I love New York.

Or more accurately I “heart” NY.  That’s what the button on the girl’s heavy winter coat says.  I noticed it when I pulled her into the alley, one more lost soul in a city of countless thousands.  I wonder if anyone will miss her….

Not that it matters.

As for me, I hate this city filled with its oppressive stench of humanity.  So many self involved fools, thinking that their life actually matters.  I hold the girl tighter, her long blonde hair spilling over my arm as I wrap her in a deadly embrace and drink down her crimson essence, savoring the warm, pulsing fluid flowing over my tongue.  Yes, I do hate this city, but it’s a necessary evil for one such as myself.  It makes things easier…because who’s really going to notice one more lost in the crowd?

She struggles weakly, her pathetic pleas for life falling on deaf ears as I bite harder, causing her to gasp and whimper before her whining becomes unintelligible.  She’s not special, even though I know she thinks she is.  No, she’s just another nameless face, a meal that’s never even conceived of her own mortality until this instant.  But they’re all the same that way, never realizing how fragile their lives are.  How easily they can be ended in a flash of teeth or flick of the wrist, brittle bones snapping like twigs.

It’s amusing really, how they live their lives in ignorance of the dangers around them, the hunters that walk among them, demonic and mortal.  Instead they choose to isolate themselves with their own trivialities even with a huge gaping hole in the center of the city as a constant reminder of how fleeting their life is…still they ignore it.  They ignore it and continue to live their disgusting, pitiful lives…until a moment like this. 

She’s finally gone still against me, her fight as well as her life drained away by my unending thirst for something that I abhor.  I feel her breath, soft and ragged against me as she whispers her last words on this earth, “God…please…,” and I almost laugh.  They’re all the same in this instant, when they finally see the specter of death flash before their eyes.  No matter who they were in life they all become the same, suddenly turning religious as they pray to a God that doesn’t even exist and will never hear their cries.  No, God can’t possibly exist because in all the lives I’ve taken not once, not one time have I ever been stopped.  What is God really?  A created ideal that holds the keys to life and death?  I preside over life and death.  I guess that makes me God.

I laugh coldly and finally let her drop to the filthy ground, the darkness of the reeking alleyway beginning to swallow her up as just another casualty to the night.  Then I lean over her, and like the bandit I am, I rifle through her coat, searching her pockets for anything of use before snatching her purse from the damp pavement.  I overturn the pricey leather bag, the contents of her daily life spilled out onto the ground, and sort through, finally finding her meager stash of cash.  A few dollars and a handful of subway tokens is all she has and I realize her nice clothes and expensive purse were just an image, like it is for so many who walk these streets.   She was living beyond her means without even a credit card to her name.  I shake my head and pocket my sad prize as I stand and start to leave the alley without another look back until her pin catches my attention again. 

I love New York. 

Not in this lifetime.

I walk to the opening of the alley and pause as I reach the sidewalk, my face relaxing into it’s human planes. Silver eyes shift to twilight blue as I consciously hide the demon inside and pull my long leather coat around me.  I don’t feel the cold, not like the bustling masses around me, but still there is a comfort being draped in heavy black leather down to my feet.  It’s a cliché, I know, this appearance of mine, and I reach into my deep pockets for a cigarette, lighting it with the flash of a silver lighter.  I take a long drag, the action calming me for some reason even though the nicotine has practically no effect on me, and I know the image I create is familiar…even though I don’t remember why. 

Glance around once more and start to walk aimlessly down the street, my hunger sated for the moment and I melt into the crowd around me, camouflaging myself like only a true hunter can do.  I head for the subway, then uptown in search of better prey even though I know I won’t be welcome.  No, as much as I may like my dark appearance it does make it harder to blend in with the rich and self absorbed.  But I have no choice, not really.  The duster I wear is for more than just looks.  Sometimes it’s good to have a portable semi-shelter from the sun.  Not to mention when you have to carry everything you own on you…it makes it easier.

I head towards the subway entrance, tossing my smoke aside, and walk down into the hole cut in the earth that somehow feels comforting to me now.  There’s no fear of sun down here, even in the day, and sometimes I just spend the day, wandering through tunnels and losing myself in the underbelly of the city.  But this time I have a purpose and I use my stolen subway tokens to buy myself a ride--sometimes it’s just easier to follow the conventions of humanity. 

I wander off to a secluded spot, uninterested in being close to the walking meals around me, and melt into the shadows as I wait for the train that will take me to my destination.  I’ve taken what I need for now and I lean against the wall, reaching to light another smoke as my mind drifts.  I truly am a nomad, walking the night and taking what I want when I want with no consequences to follow.  At least…no consequences anymore. 

I take a long drag off my cigarette and as the smoke fills my dead lungs I remember the night I picked up this dirty habit.  It was the night after I was finally free, or should I say finally alone, because I know I will never be free.  I’ll never be rid of the nightmarish images of my first almost-two years of existence.  I close my mind against the barrage of all too fresh memories and a shudder washes over me at their intensity.  Force myself to take another calming drag and push these thoughts away.  I was left for dead, discarded, and hopefully that’s what my sire thinks I am…dead.

