Edited Woke Culture

Chapter 25- Dying a Martyr

My coven was then five thousand and nine strong. I wanted peace, but I wouldn't find it soon. My coven made up close to 5% of the vampire population. We were the only coven with over one thousand members.

Hours of tumultuous thinking went by, and I still didn't have a clear plan. It was now the dawn of the new era, an era that would be etched in history as the Woke Culture beginning in history books.

Wait, "what was the question?"

"What is your name?" My interviewer asked as I was staking claim to rule the entire world during my last interview. It had become customary to interview anyone convicted of the death penalty, so their last words could forever live on, despite the sultry fact they must die. They would die with honor, though, and I would live on as a martyr: the last successful vampire to hybrid to have ever lived.

"I am just Sam," I admitted to her. Although I had had a sex change, I was always, and had always been Sam. My proclivity to not be assigned the correct gender at birth wouldn't change my nickname, for it was gender neutral, which I thanked my parents for. "I'm the overlord of the entire vampiric population, and I will make this world burn. Even in death, I am strong. Should I not rise from the ashes of my death, my followers will always remember me for my heroics, my downfalls, and my unerring beauty. We are few in number now, but we have greatly reduced the human population. It's no mystery as to why the vampires in my coven are mostly gone."

"I'd like to know more about the war," he asked me, as if I hadn't just divulged almost everything I had known.

"I will tell you of the war," I said to him, fully aware he knew he was protected from compulsion, as almost all DPR agents were given heavy doses of all of them every day.

