Elsie Wong
5/11/21
PD8
Day C
Modern Mythology
Diary of a Grumpy Boomer God My Journal
Diary of a Grumpy Boomer Vampire
“What! Diary of a Grumpy Boomer God is such a good name!”
“You little rascal. Who’s a grumpy boomer God!”
“You are!” The sound of the little girl’s laughter rebounds all throughout the house.
. .
The First Night
It was such a perfect night. The moon and stars shining through the forest canopy with only a small breeze to accompany me.
That is, until a little ball of twigs and leaves rolls through my perfectly trimmed bushes. Annoyed at the sudden intruder, I stomp off my porch to throw out whatever thing that had shattered my serenity. Just as I near it, the thing bolted behind my back. I reach behind me to pry its grubby hands- wait hands?- off my back, but more rustling near the bushes stops my preemptive attempt. Three more rascals come out of the bushes this time, but with matching sneers on all of their faces. At the sight of me, their sneers drop immediately and all the blood on their face, presumably from running, drained quickly.
“M-m-monster!” A shout comes tumbling out of one kid’s mouth, whether intentionally or not, I could not tell.
The little human behind me loosens their grip on me ever so slightly. About to affirm the kid’s statement, the little one next to me moves first, taking a step forward before I could say anything.
“What monster? Can’t you see. This person here is a god. Right Mr. God ?” The little one announces confidently, or so it would seem if her hands aren’t quaking right now.
Now, I know I live in an abandoned shrine and all, but a deity? Is this child alright? I think my appearance quite matches what I’m supposed to be. Ashen skin and sunken eyes, with ebony black hair and equally dark eyes (for now) I look nowhere close to whatever qualities the kid probably attributes to a deity.
“Right?” She looks up at me then, with wide pleading eyes. Looking at the situation carefully, it seems as if she was getting chased by these twerps over there. Had she stumbled upon here out of pure luck? Or misfortune? I couldn’t tell. Regardless, I only want them all gone and if I help her out a little in the process, then so be it.
“Yes, yes. I am a very scary deity that resides on this mountain, and if you don’t run away now, I will curse you to poop your pants for all of eternity,” I rasp in my best impression of what a mountain deity would sound like (it isn’t very good I know)
For people of all ages, this curse would’ve sounded dreadful, not to mention a bunch of 6-year-olds. (6-year-olds? Jesus, they’re fetuses)
And as I predicted, the kids scramble as fast as their little legs could take them. I chuckle to myself a little and judging by the lingering scent left behind, one of them might truly believe that they’ve been cursed.
I get ready to continue lounging out on my porch. That is, until the little girl plastered behind me (when did she get back there?) moved once more.
“What are you still doing here for? Do you also wanna get cursed?” I rasped once again, only to stop midway when I started coughing violently.
The little girl shakes her head rapidly, but I could see that little smile creeping on her face. She takes amusement from my misery, does she? I see how it is; I help her and this is what she gives in return.
“Come on now. Shoo!” I make a little waving motion at her with one hand while trying to extricate her with my other.
“Jesus, are you an octopus or something? Shoo!”
Finally getting off of me, she walks back to the bushes. Turning her head to look back at me once more, there is an indescribable look in her eyes. Hope? Thankfulness? I didn’t know, and I didn’t want to care.
“Do you want me to say bye-bye? Well, here! Bye-bye! Don’t come back!” I say in fake cheeriness, hoping it sounded as off-putting to her as it did to me.
The kid merely turns back to the bushes and tumbles through them once more, but not before muttering a single thanks.
I sit back on the porch once more, enveloped in the quiet night once more. That is, until I remember my ruined bushes.
. .
The Second Night
Screams seem to permeate from every wall of the old mansion. The ever consuming fire encroaches faster around me, but I desperately push forward to find him. Bulldozing through doors, I continue to breathe in the air, heavy with smoke. It burns my lungs (a pain that I haven’t received in a long time.) and my heart thumps painfully in my chest (a feeling I’m glad I never have to experience again.) I push on, my mind chanting somebody’s name (What was his name?), until I finally find a collapsed form on the ground. My body moves without my control as I run towards him. I pick him up and curl my body around him as best as I can to shield his cold corpse from the flames that threaten to engulf him. A cry shudders out of me, followed by a scream filled with such vitriol that it seemed to shake the room.
The scene rapidly dissolves around me and suddenly I’m kneeling in front of a chilling man on top of an equally icy throne. I tremble, unsure of whether it is from the cold or from humiliation. We sit there in silence while I glare up at the smug man.
“You want revenge. And to do so, you want to become a vampire, right?” I didn’t think the edges of his lips could curl any higher, but like his existence, it seems to defy all the laws of the universe.
“Yes, my lord. If you would please grant my request.” I answer back, voice so sharp and cutting that I would’ve flinched. But I didn’t.
