Character fiction from a troupe Vampire: The Masquerade LARP...
Nothing To Do But Think
by Simon W.
You ever just find yourself in a situation where you've got nothing but time and only the thoughts in your own head to keep you company? Maybe that's just me. It sure feels like I have spent a lot of my existence in that state. Back when I was properly human I would fill that time with studying, and learning, and arguing. Now? Not so much.
Oh yeah, I guess I should explain that. I'm not what you would exactly call alive anymore. In January 2022 I was walking home from a protest and I got jumped in a dark alley in Boston. And when I came to I was different. I had no idea what all that meant eighteen months ago. I may not entirely understand it even if I actually have the eternity I've been promised.
Of course, I also may not live to see another night. I am in somewhat of a precarious position at the moment. Let me try and sum up in a way that makes even remote sense.
First off, the monsters in the night that you, me, and thousands of generations of people have told children scary stories about are very, very real. I'm one of them now. I'm a vampire. Vampires are real. Werewolves are real (and they are complete assholes). The Fair Folk are real. Mages are real. Demons are very real. God is probably real and He is not happy with.... well certainly not with me. I don't know if He really likes anyone although there are certainly some humans who are convinced He is on their side. Fortune 500 companies are actually worse than I believed as a human and also I work for one now. Boy how the mighty and idealistic have fallen.
So yeah, jumped in a dark alley in Boston. Boston isn't really known for its dark alleys or its nightly street crime but this was a special case for some reason. I got knocked out, woke up buried in a hole in the ground and dug my way out. It was not what you'd call a fun time, not the least of which because I was both hungrier and angrier than I'd ever been in my life. A bunch of dudes in suits were there when I came out and instead of running away from the obvious monster that I was they handed me what I legitimately was a Capri Sun and let me calm down. Spoiler alert: it was not juice.
One of the guys there gave me the basic run down that I was a vampire now, that I shouldn't go out into the sun, and that I was now on a very exclusive and slightly awkward diet. He also mentioned that if I didn't get myself killed I'd just live forever and that there is some weird political system I was going to have to learn to navigate. Then I got offered a job doing statistical analysis, told that I should never tell anyone who was gangrel who I worked for and shipped in a box to California after six months. I soon learned that gangrel wasn't just a fancy old English word for feral; it was a specific type of vampire.
Once in California I discover that in addition to statistical analysis I am supposed to integrate into the local vampire society. That actually isn't so hard because there is current a war going on, sometimes an actual shooting war, but always an ideological one. There are three organizations and they all always want new recruits and they all think they know the only correct way to be a vampire. Another spoiler alert: they're all wrong.
So now I'm here and I'm told I will be a provisional member of society for a year while they do their best to indoctrinate me into their culture. Honestly, that's a pretty short time all things considered. We start the inculturation of children at birth and don't really consider them full members of society until at least puberty. I guess the fact that I don't have to spend at least six years learning how to talk and recognize that other people exist outside of my own experience was an advantage there. But I digress (I do that a lot). The first person to take on my education was Nate and he was very concerned that I was a plant or a spy from one of the other vampire organizations. He was half correct; I was a plant and a spy but not for vampires. More on that later. Also, if I survive this Nate is going to probably tell me I'm an idiot for a couple of hours next time I see him. Is it weird that I'm kind of looking forward to that possibility? I'd like to not die in the immediate future which is a weird thing for a literal corpse to say but there you go.
Nate figures out that I'm not a spy for the folks called the Sabbat. He also figures out that I am working for Pentex but he doesn't really care about that. So after a month he tells the guy running Southern California that I'm fine and won't burn them all down in their sleep or something. There was some debate as to who was going to take on the rest of my education, I mean indoctrination. Which is how I met Arne. Arne is pretty cool, if about a thousand years out of date. He's pretty much the only family or friend I've got at this point, sort of a combination of brother and father all in one. He's been teaching me how to be a vampire and how to survive in the Camarilla for the last eleven months.
In the last eleven months all of my bosses at Pentex murdered one another (I told you Fortune 500 companies are awful!) and there is new management. The original mission I was on is obsolete so I guess I have found a home for real? Except for the fact that I am currently in enemy territory with Arne and we are both unconscious and I have no idea if we're going to be killed, questioned, or some combination of the two. I'm really worried about Arne because the things I have heard about what the Sabbat do to Elders is not good and the things that I know the Phoenix Society does to Elders is even worse.
In my defense (do I have a defense; who exactly am I trying to defend myself from here?) it was his idea to come here. But it was my contact that facilitated it. So I guess if we die we have each other and ourselves to blame.
I've been beaten all to hell, I'm angry (really, really angry), and I have no idea what is going on and no one to talk to but the empty spaces inside my own head. This seems like it could be really bad. I wonder if death has finally caught up to me...
Only time will tell. But I swear to you, me(?), whomever... if these folks kill Arne and not me I am going to make them regret every single one of their life choices.
