The Confessional

The image of my surroundings slowly fades away as I finally close my eyes and forever forsake my sight. The warm air pleasantly engulfs me and light is inevitably gone, troubling my weary eyelids no more. I can feel my skin, face, and muscles no longer as the bond between my brain and body is taken off the edge. Memories, doubts, inner conflicts- these struggle to leave my mind, emptying me… giving me eternal peace. It is not so easy for them, however, to depart as fast as I would wish, so in the last minutes of forsaken consciousness, somewhat unwillingly I recall everything that led to my curse… my damnation.
It seems like a second ago in my memory… yet I know it happened eternities ago. In my head, a black-and-white silent movie stars playing again and agonizingly reminds me of everything with striking clarity. The memory that had been suppressed is free to torture me again. Eileen and I are the main actors. We are characters in a movie - lifeless, animated, soulless, distant… I see myself sidelong.
From this spectator’s point of view, it is not hard to see how blissful and idyllic my life is… was. Eileen and I are walking out of the restaurant. Young, exultant, in love - that’s what we were. We are walking down the empty, starlit street, holding hands. I can literally sense the sweet storm that is raging inside my own heart. My character of yore does not know what will follow, but I do. Somehow, I am fixed into one point of view, as if some invisible camera man in my head is forcefully directing my sight. I try to defy the set perspective by looking upwards… unsuccessfully. Still, I recognize what is hovering up there, watching me… watching us both. Although I know perfectly well what will happen next as I have watched this movie thousands of times, I still have some absurd hope that this time there will be a different turn of events. In vain. Abruptly, I grab her and kiss her passionately in the middle of the street. The spectator hears the air being pulverized by the creature that is plummeting towards us. Everything happens with the speed of light. Her screams painfully pierce my ears as I am cast on the ground by the vampire. I try to scream, to get up, protect the woman I love… but I am helpless, bound and subjugated by some sinister spell. The monster’s image is blurred; all I can see is his demonic silhouette… Still, I can see how he sinks his teeth in Eileen’s exposed, snow-white neck. I can see as he carries her away in the star-studded sky and my scream follows him in the firmament where stars shine no more…
The human mind is merciless, cruel and definitely not self-protective. In fact, it tends to torture itself, to explore every dark corner of its infinity and to bask in self-abasement and suffering. However, sometimes the weight of reality is too heavy even for it to handle. Then the consciousness simply blocks and repels, denies everything that causes pain. Some call it madness… I don’t know. All I recall after Eileen being taken away are separate, illegible images of a filthy existence. My mind has been merciful, leaving only an insidious trace, allusion to untold and unspeakable misery and suffering.
The first clear memory I have after that night is of a stranger’s scarred face staring down at me with the grey morning sky behind him. He found me lying in a back street, beaten by some thugs, starved, weak, and overall near-death. His image is painfully clear: the startling half-burnt face with a great scar across the other, healthy cheek; the mingled and disheveled white hair; and above all, his anxious and examining, yet soothing and calming grey eyes.
The stranger’s name I found was Ailos, and he carried me away from that accursed street, half-dead. I lay a burden on his arms, yet his strength was so great he seemed to not notice my weight at all. Ailos murmured inaudibly, as if to himself: “We are going to my place, lad… hold on.” The “place” was a garret in one of those old city buildings that one thinks no life could possibly exist. Nevertheless, his apartment was definitely the lair of a living and dangerous man. Through the veil in front of my bleeding eyes I could discern strange and incredible machines and technology as well as various blades and swords hanging on the walls. The realization that my savior was some kind of hit man or headhunter proved too much for my weakened mind and body and I fainted, a feather on his arms.
For many weeks I was at the brink of death as I was shaken by fever and I had lost much blood. Ailos took care of me, bandaged my wounds, and mended my violently shattered bones. In the rare times that I was conscious, Ailos sat beside me and told me much about himself. At first my mind, accustomed to the world I had known before, refused to accept his tale; however, it was too obvious to refute. As I discovered, he was neither a hitman nor a headhunter… no. He was a vampire slayer.