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tamingthemuseTitle: What It's Like
Fandom: None
Pairing: None
Rating: T for language
Summary: You know it started out as a virus, developed by the government...
A/N: It would have been very easy to just go with Spike for this prompt, but I chose a different tack and this is what came out of it. Hope that you enjoy it.
I really thought that this would be harder, but being a vampire is pretty cool sometimes.
I’ve always been more of a night person, coming alive at four or five in the evening and not getting to bed until long after the sun rose, so that hasn’t changed, really. I just head to bed when I feel the sun coming over the horizon—it’s strange, really, that I can feel the sun now. It throbs inside me like a replacement heartbeat, getting closer and closer as dawn comes until it almost wants to burst out of my chest. When it hurts more than anything else, even being turned, I head off to bed in the basement, pull the blankets over my face and let it go.
Sleep isn’t like sleep anymore either. I never did dream much, but I can’t remember anything of my dreams now. The last real dream that I had was before I was turned. I dreamed that I was flying. Kind of prophetic, if you get my meaning. I don’t fly now but compared to how slow the humans are, it seems like it.
I guess the biggest difference is food.
You asked me what blood really tasted like and I told you to put a penny in your mouth. It’s close, but not quite it. If I had to use words to describe it, I would have to say that it’s like eating a really rare steak or even beef heart—you know, like a meaty taste. You don’t really realize that you’re even eating until it’s in your mouth and spilling over your tastebuds, then it explodes in your head that you’re sucking blood and it’s so fucking good you want to die.
Ha—that’s funny. Want to die. Yeah, straight from the dead guy’s mouth. Huh, somehow it’s not that funny anymore, is it?
You know it started out as a virus, developed by the government as an alternative to the widespread experimentation with germ warfare. The scientists didn’t know what they were dealing the human race; they thought that it would solve the eternal difficulties of armies and the consequences of war. They hoped that it would minimize injuries and deaths during the actual battles. It did. It also made us, in a word, different.
In boot, they inoculated us against every possible disease on the planet, and added their virus into the mix. It was human-specific, and they were unable to test it out on the usual species—rhesus monkeys, dogs, cattle—and with ignorance of the actual effects of the virus on the human body, they gave it to us without warning, without disclaimer, and without informing us of the new inoculation they were tossing into the mix. They just poked us with needles and spread it among hundreds, and I just happened to be one of them. And became one of them.
They infected us with vampirism, and they didn’t even know it.
The first signs of the change were so subtle we almost missed them. We were so tired all goddamn day and it sapped our strength until sundown, when it inexplicably disappeared after sunset. Then the other stuff started happening and recruits started disappearing while they were on watch and—well, the rest is history, I guess.
Then came the discharges and they let us go into the real world. They couldn’t kill us, not after they fucked us so royally. They made us like a Special Forces team that never gets used. I get to draw a government check every month that helps mom out and buys my blood from the Red Cross so I don’t have to kill people. That would be too much for me to handle.
It’s really a win-win sitch, you know? The RC gets rid of blood that’s ready to expire and gets paid for it, I don’t have to go out and hunt up a meal, and mom gets enough to get by on. It was the main reason that I joined up in the first place—we didn’t have any money and I was an extra mouth to feed. Now she doesn’t even have to worry about that as long as she’s got my blood in the little fridge downstairs.
Is there anything that I really miss? Oh yeah. Sex. We don’t get to have sex anymore. No heartbeat, no blood pressure. No blood pressure, no hard-on. Simple. Without that one thing, we can’t ever do what made this fucked-up world worth living anymore. Fucking bastards took away the only thing worth fighting for. I guess that’s why they decided to go ahead and cut us loose instead of keeping us around.
They still run tests on us, though. I have to go in tomorrow for my annual exam. They draw blood and look at it through their fancy-assed microscopes and try to figure out what happened and what went wrong. They still have no idea and neither do we. It just happened.
Sometimes I miss the sun. I don’t burst into flames like they do in the vampire books, I just get so tired and lethargic that I can hardly move. I’ve slept in the sun a couple of times—I don’t even burn anymore, which is really weird. I used to get sunburn every time that I went outside but now I couldn’t if I wanted to.
But yeah, sex and dreams. Those are the things that I miss the most. I’d give anything to be able to have sex again, but it’s been so long anyway that I don’t even miss it.
I hope that this helps with your article. I know that there are people out there that are still scared and with things the way that they’re going, they might decide to cut their losses and kill us all anyway. Most of the guys that I was in boot with do the same thing that I do—buy blood—but then again, there’s always the ones that want to get it fresh from the tap, if you know what I mean. Those are the ones that need to go. Me? I just want to live out my life in peace. However long that might turn out to be.
I don’t think that it will be forever like they say it might. There has to be a way for a dead guy to finally die—maybe stop eating and let your body dry up or something. Anyway, good luck with your article. Now that the secret is out and the government can’t cover it up anymore, maybe they’ll try to find a cure instead of just doing all those stupid tests and stuff.
I just want people to know that they don’t have to be afraid of me. I don’t want what’s pumping in their veins—that’s just a little too much like carving up a live cow for me. I just want to make it through another day.
