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Glints of moonlight pierced the glass shard that was held delicately in his hand. No reflection held his face, only the light of the crescent moon. What was it about anything with a reflection? He had no reflection, no picture of youth, no clone maliciously staring back at him. Some say vampires have no souls; oh, but was it true? What soulless creatures of the night had they become; what seductive venomous tales of macabre and broken hearts had been told? They were the shadows, the graceful assassins lurking in the depths of sin. Blamed for producing bloodless victims. Blamed for their blood lust.

He broke the glass shard in his hand. The opaque luster-less gleam of a crystal stake shattered into the impeccable porcelain skin. Pain induced upon him lasted momentarily, until the skin renewed itself back unto perfection. Hah. Immortality had its odd quirks, but some days it seemed those quirks were overridden with nasty loopholes to the negative side. Common things did not invoke life-binding curses, but then again, you never could feel that great senses enrapturing the body. Double-sided sword concept.

Then his servant came in to serve the daily filled to the rim goblet. It was a human female servant, one of his more submissive quiet servants. One that did not rebel, although had any servant chosen to rebel; it would’ve been most displeasing and easily silenced early in the night. The reflection of the servant bounced off the mirror, and he was entranced by it. The solid form of his body had never been there once he was ‘turned’, and yet- a mere servant of the vampires was still given the gift of physical contemplation. It was hardly worthy to grant riches unto the poor.

They were the eternally condemned, just because they had escaped death’s cold grasp of extinction. To this day he could not remember the last moments of warmth and life, only the draining of his wrist and pure pain as his head thudded against the cold pavement. That choice of drinking the crimson liquid, was it a good one? Two bloods intermixed and one concoction subdued the course of natural decomposition. It was an odd science if you took it apart; it was an even more crazed idea when you took the ritual of blood sharing compared to medical standards. The entire thing should’ve given the promising victim short death or long-term disease.

Instead, vampires couldn’t change their appearance, or their physical build. Applying everyday enhancements came at a cost. Why were they forever condemned to the solitude of the bittersweet harmony of the night, and yet even isolated so they could not be with themselves. It was like the age that illudes common man had been easily exterminated. Even worse, anything they did to contribute to their appearance was cut off.

Avarice was never far behind, how could it be? They had eternity to gain riches and items of limitless desire. The only thing that eluded them was human blood and passion. Even a vampire’s heart is never easily kindled to that of any other’s passion. Some say they are heartless, wrathful, deceitful murderers. That, which was their only purpose in life, to kill for the mere enjoyment or survival of their kind for an eternity. To enjoy the choler of other’s failure, with the sweet pleasure in taking away that life in one swift jaw movement.

Then some are vexed by the lust that is derived from their seductive nature. How one finds ecstasy in another’s whimpers of pain and sweat combined together. It seemed that every vampire took in their own sin, whether wrath of the hunt, greed of the untouchable, or perverse pleasure in other’s climax and death followed soon. They were infernal demons striking up bargains with the king of perdition. Rumors, truth, where did the line get drawn across their paradox of existence?

As he concluded this mess of questions, his red robe garments flowed swiftly behind his tall build as he got up with the goblet securely in his hand. Silence donned the rustles of the silk colliding with one another, sock clad feet tapped at a furious pace as he made way down the corridor. This new resolution to seek everything about the ritual of soul replacement embedded itself in his mind, for how did they exist without one? Were they demons, or other infernal beings that contradict that of science of man’s belief?

And that was when he turned one corridor and found himself racing down a spiral staircase. Downstairs held the main hall, where thousands of books lined the walls with dust and ancient worn down texts. Two peaked doors were at the front of the room, whilst at the end were two separate doors leading to who knows where. Up on the ceiling were three symbols. It was three drawings of the divine souls of belief, souls that they no longer had inside them. He had drawn it at a time where if he had a natural growth, his copper hair would’ve grown white. Perhaps he had done it to redeem a part of himself, or perhaps he had painted it to articulate a part that which had gone in silence for so many years.

He didn’t know why. But that painting was still there, as he himself was still here. As most of them were still here, the paradoxes of age and time, with the world staring at their eternal forms of sin.

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Author’s Note: How’s that for a contemplative view? Yeah, I’m dead for inspiration right now. -.-