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He hears his voice for the first time while he dies for the second- the first memory he can recover, lost in the filthy, plague ridden sewers. Wandering, lost… waking in the soiled water, clawing his way back to consciousness…
It is so dark, but he does not know that, can’t remember it ever being anything else. Sharper than ever, the ever that was before and so, never, perfect eyesight was wasted on the grey and browns and flecks of red.
Starving- but for what, he doesn’t know. The corpses of mutilated rats, the only thing he can find down here, mark his slow creep onward, unsatisfying and torn to shreds, heads ripped and fur matted. He doesn’t know why he’s hungry. He doesn’t really even know what hunger is, there’s only the darkness, the incessant, gnawing emptiness, and the sounds of scrabbling claws and pattering, frantic and too-small, that leads him from colony to colony. They are smaller than he is, so much smaller, so much slower.
On occasion, a rush of water will pour down into the caverns with him- and for that second before it hits the channels of filth and excrement of humans and animals alike, he catches a hint of something that earnestly starts the longing. But his world is small, regardless of how infinite and winding the tunnels may seem.
He doesn’t know anything else, so he cannot feel how the walls cave in towards him.
It is a slow, creeping demise that he understands much in the same way as an animal. The emptiness growing, the desperation. He kills a rat, and then another, and then he bites too deeply and tears a clump of flesh loose with the splinters of bone lodged inside, chewing and swallowing down anything that breathes and finding himself starving to death regardless.
He is much larger than a rat- too much hungrier than an animal. That ache is all that he is, the only feeling, the only thought.
Until it isn’t.
The grey water sloshes against his bare ankles, his worn shoes having been paced off in his unthinking march, his unending hunt. Long and flowing, soft fabrics tear and soil, the delicate embroidery and material that once brought with it a sense of pride dirtied and transformed into rags.
It is not a particularly kind thing he remembers- not is it significant, at all, save for the fact that it is the first glimmer of thought he has, while he’s wrist deep in shit and filth, throwing half of a rodent behind him.
There is a sound he has never heard before- and he follows it, down the twisting stone tunnels, hearing that same pattering growing louder- one beat rising above the rest. No need to think, only to act- that tantalizing smell he’s caught in brief bursts is so strong now, intense and concentrated.
Lunging forward, he collides with something much larger than a rat, as large as he is. Weak and wobbly, he struggles with his prey for a moment, lashing out while he feels it kick and thrash, dragging both of them further into the tunnel.
Eventually he manages to get a clear bite into the throat- ripping a chunk of sweet flesh free before tasting the ambrosia.
That’s the moment when he hears it, remembers it. Distantly and faint- but his mind is empty of everything now, so it rings clear and holy.
“I would never require such a pointless indulgence, Chesed.”
A spray of hot, precious blood sprays across his face in a baptism ceremony, alighting his new life with its warmth. Screaming is silenced quickly, struggling is not allowed. He bites back down into the wound, savouring the satisfaction he’s met with, the feeling of life he hadn’t known existed.
It felt right- as right as the urge to sink his teeth in further, to pull, not tear. For the first time, he could dine on his communion, reborn. The struggles of his victim intensify, before trailing off as they lose strength. He can feel the emptiness within him finally, finally fill, even if only for a short while. When the veins run dry, when the wine no longer runs, he staggers back, the body falling from his grasp as he stares down at his hands, at the blood that covers them.
Blindly he moves, following the scent of the man back to a side tunnel, something he’d never seen before, so close, such a gift.
His body was lighter than ever as he ascended the ladder, moving the plate of stone aside without any trace of difficulty. It all felt light now, and the strange silver that welcomed him into the night left him wondrous. Glowing, the moon hung high in the sky over the eternal city, pillars of marble and stone taking on an ethereal hue as he wondered at the sky, and every infinite glimmer of light never before seen.
The voice he had heard came back to his mind, and he found that he could recollect it clearly, perfectly. One voice sure and resolute, firm and unyielding…
Had that voice been God?
Marvelling in wonder, he slowly fell to his knees, overwhelmed by the beauty. He clasped his hands over his chest, and he whispered his sonorous prayers to his God. The words he remembered had been his moment of guidance, his salvation. Though he couldn’t understand the meanings, not truly, not while he was blood-drunk and hazy, heady off of his first hunt.
He knew enough to be enlightened.
Chesed.
Spoken with such surety it was a tenement from heaven. Spoken with absolute clarity. Decreeing it to be so, one word into the void.
It was his name, it must have been. Let there be light, and there was light.
All too soon he comes back to his senses, eyes turned to the sky and body as picturesque as a statue. His hands fell, and he could sigh, smelling for the first time the night air beneath the intoxicating blood and vile filth caked on his clothing.
He, Chesed, had a vague impression of these streets, following them with a stalking elegance. It was not a memory so much as it was an instinct, herding him towards a bath-house that seemed empty, hearing more and more of that pattering than ever, echoing from the stone buildings around him.
Prey. More of it than he had sensed before, more of it then even he could eat- and loud, present, even while he threw himself into the bath, clothes and all. Getting himself clean was the easy part- but his clothing was too stained and filthy to be recovered.
What a strange thing to think, filth, something he had no concept or care for before… even clothing, which he’d never considered…
Chesed dipped his head below water, letting the warmth of the water heat up his cold skin. It was a feeling that quickly faded over time, a too bright burst of warmth that came with the blood. He was not starving, not anymore- but he was still hungry. It crept into the corners of him, making the pattering unbearable. Even the scent of the unsuitable blood in the water had an allure he needed to consciously resist, though he wondered why he cared, what disgust was.
Languidly, he pulled his head out of the bath, brushing back the matted hair that fell in front of his eyes. He examined his hands for a moment- his skin was supple, there were no calluses or scars… unworked but steady. It seemed like he had taken care of his body before… though he didn’t quite know how he could tell that, not based on the strange things he thought, exfoliants, or selenium levels. The concepts they imparted… it felt strange, frightening
This felt like knowledge mortals should not touch, and yet here he has it at the barest of whims. Thoughts of the human body, the breakdown of a consciousness into a soul- all of it sat there, waiting for his whim to learn.