A bitter smile crosses my face at the thought.  Dead.  That’s exactly what I am in more ways than one.  I’m not only a child of the darkness, walking the night to reap death and chaos, I’m also dead inside, hollowed out completely by tortures I try to ignore and can never forget.  Anything I could have been, should have been, was destroyed by sadistic cruelty leaving nothing but this unfeeling empty shell.  So I stalk the nights in this world, no longer a part of it.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m still here at all, why I tried so hard to keep existing, to keep from being completely broken or turned to ash.  As I flick my cigarette butt onto the empty tracks I realize that even in death I’m not a quitter.  I still want to win.  But is there anything to win in this hollow existence?  Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have fought at all, that I should have given in and let my mind snap, detaching myself completely from reality.  But I couldn’t.  I can’t.  I’ve always refused to lose, and it doesn’t even matter if the game is no longer worth winning.  It’s what I do.  It’s who I am.

The screeching of brakes pull me suddenly from my introspection and I look up as my train finally pulls to a stop in front of me.  I head immediately for the last car, glaring at anyone who tries to come close and projecting a dangerous air around me.  I still want to be alone, and as stupid as most of this cattle is, the majority still give me a wide berth, finally leaving me in relative solitude as the train starts up again.  I wrap my coat tightly around me and take a seat by the window, my eyes instantly drawn to the yellowish overhead lights that illuminate the subway tunnels.  Watch the lights seemingly start to flicker as the train begins to pick up speed and I wonder, as I stare out the window, where I’ll be sleeping tonight.

A bitter smile crosses my lips as I look through the glass which holds no reflection and think about how the world--how Hollywood--got it all wrong.  They paint being a vampire as a glorious existence, immortal gods that stalk the night without a care in the world, killing and maiming without remorse and to an extent that’s true.  But the thing they seem to miss is that unless you are independently wealthy, you’re nothing more than a wandering scavenger.  I found out all about that in the first month of my independence.

Slouch down in the seat, legs spread out in front of me and I hear the faint creak of the hard plastic chair as I shift my weight.  Reach into my coat for another smoke and my mind drifts to what an ignorant, naïve fool I was.  Brief flicker of a flame followed by a long stream of smoke and I shake my head slowly.  I honestly thought I was invincible, untouchable by the human world…but that was probably due to my complete lack of experience in the mortal realm.  Practically living underground for over a year has it’s drawbacks I guess.

Take another drag and look up as one of the few other occupants of this train, a shabby looking woman probably in her mid forties, looks back across the length of the car and glares at me for smoking.  A dark smile crosses my lips and I silence her easily, shooting her a look of sheer malice as my eyes flash briefly with silver.  I see her eyes widen and she pulls her coat more tightly around her as she tries to shift even further toward the end of the train, not daring to look at me again and I can’t help but chuckle.  I have picked up a few tricks since being on my own and intimidation is only one of them.  In the beginning I thought that was all I needed, that a flash of fang or mercurial eyes was all I needed to keep me safe.   How wrong I was.

I’d only been on my own a few weeks when I finally found the place I wanted, a large home filled to the brim with amenities my material side craved desperately.  I staked out the place for at least a week, watching the small family and plotting my attack, waiting for a moonless night when the rain poured from the heavens to make my move.  I have to smile as it was as if their nonexistent God was weeping at what was to come, but then didn’t care as I came to the door.  Standing there, soaked from the storm, I played the stranded motorist, gaining myself an invite into their home I’d only recently realized I required.  Who knew that some legends were true?

I raise my leg, propping my foot on my knee, and snuff out my cigarette on the sole of my boot, flicking the crushed butt away as I remember the humiliation of what came next.  I slipped inside their home, a wolf in sheep’s clothing and killed them all, the couple and their teenage daughter, but not before forcing the wife to unlock all their accounts for me on the family computer.  I feasted on them all, saving the pretty young thing for the next day, and disposed of them in the backyard, thinking I’d enacted the perfect crime.  I had a house, furnished and decked out with every luxury I could imagine, access to money…in a word I was set.

It lasted all of a week.

I was stupid, careless, and completely forgot that the world still turned outside of my solitary existence.  I gave no thought to the fact that when people don’t show up where they’re supposed to be…people will come looking.  They came when I was sleeping, in the middle of the day, and I wasn’t the least bit prepared.  Before I knew it I was running for my demonic life, bleeding from bullet wounds, a smoking comforter the only thing sheltering me from the sun as I bolted for safety.  I almost fell victim to my own prey.  A mistake I will never make again.  That’s why I’ve adopted the life of a nomadic hunter, wearing my shelter on my back and carrying with me anything I deem necessary for my eternal existence.  I’ll not be caught unawares again.

I rock slightly in my seat as I feel the train come to a stop and realize I’ve reached my destination.  Push myself up and head to the doors as they slide open, the car quickly emptying except for me and the shabby, scornful woman from before.  I pass by her and my enhanced hearing picks up words too soft for others to hear.  “Punk,” she whispers distastefully and I stop, smiling cruelly as I turn to face her.

I instantly read the fear in her eyes as my cobalt blue ones lock with hers and the scent of her rising terror fills me with a deep longing.  But I don’t have much time.  So instead of feasting on her flesh and fear I lean closer, my voice hard and cruel.  “You should have looked the other way.”  Reach out before she has time to react, hands moving to either side of her head and snap her neck with a sharp flick of my wrists.  No warning.  No meaning.  No mercy.  Then I turn for the doors, slipping through them just before they slide shut and forget about her completely, not even the barest trace of remorse in my heart.

Existence is meaningless.