Moonless - The Eternal Night

Abysses (nsfw)

John

'If you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.'

These were the words of a philosopher from the old world. Only a fraction of his works had survived the onset of eternal night, including Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. How fitting.

It was meant to warn against the abyss. Against the perpetual struggle. But wasn't it, in essence, a quote designed to drive someone towards the abyss? To be seen?

What desire was more primitive than the simple want to be seen? Just as one truly was. Beyond everything one should be.

Beyond everything others wanted one to be.

For John, it was like that. It was only the abyss that saw him. That even tried to see him.

Two abysses. Absolute. Consuming. Mentally exhausting. Right in front of him. A hand in his hair. Pain in his skull. And ice.

Ice that ruled over these abysses, they were the thin wire on which he balanced, not to fall. Not to lose himself. Again.

Lips were drawn back, showing glistening fangs. The sight made it burn under his skin. Become to tight. Yet, it filled him with a yearning that had no logic. No sense. No understanding.

Another abyss. That of lust. That of pain.

But there were not enough pains yet.

He hadn't broken through yet.

He had to break through.

So the pressure inside John would disappear. And she had to bite him. So his body would be filled too.

Six months. Six months he had been with her. Six months of being who he was.

Six months of being seen.

A hand closed around his neck. Tight. "When I call, you answer. Understood?" She cut off his air. She liked to do that. Was obsessed with throats. Especially those she had marked herself.

With vampires, everything revolved around throats. Around blood. Around eating.

Or around sex.

Or inflicting pain.

If you understood them, it was easy. Easy to provoke them.

No answer. He stared at her. Through his glasses. Into the ice. Into the abysses.

His abyss.

And the abyss looked into him. Saw him. Recognized him. Recognized what he was. What he was supposed to be. What he would never be.

Saw something he was ashamed of. Mostly. Before anyone. But not before her.

Empathy.

Elves had no use for empathy. They stood for knowledge. For the pursuit of it, for progress, and for their unmistakable political acumen.

John had never been interested in politics. Never in alliances, in weaving the worldly fate, now that hardly anything remained of a world that could be steered. There were still elven houses, cities. With their delicate, symmetrical orientations, where not even a bush could deviate from the perfect picture, but they had become fewer. As long as they maintained a fragile alliance with the vampires, providing them with technology and slaves, the vampires kept their fangs at bay.

He had always wanted to be a doctor. He had always had a weakness for philosophy, for the questions that none of his people asked. Medicine was something devoid of any emotion, not much more than the maintenance of a machine, and striving to want to help others, to alleviate their suffering, was not fitting for an elf. Especially not for someone of such rank.