World War M

The sun rose over the horizon, and I closed my eyes. Normally, this would mean it's time to sleep. However, with ash clouds blotting out much of the sun, a perpetual gloom hangs over Boston's battered skyline today. This means I can still go hunting. Last night I fed, draining a young White Muslim female spy of her blood. It's morning and I'm still hungry. And I'm in the mood for decent Christian flesh and Christian blood because I like variety in my diet. Such is the life of a vampire. It's not all the glitz, glamour and adventure you read about in Twilight books or anything like what you see on old television programs like True Blood or Vampire Diaries.

Honestly, I wish mortals would stop glamourizing the vampire lifestyle. The reality is that there's nothing poetic about my life, nothing to envy. Still, like all life, it has its ups and downs. My name is Leopold Clarence, and I was born in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, in 1769. Twenty five years later, I encountered a man named Anthony Abdullah, a gentleman from the Republic of Lebanon, and he turned me into one of the undead. Since then, life hasn't been the same. The fact that a Lebanese Christian vampire was the one to bring me into this life of eternal damnation was prophetic in my mind, especially given what the world has turned into since I rose from my grave.

A Chinese proverb says may you live in interesting times. I want to wring the neck of whoever wrote that garbage, seriously. I was born in New England to former African slaves, and lived through some of American history's darkest chapters. I fought in the Civil War, and I also fought in many secret wars since then. Right now, I'm just trying to survive the mess that the world has become. In 2018, Christianity and Islam officially declared war on each other after a team of Saudi-trained terrorists detonated a low-level nuclear device in downtown Dallas, State of Texas, killing about a hundred thousand Americans. The American government's swift response was to bomb the cities of Mecca and Medina, the holiest of sites in Islam, located in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Eight million Saudi citizens died as a direct result of the bombings.

The world's almost two billion Muslims rose up as one, and declared war not only on the United States of America but on much of the Western world. Christendom found itself under attack on a planetary scale. The Republic of Turkey, Kosovo, Iran and others led the war against the European Union. The huge Muslim populations of France, Spain and the United Kingdom were a huge asset to the global Muslim war effort, committing acts of terrorism throughout the nations in which they've lived and supposedly assimilated themselves for decades. Great Britain dropped a nuclear bomb on Pakistan and Iran after British Muslims not only assassinated the Prime Minister, Gloria Winston, but also killed five thousand non-Muslim British citizens during riots in the City of London, England. Muslim populations in Western nations found themselves the subjects of mob attacks by fed up Europeans, Americans, Canadians and others. Likewise, Christian populations in places like turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria found themselves facing exile or slaughter as Muslims began wiping out Christians in the Middle East. Most of the Middle East's Christians fled to the borders of the State of Israel, and Israeli Jewish soldiers joined forces with Arab Christians to form the Judeo-Christian Army or J.C.A. as they attempted to survive the biggest Arab attack on Israel since the 1940s.

The Republic of India leads the fight against the Muslims, having dropped bombs on Muslim population centers within their own borders as well as neighboring Pakistan. It is estimated that sixty four percent of India's Muslim population perished during those early nuclear exchanges. Latin America and the Caribbean are now the world's most stable zones due to the low population of Muslims there, thus the police and military forces in those areas were able to pacify them with strategic military action in the early days of the global war between Christians and Muslims. The United States of America still stands, in spite of repeated attacks by Muslim insurgents coming in from neighboring Canada as well as American Muslim population centers, especially New York City and the town of Dearborn in Michigan. The U.S. military has largely contained the Muslim problem in the United States, though rampant treachery and backstabbing plague their troops as many U.S. Army men and women, Western converts to Islam, betray their fellow Americans by engaging in terrorism in the name of Islam, this within American cities and military bases.

This is the world I live in, ladies and gentlemen. A world gone mad where men and women are slaughtering each other in the name of religion. Whatever happened to the ideals of peace, justice and religious tolerance? I have lived all over the world during the centuries of my long existence. I remember living in the City of Toronto, in the Ontario region of Canada in the early 2000s. I met so many Africans, Arabs, Indians and Chinese, followers of Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism living peacefully in Canada's most racially diverse metropolis. Sure, from time to time there was conflict but by and large, people made an effort to get along. Canada believed in multiculturalism back then.

Intolerant voices accused the Canadian government of bending over backwards to please the Canadian Muslim community, with their reasonable accommodations, among other things. Well, Canada is a very different place now. Paramilitary groups, both government-sanctioned and rogue militias roam the landscape, indiscriminately shooting anyone who "looks" Muslim. Many Canadian Christians from minority backgrounds, especially Lebanese Christians, Haitians, Jamaicans and Hispanics have died a grisly death at the hands of these militias. A big problem for Canada and America, and much of the Western world was the issue of the White male and White female converts to Islam who would unexpectedly turn against their families, friends and countrymen in the name of their new religion. Massive public executions of White Muslim converts were broadcast around the world by eager Christian militias in North America, Australia and Europe.

In retaliation, Muslim mobs in places like Lebanon and Egypt rounded up those Christians who hadn't left and publicly executed them, to send a message to Christendom about what their collective fate would be down the line. Kind of takes the whole "eye for an eye" thing a bit too far, don't you think? Yeah, welcome to the world of the twenty-first century, ladies and gentlemen. Civilization has fallen. West and East are at war. Christendom and Judaism versus Islam. Already there have been millions upon millions of deaths. Even China, the most pragmatic of nations, has had issues with their significant Muslim populations. The Chinese Army has begun rounding up Chinese Muslims after acts of terrorism against the Chinese Communist Party resulted in thousands of deaths across the world's most populous nation. Likewise, Japan has similar problems with their Muslim populace. No place on Earth knows peace.

What's a Vampire doing in a world like that? Well, for thousands of years, us Vampires were forced to hide in the shadows. Now, we can roam freely. You see, with the skies perpetually filled with ash clouds due to nuclear winter, only forty percent of the sunlight reaches the world today. It's a world of darkness, literally. The weak sunlight that pierces through the dark clouds isn't strong enough to hold back a vampire of my power level. I've been alive for centuries. I am as strong as ten men. I can leap thirty feet into the air with the incredible agility and strength that my muscles possess. I am not invincible but I heal ten times faster than a normal human being. I have lived for centuries and I intend to live a lot more. My kind and I will rule this world. That's cool, isn't it?

In the past, my kind hid in the shadows during the day but now, many of us walk in the perpetual twilight that hangs above the world. The world doesn't belong to humankind anymore. While the fools fight over who's Christian, who's Jewish and who's Muslim, us vampires are doing some conversion of our very own. It doesn't matter if you believe in the Torah, the Bible or the Koran. To us vampires, you're eager a quick meal or a new recruit. Around the world, millions of Christians, Jews and Muslims are being converted into vampires. We're the world's fastest growing religion, ladies and gentlemen. Why is that, you may ask? Well, we have a special appeal. It's easy, really. You don't need a special building to pray in, and there are no specific prayer times, mandatory holidays, special religious trips or any of that bullshit. All you have to do is forsake your soul and prey on your fellow man by drinking his blood. Care to join us?