XV-The Others (draft)

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    I cannot tell you how convinced I was that in my vampire existence, I had become void of all fear

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    I cannot tell you how convinced I was that in my vampire existence, I had become void of all fear. How after my making the tricks of the mind and other trivial things would no longer affect me. That suddenly and without reason, all my childish frights were gone.

But it seemed this wasn't altogether true, for my mind seemed more a web of trickery than it ever was. But I will say that all common fears had vanished. Gone were all fundamental phobias of the human kind.

    However, the mysterious presence of this night had brought me a fright without question.

    However, the mysterious presence of this night had brought me a fright without question

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There was a taste in the air—some awful dread biting at my bones. The wind was a tempest this night, whipping violently at my hearing and at my coat so that the wool clung to my legs.

In spite of this, I sensed so keenly a presence about me. I was so unlike a vampire that this vexed me. I searched with a hard eye the shadows, and, too, I held still and quiet, straining to catch movement through the tenebrous night.

    The nights were so terribly dark in those times. The flames of the linkboy's lanterns served seemingly only as a floating beacon upon the vastness of black waves, and what a perfect riddle was made everything in between.

    And although I was with vampire nature that I could pierce through the pitch that was like primordial dark before first light, I was with fear.

    I had feared because what manner of presence would follow upon the heels of an undead soucriant? Better still, what manner of horror could manage it?

    And, so, I was pressing the strengths of my senses in a panic when finally there came a whisper, for all its intensity, so faint in the air. A whisper that said in all its obscurity, "Come with us and be free!"

    Quickly I turned, put a careful ear to the tumult wind, but again there was nothing, only that howling and that unsettling sense of eyes upon me.

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