Forbidden things he refused to touch, even now that he’s become a killer beloved by God.
Who was he?
He was Chesed.
Rippling water came to slowly still as it dripped out of his hair, and he turned to meet the eyes of the reflection staring back at him through the steam and waves.
Charming.
The young man who looked back at him was charming. Elegant features, and striking blue hair… if it were properly maintained. It looked like he’d been out in the mud for a day, face flushed and lively, not starving down in the sewers for however long it’s been. A miracle. It must have been a miracle.
God had given him a miracle.
His own eyes stared back at him, muddy and dark.
His rapturous belief had not lasted long.
All too soon the realities of his new life came bearing down upon him- God refused to allow him sanctuary in the churches, his skin burning with each step inside. The light of the sun ate away at his body as if he were nothing more than a shadow. An empty void had become his heart, eternally craving the life of others while he was cast into the cold darkness.
And he was not alone.
For a few months he hunted each time he felt the thirst, taking lives with a flick of a finger. It did not concern him, even while they begged and pleaded, reminding him of their place in heaven next to God that he could never reach.
Eventually his ruthless hunt drew attention- and for the first time he met his superior in strength, a girl who looked too young and called herself a Lamia. She had him pinned to the wall before he realized she was there, mimicking the position of so many of his previous victims. She did not kill him, or introduce herself, staring down Chesed like an insect who dared to wander too far.
During their first and final meeting, she wasted no time on something as trivial as names, drilling rules into his head that he would have to follow if he didn’t want to be the next one hunted. Any pride he’d had reclaimed was trampled, and when it came down to it, death staring him in the eye yet again, teeth at his throat and a bite that did more than burn, he bent to her will.
Chesed learned restraint, Chesed learned patience. It came to him easily, so easily he thought that perhaps his soul was accustomed to waiting. He learned that while he could not enter the church to hear holy words, he could find them in the song of blood that he could only hear once his hunger peaked. To keep himself on the edge of snapping, and then relish in one euphoric moment of peace, another sentence or scrap of memory returning to him.
Strange memories. Alien. Grey, shimmering plates with the shine of water, a green fluid that could change reality itself… only the imprint of these things stayed, as he chose to focus on the parts that made some sense. Voices, many voices, familiar voices. Spoke of his ineptitude, or his kindness. Some praised him, some criticized. Some did both. Flickers of a bitter drink in his mouth, flickers of existence without a mouth at all. Such an outpour of data, built up over one encapsulated moment in time.
As distant and bizarre as they were, it gave him something to cling to. With more and more of these dreamy thoughts, more and more blood, he could continue to bide his time, to wait. A year passes, then two, then a decade and more. Chesed finds his prey and stakes his territory, a corner of the city filled with the filth and waste he’d been born in, where the blood ran thick with disease and the taste of misery.
Lives snuffed out by his own hand give him the gifts he had sought- some lifeline to a past he’s long lost. His search had been more frantic in the beginning, feeling the heft of time pushing him to seek them out before it was too late. He did not feel the passing days, not until he glanced at a passerby he’d spoken to before and found them struck down by age.
If he could not find them first… somewhere deep down, he knew it was already too late.
Time passed, cruel and steadily- and now it was a certainty. It did not mean he was less enthusiastic about his pursuit, simply giving it an edge of true permanence. Once the memories were recovered, they would stay as perfect, untouched gemstones in his mind. If only he could remember everything- could shore up the fragile pieces of his mind that needed support, needed something he could not place.
Perhaps he was a creature born to blaspheme- he heard rumours from a church that had been erected on the ruins of the burnt down shelter he’d been denied, now considered to be an old house of worship. He watches the sick and dying around him, and no matter how he struggles, how many he saves… he is relegated to watching them wither to their own humanity.
Inhuman- yes, a vampire. Chesed heard that word from the mouth of a drunken man lured into an ally all too easily with the promise of a bottle, and heard him slur it out with terror when he sprung his trap. More and more now, he found the people had a word for his kind, for him.
Monstrous- yes, and yet he is one of the few in the crowd who stays silent as the church brings a poor woman to the stage, accusing her of acts he’d performed. He stood and watched among the screaming of the innocent woman and the howls of those who were driving her to this death, and when the righteous crusade was completed he alone cast a glance at her body left to lie in the sun as a reminder of her so-called heresy.
It is only the start of a sea of carnage, and yet Chesed finds the slight thrill of danger charming. The place he’d carved out in the world goes up in flames next- accusations of a plague that never came, spread in whispers by those too close to the rich to understand the desperation of the hungry. Everything that he had kept burned around him- a smouldering, crackling pit of fire. The corpses piled as the sick and wounded succumbed to the flames, and the soldiers.
The emperor decreed it, so it must be so.
Morituri te salutant.
Nothing is left of the lives of those who had lived around him. No one will remember their names, their stories.
The small blue bowl that sat on the windowsill of that young couple, painted by their infant sons hands had been knocked to the ground and trampled. The elderly woman who’d shared her food and smiled at the stray dog that sat next to her everyday laid next to him now- his old muzzled face twisted into a snarl and kicked in with cruel feet, just like hers. A young girl with a cough she couldn’t quite shake was crushed by rubble, her chest finally caving in entirely. A rude drunkard who spent too much time in the reluctant company of others for Chesed to pick him off sat at the base of a door, the guardian sentinel to a slaughter behind, sword in hand impaled through the wood.
There had never been a question of their lives brevity. But this was the first moment that gave him pause, that showed him the forgotten cruelties of civilization.
He hears laughter- but it is not his, though he wonders for a moment. A hidden figure in the smoke, a predator in their own right. Chesed leaves, turning away from the ashes, and the cacophony dies out around him the longer he walks, not growing quiet but still.
