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Ahh yes, my mortal life, I remember that relatively well still. I was a
rather naive and idealistic person back then, mostly because I thought I
could save the world with conservation efforts. *Chuckling to myself* From
the time I was a small child I was fascinated with animals and would spend
hours walking around the Adirondacks watching the wildlife there. I always
had some sort of odd pet being toted along with me, a snake I picked up in
the woods or a squirrel that I had found. That naturally turned into a
fascination with the idea of conservation. I was an avid reader of National
Geographic magazine and studied conservation efforts around the world. By
the time I had gotten into high school, I was a member of every conservation
organization that interested me. I decided to go to college and get a
degree that would help me achieve my goals. My family thought me odd, well
all except my younger brother Connor. He and I were very much alike and
spent many hours plotting our futures as conservationist crusaders.
* Fingering my necklace with ring attached a melancholy look crosses my
face* He was only a year or so behind me in school, and decided to attend
the same college that I had when he graduated. We got a place together and
settled down to study and work our way through college. I looked at the
world with the idea that humanity was in many ways blight upon the earth,
and that we would wind up destroying everything that had been created in the
miracle of the birth of this planet. I soon graduated and had already found
a job. I made sure to have Connor taken care of and hoped that if he was
interested that he might find a job with the same company that I was working
with.
I was shipped off to the South American jungles to study the big cats there
and their habitats. I had always loved the big cats and found the Snow
Leopard to be one of the most gorgeous cats around, so was somewhat
disappointed that I was not able to study them. I spent the next two years
in the jungles, and during that time I learned to fight for both myself and
the cats that I was studying. I was not in the best place in the world and
was constantly defending myself against the locals in the areas who either
wanted me gone, put in my place violently or dead. My idealistic nature
died a hard death and by the time Connor had graduated and joined me in the
jungle, his sister had become an aloof and jaded woman. Shortly after he
had joined me I came across the largest jaguar I had ever seen, and he didn’
t act like any other Jaguar I had studied to date. I only saw him at night,
and it was as if he were studying me rather than the other way around. He
never menaced me, never attempted to attack us and always watched me with a
wisdom that no other animal I had ever seen possessed. I had started to
work at night just so that I might find out more about this mysterious cat.
I would awake in the late afternoon and scout out the area that I would be
observing that night so that I would have a good idea of the best places for
me to set up my blinds.
One particular afternoon when Connor had left to get some more supplies I
happened across a cave. I pulled out my flashlight and crept into the cave
to see what was there. I found strewn along the cave floor a number of sets
of bones and a few partially devoured animal corpses. I had apparently
stumbled into a resting spot for a Jaguar, and I was quite naturally
excited. I ran back to our camp and gathered all of the things I would need
for the night and crept back to the cave. I could see nothing in the cave
so I sat with my back to the deepest part of the cave and facing the
entrance so that I might see the cat returning. Dusk fell and then night
and sometime during that period I fell asleep. When I awoke there was a
figure looming over me and its eyes glowed red. I opened my mouth as if to
scream and a claw like hand slapped over my mouth while the other arm
wrapped around my body dragging me to my feet. I began to struggle to try
and get free from the grasp that was cold and unnerving. As I struggled I
figured that this was a man, perhaps one of the locals who wanted me gone or
worse to teach me the place of a woman. There was no way I could break that
iron grip as he drug me out of the cave and into the jungle where I could
see who had me. His face was bestial, he had catlike features and I was
struck senseless at what I was seeing. This was not possible; it was a man
but had the eyes, nose mouth and teeth of a cat. My body went slack with
the shock of what I was seeing and then he spoke.
"You have been watching me for months now, what has made you so curious
about me that you are stupid in your attempt to study me?”
“Wh What? What do you mean watching you, I h ha have been watching a jaguar
of late th that doesn’t act like a jaguar.”
“I am the Jaguar you poor foolish woman, and if you are so curious about me
then maybe I can teach you what you want to know with first hand experience
of what I am.”
“Wha what do you m me mean?”
Using both hands he held my body straight and tilted my head to the side a
bit and lunged at my neck. I screamed at the strike and the volume
increased as I felt his fangs sink into my neck. Then the pain was gone and
a feeling came over me. It was almost sexual in nature and was more
euphoric than anything I had ever felt. I began to loose control of my body
as he drained it of blood, and right before I passed out I felt his wrist at
my mouth and warm coppery fluid oozing into it.
