Victoria Abdullah is the name, and I'm a Vampire living in the City of Ottawa, province of Ontario. I was born in the Baalbek region of Lebanon in 1690, and became a Vampire in 1720. I stand five feet nine inches tall, curvy, with long black hair, light bronze skin and pale brown eyes. I don't look a day over thirty. Arab, female and one of the Undead, definitely not something you hear about every bloody day, that's for sure. After walking the planet earth for 323 years, I find that I can still be surprised, both at myself and others. I've lived in many places over the course of the centuries, from my beloved Lebanon to Syria, from Sudan to Ethiopia, and from Britain to the Caribbean island of Haiti, where I broke my most sacred rule and transformed a trusted friend into one of my own kind. A decision I've regretted ever since.
I met Leonard Saint-Preux in the year 1799, back when the island of Saint Domingue was plagued with war as French colonial forces struggled against an uprising of African slaves led by Black soldiers trained by the French forces themselves. Stalwart Black heroes like Toussaint Louverture and Jean Jacques Dessalines along with Alexandre Petion were leading the fight of the Black population to end slavery. I too had been brought to the island of Saint Domingue against my will. A wealthy French plantation owner named Guillaume Armand captured me in the streets of Paris, France, and brought me to the Caribbean to experiment on me in the hopes of discovering the key to immortality. He experimented on me, torturing me for years and bringing me to the edge of death and the brink of madness.
The old Frenchman wanted to become immortal, but he knew that I'd never turn him into one of my own willingly because I had sworn centuries ago that I would never turn any human being into one of the undead. I became a Vampire against my will the night a Vampire overlord named Elias Fouad, who had been roaming the vastness of Lebanon since the time of the Crusades, transformed me after feeding on me. I swore two things to myself the night I became a Vampire. I would destroy Elias Fouad, and I would never turn anyone into what I had become. In today's pop culture universe, people seem fascinated with Vampires. They think we're cool. They're so wrong about Vampire life it's not even funny. Sometimes I wonder where they get their information from. There's nothing happy, glamorous or cool about being a Vampire. Being one of the undead is like being a walking disease, and the only way you survive is by corrupting and destroying all life around you. A virus on two legs, that's what a Vampire is. People don't think the flu is cool, yet they idolize us Vampires because they don't know the truth of what we are. I for one will gladly enlighten you mortals.
Anyhow, for ten years I was kept in the secret underground chamber deep below the Armand plantation in the northern town of Cap Francais, which would later be renamed Cap-Haitien by the African insurgents once they drove the French colonists from the island of Saint Domingue. My captor kept me alive by feeding me animal blood because he knew that human blood would strengthen me to the point where I'd be able to break the adamantine chains he used to bind me. And he wouldn't have any of that, of course. One night, a group of former slaves attacked the various plantations of the area, led by a stalwart young Black soldier named Leonard Saint-Preux, the right-hand man of legendary insurgent hero Toussaint Louverture himself.
This brave young man and his friends stormed the plantation, killing the planters and freeing the scores of African men and women kept in bondage by the cruel Frenchman. His stronghold under assault, Guillaume Armand finally came for me himself. He thought the only way he could survive the present situation was by having me transform him into a Vampire. He was desperate, you see. He'd seen his men get cut down by dozens of armed African insurgents, former slaves who would show no pity to a colonial master like himself. When Guillaume Armand at last came for me, I refused to give him what he wanted. You should have seen the look in Guillaume's eyes when I spit in his face and denied his request for immortality, even as the plantation around us burned, for the African insurgents had set it ablaze. That's when he drew back his rapier, ready to cut my head off. I glared at him defiantly. At this point, after enduring hell for more than a decade, I welcomed death.
The disgruntled colonial master never completed his task, for a stalwart hero came to save me from him at the last minute. A tall, broad-shouldered and well-built African man in a military uniform stormed into the underground chamber, and shot Guillaume Armand dead before he could kill me. Talk about being rescued in the nick of time. The young African insurgent leader stood there, gun in hand. He stared at me, stunned. I knew how I looked. Pale and gaunt, weak from over a decade of torture and malnutrition. For several moments, the young man stood there, as if debating what to do with me. He had never seen a White woman in chains, I guess. I smiled sadly and told him that he should get out there. The place was burning, and if he didn't leave now, he'd be trapped along with me. He shook his head, and aimed his gun at me. I closed my eyes, welcoming sweet oblivion. I thought my rescuer was about to finish what my captor started. I was a White woman in his eyes, one of the very people who enslaved his kind. I didn't expect him to save me. But he did. He shot off the links of my chains, and took me into his arms as I slumped on the floor. I locked eyes with my savior, and muttered my thanks.