How strange. He almost pitied them.
A century seems like such a large milestone of life, but there is no man out there who’s lived long enough to see so many pass. Chesed finds that these days, there seem to be no milestones left. The passions of his youth flicker bright and vanish, crushed in the ceaseless grip of timelessness. The Spanish empire hangs at the whims of the Bourbons and Habsburgs- and he had seen enough of humanity’s progression of warfare to know where it was best for him to be, awaiting the inevitable.
It is easy enough to drift from town to town, lingering only long enough to leave a dark legend behind. Day by day, step by step, his unceasing journey continues, its beginning long gone and the end at the last breath of the world. Older now, and stronger- he has learned enough of the world to learn that there is nothing to fix.
Disease is a strange taste for one of his kind to possess- the healthy taste hearty, the lustful saccharine. But the taint of sickness makes the blood run thick, and bitter. It was a preference developed long before he’d left Rome- and in the time since he’s lived long and remembered much. Though he could not remember where he’d been, or who he’d killed, he could still clearly recall the feeling of familiarity that settled over him when the faint taste of something he cannot have is brought back.
Dark, bitter, and warm- it is the closest he can get. Nostalgic torments haunt his waking life in a way they simply hadn’t before he knew what he had lost.
Long ago he’d been frantic to discover his past, though now it was so far away he doubted there was a trace left of whatever he had been before he had been Chesed. Thinking that is as easy as walking down a muddy trail, following the footsteps of the more experienced, led along by some unseen acknowledgement.
Those names, voices… there was never a face to put to them, of course, only strange, metal boxes with glowing rings… Was it the dream of an angel, perhaps? Or was his own internal perception of this phenomenon flawed, warped and distorted?
Why did it matter?
Yes, he knew those voices, now. Learned their names from each other, recalling conversations- typically arguments- that never strayed beyond the same, small group of people. Malkuth, Yesod, Hod, Netzach, Tiphereth, Gebura, Binah, Hokma. And then, him as well, Chesed, part of a matching set.
Some of these memories he preferred over others- Gebura always entertained, and Malkuth had a fascinating disposition to pick apart. Binah left him feeling strange, fearful and anxious, sharp. Hod nearly made him feel empathy, but something darker reinforced the feeling.
And then, of course, the first one he’d remembered.
Yesod.
In his memories, he was cold, attentive, and steadfast. There was no guessing at what he had been, no need to try to trace his motives through an autopsy of his forgotten body. Yesod was easy to understand, easy to please, forever the reliable, unbreaking tool.
On the longest nights, when he stared up into a sky that once enraptured him, that changed just as he does, slowly and quietly, he tries to imagine what it was like to know him.
(“Why did you reject my proposal for rescuing employees inside the cell of T-02-43?”
“The slightest slip up in critical protocol can cause another mass casualty…”
“I admire your ability to handle the others, Chesed.”)
Company that doesn’t end- he can almost picture someone sitting next to him. The presence isn’t warm, or even cold. Just steady. Comforting, in its permanence, settling in a way that the infinite pleasures of the night were not. Was his fascination with this man who could only live in his mind rational?
No, of course not.
In place of that however, he had nothing to hold onto. Most of what he has seen has been bloody and terrible, but that moment of silver peace when he’d climbed to the surface for the first time, tasted humanity for the first time… It was foolish, though there was no one to exploit the weakness. Could it be considered a weakness if no one could utilize it?
Picking his way north along the coastline, there is no reason for today to be monumental at all. The faintest amount of sunlight trickles in through the heavy grey clouds that blotted out the sky, gauze patching up the golden ichor. Seafoam breaks into stones that roll near his feet, pebbles lining the waterline making its way out over land.
Years have gone by since sunlight was lethal to him… close calls over the years have made him half-heartedly cautious nonetheless. With age, he’s only become stronger, and if he’d care to he could reflect on the fledgling he’d once been. But why would he? That was all so long ago, and it was hard to remember the careless glee of a fresh immortal.
Today he is only a traveler, as he was yesterday, and will be on the day that follows. War is coming, he can smell it in the air, and there will be more than enough battlefields to scour in the days to come, hunting down the barely living and taking the last of their lives from them, granting a swifter, softer death.
So he stops, to turn and look out over the choppy sea, the scent of salt in the air a prelude to the copper death that would come, as man wages war, as they kill.
The shifting mass of dull water reflects a similar sky, but there’s a strangely hypnotic pattern to the movement of the waves. Chesed has nowhere else to be, nothing else to do.
Alone, on the coastline, not a soul in sight. There’s nothing to trigger it, no catalyst. In the hundreds of years he’s wandered, he’s seen a thousand sights like it, and will see a thousand more. There is no reason why this moment in time should captivate him- and it doesn’t, not really.
A faint patch of blue sky fights to the surface before it vanishes, and in the glimpse of the sky above he sees the bars of data that contain the world- that shape it.
Angela is still the admin.
It’s the final recollection he’ll ever receive that comes to him instead of calm. The word, admin, ad ministrare. Nothing he’d ever heard before, as always seems to be the case.
Understanding does not require something as fleeting and changing as mere words, neither does staring back at the sky to try and meet eyes with the one behind it all.
Prickling at the back of his head, an uncertain element thrown into the universe that he could not anticipate, how could he?
How could anyone?
Ah, he thinks, distantly watching the thin line on the horizon where the sea meets the sky.
None of this was ever real.
Chesed was a moderator.
Within bounds, an observer. Her observer- granted the curse of clarity when she needed action taken that she could not perform herself, details in the minutia of a human soul she did not possess.
Did Chesed? Did any of them?
Philosophers had once walked down the same streets he had, speaking in grand tones about the shape of the world, and the taste of reality. Those words outlived them, their bodies crumbled, and there is no one left to speak to about what he has learned.
What he has learned is to not waste his energy on care.