When I awoke I felt a burning hunger in my body. It was night, but I didn’t
know how long I had been unconscious. Before I could really think about
what had happened I could feel a red fury coming over me and I knew that I
must feed. I walked out of the cave and into the woods and came across an
animal and fell upon it. I leaned forwards and sunk my fangs into its body
and began to tear at the flesh while lapping up the blood. I ate the flesh
and then became violently ill and the hunger grew because now I had the
taste of blood in my mouth and the smell of it in my nostrils. I latched
onto the animal’s body and began to drink the blood because that is what my
body craved. Once I had finished with that animal I stumbled deeper into
the jungle looking for more. I continued the slaughter until the hunger was
assuaged and I could think again. I fell to my knees shaking, threw my head
back and screamed into the night. I had read the books, watched the movies,
but had always known that vampires were not real. My horror dawned slowly
on me at what I had become. That damned cat wasn’t a cat, but a vampire who
had decided to make me one as well. Tears started to roll down my cheeks
and I smelled blood again. I raised my hand to my face to wipe away the
tears and saw that it was blood, so I licked my hand clean and stood up. I
began to run back to the cave, I needed to get my things and get back to
camp. Connor could help me and I needed help desperately. I made it to the
cave and searched for signs of the cat or the man but found nothing so I
gathered my things and ran back to camp. Connor heard me crashing through
the jungle and ran to meet me. He took one look at my bloody clothing hands
and face and ran back to the camp screaming. I followed him and dropped my
things in a heap near the fire.
“Connor? Connor please come out and talk to me I need your help.”
Connor stepped out of the tent with a first aid kit and a bucket of water.
I had thought he was scared of me but he had been scared for me.
“Connor, you wont’ need the bandages, I doubt that they would do any good,
because I don’t really have a scratch on me. I’m not h hu human anymore.”
I began to cry again, wondering how to show Connor the truth.
“Alyssa, your tears are blood what has happened to your eyes. They were
glowing red in the dark as you came into camp. Why are your clothes bloody
and torn and where have you been for the last 2 days?”
“Connor, I found my Jaguar, but it wasn’t a Jaguar. I’m not human anymore
Connor, the cat was a man who was a vampire.”
“Alyssa you have lost your mind, living down here in this jungle has finally
driven you over the edge.”
I scanned my mind and tried to find a way to prove what I now was to him and
my hand went to my throat where he had bitten me. There was neither wound
nor scab. I hit upon the perfect idea and pulled my knife out of my belt.
“Watch this Connor and let me show you that I am no longer human.”
As I
said this I drew the knife across my hand and cut it. I stood there and
watched my hand bleed waiting on the cut to begin to heal but nothing
happened.
“Good God Alyssa stop this you can’t have cuts like that here in the jungle
you will get an infection that could kill you. Let me fix it.”
He reached
for my hand but I snarled at him and bared my fangs and willed the cut to
close. We both watched in fascination as the cut closed and the bleeding
stopped. I once again licked the blood from my hands.
“Do you see now Connor, I’m not human I’m a vampire. I have got to find
that damned cat and figure out what is going on.”
“Alyssa, what the hell has happened to you? How did you heal that cut, it
just isn’t possible that you could do that and Jesus your teeth are fucking
fangs, how did that happen, they are making me nervous.”
“I’m a vampire he made me one, and I will find him.”
With that statement I
walked into my tent and grabbed clothes and went to bathe the blood from my
body. I came back to camp clean with fresh clothes and sat down to plan my
hunt for my sire.
I spent another five years in the jungles looking for my sire and working
with Connor at our jobs. I became stronger and faster and began to explore
the limits of my new existence. I fed mostly on animals but the locals or
others who tried to harm us quickly became a meal for me and the bodies were
disposed of.
One night a Jaguar strode into camp and walked right up to me. I stood up
and prepared myself to fight it, because I couldn’t let it harm Connor. It
stood up on its hind legs and morphed into a man. My sire had returned.
“You survived this long and even kept some semblance of a cover at what you
are. As for your brother well I will have to ghoul him but that will be
easy enough to take care of later. For now you have many lessons to learn
and school is about to be in session. My name is Vincent and I am your sire
and your alpha, and you will learn what I must teach you or you will die.”
This began my training as a vampire. I at first thought it was quite
laughable that he was going to teach me things I hadn’t figured out for
myself, but I was quickly beaten into submission. He taught me the things I
needed to learn about what I could do, my clan and its traditions, and other
clans and some of the things that they can do. Another year had past and
the human world was calling Connor and I back to New York. I couldn’t leave
Connor and stay here so I asked Vince to come with us. The three of us made
it back to New York State and back to our parent’s house. I snuck away to
find a haven for Vince and myself while Connor had to try and explain that I
wasn’t coming back from the jungles that I would remain there. Connor and I
spent as much time together as we could. He came to a meeting place in the
woods and we would chat play chess or walk around the woods together. There
were many things I wanted to tell him about, but knew that to do so would
either condemn him to death or a life like mine.
