Journal 1 of Feuerhurzblut my vampire novel00:39 Sep 01 2017
Times Read: 125
Journal 1
The Pro-generator
10/ 20/ 1860
The evening passed by as if the world were crawling belly down, dragging it’s midsection over the hills to a steady silent close. Drifting off to the clouds my eyes danced with a sparkle that is all its own. This is my next step I thought, nothing like this had been thought of before. All the things I have ever learned were streaming through my mind, begging to feel for my greatest triumph.
This journal will be my documentation as to why the rest of my family’s history will follow the path I have chosen, and if they should find this journal, a better understanding of the choice I made. I leave this record for not only my son, but his sons so they can better understand what I have chosen us to be. But it is our honor our responsibility to evolve our line to something of a grand level.
Evolution, to some it is just a word of theory, but to me it was the driving force of my entire existence. I was hoping to utilize this force to direct my lineage to a new species. I had thought this as I grinned, the fallowing would be setting the next tone for all human interaction. In this miraculous year of 1860, on the day of October the 20th we of the Feuerhurzblut will take our next step in breeding the next set of human development. We will transcend to the next physical level, and as the ancient ideas of the blood will now be at their command nothing could hold us but the fear of what we would become. However time is the only thing that will allow for the experiment that had been pounding in my skull over and over for the past ten years. His brain pacing to keep up as with the finalizing of Darwin's origin of species, he was now very much convinced in that his theory of small scale environmental evolution would be a roaring success.
Then finally the madness that had been rolling behind these eyes would finally be sated. They had taken from me everything that I could imagine as mine, and in return I will show them that the ideas of England and France would soon out power the old German church. Rationalism had finally found countries to rest its head in, and this material world is for only the strong to hold sway. I Friedrich Feuerhurzblut will make myself the mouse in the experiment, using my own lineage to provide the world with something new, something from the churches worst nightmares.
For what pain they have caused me they will pay, and I shall personally hunt down the leaders of the last of the European authorities as no one man shall ever hold Germany in his grip. This night we signed the October Diploma, and our strife’s will be forever sated, as we the German states now push away from the government and religion that so scorned us before. If my quest is to start anywhere it will be to make sure, without any doubt that the old regimes have fallen, and this will be done in the way I so see fit. The squabbling of the autocrats and the endless debating of the liberals should all be coincided with a new world.
This is only to be towards future events however, as I must start the process as soon as possible to begin the grand experiment. Man in and of himself is outwardly crude. He feeds without question, takes without asking, and eradicates problems instead of managing them. That is why I Friedrich Feuerhurzblut must start the change to balance mankind. As cities swell and rations run short, you often see a different flavor of city take hold. The cities actions full of people are much harder to bring justice to choices like disruption, crime, and murder. This is not the idea of human advancement as preached, but human expansion.
The abhorrent process of living which this brings is only made more apparently ludicrous by the fact that life has no balance for human beings. Like an unchallenged predator we successfully move, only curbing ourselves by attacking each other. With this I have seen the horror that is war and the unchecked hand of those that made me witness it. What I saw on that field no man would choose to speak of. I haven’t written any words until now on this day. The events taking hold of today have inspired me to write my reasoning for what will follow. And of what we had to do to survive would challenge even the stoutest of hearts. For I am not proud of having lived, more like a satisfied mournful shadow my soul echoed since that horrible day.
However now with the green fairies muse the feeling starts over taking me to recall all that happened that shall explain my personal decisions….
I remember that nasty battle, my body laid on ice cold ground, shaking from the ordeal. I remember looking over at Gustav as he lay slowly breathing, his wounds were festering and the cold was descending for the fifth night that we had laid there. All around us the battlefield looked like a ghost land in some dark tale. From what we could tell, we were the last survivors of the hellish onset.
The battle had lasted more than a week, however because of the enormous casualties, both armies had moved over two valleys away, our army had been pushed back into a tactical retreat. However this meant that they had actually left the wounded and the sick to remain in the enemies trampling path. The bloodshed had been immense, afraid of the wounded being able to re-muster, the enemy had chosen to eradicate us wounded as they moved over us. The choice had left many survivors who had played dead, but injury sustained in the combat had been ruthless, and many had been crushed from the rushing stampede.