There was no grand sign, no shift in his perception. Everything was as it always had been, as was he. The emptiness inside him did not stop wailing to be filled, the hunger did not listen when he told it that it did not exist. So it must have. So it did. If there had been guilt living somewhere deep inside after his hunt began, it was now smothered completely. Chesed did not know how he knew the world was not real- he didn’t know what it even meant.
Reality was the same as it always had been to him. His creed, his code, is the same as ever. He wanders, he feeds, he remembers. There is nothing new to remember, his final finding marking the end of his responsibilities, the knowledge of a test subject that still has to participate, even if the integrity of the experiment is ruined by his knowledge of it.
(He gets the sense that this is not the first of its kind anyways, nor the final. Perhaps it is not even the only concurrent one, the thought is strangely unsettling and he tries to avoid it.)
A war that lasted a decade and decided the ruler of a nation. Chesed’s own role, as a psychopomp that haunted both sides, kissing the faces of the dying in Saragossa, cradling the fading hearts of those in Brihuega. Meanwhile, astronomers nailed the stars into the sky, and a port across the ocean was captured.
Everything changed, and yet, nothing ever did.
Chesed spent a decade among the soldiers, a medic who could work miracles and seemed to vanish in the wind. Some called him El Serafín, some simply wept. There was a venom to his bite that became only more potent as he aged, soothed the flickering life he cradled. That gave him a rush he hadn’t felt in centuries, and he found that the more desperate their gratitude, the more they fought for life, the richer the blood he extracted would be.
Those who survived his appetite, now restrained and controlled, now for the first time being checked and tempered, threw themselves back onto the battlefield for the chance to see him again, and so he lived in a moment of near-perpetual feasting, never short a willing victim, never short a dying one to make due with.
Without fear, without trauma- drifting content and peaceful, day by day, until they gained the chance to experience agony once more, all for the chance to feel his care one more time. Blissful and ignorant, isolated from the horrors of bloodshed while they drifted through the haze of their addiction.
Content, in the heart of a slaughter. Utterly unfeeling in the face of pain, of the deaths of their comrades, once their brothers and friends, and now merely followers of the same, singular truth.
His truth, no longer whichever side they’d been fighting for. As long as he commanded them, they would follow his whims, lost sheep in wolves clothing following their shepherd of death.
Addiction- suddenly, now, Chesed knew the true purpose of his poisoned kiss. Their desire for him, their draw… it was almost as though they had been tamed.
That, finally, gave him a desire of his own.
These men had fallen so far, from competent, brave soldiers, to playthings under his control. Now, instead of the terror of death that had haunted their every step, they could feel something better, more fulfilling.
No misery, no horror.
Only a sweet, endless dream.
They all ended up dead, in the end, of course. Chesed must have stumbled into the losing side, but even as they were brutalized and beaten, the fog in their eyes never faded until death struck them with final clarity. And by then, the sharpness of living wounds would have faded into the resignation of peace, never feeling the pain for a moment.
It was good- it was right.
Why should Chesed have to starve himself, wandering eternally? Humans lived in such brief, brilliant bursts of uncertainty and chaos, and Chesed had a means to calm the storm, create a harbor of true, beautiful peace. With his guidance, his bite, they could live free of the fear of death, of time. Never feel the grief of losing a loved one, never feel the emptiness of loss at all. He could be the saviour of the select few, and in exchange he could rest. Feed every night, never go hungry.
Thoughtfully, he continued his march, this time not seeking an escape from his nature but a true embrace of it. Chesed was not an animal- perhaps it was time to try and reintegrate himself into society, whatever it had become in the time since the fall of Rome.
He lingered on the edges of the cities on the continent, a spark of interest reignited in humanity through their architecture, their culture- fleeting, yes, but beautiful in its fragility.
Paris underfell a plague, and instead of drifting through them as a ghost, Chesed watched as an observer, a pale stranger in the distance. Saw the struggle, the fight, the lights fade… but then, also the resilience, the hope, the strength, in the face of it all.
It felt as though he had woken from a nightmare that had spanned a millennia, finally waking his mind fully.
Almost absentmindedly, he remembered that first calling once again, a habit from so, so very long ago that seemed to welcome him back to his new life, once more.
“I would never require such a pointless indulgence, Chesed.”
He smiled at the remembered rejection. It was like meeting an old friend for the first time in years. Yesod, I’d missed you…
…And, you’ve been wrong all along.
Yesod, who must’ve been human, so long ago… who must be dust, now, if he’d ever existed in this world, this version of the world, at all…
What would his life have looked like?
Different from Chesed’s, surely. Yesod would have run himself dry, denying himself indulgence, denying himself rest. A structured life, a difficult one, but one that would’ve done great things for the civilization around him, surely.
But now he can see the ruins of the once proud colosseum, examined and preserved against time but still reduced to rubble. He can hear the words of the few, singular greats, diluted and reduced and retranslated. No matter what he had done- it could not have lasted so long as Chesed, as humanity. Yesod would have never been remembered, would have never done enough. And yet, he would have had to deny himself so much in his life, strained under it all, refusing to let it break him, but refusing to be cared for as well.
If only we had been able to meet, he thought, mournfully. Chesed could have lightened his burden, eased his mind… perhaps, freeing him from the ultimate constraints of mortality altogether.
It made him ache for the company of this long gone man he’d never gotten to meet all the more. The ghost of his companionship had given him something to cling to during the darkest centuries of his life… and he would cling to it until he finally reached the end of time.
Why not?
Apparently, Chesed had always been indulgent.
For the first time in a very, very long time, Chesed makes an effort to keep track of the days again. (Not to mention, simply years- although that, too, had taken practice.) He finds himself an estate somewhere quiet and peaceful, and eventually even learns the name of the country he’s settled in as he buys a noble title with wealth he can quickly assemble from various escapades over the years. The king- his king, now, he supposed, faintly amused by the thought- was delighted by his gifts, trinkets he’d stashed away and forgotten about centuries ago suddenly called a one of a kind piece of historic jewelry.