Vincent on the other hand stepped up my training and made it harder for me
to see Connor. He and I fought daily on the subject of ghouling my little
brother but I always won the argument and Connor stayed a normal mortal
another day. I on the other hand learned of the Sabbat and joined a local
pack after my rather annoying initiation. Connor was my last link to my
fading humanity and it was deemed by someone that he must die. We were
ambushed in the woods one night and I was quickly fighting for both of our
lives. I popped my claws for the first time here and started slashing. I
took many wounds and lost blood too quickly but I defeated our two would be
assassins, they ran away, and I fell to my knees shaking. I was dangerously
low on blood and starting to feel that uncontrollable rage building in my
body again. Connor walked in front of me and offered me his hand to take.
There was fresh blood on his hand and the rage won out. I went into an
uncontrollable frenzy and latched onto Connors neck and fed. By the time I
came out of the frenzy Connor was limp in my arms completely drained of
blood and I lost the rest of my humanity. Vincent found me curled around
the corpse of my dead brother crying bloody tears with gaping wounds still
covering my body. Vincent picked me up and carried me back to the haven and
laid me down on my bed.
“Sleep Alyssa Now.”
I fell asleep and didn’t dream. Vincent left the cave
and took care of Connor’s body and brought me his things the next night. He
dropped the ring I now wear on my dolphin necklace into my hand and told me
to get it all out now because he had a new lesson to teach me. I put the
ring on my necklace and followed him into the night.
By the time dawn had neared I had made the decision to greet the sun. I
could not face this life knowing what I had done to Connor in a rage.
Vincent showed me where he had buried Conner and allowed me a few moments to
grieve over the grave. He quickly drug me away from the site to begin
teaching me more skills. My heart and mind were not in it and he quickly
became angry with me. I took the worst beating at his hands that night that
I had ever had. His rage grew at my stubborn insistence to attempt to hang
onto my humanity. He grabbed me and drug me back to the cave near dawn and
tossed me into the back of the cave. I could feel the dawn coming and knew
that in just a short time my pain would be over. I picked myself up off of
the cave floor and painfully made my way to the entrance of the cave. It
was in a shadow, but I could see a lightening on the horizon so I stepped
into the shadow out of the cave. I felt Vincent’s hands grab my arms and
drag me back into the cave and I began to scream.
“No! Let me die, let me go, my family is dead to me now and Connor is gone
because of me.”
He threw me on the floor and planted himself on top of me, pinning my arms
and holding my face between his clawed hands.
“Alyssa you aren’t alone. I am your family now, I am your father and I will
not allow you to be weak enough to end your new life. You will not be that
sort of coward, you weren’t during the time that I watched you before you
saw me, and you will not be now! If I have to I will chain you in the back
of the cave and stake you until this stupidity passes.”
“Father?” Still crying blood tears, I tried to pull free. “I will not go
on in this life without Connor.”
Vincent’s face held a pained look as he pulled a stake from his clothing and
slammed it into my chest. I was not able to move or scream or cry. My body
was totally immobile but my mind continued to grieve. He picked me up and
took me to the deepest part of our haven and chained me up. I lay on a bed
he made for me and he spent his time for the next month talking to me
reasoning with me and then threatening me. He fed his blood to me
increasing the bond I had to him as he drank more of mine to increase his to
me. At the end of some long period of time he pulled the stake out and left
me chained to see what I would do.
“Father, I am sorry for my stupidity. I will not follow Connor, I want to
learn my next lesson.”
My path has been set since that day, and I am a follower of the Path Of The
Feral Heart.
Over the years I have learned many things that have been useful. I have
learned the resiliency of my body, how to use my claws and how to talk to
animals. Bastet came into my world one dreary rainy night as I walked
through town. This half starved calico kitten was sitting in the rain
freezing. I called out to the cat in her own language and walked over to
her picking her up.
“You are a pretty little thing, you might amuse father, I think I’ll take
you home.”
I acquired some food for the little thing and took her home with me. Bastet
has lived with us now for a while and is bound to me by my blood. She is a
companion to both father and myself and she keeps us amused with her antics
and her prattling on.
A few months ago word started coming to us of a town not far from where we
were that was slowly being destroyed. Everything was perfectly explainable
but the coincidence was too much to believe that they were all accidents.
Father and I decided to go investigate. I drove down and he rode on the
back of my bike. At a safe distance from town I pulled off the road and
into the woods. Father morphed into his cat form and walked behind me. I
moved stealthily as I had been taught and turned on my eyes behind the
sunglasses and grew claws from my hands. After a couple of hours I happened
to glance down at my chest and there was a red dot there. I pretended to
stumble to a stop and signaled father carefully hoping that he had not also
been seen and followed the dot to its origin. I could see a man up in the
tree but his features were nearly as bestial as fathers and I lifted my
glasses so that he could see my eyes and I snarled.
