Black Vampire Genesis

There are a lot of things in this universe which are simply unexplained. Fortunately, what I am doesn't have to be one of them. You see, I am the First of my Kind. Throughout the ages, we've been called many things. Those who walk in darkness. Blood drinkers. Vampires. Night walkers. Many think of us as revenants, coming back from the dead to drink the blood of the living. Others see us as nightmarish ghouls who prey on mankind. The truth is that we are simply another species of humanoid living on this planet. We are to humans what humans are to chimpanzees. A more evolved member of the Sapiens family. The planet Earth is big enough for both human and Vampire to share, that's what I wish to impress upon you.

In this day and age, I am known as Arthur Lafontaine. In the eyes of the world, I'm a forty-something man of African and Middle-Eastern descent. The truth is that I was born of an Egyptian mother and Sudanese father eleven thousand years ago. Long before the great pyramids were built in the region of Sudan as well as parts of North Africa. Today, I live in the City of Toronto, Province of Ontario. I am a graduate of the Ottawa University Faculty of Law and I work as a criminal defense attorney in metropolitan Toronto. I have been around for a long time. Some days, it feels like forever. Throughout time, I have been a prince of my people. Those whom ordinary humanity fearfully refers to as Vampires.

I was born different, and unfortunately, that's not a good thing on this planet. I grew to manhood in a savage time. A time of wild men who roamed the land, slaughtering their neighbours to take their land, their cattle, their crops and their women. There were constant clashes between the peoples of sub-Saharan Africa and their North African neighbors. My mother was a princess of the bronze-skinned and dark-haired, pre-Egyptian tribes which lived in what is today known as the Nile Region. She was betrothed to a chieftain of the Sudanese people in the interests of peace. And I was the result of that union. My father raised me to be a true Sudanese warrior prince, even though I was visually different from my fellows. The art of war is what makes princes, as that infamous Italian philosopher Machiavelli was fond of saying.

How did I become what I am? I was born this way. Purely and simply. Born with superhuman strength and speed, along with an accelerate ability to recover from injuries which would kill any other human being. What made me this way? I couldn't tell you. Scientists I've known said that I am the result of mutation. Others claim that I am simply natural evolution occurring. Whatever. I simply am what I am. And I am proud of it. I lived among my father's tribe, and I defended these men and women from the barbarian hordes which roamed the continent of Africa at the time. The ancestors of Persians, Berbers, South Africans and Ethiopians were a ruthless bunch, as befitting the environment in which they lived. A time of utter savagery. Yet the dawn of civilization was already on the way.

I warred against various tribal leaders, both Arabs and Africans. And I soon tired of war, even though no man could slay me. I've been pierced with arrows, beheaded, burned and hung, all before I reached the age of twenty, yet I still lived. My body's ability to regenerate always kept the angel of death at bay. I grew tired of fighting against men and sometimes women. Yes, there were plenty of female warriors among the African and Arabian tribes of those days. The ancients had a very utilitarian mindset, one which left little place for the sexism and racism which would plague later generations of man. In the time in which I lived, men and women of different races married regularly, usually to stave off disastrous wars between rival ethnic or cultural groups. Intermarrying was an act of peace, and created social relations between those who might otherwise slaughter each other.

I wondered if there might be a way to create lasting peace between the peoples of Africa. I spoke to the leaders of various African and Arabian tribes, and we joined forces to build a City. The first City, I believe. A place where men and women from different nations might meet to trade, and live peacefully. The City was considered neutral territory. Those who tired of leading a nomadic lifestyle, constantly fearing attack from barbarians, often came to the City. The leaders of various tribes agreed to defend the City against any outsiders. It was the first time in human history that men and women of different races and backgrounds came together en masse to create lasting peace. I wasn't the leader of the City. However, I sat on the Council. The Council was an assembly of tribal leaders from different nations. On the Council, all were considered equal. There was no room for ego or petty agendas. I wouldn't allow it, nor would any of the other leaders. Now, students of modern history might liken us to the United Nations. Ladies and gentlemen, I respectfully disagree. The United Nations is a bloated, politically correct yet ultimately inefficient organization. The wealthiest nations control its politics, and they bully the little guys. On the first-ever multinational council, the tribal leader who commanded the mightiest army had the same clout as the man or woman whose tribe numbered mere hundreds. That's true equality as far as I'm concerned.

The settlements of the City continued to grow. Soon, there were hundreds of thousands of men and women from different tribes living together. I watched my dream come alive, and it worked beyond my wildest dreams. Can you imagine? Men and women of different races, sharing and respecting one another in a vast City, around 10 000 B.C.? Something the world wouldn't see until the latter days of the mid-twentieth century. The folks of my tribe permanently settled into the City. A beautiful metropolis whose inhabitants were from all over. Sub-Saharan Africans, Arabs, and even some newcomers from distant lands. In its heyday the magnificent City had a population of two million inhabitants. It was defended by an army made up of men and women from a myriad nations. How about that?

This is the Vampire's gift to mankind. Civilization. Based upon racial tolerance, equality and respect for differences. They're still trying to get it right in places like New York City, Johannesburg, Sao Paolo and London. Ancient man wasn't as wild or uncivilized as so-called experts would have you believe. I walked from Africa to the Middle-East, and there onto Europe. And the colour of my skin didn't seem to matter to the ancient European and Asian men and women I encountered in my travels. Sure, every group has its stock of xenophobia but in those days we overcame those fears in the interests of trade. Isolationism simply didn't work. I wish modern men and women would remember that.