Well, whatever makes it easier. George II sold him a title and a piece of land he knows no one else had a desire for. There was something comic about swearing allegiance to a man who would hardly live another few decades, but Chesed simply did as he was instructed, and left the palace with a handful of wait staff and a carriage, more than he had initially bargained for.
…Briefly, he considered going off to hunt down a few of his other stashes… but, it didn’t seem necessary when he’d clearly underestimated the value of these pieces.
He has his estate built with another few- then a small town is formed beneath it when his servants are dismissed to only enter the manor during the day, only under strict hours. One by one, one at a time, then entered his home to clean, and left as something else entirely, no longer weighed down by the pressures of responsibility.
Unrest stirred quickly- but there was nowhere for them to run. It would be decades still before the train tracks would be laid down, and by then it was far too late. Those that fled the town were tracked down in the woods and guided back, those who fled again were lost forever.
As more and more men arrived to serve him, Chesed had more and more sway over the community. He ensured the people never lacked for anything, not food, shelter, or fine things. Soon, the resistance turned to resignation, and then the contentment that he had desired.
He did not break them, Chesed had no need for something so barbaric, so human as that. Instead, he unraveled them, slowly and patiently, until they forgot they ever had lives outside of his estate. Letters were delivered by courier, piling high in his office as they went without answer, concerned family and friends reaching out to those who hadn’t had to think about anything but tomorrow for years.
Perusing them at his whims, occasionally he’d write back, inviting the rest of the family to come visit if they were so concerned, inviting them into the fold. But most did not have the desperation that would fuel a foolish decision, and so most were burned, unanswered forever. With enough time, they began to come to him, begging in the garden, bearing their woes and torments and seeking an end to the suffering.
What reason did he have to refuse them? They came to him, and he vivisected their spirits, taking what they no longer wanted for himself, and giving back restful complacency, padding it around their lungs, their guts, stuffed and stitched back together like a scarecrow without a brain.
His servants grow older, and eventually die, and Chesed does not bother to replace them, no longer requiring the pretense. His small flock understands their place very well, even when the train tracks come, laid down by men who would vanish before joining their number, just like all the rest.
Humans do not need to serve him, they can go about their business and handle their own day to day lives, those moments between blinks of his eyes that makes the spring turn cold with snow. So long as he is there, guiding them along, they will be able to live a peaceful, easy life. They called him the visitor, no longer an angel, but something closer to honest. Because that’s exactly what he does, he visits.
Still-unblemished hands rap along the sturdy oak door, three perfect bursts of sound. Across the street he hears the rustling of fabric as the fortunate neighbor ceases their watch, and the same shuffling sound can be heard echoing from everyone nearby. By the time the door opens, to reveal a thin, spidery woman with large dark eyes, there is not a soul on the street willing to bear witness to what will occur.
She is frightened at first- they all are. None of them understand what he is, or what he desires, always believing there’s a catch beyond the exhaustion that weighs at their steps, the dulled thoughts they willingly sacrifice, and the sleepy, lethargic obscurity that prevents them from ever truly making connections to others.
What else is there to take from them? Chesed has only accepted what they didn’t care to protect, what they haven’t noticed is missing. Even as she silently steps aside to allow him his entry, head bowed and shameful, he can see the faintest hint of eagerness in the rush of her heart, knowing exactly what’s coming and gleeful to experience it once more.
Once more, once more. He takes a step once more, and the door closes behind him while he offers his newest host a smile, gentle and soothing.
“I won’t hurt you,” he says, as he’s said countless times before, as he continues to believe. She does not say anything at all, but even if she did he would not have listened.
Her blood is healthy, though it has been thinned by his repeated feedings, sweetened by the venom of his bite. She shudders into it and he allows her to lean on him, allowing her to choose where to place her hands as she braced for balance.
The flush that starts on her cheeks spreads as the feeling takes hold, and then fades back as Chesed drains the blood that would have rushed through her skin, feeling her head fall to rest on his shoulder as he pulled back, darting his tongue across the puncture wounds to ensure they’d seal back quickly, preparing her to be placed in his hands again, when he determines she’s ready to be drank from again.
Her hair is fine, almost like silk. He brushed it back over her shoulder as she slumped forward, eyes closing as the exhaustion from the exsanguination weighed heavily on the frail body. In his hands, her skin was grey and lifeless, but her chest rose and fell as she drifted off to sleep, and he laid her out on her bed before he left.
Before he left, he made sure to blow out the flickering candles that had illuminated the night- so she could rest without fear, so the rest of the silent vigil of the nightfall knew he had finished his visit.
Coldness in the air nipped at his newly stolen heat, and Chesed smiled, gore stained teeth licked clean. He caught a glimpse of himself as he began his walk to the manor, in a puddle of water rimmed with blackened mud.
Charming, wasn’t he?
The golden hue of his gaze glowed with the strength accumulated over his one-and-only life, polished and intensified until what once was a filthy, muddy colour shone.
Looking down at the face in the water, he did not hesitate to shatter the mirror with one decisive step.
The trains did not run without Chesed’s permission.
Not into the town, and not out of it.
It was rare for a passenger to take a ticket to this place, anyways- the tracks exist because of his will, only, and there is nothing before or beyond them that would make this place a stop for a journey.
And yet, people came anyway.
Never in large numbers, never in groups, always the lone, drifting souls with dark eyes and a body built to run. They’re always fleeing from something- and Chesed’s estate was a temptingly isolated community, insulated and protected.
A tranquilized peace, anesthesia diluted into the air. No pain, no hunger, no suffering. Some settled into their new lives quickly and quietly, some sought out the house of the engineer that ran the single locomotive kept in the station, begging, bribing, or threatening him for a chance to escape. But there is no escape, they all learn quickly enough.
