The following story contains some explicit sexual material. 
Though not blatantly pornographic, reader discretion is advised.
Were this a movie, it would probably gain an R rating. 
This story was written as an exploration of character and while
it might be considered erotic, the intent was to delve into
the minds of the characters rather than to sexually arouse the
reader. If you are looking for that you should look elsewhere.
However, if you are offended by sexuality, you should look 
somewhere else as well.

This story is Copyright 1999, Krystoff Vagabond. It may be 
freely redistributed as long as it remains completely intact
and unmodified (including these headers). I welcome comments
and criticism. Please send any thoughts you have on the 
story to kvagabond@mailcity.com

				       -Krystoff

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                     Final Dawn

                                               by K.Vagabond

     One  last  night  skulking in the  shadows.  One  final
flight  over the city, leaping from rooftop to rooftop.  One
final watch from a fire escape in an unlit alley.
     I  was born into slavery, on a plantation in what would
later become Virginia, over three-hundred years ago. Another
place.  Another time. I have seen the birth of a nation  and
its  rise to world power. I have witnessed man's mastery  of
science,  the ability to create and the power to destroy.  I
have  walked  side by side with men whose brief  lives  have
shaped  history. I have defeated death and  laughed  in  her
face  and yet I have accomplished nothing. A man's  life  is
measured by the mark he leaves on the world. Yet I  walk  in
shadows,  invisible to all I wish not to reveal my presence.
A  soul  is  weighed  by the lives it  has  touched,  but  I
forfeited mine on a hot summer night in 1685. I have ended a
hundred-thousand  lives for no purpose  other  than  my  own
continued worthless existence. But it ends tonight.
     I  watch  down  below as a woman leads a  man  into  my
alley. She pulls the bands of fabric that pass for a top off
of  her shoulders and he immediately buries his head in  her
bosom.  His  hands reach for her ass and pull her  skirt  up
around her waist. With a thrust, he is inside of her  and  a
single moan escapes her lips and rises up to my ears.
     They  don't see me. They don't see anything. I can  see
into  their  minds.  His lost in his own pleasure  and  hers
locked  on the money she is making, tuning out the event  as
it  takes place. The laws of the jungle skew as each  become
both predator and prey. Hunter and hunted. Neither considers
the other anything more than a means to an end. A quarry  to
fuel their continued survival. Yesterday, both would already
be dead.
     Dawn  will  bring a new day and end my last.  My  flesh
will  burn to ashes and my bone will fade to dust.  My  very
essence  falling  into  oblivion,  for  I  traded  away   my
afterlife an eternity ago. I welcome it. Eternal nothingness
will be a blessing when weighed against immortal emptiness.
     "Do you truly believe that?"
     She's  standing beside me. For how long, I don't  know.
Tonight, I don't even care.  I pause to appreciate the irony
of  the  moment.  For centuries, I have walked the night.  I
have hunted. I have stalked -- stood a heartbeat away from my
victims  and remained beneath their notice -- killing between
breaths.  Tonight, the last night of my existence,  for  the
first time, someone has skulked near me.
     "Do you truly believe that?" she asks me again.
     "Do I believe what?" I don't know why I answer her.   I
have no reason to. I have no reason not. She's young and,  I
suppose  I  would  think, beautiful,  if  I  still  had  any
appreciation  for such things.  I speak in a  low  monotone,
expecting her to flinch. She does not.
     "Do  you  truly  believe that oblivion is  better  than
eternal life?" She gently brushes a lock of auburn hair from
in  front of her face with her slender fingertips,  but  the
wind places it back in the same spot.
     "I believe oblivion is better than eternal pain."
     She   wraps  her  arms  and  embraces  herself  as  she
considers my words.  Her leather jacket tightens around  her
long  skirt and the sash around her waist us caught  in  the
same  breeze  as her hair. "What if there was  life  without
pain?"
     "There  can be no life without pain." I turn away  from
her and again look down at the prostitute and john below. He
holds her in his arms, her legs wrapped around his back.  He
grunts  as  he hammers away at her body, slamming  her  back
hard against the brick wall. She screams. Is it pleasure? Is
it  pain? I look at her face for the first time. She  closes
her  eyes  tight and grinds her teeth as she waits  for  her
back to numb. "Survival is pain."
     The  girl leans against the rail next to me, her  small
white fingers grasping the bar a hairs distance from my  own
dark hand. "And you fear pain?"
     I  remember  my  transformation. I  remember  my  heart
burning, exploding as it pounded towards its last beat,  but
clinging to life. Forcing what blood it had left through  my
veins  in utter agony with each beat for the sole reason  of
doing it again a second later. The smell of strawberries  in
the  mistress's  hair as her teeth sank into  my  neck.  Her
fingernails digging into my back. My heart beating its  last
against  her  soft  breasts. My last  living  breath  slowly
sliding from my lips. I remember the countless screams  from
each  life I have ended in the years since. Minds anguishing
in torment as I took their lives the same way I might take a
breath or blink an eye. And I have lived with it. Every  day
for  over three-hundred years, I have lived with it. I close
my eyes and grit my teeth. "I fear stagnancy."
     "Death  is stagnancy," she whispers into my  ear.   Her
breath  is  soft and warm like that of a kitten or  a  small
child  and  I  find myself experiencing a kind  of  anxiety;
almost a fear. An emotion so long forgotten that that it  is
totally alien to me. I want to tell her she is wrong.  Prove
to  her she is wrong. I want to take her hear and now.  Grab
her  throat and rip it inside out. I want to show  her  that
death is the price of life.
     "All  things die," she tells me as she leans back  over
the  rail.  "It  is the way of things. Animals  eat  plants,
plants  thrive on the decaying flesh of creatures that  have
fallen."  She  picks a flower from a near by pot  smells  it
then begins pulling its petals off one by one and discarding
them to the ground.
     "To what end?" I ask her. I'm almost begging.
     "Life. To see what the next day brings."
     "And when each day is the same?"
     She  looks  up  from her flower and I  meet  her  eyes.
Large, innocent and full of life, and yet, in their way,  as
old   and   traveled  as  my  own  must  be.  I   sense   an
understanding. I feel a chill and yet my body is on fire  as
if she has reached inside of me and touched something I long
since  thought dead. "Then you try something new," she tells
me.
     I look away, afraid that she might somehow see what she
has done to me. "How?" I ask quietly, under my breath.
     "Take my hand." I turn back around and see that she has
reached  out  to me. "Take my hand and become a  part  of  a
whole new world, different from any you have ever known."
     I  look  over  the  rail.  The  man  is  gone  and  the
prostitute  is straightening her outfit to get ready  to  go
back  to  work. I turn back to the girl, her slender fingers
reaching out towards me. Her smile seductively drawing me in
like the light at the end of a tunnel.
     I  close my eyes, take a deep breath and grasp her hand
in  mine.  She draws me close and touches her lips to  mine.
They  part  and  as our tongues touch I taste life.  Strong.
Sweet. Warm. Her arms wrap around me and I am embraced. When
I open my eyes I see the sun rising over her shoulder.
---
(c)K.Vagabond - 1999
