I was only 147 when my parents were taken from me.

Even after all this time I remember it clearly. The screaming, the fire, the mob.

The world was so different then. Electricity hadn’t been harnessed, there was no television.

I lived in the shadows for centuries. I found others like me and we’d help each other for a time. It was never safe to stay together for long or gather too many of us. The ones hunting us would burn down a whole city if they found enough of us in one place.

It was after Chicago that I set off alone again. It was partially due to safety concerns, but in 150 years I still haven’t found another vampire in America.

The only upside of my condition is that my personal resources are at a scale few will ever realize or comprehend. I have no board of directors, no shareholders, and no considerations other than completing my goals.

I invested. 60 teams in 17 countries working on my problem since before the First World War.

None of them know the full scope of what they’re working on or why, and I’m sure that’s slowed them down more than s little.

I’ve got the time though, and the money.

They finished sequencing the genome in 2010, and things have accelerated since then.

I first saw daylight in 2020. Such irony. I walked around without fear while others cowered at home. It was another year before I could make synthetic blood pure enough to sustain me.

It will never replace the thrill and rush of stalking and pouncing on living prey, but I can subsist on it for years.

With my supplements I’ve been able to do something no vampire has ever done before, let myself become well known.

I know those who hunt me are still out there. I know how they find us. They look for certain patterns of crime, and families and estates that persist through the ages.

My private jet and corporate structure has kept me ahead of them as I feed for the past few decades, but now I’m seen in the day, and there are no telltale killings in my wake. I can’t possibly be a vampire.

Once I kick off my presidential campaign I’ll be far above suspicion, constantly on the move, and in a position to do more for my kind than any that came before me.

That’s a challenge for the future though. For now my focus is on creation. It’s hard enough for one vampire to sustain himself and avoid detection for this long. I’d dared not give my gift to another lest we attract too much attention.

Now though, now we can bide our time. Position our chess pieces. We can be seen in the sun, go for months and years without taking a human life due to necessity.

The people alive today won’t see it, but the future of Earth will be very different. We won’t have to hide much longer.