The dense, thick woods provided bars for his cage, the dangerous wildlife that had been quelled by his presence pacing the edges of his territory, gleefully awaiting those too foolish to allow his gentle correction. Screams permeate the night on those occasions only, and whenever they do he stops by the window, waiting for the silence to return with a smile. While it was a shame to lose livestock, the fear that struck the village the next day had a way of reinforcing the walls. The curious or brave travelers who laid awake that night in terror fell into line quickly, and the older residents spoke of the foolish choices of the unknowing dead.
Over the oppressive quiet, and the blanket of fog, he ruled.
Chesed had built this community at the end of the railroad, at the corner of the world. For the humans who ran, only to end up slipping through the cracks of society, vanishing into the darkness without even a memory of their presence remaining.
Mastery over the spirits of those around him came so naturally to him it was like he had been built for it- managing the wellbeing of their flesh, keeping their minds in the right balance.
For the first time since the change of an era, he knew complete and utter control. With that, there was nothing else he could have wanted. No other desire to be fulfilled, not truly.
No more hunger, no more wandering. The sky above him was clouded and dark more often than not, and though a part of him missed the sight of the stars above, the absence of a mocking blue was a more pressing need. It made the days where the sun decided to show its head all the more difficult, though he had no need to worry, not now that he was so ancient his own kind had shared whispers of his deeds in bitter words.
Monotonous- but in a way that he could withstand. The trains that brought him food brought with them belongings he could pick through if he slipped up and bit too harshly, brought with them goods, textbooks and novels, cards and knicknacks. He found himself sampling some of the ingredients brought by those landing on his birdlime.
The taste was dull compared to his preferred diet, another thing to vaguely pity mortals for. It was a curious sensation nevertheless, something he’d lost all recollection of in the midst of his turning, no sire at his side to stabilize him while he was reborn.
(Now and then, he wonders about the vampire who’d turned him- but he could only assume it had been another rogue fledgling who hadn’t been met with the same courtesy as he while coming into their immortality. Occasionally, too, he wonders about the first kindred he’d met as well… though he had never seen her since.
They were both, likely, gone.)
Curiosity brought forth by the ghost of nostalgia was just another form of indulgence.
An indulgence that came to a head in the form of a small canister, found in the discarded bag of another runner who’d been eaten by wolves along the way, a pity. He keeps a decent distance from the gory remnants, not wanting to stain his coat unnecessarily.
He finds the… Well, from the shape of the carcass, it’s quite hard to tell whether it had been a man or woman. Their bag was found among the brambles, lodged into the bush, likely swung in an attempt to knock one of the beasts off as they ripped open the stomach of their prey. The blood on the handle had dried enough to provide little issue as he pulled it free, wiping off the spatter that must have been sprayed from… let’s see, at this angle, it would’ve had to be the aorta. Artistic in a sense, the arterial sprays an abstract spattering.
Tarnished latches had been dented together, no longer opening easily as he gave an inquisitive tap. Flicking his finger, it snapped, and he was able to examine the contents of his prize.
Clothes, primarily… a traveling case, a purse… And then- oh, what’s this?
A tall canister of steel, patterned cheerfully. Unopened and unfamiliar, save for the word written in bold, exciting font that gets smeared over with viscera as he tilts it to face him.
Coffee. Tinned coffee.
There’s a phantom of a sensation that shakes through him as he reads that word, a ghost of something bordering excitement, twisted with another haunting feeling. It’s brought along with him, unlike the rest of the items. Those are dropped off at the doorstep of whoever it was that ran the train.
Crunching leaves under his feet to announce his presence, he left it half leaning against the door, knocking thrice, exact and precise, before turning back, no longer breaking the carpet of foliage that died along the forested floor.
Ill-begotten gains drew his eye once more when there was nothing left to look at, and while he could hurry back to the manor to break it open there was nothing he had in such abundance as time. It was pleasant to even feel the thought come to mind- the anticipation, faint as it was, a welcome surprise.
He began searching through his crystalline memories as he heard the howling of the pack deep off into the forest, looking for any mention of coffee. His interest in humanity’s food had been such a recent development that there was hardly anything to check, and it only reaffirmed what he’d already known. He’s never seen this before, but it didn’t stop the familiarity, didn’t prevent him from taking it with him.
Most of his walk was spent thinking, observing. This was a drink of some sort, he did not question how he knew that, only tried to recall the process of making it.
It didn’t seem as though the instructions were printed on the paper, so he wasn’t sure what to expect as he passed the door frame to the kitchen he had built for appearances, much like his bedroom. The manor seemed larger with the canister in his hand somehow, the doors he stepped past flickering with the voices of the ones they’d been built for, waiting forever for those who’d long since departed. With his distraction, he’d thought they’d have gone quiet, but there was a stirring through his memories that rang as chiming echoes while he went.
He debated briefly whether or not he should find his chisel, which had been likely discarded somewhere irresponsible and inconspicuous where it will surely remain for quite some time. Remaining, because Chesed instead took the razor edge of his nail and dragged it along the sealed top of the can, ripping through the metal as easily as he could tear through skin.
Tossing the lid aside to be disposed of when he had finished, he finally got a good look at the contents of this mystery that had allured him so. Despite himself, he quirked an eyebrow, an amused tilt of his lips forming as he tapped a small pile of what seemed by all appearances to be dirt onto the counter, a nearly acrid, bitter smell released into the kitchen.
Fascinating… and I want to drink this?
What a bizarre feeling.
Still, taken by the whim that arrived out of nowhere, he pinched the material in between his fingers, observing the texture of the coffee- not a powder like flour or a grain like sugar, but some plant that had been crushed and ground, as if by mortar and pestle.
Hovering for a moment, he hummed, bringing his fingers to his mouth and wincing at the unpleasant taste. Far too strong- that must mean he was right to assume it had been meant to mix into something.
Odd as it was, even that too-strong flavour seemed strangely familiar, and he’d moved across the kitchen to fill a kettle of water before he’d consciously realized what’d he picked up. Kettle, not cup- so he followed the action to its logical conclusion and set the water to boil over the stove, quickly lighting a fire with the flint he kept nearby for occasions like these.