“What are you doing walking in these woods tonight?”
“I came to see what the hell was going on in this town. I didn’t expect to
find myself on the business end of a laser sight though.”
He hopped down from the tree and kept the sight trained on me. He walked
towards me and I could see more beast marks on his body. His feet and hands
were more like paws and he had cat ears as well.
“Well I am what is going on in this town, and if you are here to stop me you
have made a very big mistake.”
“Hey I just came to see what was going on and check out the town. If you
have a good reason for all of this stuff, I’ll walk away and pretend I didn’
t see a damn thing.”
“I can see your eyes, do you have claws?”
I pulled my hands out of my coat and showed him the claws that I had had for
the last hour. Cocking my head sideways I studied him closely watching to
see if he would jump me or this would be a peaceful exchange. His eyes
began to glow red and his hands grew claws to show me the same information
that he had wanted from me. I prepared myself for what could happen when I
asked the next question.
“I have a question for you, are you Sabbat or are you Cam?”
“I am Bishop Talon from Pittsburgh, so that would make me Sabbat, but you on
the other hand are an unknown quantity.”
“Oh I am Sabbat, and I recognize your status, so now that is all cleared up
why are you sitting in these woods with a laser site and pointing it at me?”
He dropped the gun barrel down towards the ground and stepped forward.
“I am here to get something back that is mine. The city is my show of power
to the one who has taken what is mine. I hope you will not be here to
hinder me.”
“Nope, just curious. It isn’t every day that one city has this much bad
stuff happen in it in such a short span of time. Hmm what ever they took
must be really important.”
“My sire.”
That one small statement spoke more than anything. His tone was cold death
to the ones who had done this and I had to make a huge effort to control my
shaking and fear. If he could do this to a city by himself he was not one
to be toyed with or taken lightly. In my mind I screamed for father knowing
he couldn’t hear but comforted by the fact that he was nearby.
“Ahh that is a worthy cause for this much destruction. If someone were to take my sire from me I would do everything to get him back or die trying. I don’t imagine that I would be of much assistance to you here, but if you need someplace to hole up for a while give me a call.”
I pull a card with my contact number on it and hand it out to Talon.
Watching my hand as he took the card I was very proud of myself for keeping
that hand as steady as I was able to. I stayed and spoke to him for a
little while longer until the night noises around me let me know that father
was getting restless.
“I must go, as I have a small distance to travel to get home. Best of luck
to you in getting your sire back and making them pay.”
“Well if you are ever in the Pittsburgh or Morgantown area, look me up.”
And he gave me a contact to call to get in touch with him.
“I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.”
I waved quickly as I turned and melted back into the forest. I could feel
father’s presence at my side as we moved farther and farther from Talon. I
was finally able to let the fear out and could feel my hands shaking by the
time we made it back to the bike. Father was once again in the form of man
as we got back on the bike and went home.
The feeling of restlessness has been growing for a year now. I catch myself pacing the woods felling like a caged cat as I move through our domain. I know father has noticed the change in me and I fear to hear what his reaction will be when I tell him what my thoughts are now. I cannot stay here much longer, I must go and explore and find something new. I know that father will not want to come; if he leaves here he will be going back to South America to live his life. I don’t want to leave Father, as he is the only family that I have left. I had kept tabs on my mortal parents and they had both passed away some years ago. Vincent Alexander was my only family now and there were few friends in the pack I belonged to. I know it is past time that I leave father to find my own way, but leaving him will be hard. Thinking about leaving here brought to my mind the offer that Talon had extended me when I met him. Father would not be so upset about my leaving him if he felt he wouldn’t have to worry so much about me. Perhaps Talon could teach me something new that Father could not. I made my way back to our home and found Father.
“Father, I must speak with you about something that has been bothering me.”
“Alyssa the restlessness that you have been feeling is not strange. Our
clan are wanderers and the fact that you have lasted this long without the
desire to find something else has amazed and pleased me. You must begin to
find your own way now, and this is a journey I will not be making with you.”
“Father I think I will go and see that Gangrel Talon in his home. I will go
this weekend, and be back before the next to say goodbye to you and to
Connor. He is a strong one father and he will take care of those he views
as his.”
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“Go Alyssa, don’t you dare give me a reason to be ashamed of you as my
childe.”
I ran forward and embraced father, grabbed my pack and ran out of the cave into the night. Tears stained my face once again as I made the call to Talon to find out what the situation was for me coming to see him and find a new place to live.
Alyssa was the first killed by the Gargoyle that terrorized the town.