[April 2010 Vignette] Daybreak

[Dr Archeville]

Those books. Those movies. You've all read about them, you've all seen previews for them, even if you think the writer is an incompetent hack. Horror fans all over the world have condemned Her writing as just petty, stupid teenage romance that takes the terror out of some of the legendary monsters of worldwide folklore. But you've never really stopped to think about them, have you? Who'd have an interest in promoting a series of books that depict murderous, blood-soaked monsters as perfect lovers and the ideal soulmates for weepy teenage girls?

 

That's right Us. I used to hate that writer too, and how embarrassingly cliched and pathetic she made us look. Until I started talking to people; especially until I started talking to superheroes. Jokes about glitter and Edward used to annoy me, you know? They really did. Until I started thinking about what it really meant. Let me start by saying a few words about what I am.

 

I am the damned undead; a soul rejected by God that walks the Earth by night to feast on the blood of the living. I am a juggernaut of my kind, barely affected by the worst of our weaknesses, with only the power of faith to repel me and the Sun, that damnable sun overhead weakening a few of my abilities. There are no doors that can stand against me, no eyes that can see me, even of people with superpowers and super-science. And I should know, I've tested them all. I think about killing people not because I hate them, not because I fear them, but because when my mind wanders I think they might taste really good.

 

Make no mistake. I've made a choice, an ethical decision, to put aside what I am to build a better world for my people and my city. Through great good luck and what I hope is good example, I've persuaded a dozen of my kind in this town to put aside what they are so they can keep what humanity they have. But I have no illusions about what I'm clinging to here, and no illusions about the thing I am at the core of my being. I'm a husband, a father, a superhero, and I am not a man. I am a thing that hunts and feeds on men. I've done it. And though I regret the killing now, there were times when I enjoyed it very much.

 

But no one really cares. I mean sure, Stesha despises me for what I did to her before my control was better, and Taylor's not happy about the times I fed on her, and Ace is certainly keeping a watchful eye on me. Dark Star's kind of pissed too,. But everyone else? It's all jokes about those books and that hero, about glitter and sparkling. And I go on being what I am, doing what I do, and no one really seems to give a damn. All because somebody, somewhere, had the best idea in the history of anything.

 

How do you make people let vampires into their lives, their home, their world? Get the humans to laugh at us first.

 

April Fool's.