I had fought valiantly, my pistol and saber had flashed through the air in arks of crimson. The battles had been very deadlocked by the end of the week. The retreat had started out as the offensive challenging them on their right flank, it was my gunner’s job to strike them in their weakest point of their inexperienced troops had made a stand in the beginning fight. They had with much bravado charged into the front of our ranks, the cannons echoing behind us we met them in head long charge. Their youth had proven reckless, and they had easily been pushed back towards their artillery. As the horns sounded on the enemy's left flank I turned to see that our right flank crippled. Though the surge had successfully broken the youth in front of our lines, the hardened veterans on the enemy side had almost instantly converted the mercenary Prussian's that had been hired. The betrayal bit hard, and the warriors turned on our own ranks forcing the surrounded sides of the liberation force to crumble in on itself.
Where once our men had been pushing through now cut us off from the main force. The extension into their youth had been a trap to isolate us of the heaviest infantry. There was no time to react as I even yelled to my men the gap between the main force and the platoon of men shrank.
That is the last image I had before the bombardment hit. Our reasonably sized platoons were now completely encircled. Facing out in every direction their artillery squadrons took the hill tops making their artillery have a massive advantage. Though enclosed into a tight ring, my men the shell had been aimed right in the center of our mass. With absolutely no where to go, it only took one round of cannon fire as the chaos allowed the men to be swarmed and bayonetted in place without any warning. Gustav my second in command and oldest friend had been hit in adjacent to the shot, its resulting shock wave blew him into me knocking us both unconscious. If we had not remained close to the center of the hoard we would have been crushed as the army swelling over the carnage tried desperately to return to proper ranks. The wall of bodies had formed a natural wall that covered Gustav, me, and the only other survivor to the whole ordeal.
That is how we awoke, the smell of decomposing flesh pungently forcing my brain back up. I looked at Gustav who miraculously still remained alive, though he was missing not only his left leg but his chest had been peppered with shrapnel as well. Feverishly I scanned the field to make sure the danger had passed. Gustav informed me that there was no living soul left besides the man he heard moaning just a few yards away. My body ached as if I had just been hit by a loaded cart. My right arm was most definitely broken, and there was blood coming from several leg gashes, and the wound on my head.
At first I couldn't believe the site, the battle had gone so fast that they would only be returning to bury the dead soon, and I was sure the enemy force would be coming not something we should stick around for. Moving Gustav was impossible in his current state so I set to making a fire. My arm was worthless, but the task proved easy as flint in steal was littered in the bags of the fallen. After pulling it out of the satchel on the soldier’s side, I rolled up several shirt pieces as non-bloodied as possible, and struck the flame. I wandered through the carnage wondering if the soldier Gustav had heard was still alive, he had seemed at the start of the fire to have gone deafly silent. I needed more fuel for the flames and a piece of flat steal. I walked to a piece of shattered artillery, finding the base in shambles I ripped off the end of the drag leg with my good hand. Dragging it back I added more and more fabric until the fire roared. The smell was overbearing, if I could have lost my stomach more than twice it would have continuously went on during the cauterizing.
His screams were the only sounds that could be heard, as the now heated plate met the cleanly ax cut limb. Were as the initial scream had rumbled, this was a high whining that pierced my ear drums and pierced my heart. Gustav rocked back and forth a movement only labored by the pieces that now dug in his chest. The metal made him cry again and I hastily fought the new on rush of blood, as he finally passed out, the piece of leather dropping out of his mouth. I worked quickly, the limp state allowed me to work quickly and with little resistance at patching his holes.
I had almost lost myself to the task when a clatter rolled from behind one mound of soldiers. There lay a now enemy Prussian, the uniform now hanging like a beacon of betrayal. The man must have seen the smoke and knowing that neither side would take care of a wounded mercenary had decided that hiding was better than hoping for the help of either side’s physician’s. I quickly reached my hand to my saber, but the moment had been to surreal as my broken fingers merely dropped the blade in a sharp bite of pain. The man quickly reached to find a weapon, but with none in grasp rolled to reveal his true injury. Both hands appeared to be split in-between the carpels by a bayonet, possibly the last desperate act of a soldier he had brought down. Squirming he realized in how bad a position he now was in. Reaching down with my good hand I picked up my saber, the approaching walk seemed to be the only sound left in the world. My feet pounded the soil as I stumbled towards him, raising my hand I came to bring the blade down when Gustav yelled, “Stop, You must stop!”
Frightened I had tried to ask him the reasoning, even as to go so far as to remind him of the betrayal that all the dead around them had felt sting as they died. He replied soberly as if he were fine, though that was a complete impossibility with his wounds. Saying that I must not be really considering what position all three of us were now in. His words hit like hammers as he scolded me, “Think! We are in the middle of Northern Germany, with no water, no food, and a quickly stripped army. Do you think we have the luxury of losing an asset?”