Waiting for the water to come to a boil, he fished out a cup from his cabinet, one that hadn’t been caked with dust from disuse. He hesitated there for a second, frowning at the mess- but then he simply shut the door and it vanished from his sight.
A natural consequence that arose from his lack of servants, he supposed. He’d only used those dishes previously when he’d host a dinner in the grand hall, usually to assuage the fears of those who were lost, or came to him fresh off of the train, letting him personally welcome them to the rest of their life.
Consideringly, he debated reinstating their positions, even if only on a rare occasion. While the kettle began whistling its high-pitched tone, he turned over the pros and cons of allowing others back within these walls, finding the idea as unpleasant as always.
Now, he had to try and decipher the complicated feeling he had while he poured water into the dish, more tangled and unsubstantiated than the simple urge to set the kettle. The metal warmed his hands as he filled the glass halfway, before taking a spoon and tapping a portion of the coffee into the bottom of the faintly bubbling brew, the black beans turning the water a cloudy, rich brown. He frowned at the sight of black flecks coming to the surface, a tinge of discontent at the sight rendering it somehow unpalatable.
He had to go and excavate a second cup from the cabinet, and then had to take it to the wash basin where he utilized the rest of the heated water to clear away the dust and crust that had formed over… What has it been, now, 30 years?
Once the cup had been cleaned he fetched his sieve- one that had been, thankfully, obtained recently for the purpose of his culinary ventures.
Filtering out the detritus from the coffee, he poured one cup into another, steady hands ensuring the counter stayed clean. Watching the dark flow of the coffee pour… it entranced him until his sharp eyesight began to pick out its imperfections.
Left with a sieve covered in wet dirt, he briefly considered not ingesting this. Then he tipped the waste into its proper place, cradling the steaming cup in his hands after tossing the sieve back to be ignored for quite some time.
It was warm.
Obviously- it had been made with boiling water. Chesed wondered what there was about this that he hadn’t been seeing that allured him so far. A shame that this would mark the end to his amusement for the night.
The initial taste of the refined drink- was still poor. Overly bitter, with the iron from the can corrupting the rich flavour.
But it was familiar.
Dark, bitter, and warm.
A ghost brought back to life for the first time in his existence.
The cup fell from his hands and shattered.
That damned coffee haunted him.
Not even the coffee- so much as the idea behind it, such a pervasive and powerful force. Hope, maybe, but nothing sweet. A rise before an inevitable fall as he sits by the window and stares out over the woods. Coffee, of all things, had been his undoing.
Chesed thinks he hates it- but he also thinks he hadn’t, once.
Chesed thought he had a lot of things, once.
But now he was forced to stare down the blade of a dangerous thought, an indulgence that threatens to destroy him altogether.
What if they had never been memories at all?
Not a memory, but a premonition.
No, no. He tried to knock the thought out of his head, looking down into the drink that he’d made without a second thought when he drifted past the kitchen today, having stirred and strained the grounds while lost in thought, assuming his body had stayed where he left it.
Curls of steam wafted past his reflection, ever so slightly fogging the glass. His reflection stared back at him through the rich liquid. The gold of his eyes was tampered and brought back to a nearly natural appearance, which made his grip tighten, instinctively recoiling from the very idea.
They were memories. They had been memories. He knew it down to his soul, rings of thought latched around it. They, were memories, all of them. Yet it did not change the fact that he held a drink he knew the flavour of, just from the faintest change in scent. It did not change the fact that it had only come to prominence within the last two centuries, the plant having been cultivated in a French colony a continent away.
It did not change the fact that he desperately, deeply wished, beyond reason, that he did not want them to be.
Drawing a bitter mouthful, he wondered what the appeal of this could possibly be. Drawing another, he felt closer to the figure he pretended stood next to him, observing the forest at his side. The taste was bitter, but the warmth was enough to have him pursuing the levels of the coffee remaining in the glass until the tide of it vanished against his lips, holding it in place for a second to savour the feeling before it faded, slowly.
He turned away from the window slowly, but of course there was no one there.
There never was.
This thought, too, was bitter and hot. He blinked in amusement at his own flash of emotion, what a strange feeling.
Into the wash bin went the cup as well, and he made a note to clean up before the end of the day, spying a few lingering traces of a previous culinary experiment half merged with the untossed water, left to soak and forgotten about. There were, sadly, other things that required his immediate attendance, he mused, utterly insincere.
Said other things had ended up including clearing the front of the estate of a collapsed statue that’d fallen too recently, broken over the walk to his door. He had left it for quite a while already, as he had most of the disrepair in the garden, another result of his lack of servants, and another result of his lack of care for such a pointless matter. It had raised the brief concern that the manor itself may fall into a similar state with time- though he would have no issue simply paying for it to be repaired.
Still… It was the matter of minutes to gather the stones, depositing them in a pile off near the imposing stone wall that circled the entrance of the estate. Some he held in his palm and squeezed to dust, but that quickly became a bother when the chalky powder settled over his hands, and the walkway before him.
And those inconvenient, larger pieces?
Well, he took the stone wing of the angle, trailing his fingers along the intricate patterning carved into each feather, eroded by rainfall over the decades since it had been sculpted but still fine craftsmanship nonetheless.
What a shame. It broke easily enough, and he smiled as he reached for the halo, next.
There was something cathartic about the destruction of the figure, systematically clean and efficient. He let the momentum carry him further, taking the rubble outside of the walls and dumping it into the woods where it could return to its natural state. That state being, a pile of rocks.
It had given him an idea, slowly over the course of his brief venture.
Perhaps, that was the way to end his trouble.
Bring them to life, write it in stone.
(His idols crafted from silver and gold, work of inhuman hands.They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
The words of a God who would never forgive him this act of creation, cultivation. Gently shaping the faces of concepts, his own choir stood guard in the estate.)