"It was not too long ago, about a half century, and I emerged from the fires. The doctor aforementioned as Tim was killed by Rebecca. What he didn't know was I was the true alpha. I commanded over all the lycans, and I was undeniably his greatest edition. I'm immune to flames. I walk amongst the fire. I am eternal," I declared. "I am eternal life. I am the gift given to the world. And though I will fade, my legacy will live on forever. It was mid may. I had finally wept enough for my fallen comrades. I didn't have the ability to turn anyone but wolves into mindless beasts; they were more of an army than anything else. I didn't want to turn them either, they were better servants as wolves. Tim did a lot for my kind, but he didn't make me replicable. I was a one of the kind edition. The war was looming large. People were hunting vampires with wooden stakes. People were extra vigilant in the night. They were waiting for us to slip up, and they all harbored resent towards us, but we were saving them from overpopulation. I took my sword, the sword forged specifically for killing supes, and made my way towards the capital. I was backed by a legion of a thousand vampires, none of which were clear to the sight of eye. They were all mysteries of the daylight. No one even knew they were vampires. We started by killing President Croft. I ripped his heart from his chest in all savagery. I made it clear we would bow to no man, or so they thought Croft was a man. I knew he was a vampire. Then the Vice President became the new commander in chief, only difference was I controlled the former Vice President. He was one of my oldest vampire friends. His name was Ernesto. He was a strapping man. He had grey hair, but he was sexy beyond belief. I wanted him physically, but he could not accept a trans woman into his bed, especially one with a cock. He told me that was his only hesitation, but I believe he just didn't accept me at all. The point was he was one of the very first people I turned, and he owed me massive favor for doing so. He owed me a life debt. When I met Ernesto, he was dying of stage four renal cancer. He would have died in a matter of months without me, but he convinced me to turn him— he was lucky I was bored enough to do it. Ernesto was a good man, pity how his story unfolded. He used his deception and compulsion to climb the political ladder. He quickly became senator of New York, and narrowly lost his gallivant for the White House. He took America by storm, though, which launched his career and led to him becoming Vice President of the United States. He served at my favor. He was the ultimate scapegoat for all of my plans. He lost integrity in my mind, but he gained favor, my favor. I couldn't trust him, so I turned the Democratic nominee in the next election. All was well. Whoever won, I had them in my back pocket. I had such high hopes for Ernesto, but he started to play coy. Once he was outed as a vampire, I had lost my use for him, and the nation no longer believed even what they thought was the truth. No one felt safe anymore, so I killed Ernesto and enacted Marshall Law. It was clear the military needed to take over and control the world, starting with the United States. I personally had to kill Ernesto as well. I looked him in the eyes and watched him leave this world. The look of betrayal on his face haunted me even to this day. I had to kill him, though. He was a loose end in my equation. He did have a long run, though. He ended up serving for six years, and that's all he could handle. He may have beaten cancer, but he couldn't outrun my bullets. After killing Ernesto, I had only one pig in the race. It was an election year. Everyone favored my new candidate over the former Vice President. Things were looking good for us, then he died of a vampire attack gone wrong, even wearing the vest and being a vampire didn't save him, and by this point, the public was up in arms. I'd have liked to see where things went with compulsion, but I was public enemy number one after killing Croft. I couldn't have gotten close enough to any politician. I could have sent others, but I had major trust issues at that point in my life. Everyone I loved was now dead. Hannah tried to love me back, but she wasn't enough for me to thrive. I needed more people to love, but I was scared I was cursed. Everyone I loved always ended up dead one way or the other. I had no time for relationships, and Hannah was more of a tease than anything. She'd tease me with her good looks and never sleep with me. I think she just wanted to feel my bulge, see what I was working with, so to speak. Hannah always making me rock hard then doing nothing about it was enough to make me displeased. I never would find someone to love me unconditionally. The straight girls appreciated me. The bi girls loved me. And the lesbians couldn't stand that I had a cock. No one could love me unless they were bi. It really limited my options. Sure, I could compel sex, but I wanted love. I wanted acceptance. I couldn't compel acceptance. I would see the resent on their faces as they followed my orders. They were bound to do as I pleased, but they weren't bound to enjoy it... I had to let things unfold. I couldn't control everything. I was, and am, not a god. But I'm damn close. The people wanted an anti-vampire leader. They wanted to be able to hunt them down one by one. They wanted Martha Durden. Dr. Durden was a prime candidate in that year's election. She stood as far right as they come, and she wanted to arm everyone with vampire hunting weapons. She wanted to rid the world of us. She was everything I wanted to battle. Martha was privy to a lot of information about vampires. She even shed light on the fact we could walk in the light. I had plans to kill her soon after her campaign was over, because I liked her vp. I needed her to enter office with her vp ready to go. Vice President Harry Schluter was a gem. He may have been anti-vampire, but he didn't want to arm everyone with ways to kill us. I needed him at the top. Someone like the democratic nominee was too weak to gain office, even offering sympathy to the vampires. People didn't want a weeny wagger in office— they wanted to be rid of the pests. Harry wanted that for everyone, but he wanted the military to protect them from outside threats... or in this case, inside threats. Vampires could be anywhere, and there was only one way to know. You had to see their blood was black, and not red. My blood was even not black... my blood was red, but for some reason, people didn't care about werewolves or hybrids. It was thinking like this that led me to see just how stupid the general population was. I could sense they weren't even uneasy about werewolves, but werewolves' blood was black as well. Most supes had black blood, even unicorns, so there would be no differentiation. Wolves would be killed in the line of fire, but people, mostly democratic people, wanted to protect the wolves, so they just wanted to round up the supes and see who was what come full moon. Such idiots. The war had started when Jess killed all those people in Brazil, but it really didn't start to pick up until everything was too real for people. There were lockdowns, curfews, and screenings to detect vampires. Many humans would die in accusations of being a vampire. Most were safe, but the prison population was specifically targeted. The murderers were all deemed vampire and executed on the spot, for crimes that were not their own. It was a sad reality, but this was what the vast population wanted. I couldn't lose sleep over it. I wasn't like a vampire, I needed sleep, but I couldn't stand sleeping not knowing if my coven was safe. I had greatly expanded. I had my entire property covered in buildings to house my friends. Wolves joined us as well. We were a big, happy family, but we couldn't rest, because we were all being hunted. My compound was perhaps the only safe place for vampires left in the entire world, which was why most rogues found their way to me. I didn't know about the other continents. There was no way a vampire could travel on airplane, so I couldn't possibly save them all, but I had hope Blood Coven was operating at peak performance. As for the other continents, I simply didn't know. Floods of vampires found me in the first month. We housed them all. But they kept coming, and we were forced to turn many away. We only had room for a few more on my property, so I commandeered the property beside mine and put up tents for them to spend the day in. Life was a big struggle then, having to house my kind in ragtag tents. It was no way to live. By the fourth month, the people had gotten bold," I said in a long monologue. But I wasn't finished talking. The interviewer gave me a second to catch my breath; I had already said so much. "The war brought many casualties on both sides. I lost everyone I had grown to love. No flower I touched yielded a sprouting bud. The humans were mostly successful. Vampires now number only in the few hundred, only one original vampire remains, and she happens to be my wife. Original vampires have the power to compel even other vampires, and I must say, I am not sure I'd have married Elaine if she didn't have this power. The vampires who survived are all now rogues. They are compelled to live in the shadows. My decision is the reason humans can still cheat death, should they look in the darkest places. It took only weeks to arm the masses and round up all of the vampires. The frenzy had begun. We are a distant memory, yet wolves thrive. Wolves are no less a threat than vampires, and only an originals' blood can cure a wolf bite. My coven of vampires was destroyed, but my nature as a wolf had just begun. I didn't want to make more mindless hybrids, though, I wanted to tame the wolves as free thinkers like my coven of vampires," I finally finished.

"Wow, that's quite an amazing story, but do you truly believe your legacy will live forever, when history is almost always written from the side of the victors, which, in this case, was the humans? You have failed to let the vampiric race move on. You are a failure," the interviewer snapped at me.

I took offense to his tone, but I calmly replied, "I am the only living hybrid, the only successful experiment from long ago, and now the age of the wolf thrives, and I am the head of it. I am Samantha Thrainhammer, and this is my story," I contested her final words to me just before they would try every known way to kill a hybrid.