Sometimes I think I'll regret what I've done. All the mortals I've killed. My glass nails, like serrated diamonds, slipping across their throats. The wounds that follow. The gaping red. The blood spilling out in fat spurts. The voluptuousness of it as it rushes against my mouth. Candid. Vicious. Longing. The tight coil of their bodies that comes after. I hear them gasp their last breath, bitter and weak. I tell them, "it will be okay." But it is a lie. A tranquil lie. Like a knife between the ribs. A mercy to end all doubt. In fact, when I hunt, I'm sure to end it quickly. A single lunge; a kiss so deep that there is only the steep path to Heaven that follows.

It is damning, this gift. As one of the undead, my skin is always cold, and perhaps I needn't tell you how good it feels to hunt a mortal. To recall the life I once had and remember, for one damning second, what it was like to be one of them. It is perhaps this we vampires crave the most. Don't worry. I don't miss the irony in that statement. That I need to kill to feel alive. But you've never felt this hunger. This thirst. The pumping, throbbing ache of your own body and how nothing will sate your lust. Imagine, if you will, how hard they try to fight. How their nails grab at your throat, struggling to protest. How their fingers slide down your chest, caressing at your clothes. How in their nausea and confusion they begin to mistake you for a lover. They say things they'd say to their mother. They beg you for more, whilst asking for it to end. The women do not cry, but look at you with reverence and fear. The men go inwards, their faces turning pallid as they realise their strength will not avail them. It is a desperate scene--never exactly the same, always kindred, always beautiful, but for me... the game is an amusement. I admit, the chase--playing with the humans--telling them things I know will convince them to come out from the safety of their homes--it thrills me, though it shouldn't. It has been like this since the moment I arrived in France. The city became blissful once I realised I could pass as one of them. That, despite being undead, I could move among the crowds and they would for some reason convince themselves that I was one of their own. They saw my white skin, yes, and the deep wrinkles imbedded around my mouth, and the brightness of my eyes, yet for some reason they rarely questioned it. I believe that is within our power. That as immortals, the truth would terrify the living, so they shroud themselves in lies. For example, sometimes I forget myself and open doors too quickly. Sometimes I cross rooms just a little too elegantly. I see their eyes flicker towards me in a brief warning gesture, but then the lie fills their faces and they grow tranquil, like cattle. Yet, they are not that simple. Do not get me wrong. I both love and respect humans. I adore their humanity, and in the beginning, I was reluctant to even drink from one of them. 

My first kill was one of mercy.