Of course I protested without much success in that, and was finally silenced by the eerie voice now on Gustav’s lips. “We may still have use for him,” the words sounded ominous even without understanding his intent. I then chained the Prussian to the cannon, vowing in his ear that he would know me well one day. Gustav and I took the moment of alone time to heart as we planned the next move. We could not move well, it would be next to impossible to not only help my wounded friend but keep a watch on the Prussian. The realization hit hard as I started to finally remember that the opposing army must be coming back at us soon. I managed to use the stripped down cannon as a make shift cart. The bell had of course been stripped by the enemy force but the swift retreat had left much more lingering than was usual. The base must have been sacrificed for the need of the cannon being more important. I had found a length of rope and tied the base back to a fully upright position. The axle I had simply tied to pieces of gun bores around the outside of the broke piece the thickness made the cart hard to rotate and seemed to hick-up after Gustav added his weight on top. The cauterizing had been a success but the wounds were not meant to sit in the cold of night and would soon rot. I kept the Prussian chained on the back of the cart to make sure that I had him positioned so if the back of the cart dipped, he would have to hold it up so as to protect Gustav from him bolting or jarring the cart.
We didn’t make it very far even with the cart, we had to act on survival, we placed two sticks upright in the ground watching them we found the suns east to west movement. We then knew where south and west laid and we followed it to find a German settlement. Gustav desperately needed medical attention. The wounds in his chest had not sealed as well and were becoming a problem. He winced at every bump but seemed to immaculately hold his composure for the ride, talking to me of his Uncle a famous adventurer who was renowned throughout Germany.
The subject had seemed odd when he started it, but almost seemed like it was getting pushed to one point. After hearing about some of the tribes that he had encountered in Africa, I politely asked why he was so intent on the topic. He then let go with the craziest tribe story he had been told. The Maasai were a people in the Sub-Saharan cattle herders. He told me that his uncle had called them jokingly the vampyre people, as he said one of their main survival meals was to drink a drink made of cow’s blood and milk mixed equally together. Even the Prussian seemed shocked but Gustav told us it was only consumed when meat was not as readily available. We were very intrigued and then Gustav let out the longest sigh I had heard since the battlefield.
“We have been walking two day’s Friedrich, at the pace we are going and with you doing three men’s work, we are going to be in a very terrible situation soon. The woods are still frozen and scantly populated after the armies had stripped most life from the woods as they moved. We are going to be exhausted, wounded, and starving if we cannot find a settlement soon.” He simply looked back at the Prussian and nodded.
I didn’t understand what his attention was pointing to but it was obvious that we were under supplied. A meal of half a loaf of bread was the only sustenance we had been able to collect as most items of food were taken in the retreat. Gustav and I shared the bread the Prussian staring on with beaded eyes seemed to watch every bite entering our mouths, but as the man still had yet to really say anything to either of us, we did not feel the obligation even as captors to supply his need. Not to mention the odds of surviving needed to be considered and Gustav and I were pointed to getting us both out of this situation.
Two days of cold dreary walking had still turned up not even a road, the true bane of forest travel being they could have passed settlements already but had no ability to see them. The mood was getting more desperate, the two days of hunger mounted on combat exhaustion and injury were taking their insensitive toll. Gustav and I were laying down to bed when he leaned over to me, saying he had estimated with the slow precession we had been on we had only made it nine or so miles through the growth, with the nearest town known to them before the battle had been thirty miles of road marching. The trees were starting to blend like images of the same picture staggered next to each other.
We kept our course to not lose our direction but as snow started falling in that early October air the tension seemed to crack. The Prussian who had still remained silent no matter how much we said to him, began to have an almost convict look to his eyes. It was as if seeing every moment as a possible instant to gain the advantage and escape. The bindings were military grade though and he had not been allowed any room for movement in order to protect Gustav. However the hunger in his eyes was undeniable, as I’m sure was mine. This much effort through dense growth with the weight of Gustav we were both going to need food and soon.
I tried to hunt going out two times but soon realized it was more energy wasting then helping and we continued onward. Sleeping another night we woke up to the pains of our stomachs. Gustav was looking especially rough, his almost ethereal smile was barely present, and the color of his skin was almost getting shiny with the alabaster tone of blood loss making him look more dead than alive.
We had awoken before the Prussian could. The lack of food was beginning to eat at the man’s attention, more than once he had stumbled the prior day causing great pain to Gustav. It was obvious that the cold and everything were eating them alive as they marched. We needed food to continue, I had just thought of that when I heard Gustav’s voice so low it was hard to hear. After a week the wounds in his chest made it hard for him to speak very well but what he said would echo in my mind for everyday for the rest of my life.