Time lost its tentative meaning as he worked, first days, and then months, perhaps years slipping by, filling the manor with leafs of paper, drawing new faces and waiting to recognize the features in some. It was a matter of patience- which he had in abundance. He chiseled sharp features from perfect stone, flowing hair that he’d spent weeks trying to decipher the shapes of. No matter what he tried to sketch their figures, it always came out wrong- so baring that he turned to simple cloth.
He worked as if he’d fallen into a trance, drawing out some remnant of reverence, a spark of divine inspiration that ached as it was brought forth, giving faces to the names that had haunted him since he’d first seen the light.
Malkuth, young but persistent, the waves of her short hair had been broken by the hairpiece he’d inlaid with gold. She smiled at him, cheerful and unyielding.
Hod, younger still, with a nervous disposition. Her hands had been clasped over her chest and locked together.
Netzach, with a long, hanging curtain of intricately carved stone hanging beyond his shoulders, lips tilted into a grin that was so similar to Chesed’s it ached.
Then, the twins who shared a name, Tiphereth, one boy and one girl, one tranquil and one petulant, hands entwined. Gebura was set beside them, a scowling expression on her scarred face, untamed hair bracketing the smaller carvings.
Binah and Hokma were indistinct, looking figures standing ever so slightly back from the rest, features more of a blur than the others.
And then- of course, Yesod, the easiest to carve of them all.
He’d spent more time imagining his features than any other, long nights spent picturing the slant of his eyes or the length of his fingers… and while he’s made attempts to draw out all of them over the centuries, Yesod is the one who occupies a page in every sketchbook he touches, a foundation to build upon as he creates his memories.
Special care was taken to capture the composure in his stance, the weight of his gaze. Remembered, yet never experienced, not unless Chesed could recreate it for himself, here. He worked over the feathery hair until it seemed soft enough to touch, carved the tiniest touch of indulgence into the statue by creating a single gap between the gloves he’d painstakingly crafted and the sleeve that was attached tightly, revealing not a hint of his body, save for the smallest patch, just over where Yesod’s heart would be beating, if he’d managed to truly bring him to life.
Recreated from nothing, and now he could cradle the face that’s pursued him all these years. It’s a blinding feeling, more than anything else had been, perhaps ever.
This one would join all the others, of course- he could not imagine separating the set for long, no matter what the dark whispers in the back of his mind were saying.
At that divine moment of completion, however, when he gazed down at the visage he’d sculpted with his own hands, lit and softened by the early morning glow that scattered across his skin like embers… he allowed himself a moment of rapture.
Leaning in, he places a single, tender kiss to the lips he’d designed, a moment of prayer and he murmured sorrowful goodbyes to his offering.
But now- now, as he stood at the window, staring out into the woods that laid beyond the garden… he could see them, standing sentinel, a line of familiar figures that made the coffee (that he didn’t know why he still drank) all the sweeter.
(While I was praying, Gabriel came towards me. He was the same man that I had seen in the first vision.
He said, ‘Daniel, I have come to teach you, so that you can understand these things.’)
It was as if it always had been.
Chesed resigned himself to allowing monthly cleanings of his estate as he came to the sobering realization that he did not wish to do the work himself. Those few days came as an unexpected boon however- giving him a chance to showcase the mastery of a beverage he still, for some reason, drank.
One cup or two would find its way to the side of whoever had the misfortune of serving him in these times, and when the years ticked on and the amount of fatalities at his hand stayed… minimal, they were even sometimes taken.
The delicate balance he maintained continued to delight him as he settled in, the manor withstanding the turn of its first century with grace, age showing but not compromising the steadfast building. His library had begun to overflow with the books he’d been passively collecting, stocking on the shelves as if someone would come to read them later. So he expanded, refurbishing a study and dedicating the new area to containing the majority of his prizes over the years.
With grace befitting his own age, he glanced across the rim of his cup at the young gentleman who’d been sent to his aid today, seeing how his hands still shook and he still continued to glance back at Chesed, afraid he’d lunge, presumably. The scent of his fear was heavy and unpleasant in the air, but he maintained his serene smile, keeping his posture lax and unassuming.
Like always, it worked, and the man (who must’ve been new, his features unfamiliar and his skin still retaining a hint of its flush- not untouched, but not fully fallen, either-) slowly began to relax, his glances back becoming less fearful and more inquisitive.
Chesed allowed him to look as long as he liked, and by the time languid, predatory footsteps approached the servant to have him perform his final task, the human was already undoing the first few buttons on his shirt.
Good.
It was always better when they knew how to please him.
As a reward, he took it slow. He stepped in, and the man lifted his chin, heart racing and pumping the sweet-smelling temptation warmly flowing under his skin.
Chesed bit down, and he felt the body in his grip tense while he wound his arms around their waist, providing the support his prey’s legs could not as he threatened to crumple forward, a suddenly tight grip on his sleeve forming as he swayed.
His meal only became sweeter as he let the venom sink in, slowly taking his first mouthful while the mortal in his grip shook. Before long, he had to pull away, the swaying becoming too intense. The servant let out a quiet whine at his departure, but Chesed knew he would forget it all once the haze wore off.
The man was returned to the village after he had finished with him, and with the glow of a fresh feeding he took the time to step down the streets that were so much more faded than he remembered. Cloaked figures hurried past him on the street, terrified to meet his gaze and draw his undue attention, as if he did not already know exactly when their next visit was due. He didn’t deny them their small expression of fear, it was only natural that there were some survival instincts that couldn’t be buried in such a short period of time.
Calmly, he examined the state of his people, the stability of the crowd. It was exactly as it should be, no suffering in sight, nothing harsher than worry at his presence.
Ultimately, that was for the best. Unease meant it was harder to integrate, meant it was more likely for an unsuspecting victim to run. He would do his best to keep everything prepared, and set for the newest arrival.
Afterall, a train was meant to arrive later that day.