“Interesting! Let’s see if you can truly be the end of us.” His smile twists into something else and my gut twists with it.
“But first, an equal exchange must happen… “ Dread pools in my gut and I almost hurl at the look on his face.
The scenery, thankfully, changes once more before I could witness anymore. I almost cry out in joy until I finally take in my surroundings. I now lay in a sea of blood that sears my skin. I look down at my hands only to see that not even a speck of my skin can be seen through all the red. Bodies laid strewn around me as I looked farther beyond. I knew for sure they were of my own kind, with dull red eyes and protruding fangs, but I felt nothing but apathy as I glanced through the unmoving mutilated figures. Fixing my stare forward, I waited in anticipation of something. An executioner’s axe perhaps?
Footsteps tap ever so slowly behind, as if their owner were simply strolling through the streets.
“Well. Well. Looks like you do have the potential!” The same man with the same cruel smirk appears in front of me and my previous apathy is only replaced with the same vitriol I felt in that fire.
“A true kinslayer. Worthy of the name Kaine.” The bastard had the audacity to chuckle, as if he had made a funny joke. Perhaps he did. I am a living joke, turned into the monster that I condemned for violence, only for me to slay thousands on my path for revenge.
Finding further amusement from my glare, he continues on,
“I cannot wait…,” His breath ghosts next to my ear
“until the day your hand plunges straight through my heart!” He continues with glee as he cackles. I look up into his glowing red eyes and see everburning rage reflected off them
His red eyes seem to linger as the scene warped in front of me again but the same glowing red eyes are always present. This time, I stood in front of a lady with eyes the same glowing red. Clad in white, or she would’ve been, if not for the blood seeping into her clothes. I watched passively as she sobbed, clutching a body in her hands with the same dull red eyes and protruding fangs. My hands still feel the searing hot blood except this time, I know who it came from.
“You monster. You absolute monster! Why do you hunt us so?” The woman screams, feeling the same burning hatred I had felt that night when everything I treasured went up in flames.
“You call me a monster, but aren’t you the same as me? We are both beings that thrive on the life of others. We are all binded to the truth that is violence.” I spit out as if my words were acid that could melt her away on the spot.
The irony of it all was so funny to me at that time. I barely restrained my own laughter as I advanced upon her.
“All we wanted was to live peacefully together! We have done no harm to anybody!”
I continue to walk up to her with my hands poised to gouge her heart out immediately. She leaps up, prepared to fight until her last, but it's too late. Her heart laid on the ground, next to her fallen lover’s, as she collapsed beside them. Two silent hearts.
I spiral into hysterics then, laughing and cursing at everything I believed in. I laughed until the bitter and empty sound that rang in my ears caused my head to split.
“Is it even possible?”
I startle awake on my porch. If I could sweat, I would certainly be in a pool of my own sweat by now. And if my heart could beat, it would certainly have bursted by now at the speed it was going. But it is the simple truth once more, I am not human. I sit there, somberly recalling all that happened in my dream.
“It’s all in the past” I say to myself, filled with despair at the feeling of the cold shriveled up body in my arms.
“It’s all in the past” I repeated to myself, filled with relief that I was free from his clutches.
“It’s all in the past” I say once more, as bile starts to climb up my throat at the feeling of warm blood on my hands
“It’s all in the past” I whisper one last time, as guilt claws its way through my entire body.
I lay there in complete silence for a few minutes, staring at my ceiling while I waited for my emotions to simmer down. When I had finally regained my mental state, I turned my head only to go right back into shock.
I jump up, ready to stab whatever decided to sneak up on me, when I realized what or who was standing next to me
“Dear Lord, what are you doing up here again?” I ask the little girl, who would’ve been seconds away from having her life spill out on the wet soil if I hadn’t reacted fast enough.
She continued to stare at me as if she hadn’t just startled a literal vampire. About to tell her to get out again, she suddenly reaches out towards my head. I flinch backwards out of instinct and she moves her hand back with it.
“What are you doing?”
“Headpats,” She states as if it were the most obvious truth in the world.
Sitting in absolute confusion, I nod at her as she asked for permission to pat my head. I sit there for a few minutes in silence once more. But this time, I relax into the touch of the child as she taps my head gently in a soothing rhythm.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
I remove her hands from my head and look away. She starts to walk away, understanding the intent behind my words. When I turn back to look at her, she turns back to look at me once again. Hesitating, she whispers a soft, “I’ll be back,” and disappears through the bush.
I sleep soundly for the next few days
. .
The Third Night
The child does not return the next day, nor the next. I don’t know if I should anticipate her return or hope that she never comes back. It seems that the inevitable loneliness of immortality is finally creeping up on me. 500 years. I’ve spent most of it so consumed by revenge that I didn’t even have the time to appreciate those who were around me.
