t think it’ll ever be blood. I had long ago come to terms with the fact that I would never be human again.

This thing rushing through me, was the same thing I had breathed in as soon as I saw you. I was sure of it.

Vanilla.

I laughed, a deep belly laugh, stepping from under the roof into the light of the sun as it slowly rose above the eaves. The golden light softly touched my skin, tenderingly so, spreading itself across the smooth, cool expanse of what should have been dead long ago. I savored this moment, my heart filling with the beautiful rays of dawn.

I’ve hidden in the dark for long enough. It makes me sick. No matter how much I say I’ve gotten used to this, I don’t think I ever will. Readily killing a human being to satisfy my unceasing hunger, then retreating into the dark to hide and find a new victim- is this not a corrupted version of greed and cowardice?

In order to let go of what makes me inhuman, I have to let go of what makes me human.

Absurd, isn't it?

But I will gladly do so.

A drowsy song lingers on the tip of my tongue, and I watch myself turn to ashes, gray flecks fluttering away in the cool morning wind, and burning away until nothing remains.

O my beloved death, it’s sweet.

“Like vanilla.”