Description
In my cave, lightless and dank, I slowly open my eyes. My blood is cold and I feel like an inert reptile. I can see in the distance, at the entrance to the subterranean cave system, pale glimmers of light, pallid and feeble, but enough of a stimulus to pique my hunger. I gradually become aware of my limbs, my wings, my sinews and bones, and finally, most pointedly, my teeth, protuberant canines that tingle for lust at the happy notion of fresh blood. My thoughts coalesce by degrees into a firm determination to hunt. I am, and will always be, a blood hunter. The revivifying elixir that restores my warmth and my fleeting but unsuccessful grasp at existence and reality, as aberrant and cursed as it might be. I fan my crinkled wings apart and watch the pointed ends spanning apart to an impressive gauge. I drop to the ground. My clawed feet find a sturdy footing and I creep to the entrance and fly into the waiting dusk, to meet my destiny as a blood hunter...