And now there’s nobody left. A damned being forever locked out of the flow of time.
Maybe it’s good that the girl doesn’t come back. She’s a human child. It would only take a blink of an eye for her to disappear as well.
Raising the porcelain cup to the night sky, I toast to the moon and its companions in the sky, envious that the moon will never feel the same loneliness as I do.
Days turn into weeks before she appears again. The same hazel brown eyes peeking through the same damn bush.
“You know I have an entrance right?”
“You’ve never shown me it.” She says it with such smugness that, if not for my self control (which is enormous and absolutely exceptional, mind you), I would’ve thrown her straight out.
I grumble in response because she’s right (the audacity!), and I make a mental note to show her exactly where my entrance(more like exit, with her attitude) is.
While lost in thought, the child had gone up to my porch and was now struggling to get up to where I sat (not so smug now, are you kid?)
As if hearing my musings, she turned to look at me. She reached out her arms towards me and I recognize it, taking a little bit longer than I care to admit, as the universal sign of wanting up. I ignore her for a few seconds, but I inevitably give in (stake me, I’m weak to children okay.)
“Why are you here again, kid? I thought I made it clear that you shouldn’t be here.”
“Company”
Confused once again (how does this kid keep doing this), I wait for her to elaborate.
“You’re lonely and I’m lonely, so we should be friends” (okay rude, I was NOT brooding seconds ago)
“Listen kid, I don’t even know your name-”
“Licht”
“Okay fine, Licht. You know I’m not human. It’s dangerous to-”
“Please! Please just let me stay with you.”
The next part was whispered so quietly that if not for my supernatural hearing I would’ve just missed it.
“And you don’t hate me like everybody else”
I freeze. Her words strike something within my cold heart (I still have emotions, unfortunately). She seems to take my silence as permission and I don’t have the heart to tell her otherwise (curse my unbleeding heart). We set in companionable silence for the rest of the night, as I try (my best I promise) to ignore her existence. The tea and blanket appeared out of nowhere I swear.
Months fly past now but every so often, I now watch the child crawl in and out of my little shrine through my shrub (I have an entrance and I showed you it, please stop ruining my poor bushes) silently.
Most of the time, we sit there, minding our own business. She starts bringing in her homework and books, and even an occasional newspaper (I’m not that much of a recluse, am I?) for me now. An extra set of tea and snacks are brought out every time she’s here, but I am definitely leaving it there for the birds and not her.
Usually silence is all that occurs between us, besides the occasional banter (It’s the cheeky little rascal, not me) but the child always seems fidget with an unanswered question. Unable to quell her curiosity, she finally asks me.
“Hey Mr. God, can you revive dead people?” My mind shutters because one, I forgot she still thought of me as such, and two, that’s a really loaded question I’m not sure I want to even address.
“No.” I give it to her straight, my mind still in the process of recovering.
For the first time, I watched her face crumple in despair. Familiar with desperation, I realize that she must’ve banked something–somebody, my mind corrects–on this last hope. And I had just crushed it. I could only sit and watch as she slowly folded within herself and started sobbing.
“I. I really. Hic- I really miss my mom, Mr. God. Is there really no way to bring her back?” Her words tumbled out of her mouth and I dearly wish I could put them back. I had no idea what to do here and nobody to teach me.
“Plea- Hic. Please. I just want everything to go ba- back to normal. I just want daddy to- to look at me again. I don’t want to be cold all the time!” The girl (Licht, that was her name right?) continued to sob.
At my wit’s end, I remember what she did to me before. I reached my hand out slowly to pat her head, not before watching her for any signs of rejection. She relaxes into my touch, desperate for any form of comfort I realize.
After a moment, she rushes into my arms and I struggle to hold her comfortably(or as comfortably as I can). I am as cold as the night air around me and for somebody who doesn’t want to continue feeling cold, I am definitely not the best choice for hugs. I try to gently push her off me, but she clings to me like a limpet.
We stay in that position for a while (if I were still human, I believe my entire body would be protesting at the awkward position I had put myself in) until I shift so I have one of my arms around her and the other patting her head. We continue like that until she falls asleep and I pry her hands off me to grab a blanket for her. I let her sleep, until it was time for her to go back home (is it even a home at this point?).
I lightly shake her awake and lift her body (Oh my, she’s absolutely microbial) off the porch, watching as she walks back to the bush. She braces herself to go through the leaves and branches but not before I leave her with some parting words.
“See you later” I mumble, turning my head away before she could see the embarrassment evident on my face.
Even if I couldn’t see her, I could still feel the pure joy radiating off her smile. I listen to her disappearing footsteps, making sure she gets back to the edge of the settlement safely.
I settle back onto my creaking porch watching the moon once more. The hollowness of my days were assuaged, and I sit, waiting for the next time Licht finds companionship in this lonely old vampire.
To be continued in Part 2.
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