"Pitiful loser," Lord Vaughn said, and the Elder Vampire looked at the fledgling before spitting in disgust. As the Master of the Blood Legion, it was Lord Vaughn's duty to train new recruits and turn them into a force to reckon with. The Supreme Council of the Undead expected no less of him. The aforementioned loser happened to be Omar Selkirk, and he was truly deserving of the moniker. He'd slacked off during drills before but almost allowing his human quarry to flee, well, that was simply unacceptable...
Vampires are predators and must kill in order to feed, that's Vampire 101. Evidently, Omar Selkirk had been absent when this rule was invented. The fact that Omar had been a Vampire for only a few years was no excuse. Once a person became infected with the Vampire virus, the virus rewrote their DNA and altered their psychological makeup. The transformed creature would become five times stronger and three times faster than before, and would become immune to disease and old age. In order to keep those Undead benefits, the Vampire has to drink human blood.
Lord Vaughn's duties involved recruitment and training of fledgling Vampires, and the Elder Vampire found some of these fanged rookies sadly lacking in predatory instinct. Tonight's incursion into what remained of London had proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that some Vampires were inferior, powers or not. Lord Vaughn sent a small unit of ten Vampires into the post-Apocalyptic metropolis, tasking them to slay a human each, and bring back their heads. Carefully supervising his recruits, Lord Vaughn was disappointed when Omar hesitated to slay a human female, nearly allowing her to get away. The lout's cowardice knew no bounds, evidently...
"Won't happen again, Chief," Omar replied, and the tall, brown-skinned, curly-haired fledgling Vampire flinched under Lord Vaughn's merciless gaze. Lord Vaughn had been a Vampire for many centuries, having been a nobleman in Wales, England, prior to being turned. The former soldier, nobleman and statesman, now a leader among the Undead, knew what it took to be a soldier and Omar simply didn't have it...
"It better not, or I will stake you myself," Lord Vaughn replied, and he dismissed Omar, who walked away, forlorn. Outside the Fortress, the sky was bleak and dark gray, as it had been ever since the nuclear holocaust. Humanity reacted harshly when it discovered the existence of the Undead, and the world's surviving Vampires were forced to team up in the name of survival. Lord Vaughn had to mold semi-useless blood drinkers like Omar into an elite fighting unit, lest the Vampire species go extinct...
Omar walked into the depths of the Fortress, heading to the barracks. There were hundreds of Vampires around, going about their duties. They trained with sword and axe and crossbow, and also practiced with guns. Solitary by nature, the Vampires had to learn to be a community ever since the humans discovered their existence. When a Vampire uprising compromised Washington D.C. and Vienna, NATO used their nuclear options, plunging the world into semi-permanent darkness. Since then, human and Vampire had been at war...
Not for the first time Omar wondered how different his life might have been if he'd listened to his parents and fled to Kano, Nigeria, his mother's ancestral homeland. Omar was born in London, England, to a British father, Oliver Selkirk, and a Nigerian Muslim immigrant mother, Kamala Amir. He was only twenty, a business student at Brunel University when the Apocalypse began. The world discovered the existence of Vampires, triggering a war between the two species. Americans and the British used their nuclear arsenal against the Undead, thus dooming the entire world.
In the chaos that ensued, Vampire Legions stormed the cities of the world, infecting confused and frightened humans at will. Omar was hiding out in his London flat when the Undead horde came. A single scratch from a pretty Asian lady with fangs, that's all it took to transform Omar Selkirk from tall, handsome biracial geek to sullen blood drinker. In the aftermath, Omar roamed the smoldering remnants of London, confused and starving. To stave off his hunger, Omar fed from rats...
The local Vampires called themselves the Blood Legion, and their leader Lord Vaughn recruited Omar into their ranks, along with dozens of other newbie Vampires. At first, the Blood Legion seemed like a good thing. At night, Vampires ruled the streets of London and the humans hunkered down in their hiding holes. During the day, the Vampires slept, and the humans foraged for food while also hunting their enemies. It was the deadliest of stalemates. To the initially naïve Omar, the Blood Legion offered protection, and there was strength in numbers. The Fortress was the ultimate Vampire stronghold, the one place no human would dare enter...
"Hey stranger," came a female voice, and Omar turned to see Vana Everhart, Lord Vaughn's favorite fanged soldier. Tall and curvy, with blonde hair and lime-green eyes, the forty-something, decidedly alluring Vana had been a top notch soldier in the UK's Armed Forces prior to being turned. The career soldier adapted quite well to life as an Undead trooper. Too bad Omar couldn't say the same. Vana looked Omar up and down, flashing that trademark smirk of hers. What did she want?
"You saw that, of course," Omar said, and he closed his eyes, hard. Vana licked her lips and nodded. Of course she'd seen Lord Vaughn rip Omar a new one. Omar had committed perhaps the ultimate Vampire taboo by almost failing to kill a human. What Omar hadn't told Lord Vaughn and the others is that the human woman he'd almost spared tonight reminded him of his sweet Caroline, whom he hadn't seen since before the Apocalypse began...
"Yeah, you got cold feet but in the end you drained that bitch and killed her, so you did the right thing," Vana said with a shrug. Omar nodded, trying to project confidence. Tonight, he'd snuck into a human stronghold and killed two men. When it came to the sole human woman in the hiding hole, he'd hesitated. Tall, dark-skinned and slim, the woman bore a striking resemblance to Caroline Adewale, the beautiful Nigerian student whom Omar had dated pretty seriously, shortly before the world went to hell.
"The woman reminded me of Caroline," Omar said, and Vana bit her lip, remembering all the times Omar went on and on about his mortal friends and family. Caroline was the woman Omar hoped to marry, back when he was human. They'd lost track of each other during the Vampire Apocalypse. Vana nodded at Omar and gently laid her hand on his arm. Omar hesitated, then relented as Vana drew closer. The snarky look on her face vanished, replaced by one of concern.
"Omar, I got turned into this by the freak who killed my father, my mother, my husband and my daughter right in front of me," Vana said tersely, and Omar nodded at her. A lot of the newbie Vampires had similar tales of woe. Impulsively, Omar hugged Vana, who embraced him. They were no longer human. They no longer breathed. Their hearts no longer beat. Still, they felt fear, and pain, and loneliness, and loss. They were the rarest kind of Undead, those who still felt human emotions...
