World of Darkness World of Darkness: Attrition - A Mirror, Darkly (Chapter Two)

[Vienne Carreau]

[Laptop entry, 27 August, 2008 - 2:48am]

I woke Raphael in his sleep. He had been sleeping like a baby, it was sweet. I hadn't been around a lot in the past couple of months. He had paint on his cheek and nose. The canvasses were out again, something I haven't seen him do in a long while. He was painting a red-clothed black figure in various states of standing with her back to the viewer. I like it. It's beautiful.

I've been thinking about Angela lately. About the gift of Vitae. She couldn't really love me, I cannot imagine why she did it except to experience the only height of pleasure next to the Embrace. I know it's cliché, but I feel so used. It hadn't taken her long since the Embrace to do it. Already after scarcely a month Embraced, I was being ill-used to please her so selfishly.

I did the same thing to this young man. And he was so... Young. I wonder if sex is meaningless to him now. I wonder if "quitting" me will eventually heal him. I wonder that he really even loves me under the spell I've woven over him.

I decided after some recent societal observations, that I owe something to Raphael. I took valuable years from his life, distracted him from his games and pleasures. He could have real love, the love of a mortal. It would be perishable, transient, but it would be real when he had it. He knew people, he was wealthy enough and just enough of a rebel to get attention. What I've done was a mistake. I'm just glad he wasn't my childe when I did it or things would have been worse. As it stands, he is similar as I am with Angela, but it doesn't seem as bad.

Raphael, you are a good kid. If you want to serve me, let me do something for you in return. But I will not give you the Blood any longer. You don't deserve that and I'm sorry. If I disappear or something should happen to me and you find my notebook, I hope you understand. Being a Thrall is no party. You must have known incomparable loneliness, sadness and need.

When I woke you tonight, I lulled you into my bed and held you, thinking. You didn't say anything, you just stayed in the fetal position. I could tell it calmed you. You had been crying again. I've made you need me and then I was absent for the delivery. I can only try to make it up to you. You have protected me and my secrets, you have proven I can trust you before I initiated the Vinculum. You have dutifully acted in the stead of a Ghoul (vulgar word, that it is) on every task I have asked for you. You have tolerated my treating you as a pet or a toy.

Thing is Raph, when I was human, I liked you in a healthy, normal way. I would never have done this to you. Do you see? I'm losing whatever I was before and I'm becoming something else. I want to protect you from that, now that I see the monster I am becoming, while I still can. I will be with you for a year or two more, but you must find a life for yourself. You deserve happiness. Live to fill the hollow within me for all those beautiful things I will never experience.

You cannot have anymore Vitae, if you care about me at all, you will try to understand. I'll be there to help you through it. I won't leave you alone anymore.

Oh hell, I'll just leave this for you. Please place it by me while I sleep, before you go to work.

,,

Before it got too late, Vienne gave Raphael the Kiss. The dark, sleeping place he was in became a ray and then an eruption. It stretched on forever and then, weak and spent, he was falling into nothingness. Forever became too short, but he was exhausted. When it was over, she carried him to his own bed and tucked him in. She removed her long, red scarf and draped it across him. A present. If anyone ever deserved to be harmed by me, it wasn't this one. I'll watch over him until I lose myself or until his need for me fades entirely. She left her notebook open to her most recent entry and locked the other entries by marking them as Hidden Files and removing the Recent Entries from the word processing program.

[Vienne Carreau]

29 August [Laptop entry, 4:45am]

Almost time for me to go beddy-byes. I did my thing tonight: Stormed the clubs, snacked on a drunk kid in the park, snacked on another drunk person trying to find their car, politely turned down drunken offers of marriage. Whatever. Just as random as ever. I'll have to invest in a good stalking soon or I'll go crazy.

So there were these kids. I call them kids, but they're only a few years younger than I am (23). They're eating these big greasy burgers in the park and I can just smell it. They were giddy and drunk from club-hopping and were having a bite to eat. And just as I'm glaring at them in the dark from maybe 20 feet away, still as night -there they go. They set down their dinners and start necking.

I can smell the cheese and meat. I remember loving it. I remember liking the texture and the flavor, but the taste does nothing for me now. If I'm not careful, it will make me throw up. These kids, completely into each other. The lust was rising off of them, but I could tell it was love. Fuck them. I can't taste what they taste. I can't feel like they feel. I won't remember what that is like, not ever, so maybe I can't now. I don't know. I just don't have it, I guess. I suppose I fall in love whenever I become intoxicated for 15-20 minutes of feeding, but that's meaningless when it's over.

It's the closest I can get, but I think of it more like having a different physical need satisfied. Sure, it's sexual-ish, I guess. At the end of the night, blood is god to the beast inside. Isn't that more of a drug? I'm not sure which motivates me when I can't find someone suitable for mealtime. Too often I return to Raph's place and sate myself in his comfort, but it's not fair to him. It binds him to me emotionally. I don't want that anymore. I want to set him free, but not abandon him. I've stepped in it this time and now I'm going to have to dig my way out.

I don't want to be like them, human. I envy them what they feel. Hell, I like my sport! I'm driven, yeah. I feel horrible emotionally & physically when I don't follow my demons, sure. But my existence is otherwise without complaint. I only wish I could remember how to feel to appreciate it. The only time I feel truly terrible is when I'm not chasing Angela through the filter of my nightly hunt. I stupidly find myself hoping to glimpse her face in the crowd.

Sometimes I walk passed her old cafe on Santa Monica after it closes. I don't know what I expect to find. Ghosts?

What bothers me the most is losing those sensations I took for granted and I never noticed until they were irretrievably gone. I think maybe Daeva are soulless.