Oh reaper great and dark and pure, I beg you to hear my plea, as all my life’s work falls before me. Oh angel of death, so dark and clear, I pray to thee as my end draws near. A prayer for death, so black and cold, like all things lying upon this road, death is the release to life so cruel and so I pray that my soul be transferred safely to land of the dead, where dead is alive and alive is dead. Let me sit under my family tree, as I see my own branch crack and bear witness to my own destruction, let my soul be at peace here at the roots, as I find there is now nothing that I lack. Now at deaths door, I knock four times, the reaper answers and beckons to me, and I relinquish the pain that was mine. In my haste to leave behind my pain, I am pulled back into life, the long white sheets have been forever stained by the bloodied knife. My knife lies near, it’s blade calls, it wants to take my heart, I push it from me just in case I lose myself to its hark. The others return, their work is done, the party now is over, they see me lying in my blood and that my chest is torn asunder. I try to speak, to warn them of the dangers they cannot see, all that comes from my lips is a red flood sized like the sea. I feel something almost like pain, a twin piercing on my neck, I open my eyes and see a stranger holding me aloft, her arms are soft yet strong as her fangs bury themselves in my flesh, I feel a hunger like no other, a thirst that cannot be quenched, my rival stands before me now as I rise up from the crypt. “As darkness falls we shall rise to take our revenge upon the living, we loyal to the blood-god strike down the heretics who follow the Christ-deceiver’s lies and the Christ-father’s falsehood. Vampires we are, human blood we drink, oh sweet red wine that flows in veins and travels through a pulsing heart, we drain the Christ-follower’s of this gift as they have forgotten he who gave it.” My voice escapes across dead lips, I feel no heat nor cold, I thirst for blood and in seconds my rival lies, face-down in the road. Oh for he who owns our souls, who sees us and gives us eternal life, Who models us to be living gods and turns our reality into a fantasy, who gives us a second chance at life as what we were meant to be...Vampires. I offer my prayer to the blood-god as a sign of thanks, as i now stalk the night, killing in his name.