Tanica and I sipped our beers, both of us looking around the packed bar. A decade ago, we wouldn’t be able to sit here, surrounded by food sources, without going into an all out feeding frenzy. Nowadays, it was no problem. Hell, the bartender knew us by (fake, of course) our names, we’d become regulars here.

“I haven’t been able to enjoy a beer in a bar for nearly 500 years!” I said to tanika, who shared my enthusiasm “I sorely missed this” she replied “look at them all, singing, dancing, it’s like I’m home again.” Tanika and I didn’t know each other in our past lives, but we’d been turned at roughly the same time, maybe a year or so in the difference. But our kind has always been relatively small in numbers, so I guess it was only natural we’d meet.

She was beautiful. The same pale skin and slender physique as the rest of us, but with gorgeous red hair that went down to her shoulder blades, and piercing green eyes to boot. Our kind always found the humans depictions of us in media funny. Comically long ears, red eyes, talons for fingernails, the strange ability to turn into a bat, for some reason. I suppose this was their way to distance us from them, make us out to be more monstrous than we actually were. In reality, we looked as human as any man or woman did, and tanika was proof of that.

I, however, was more stereotypical. Tall, long black hair, eyes a shade of brown so dark you could hardly tell iris from pupil. Still, we all passed for human. Their horridly inaccurate depiction of us made hunting far more easier. Until we had no need to hunt.

When Castillo first told me of these “pills” that satiated our thirst, I brushed him off. How could a tiny think replace a body full of blood? “Draco, I’m serious. I haven’t felt the urge for days. DAYS!” “Days?…fine, give it here then.” And just like that, a new era came about. Sunlight still posed a threat, but we could interact with humans more freely than ever before. Within months, most of vampire society had replaced the humans with this pill. Most.

“Don’t be so ridiculous Draco, a pill? Don’t you think, in all the eons, if it were as easy at that we’d have discovered it already?” Of course, the older in our population weren’t so accepting. Samus, the leader of our people, who had been leader for nearly a thousand years, laughed at the idea I presented. “But it worlds, hell, half of us already take them, we haven’t tasted human blood for weeks! Isn’t that proof enough for you?” “You’ll all go blood crazy before long, mark my words! I won’t be joining you, and I’ll be sure to inform who I can about your crazy plans. You can Callisto will be shunned from vampire society.” He was still shouting threats as I walked out. God, that went poorly.

A year in, there was an all out war brewing. We all kept a good front with each other, but we occasionally heard of the “pure” attacking “the bloodless”, and the reports were growing. The society splintered, Callisto lead us, but we still acknowledged samus as leader. Until the Grand Attack.

Callisto had set up a new Safehouse, one that only let bloodless members in. It was a safe haven for us, without the need to worry about random attacks. The pure thought themselves stronger. That we, without our historic food source, had lost strength. The truth was, they attacked only fledgling vampires, and often numbered them 5-1. But still, they WERE outnumbered. Nearly 3/4’s were bloodless, and our numbers slowly grew.

When they attacked, they were in full force, breaking our defence was easy for them, we only had a small number defending the front. We didn’t expect the attack, and they caught us with our pants down, this is true. But they weren’t expecting a force that outnumbered them 3-1, a force that had been training for this very night, a force armed with enough weaponry to give each member 2 swords, and still have some to spare. It was a bloodbath.

They tried to run, but we had them flanked. Callisto lead the battle inside, while I led the battle from the outside. They were surrounded, and they knew it. Many surrendered, but samus, delusional about the odds, shouted from the centre “fight you cowards, fight! They are weak! We can win this! we ca-“ he was interrupted by Tanika, and her sword that had pierced his chest.

“You can what?” She asked, but got no answer. Samus was dying, bleeding more blood than he ever drank. She, as some type of dark joke, took her finger, ran it across her sword, collecting some of the old vampires blood, and tasted it. “Mm, almost forgotten what that was like..” she smirked, and we all saw the life finally fade from the old bastards eyes.

“Hard to believe that was nearly a decade ago, hey Tanika?” I said. I had been lost in thought for…I’m not even sure how long. She knew what I was talking about. “Hm, I can still taste that bastards bitter blood… do you ever miss it? The humans, I mean.” I scanned the room again, my mind filling with memories of screams, of flowing blood, of children, watching in horror as their parents died slowly and agonizingly. “Not really” I said “far to messy, far to…personal.” I stared at the pill, fiddling with it in my hand for a second, before putting it in my mouth, taking a long sip of beer to wash it down. “That…now that’s easy.”