World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - Those Jeans

[Adrian Moss]

“Those jeans are smoking,” I tell her. “They would look great on my bedroom floor.”

Not my best line, but it makes her smile. It reminds me of how I prey upon the desperate, the lonely, and the world weary. This one, she has a desperate air about her. Maybe she had just been dumped and needed some companionship. Maybe she had come here with friends and they had all already hooked up. The particulars aren’t all that important. What is important is that she is primed for my feeding.

“Is that your best line?” she jokes nervously. She doesn’t know if she is going to scare me off with that comeback.

I smile with false warmth. “Oh no, that was the truth. If you want a line though, how about …”

I have a pang of regret when I’m done. Not for what I’ve done. What I’ve done is survive. I faked the sex, which isn’t uncommon, so that’s not it. I told her things she liked to hear, all in order to make her pliable for what I needed to do. I’ve left her exhausted in bed and she is going to be feeble for a week, but that’s the price I pass on for appearing to be alive.

What I regret is the understanding. What I regret is Erica and how we talked. To think as the circle of my acquaintances has grown; I’m left feeling more isolated. Is this isolation that my sire had tried to tell me about? Is this what all Kindred face, being outside and alone with no one they can share their souls with? Is this the driving force in our quest down the Coils of the Dragon?

No one is going to tell me those answers. I need to find them myself. It would help if I had someone to talk with this over. I don’t want to be alone.

There has to be more to this existence than not wanting to be alone. Am I that selfish? Is that me, or the Beast that I’ve become? I’m probably in no position to figure that out now and besides, it’s pointless. I am what I am now. There is no changing that, this side of death. So, I need to find a way to make someone my friend, but how? I mean most of my relationships are superficial and based on deception. I lie to feed. Feeding is the core of my existence. What I need is someone who trusts me despite the lies I need to tell to survive.

Erica.

What about what else I do? I can’t forget that either. There are dark places I look into, dangers I face, and for what? Most of the kindred I contact don’t know and don’t care to know what horrors are out there. There is this rogue Werewolf. There is Crimson. People are dying because of this! Innocents are dying.

Why is it important to me? All I buy is danger for my unlife and scant understanding from those who I seem to be working with. That and a heaping truck load of self-pity. I wish I had more in the realm of positive interactions, but I guess I will have to earn it. I hope I’m given the chance. I know I’m going to keep looking too. I may not understand why I feel compelled to help those who have no one else to turn to, but I know it feels right – right down to the fear.

Would Erica really know and understand me? If she didn’t, I would have to kill her. That thought hurts me and I don’t know why. She is like my lifeline to my human shade, that piece of shadow mask that I wear to appear human to the herd. Better yet, she is a lifeline to the better person I might have been had I not been embraced. I know I don’t have real dreams anymore, but in my waking dreams there is this man I wish I might have been … if that makes any sense. Erica makes me feel like I am that man embraced, a better Kindred.

Or maybe I’m deluding myself and I’m really just a monster in a human suit. How about those jeans?