Chapter 51 - Not the End

Of course, that was not the end of me. How could it be? I am here in this finely appointed suite in Liege, Belgium, tapping away on my sleek modern computer as we speak. But it is just as good a place as any to end the first volume of my memoirs. Probably the most fitting place, because it really is an end of sorts.

I spent the next seven thousand years or so in that glacier. Insensate. Inanimate. Dead but for my vampire dreams. Encased in a tomb of ice like an insect in amber.

The world swept on, revolving around and around and around the sun, adorning itself in a hoary mantle of ice before gradually thawing again. The Earth twirled, day to night and back again, approximately two million times while I slept. Mankind endured the terrible cold and was tempered by the ordeal. As the glaciers slowly retreated once more, what few men had survived that long age of ice flourished in the conquering warmth. Our species, Cro-Magnon man, was fruitful and multiplied while all the other thinking apes languished and passed away. When I was finally delivered from my frigid womb, mankind had blossomed. It had evolved, become a more sophisticated beast, a little crueler perhaps, but wiser, more robust. Yet despite its heady renewal, the world I'd forsaken had suffered a profound loss in my absence. Our cousins, the Neanderthals, were in decline. By the time I walked the Earth again, they had all but vanished from the world. Their extinction left a gaping void in our collective psyche. For the first time since we climbed down from the trees and spread across the face of Europe, we were the only sentient species on the planet. We were the last thinking apes left alive. We were alone, and you know how terrible it is to be alone.

Sometimes I think it is that loneliness that drove our species a little bit insane. Why else would we have invented such a vast assortment of preposterous characters, all those pantheons of mad gods and uncountable legions of angels and devils and supernatural dream-things, if not to fill the void our Fat Hand cousins left behind?

Of which vampires were only too eager to seek advantage. But that is a tale for another night.

As for this evening, I am hungry and I must venture out to feed. My cold white body ravens for mortal blood. The need for me is as strong as it ever was, a twisting knife in my guts, a relentless throbbing ache in every cell of my body. Blood! the beast cries. Give me blood! And I must move to obey it.

I bid you sweet dreams, my readers.

Be well and be good… or you may find my dread shadow at your window tonight.

Your friend,

Gon,

The Oldest Living Vampire