Christoph wanted forgiveness. He needed to purge himself of his own sins as well as those of the humans he’d absorbed but couldn’t just fall to his knees and confess as could the mortals. Unlike the humans, for him there was no great entity to offer him the exoneration he so desperately needed, so he considered himself cursed in the worst possible way. His endless search for absolution had been fruitless and he had come close to giving up hope for the mercy he so desperately needed.
He wanted to shake the humans senseless when he saw them disregard the God they were so lucky to have access to. All they had to do was fold their hands, call out His name, and sincerely apologize for their wrongdoings. They weren’t required to become celibate or to sacrifice their children or to even modify their lifestyles to a great degree, yet they still resisted. All they had to do was ask and He forgave. Christoph missed many things about his mortality but the opportunity for redemption was one of the things he missed most. His greatest loss, though, had been the ability to look up at the sky and to glare into the rays of the sun, a gift that, as a human, he had not appreciated the way he should have.
Sitting on a chair in the corner of his room, he looked around at the few items that belonged to him. Aside from his coffin, the seat he was perched upon was the only piece of furniture he owned and Christoph liked it that way. ‘The lesser, the better’ he had always declared to his pack and they all seemed to know that his minimalist attitude came from the overwhelming emotions that bogged him down day in and day out. He hadn’t always been cursed with the empathic powers. He had, in fact, served more years as a vampire than he had ever disclosed to his family but the burdensome abilities were not bestowed upon him until about fifty years before. The powers were a punishment from his maker who refused to understand his unwillingness to surrender to the darkness.
Christoph had foolishly believed he could turn the curse into a gift and had vowed to use the ability to care for the humans rather than watch it go to waste or drive him to madness. But over two decades later, he found himself – more often than not – kneeling on the floor with hands clasped in prayer as he thrust them toward an unforgiving God, begging to know what he had done to deserve such torment.
Walking toward his small closet and opening the door, he stared at the hangers that carried his black jackets and black pants, each garment entombed securely in a large plastic body bag. The floor beneath them was decorated with several pairs of expensive leather shoes and Christoph kicked them to the side as he walked in to sit down in the corner. Pulling the door closed from the inside, he welcomed the darkness and settled into it as a human might settle into a warm bubble bath. It was his thinking spot and where he often made his most difficult decisions.
Christoph had convinced himself that he could use his empathy for the good of mankind, relieving the humans of their pain if only for the moment necessary to reconsider suicide or to make a better decision. Though he often trudged back home in the early morning hours, heavy from the burdens of others and near-blinded from the horrors he had witnessed day in and day out, he continued to thank a silent God for his gift of healing. With dignity and grace, he