Soulless Men and Vanities: Chapter 1 – Immortal but Dead

Chapter 1 – Immortal but Dead

The last thing that Raven Aurora remembers was that he was having a hard time resisting the temptations of demons after coming home from ridding a group of demon worshippers that set themselves up in the town that he helped protect. He told his family that he was tired, needed his rest and that he loved them. He then prayed a rosary to silence his temptations before falling asleep. Now, he's found himself in what looks to be a ceremonial room with skeletons littering the floor. Unintelligible images of what happened flash in Raven's mind as he stands up only to stumble and fall into the skeletons. He quickly backs away as he sees the sharp teeth in many of the mouths of the skeletons.

“What are these people? Where am I and what happened here?” he asks himself.

Looking around, Raven finds a sword with complex engravings on it that include designs of crosses, snakes, and lions.

“A sword made for royalty, huh? I knew there was corruption within them, but didn’t know it was this bad,” Raven says as his eyes unintentionally focus on his reflection in the sword.

Since it is dark in the room, he can’t make out his own appearance. He sees something disgusting in it that looks similar to a corpse; however, he assumes it’s just his eyes imagining things so he gets up and walks up the stairs and out of the room to see that he’s in a decrepit castle on a mansion that overlooks the town he lives in. The moonlight strangely fills Raven with energy and the grungy tired feeling that he had that was like waking up after being beaten in a fight is gone. Seeing as how he has enough light to see his reflection in the sword, he does so and is horrified to see that his face is rotting with half of it already off. In addition, his hair and skin are completely snow white, his eyes are as black as the night, and his mouth contains four sharp teeth like those of a beast.

“No, this can’t be!” he says in denial.

Raven searches the house for a real mirror and finds one near the main entrance of the mansion to confirm what he knows to be real. This larger mirror gives him a better picture of himself that he smashes in frustration.

“Whoever did this to me will pay!” he says as he leaves the mansion.

To his surprise, Raven runs through the forest like a horse charging into battle and can leap into the air and climb through the trees like an aggressive primate. In the dark forest, he hears the cries of distress and quickly goes to it and finds a young family being assaulted by two people who have the same fangs that Raven has and what looks to be a wolf that can stand on its two legs. He jumps into action with his sword drawn so that no further harm can come to the family.

“Stop right there, you beasts!” Raven says.

The fanged people look at him and are full of mixed emotions but chose to laugh first.

“You call us beasts? Haha! You’re a vampire just like us!” one of them says.

“Vampires? I demand that you tell me what those are.”

“I’d call it funny that you don’t know, but it does make sense since you were asleep for five years in that mansion on the cliff.”

“Five years?”

“We’d waken you up earlier if your guardian angel wasn’t protecting you from us. I must thank you for bringing yourself to us,” another mentions.

“What for? What did you need me for? What did you do to me?”

“We wanted to make the first vampire someone who could make the world despair and what better person than you who is a well known hero? Unfortunately, God had other plans and messed it all up through your guardian angel, but it looks like the sacrament to make you into a vampire was successful. It seems that He has abandoned you.”

“I’m still here despite your curse, so that’s obviously not true.”

“But it’s the curse and how you became a vampire that proves His abandonment. You see, a person becomes a vampire through a blasphemous sacrament that involves a ritual where the main ingredients require a baptized infant. We took your newly born son, cut his throat, tore out his still beating heart, and poured his blood all over you while you were under our influence.”

“No, that can’t be!” Raven says.

Clearer flashes from before come into his mind to confirm that what this vampire is saying is correct.

“Oh, but it is! We’ve even killed other members of your family to drench you in their blood and create other vampires. It’s a shame that their sacrifice was mostly in vain.”

“I’ll kill you for this!”

Raven strikes one of the vampires with his sword only for it to break when it hits them causing no pain and for both to laugh.

“Haha! Only holy weapons can kill a vampire and there’s nothing about you that’s holy! You have no choice but to join our side and fight against the God who let us control you and turn you into what you are.”

Again, yelling out in anger, Raven uses his fists and this allows him to punch a hole through a vampire’s chest. Everyone is shocked by this except for Raven who still has his faith in God.

“So much for nothing about me being holy,” Raven says.

“This changes nothing! No wait, it does! I get to say that I killed the hero Raven by myself! Serf, come to my aid!”

The wolf quickly leaps at Raven who is then killed even quicker as Raven raises his leg and brings it down in the blink of an eye to crush the oncoming wolf’s skull into bits. This display of strength forces the other vampire to act against its fear and stab Raven in the neck with its serrated dagger, however, this has no effect. Raven then grabs the vampire’s arm and crushes it with a single hand before using his other hand to lift the screaming vampire in the air and crushing its neck until its head falls off. Even after venting his anger on these unholy creatures, Raven is filled with agony, sadness, and anger, so he lets out a yell before uncontrollably sobbing for his family.

This along with his other actions has scared the family that he was trying to protect, but the daughter of the family starts to become sympathetic to him because of the honesty of his sadness. She approaches him to her parent’s dismay with her hand out to help him.

“Mr. Aurora, thank you for helping us. What can we do to repay you?” the young girl asks.

Raven pulls himself together for the girl then says, “Just-just be safe when I bring you back to town. I’ll handle the rest from there.”

“There…there is no place safe in the world.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The vampires and their slaves are everywhere. There’s no place in the world that’s safe to be.”

“Then I’ll just have to stain the entire world with their blood.”

“Is that even possible?”

“I can still live despite being a walking corpse and having a knife jabbed in my neck,” Raven says while effortlessly taking out the vampire’s knife and tossing it aside as if it were nothing, “I think it’s possible and by God’s grace, I will defeat the vampires. If you say they are everywhere, I’ll start by cleaning up my hometown and restoring everyone’s faith. That’ll at least make one place in the world safe. Stay close behind me, but not too close. This is going to get messy.”