Fandom: None
Pairing: None
Rating: T for language
Summary: You know it started out as a virus, developed by the government...
A/N: It would have been very easy to just go with Spike for this prompt, but I chose a different tack and this is what came out of it. Hope that you enjoy it.
I really thought that this would be harder, but being a vampire is pretty cool sometimes.
I’ve always been more of a night person, coming alive at four or five in the evening and not getting to bed until long after the sun rose, so that hasn’t changed, really. I just head to bed when I feel the sun coming over the horizon—it’s strange, really, that I can feel the sun now. It throbs inside me like a replacement heartbeat, getting closer and closer as dawn comes until it almost wants to burst out of my chest. When it hurts more than anything else, even being turned, I head off to bed in the basement, pull the blankets over my face and let it go.
Sleep isn’t like sleep anymore either. I never did dream much, but I can’t remember anything of my dreams now. The last real dream that I had was before I was turned. I dreamed that I was flying. Kind of prophetic, if you get my meaning. I don’t fly now but compared to how slow the humans are, it seems like it.
I guess the biggest difference is food.
You asked me what blood really tasted like and I told you to put a penny in your mouth. It’s close, but not quite it. If I had to use words to describe it, I would have to say that it’s like eating a really rare steak or even beef heart—you know, like a meaty taste. You don’t really realize that you’re even eating until it’s in your mouth and spilling over your tastebuds, then it explodes in your head that you’re sucking blood and it’s so fucking good you want to die.
Ha—that’s funny. Want to die. Yeah, straight from the dead guy’s mouth. Huh, somehow it’s not that funny anymore, is it?
You know it started out as a virus, developed by the government as an alternative to the widespread experimentation with germ warfare. The scientists didn’t know what they were dealing the human race; they thought that it would solve the eternal difficulties of armies and the consequences of war. They hoped that it would minimize injuries and deaths during the actual battles. It did. It also made us, in a word, different.
In boot, they inoculated us against every possible disease on the planet, and added their virus into the mix. It was human-specific, and they were unable to test it out on the usual species—rhesus monkeys, dogs, cattle—and with ignorance of the actual effects of the virus on the human body, they gave it to us without warning, without disclaimer, and without informing us of the new inoculation they were tossing into the mix. They just poked us with needles and spread it among hundreds, and I just happened to be one of them. And became one of them.
They infected us with vampirism, and they didn’t even know it.
The first signs of the change were so subtle we almost missed them. We were so tired all goddamn day and it sapped our strength until sundown, when it inexplicably disappeared after sunset. Then the other stuff started happening and recruits started disappearing while they were on watch and—well, the rest is history, I guess.
Then came the discharges and they let us go into the real world. They couldn’t kill us, not after they fucked us so royally. They made us like a Special Forces team that never gets used. I get to draw a government check every month that helps mom out and buys my blood from the Red Cross so I don’t have to kill people. That would be too much for me to handle.
It’s really a win-win sitch, you know? The RC gets rid of blood that’s ready to expire and gets paid for it, I don’t have to go out and hunt up a meal, and mom gets enough to get by on. It was the main reason that I joined up in the first place—we didn’t have any money and I was an extra mouth to feed. Now she doesn’t even have to worry about that as long as she’s got my blood in the little fridge downstairs.
Is there anything that I really miss? Oh yeah. Sex. We don’t get to have sex anymore. No heartbeat, no blood pressure. No blood pressure, no hard-on. Simple. Without that one thing, we can’t ever do what made this fucked-up world worth living anymore. Fucking bastards took away the only thing worth fighting for. I guess that’s why they decided to go ahead and cut us loose instead of keeping us around.
They still run tests on us, though. I have to go in tomorrow for my annual exam. They draw blood and look at it through their fancy-assed microscopes and try to figure out what happened and what went wrong. They still have no idea and neither do we. It just happened.
Sometimes I miss the sun. I don’t burst into flames like they do in the vampire books, I just get so tired and lethargic that I can hardly move. I’ve slept in the sun a couple of times—I don’t even burn anymore, which is really weird. I used to get sunburn every time that I went outside but now I couldn’t if I wanted to.
But yeah, sex and dreams. Those are the things that I miss the most. I’d give anything to be able to have sex again, but it’s been so long anyway that I don’t even miss it.
I hope that this helps with your article. I know that there are people out there that are still scared and with things the way that they’re going, they might decide to cut their losses and kill us all anyway. Most of the guys that I was in boot with do the same thing that I do—buy blood—but then again, there’s always the ones that want to get it fresh from the tap, if you know what I mean. Those are the ones that need to go. Me? I just want to live out my life in peace. However long that might turn out to be.
I don’t think that it will be forever like they say it might. There has to be a way for a dead guy to finally die—maybe stop eating and let your body dry up or something. Anyway, good luck with your article. Now that the secret is out and the government can’t cover it up anymore, maybe they’ll try to find a cure instead of just doing all those stupid tests and stuff.
I just want people to know that they don’t have to be afraid of me. I don’t want what’s pumping in their veins—that’s just a little too much like carving up a live cow for me. I just want to make it through another day.