Pushing himself up a little he turned looked me straight in the face and said, “I believe that it has become that our only option is to act as Maasai.” At first it didn’t make sense to me, we had no cattle... Then it hit me like a dead weight. I looked to the Prussian his body still relaxing in blissful slumber, and tried to formulate a protest but the truth was that we had no idea how far we needed to go still and the amount of energy to get there no longer existed with us.
When I finally spoke it was in a tone I had never heard from myself, “I will do as the Maasai but I refuse to eat of him.” The words frightened me to the core but both of us knew I wouldn’t be able to even prepare the body for what I denied.
Almost with a level of understanding that scared me he simply replied, “Then let us be the beast’s that terrify the night, I will say now this will prove a lack of faith. Because, we will be signing our souls over to that great force which men must know as our own need for survival.”
“God is dead, remember we got into the mess for saying that in the first place, I won’t be saying any Hail Mary’s now.” The coldness we were showing made me uncomfortable but I knew he was right. With the conditions present we had maybe two days for me and maybe one for Gustav, and by our estimate we were only half way there. After confirming this notion in my mind I walked to the Prussian, tied up sleeping half sitting still attached to the front of the cart. I took the canteen once full of water and split the remains between Gustav and me.
The first moment he came to, I was placing the gag into his mouth. The insults and slurs could be made out but his feet having been my first target, he could do little if anything to stop the oncoming disaster. He screamed in muffled spasms, switching languages even to try anything to appeal. I looked down at his throat, and at my saber, I placed the canteen to his neck and cut.
The blood flooded out of his jugular, I barely had time to place the mouth of the canteen over the wound, as the blood pumped out harshly showing off the last beats of his heart. I leaned down and right before it stopped whispered, “This will make up for the blood you took from our men, and you should have seen this coming.” He tried to spit but managed only a gargle as the canteen now filled came to my lips. The warmth was needed as I knew the flavor might be worse cooled down, but the point to hesitate was gone.
In fact the blood seemed to be like a blessing, a kiss of direct life back into my body. I could feel his worldly existence for only an instant and then nothing. It shuddered inside of me for a second but I had another person to take care of so I jolted back. Still to this day I heard the song of that first drink, that first symphony of taste in my ears as I barely even describe when now writing this down.
Gustav looked up as I poured the blood down into his mouth, like a macabre witch play he couldn’t help but feel better as the hope came back in his body. I capped the canteen and lifted Gustav, The cart was much heavier now but the little blood in my stomach already seemed to be helping, I am not ashamed that the flavor was most delightful, almost earthy as not much was left in his blood from the ordeal either. We left him there, I often wonder if he is a spirit around me causing me chaos, as we did not bury him properly and I’m sure the wolves were more than happy to clean up our mess.
We kept walking for two more days, the canteen was kept in Gustav’s coat to hold on to the temperature, and the rocking of the cart seemed to prevent much corruption as far as we could see. We didn’t talk much after that until that lovely afternoon. The twilight was singing through the trees s if informing us that magic would happen, when Gustav hollered, “A light, a light through the trees!”
Worried we were hallucinating I ran ahead to find that a lantern outline could be barely made out. Running back I realized that we must prepare before entering the city. I found a stream and rolled Gustav to it, although it was urgent to get him a doctor we knew that walking into to town mouth’s covered with blood would be a horrible execution story. So we cleaned up washing out the canteen I looked to throw it into the woods, but something held me back. If it was the fact that it had held our savior or if it was just a memento of the memory I could not say, but I still have it in my possession. After washing we dried out in the cool night air, the temperature would have made it suicide if not knowing the town sat nestled to us. I had been very careful to spot out a location where we would not be seen, and the old town’s cemetery sat next to river, a place most wouldn’t dare travel at night.
I luckily still had my saber, which would wonderfully allow my rank to be shown, and then another fear sunk in. Many of the border towns in the North had rebelled as they had, however some who were on lucrative trade routes did not feel obligated. In fact they could be walking into imprisonment, but the only way to survive now wet, freezing, and wounded was to try.
We lumbered into the town center, the local drunk being the only witness, but he immediately saw the cannon cart and started to holler. The whole town seemed to rise in a single motion. Men grabbed guns and swords as the filled the streets. A hundred people laid before me as my vision gave way. The white dots that I had been pushing out at bay finally took hold and I collapsed unconscious.
I shall never forget,
Friedrich Feuerhurzblut
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