Now, I'll get to the chapter I know you folks have been anticipating. The birth of the Vampire species. It occurred quite innocently. I was well into my eightieth year, having founded the first major City on the planet Earth. Yet I didn't look a day over twenty five. I married a beautiful young woman named Mehja. The daughter of a wealthy tribal chieftain from the Arab lands. Mehja's mother came from sub-Saharan Africa, like my dear father. I fell in love with this tall, curvy young woman with light brown skin, long black hair and dark eyes. The first time I laid eyes upon her, I knew I just had to have her. Now, things weren't that simple. The people of the City were thankful to me as its Founder, however they thought it strange that I didn't seem to age as time went by. I passed myself off as my own son. For I knew my future bride's grandfather when he was a young man. A bit of deception was needed for me to survive the insatiable curiosity of humans. I married Mehja, and offspring were born to us. Two sons and two daughters. Arek, Talus, Firakima and Agypta. They were beautiful, and I thanked all the Gods that they were so beautiful and healthy. In those days, the mortality rate was quite high. Many households which rejoiced over new births soon mourned them. That was an unfortunate fact of life in ancient times.

Mehja and I raised our family in the most beautiful sector of the City. We had no idea that we were making history. One day, I came to find that a sickness had stricken many of the City's inhabitants. Medicine was generations away, and our understanding of disease was severely limited. This disease caused its sufferers to vomit blood, and to fall into a coma. Within a week they were dead. In a matter of months, hundreds of people perished. I was forced to act, to prevent my City from falling to the Plague. I ordered the corpses of the deceased to be hastily buried, and I quarantined the sick ones. There was little I could do for them, except let them die in peace. My ruthlessness paid off, for the plague went away. And I was cheered on as the saviour of the City. Unfortunately, my elation was short-lived. For the last people to get the disease were none other than my wife, sons and daughters. I knew what grim fate awaited my loved ones. Filled with despair, I sought for a way to save them. I would have given my life for them. Yet the disease which moved about in their blood was beyond my ability to cure. Or was it?

In my despair, I thought my blood might be able to save my family. So I fed my wife and offspring my blood. This precious blood of mine which prevented me from aging, and also made me stronger and faster than any man who has ever lived. When my blood went into them, it saved them. Unfortunately, that's not all it did. It...changed them. The first to be changed was my wife Mehja. She awoke from the coma with reddened eyes, and her voice was strange. Still feminine, but several octaves deeper than it had ever been. She awoke in a panic, and I reassured her that she would be alright. Our sons and daughters were recovering nicely too. My oldest son Arek was twenty two years old when the plague struck him down. When he recovered from it thanks to my blood, he lacked the reddened eyes and deepened voice of his mother. However, he was even more profoundly changed. My son's mouth was filled with curving fangs. And three days after his miraculous recovery, I caught him draining our donkey of its blood. His younger brother Talus, who was nineteen years old at the time, had the same condition. He seemed to crave blood as well. Their eighteen-year-old twin sisters, Firakima and Agypta, also shared the same strange condition. I hid my family from view, and tried to figure out how to change them back. Sadly, I couldn't. They were what they were, forever.

I couldn't know it at the time but my wife, sons and daughters were The First Blood. The first generation of Vampires. Along with the thirst for blood, they developed superhuman strength and speed. I watched helplessly as they gave into their inhuman urges, and began feeding upon the men and women of the City I had sworn to protect. Something strange happened when they fed upon a man or woman without killing. Within a few days, their victim became a blood drinker like them. The people of the City called me for help. And I found myself in the unenviable situation of having to wage war against my offspring. I found a group of men and women who had lost family members to the Vampires curse. I taught them how to fight against the blood drinkers. Decapitation, immolation and the destruction of the heart seemed to be the only ways of permanently stopping the blood drinkers. Nothing else seemed to work. Thus, the Hunters were born. I'm told that they survive to this day. An ancient cadre of men and women dedicated to hunting down and killing the blood drinkers. Interesting.

As for my wife and our offspring, I never saw them again. I know that they're still out there. They are as beyond ordinary Vampires as Vampires are beyond humans. My blood flows through them, shielding them from the common weaknesses of Vampires. The blood drinkers made by the First Blood possess superhuman strength and speed, and the eternal hunger for blood. However, they also have a deep fear of sunlight. The light of the sun is lethal to Vampires. A slight exposure is enough to set them ablaze. That wasn't the fate shared by my wife and offspring. No, my sons and daughters along with my wife are as impossible to kill as I am. Sunlight doesn't bother them any more than it bothers the average human being. Also, they are inhumanly strong and fast, in a way that ordinary Vampires aren't. Regular Vampires heal quickly but lost the ability to truly regenerate. All five members of the First Blood can regenerate, an ability they inherited from me. For this reason, they'll walk the planet Earth until the stars turn cold. Where they went, what they're up to, that I couldn't tell you. I haven't seen them since that night they slaughtered the majority of the Hunters who went against them and left the City.

I know that all things do come to he who waits. Someday, my wife and offspring will be reunited with me. I have faith in nothing but this. Even after all this time, I can't bring myself to hate them. It's been eleven thousand years. The planet Earth has changed. Humans are everywhere now, as are Vampires. Seven billion human beings dwell on this planet, discreetly stalked every night by well over a million Vampires. Thousands of men and women from various nations and walks of life are recruited into the secret brotherhood of the Hunters, and they fight against Vampires every night. The Hunters have lost all memory of the First Blood and of me, the Father of All Monsters, the one who started it all. Perhaps it's for the best.