Love Letter - A narrative

Hoodlum Dreadslay sits upon the edge of his chair, his emerald eyes glinting with a paranoia and broken anxiety which even his world-weary expression can do nothing to conceal. The rain drops outside are crystal clear within the spectrum of Auspexic senses posessed by the vampire. Although he is safely within the shelter of his lair, one of the many safehouses still kept beneath the cover of burned out houses across the shattered and dystopic landscape of the isles ruled by the Ship of the Dead. The ship of tyranny as it has become known as. Tyranny and oppression indeed! The ship has been reduced to nothing more than a wasteland. Cypress Dreadslay's oldest childe smiles cryptically at the thought of the Warlock Order, in their ever so supreme and higher-than-thou manner, lording over this Godforsaken shell. Raven Styyx and Lord Westlock must surely think Hoodlum to be spending his every unbreathing second in devious plots of vengeance. No.

His father took his own path. What they have done to Cypress, was Cypress' matter. And of course, Hoodlum desired vengeance. But it would be a dishonor unto his father to allow himself to make the same mistakes. Cypress, his father, his sire, and his mentor, would never have desired he devote his existance to a crusade that was currently without hope. Patience was a virtue. Jaelen Westlock, The Black Plague, Raven Styyx, the entire fucking Sabbat... all of them would have their night of judgement. But one individual, this vampire sought after with a truly relentless passion, although it is burried beneath his numb seeming. For Hoodlum, the villains are not going any where. He can fight his father's fight when he has first finished his own. This young immortal's jewel was a human woman, and an artisan of reality. It was the beating heart beneath her bossom, the living blood coursing warmly within her veins, and the breath which painted a perfect, beautiful rhythm of her life force, that enchanted Hoodlum. For all his power, these simple, but quintessential things, were what he could never have again. And why he clung so desperately to his love for her. It was truly, the final vestige of all that was human within his undead soul.

Hoodlum bows his head wearily, even as he feels the monolithic pull of dawn upon his psyche. The sun is yet eclipsed from the night sky, but soon it will rise, and the its deadly rays will push Hoodlum back into the recluses of slumber once more--like a cross heavy upon his back. His seventeen year-old face remains distant but the expression born upon his visage deepens with thought as he takes a pen within his left hand, keeping his crippled right safely to the side, laying lifelessly across the table and concealed within a black glove. Defying the tyrannical sun, Hoodlum begins to write, with a methodical passion that can only be born of his love for Sari d'Argent.

My love,
I wrote this to be an expression and a confession of the torment which rips me apart every second of my existance. I feel as if I am slowly bleeding from a resovoire which knows no end in the leagues of pain it can flood my heart with. Every day I feel like you and I fall further apart, as if our love is burning to ashes that will one night smoulder and then smoke and then be transmuted to lifeless mud by a filthy rain. These rains, these never ending rains which lay at the end of our relationship. The eternal cold which exists as a reminder of what I could become, of what I fear more than anything on earth--save losing you. Good God, this pain is killing me. But I love you. And, truly, my beautiful Sari d'Argent, I have never known faith before knowing you. Never. I want you so baddly that the desire scalds my psyche, but all that I may do is wander in these heartless streets. Good God, the world seems to find the most pure of ecstacy in tormenting me. Why can they not leave me alone? Good God, why can they not just go away? Why? Why can't I be happy? Why does the world have to take everything from me one part at a time. And now, it has reached my heart, my soul. Have I lost you as well? I feel so lost, so confused, and I am in so much pain... These pins being driven into my soul nightly drag my soul to Oblivion. I go screaming, thrashing, and fighting. But I am sinking all the same. I want you. I am a complete psychotic, I know, a maniac, but you still define me Sari, not these monsters who continuously crucify and beat me every night. I am holding onto our love with both fists clinched tightly, even as they stab my back and cut out my heart. And my handholds are burning my hands to the spirit, but I only tighten my grip further. Good God, I love you. I want to be with you forever. I've never, ever felt like this. I need you Sari, I want you so baddly... I love you, Sari... Please, please, please return. I remember your arms, your body, your mind, and your soul like it was only last night. I need you. You complete me, Sari d'Argent. You make me who I am, for better or for worse. Please never doubt these words, my love. I will never love another. Never. God, I love you.

With love,
Hoodlum Dreadslay

He spoke the entire letter aloud, but found himself crying it in the end. Hoodlum lays his face within the tight shell affixed over his young visage by his fingertips as his body is violently wracked by visage sobs. He further loses control, his pale face streaking with crimson fluids as if his emerald eyes poured blood. He makes no attempt to choke down his sobs, even as he screams and thrashes, falling in a broken shudder from his chair as he attempts to support himself against a cold, feelingless floor. The blood drips constantly, streaming down his face in scarlett rivlets of tainted tears, down to the floor is freely-falling droplets. Hoodlum clamps his eyes shut, the blood matting the locks of his long, dark blond locks of hair, as his fists and clinch and he stumbles to his feet, only to throw himself against the wall, crying shamelessly. The sobs mingle with screams of sheer desperation as he sinks unto his knees once more, his lithe body shuddering with broken fits as leagues of pain finally release themselves.

Soon, he is gone. All that marks his passing are scattered spots of ebony, bloodstains, upon the wooden floor and five deep gashes within the wall, made with fingernails--a testament to the forces which drive Hoodlum Dreadslay.

Two copies are eventually, the next night, made of the letter. The original, however, is placed upon the desk of Sari d'Argent in the now desolate headquarters of M.A. Intelligence, far from the Ghost Ship, yet once at the center of the Alliance's former power. It awaits, as a valentine, for one individual only. George Manes, 1999