Vampire: The Masquerade - Hope Chronicle

Chapter I

Life in small towns can be truly wonderful. Far away from noisy streets crowded with people, it feels like life finally has a meaning. There's no need to struggle day by day, keeping up to meet every expectation possible. It gives you certain freedom of both soul and mind when you do what you want without caring too much. You live in a hermetic society that does not worry because it's functional with or without the outside world. Even if you do not directly contribute to this living organism, you give it a spark of life - a personality, you could say. It is a thing that sparks this "hope" inside of us. This thing may have come to the minds of people that over 200 years ago set foot at the confluence of the Fraser and Coquihalla rivers and established a fort in today's town of Hope, BC, Canada. It's a place that sparks hope inside of you indeed. Blooming with cheerful people, fulfilling their life journeys to the end, serving both themselves and the community. Annual parades and various festivals show how much these people love their town and the entire district of Hope as it covers a slightly wider area down the river with a few smaller communities. But that's not the full extent of life that happens in Hope... or rather unlife, should I say.

When the night falls over Hope and the citizens slowly roll to slumber, some entities' slumber is being interrupted... interrupted by an endless hunger for blood... by the ancient instinct that lives somewhere down their throat... the instinct we call The Beast. You could call us vampires, but we call ourselves Kindred. You mostly envy our immortal "condition" - we rather despise it... or at least I do. When the sun goes down, the entire district of Hope becomes quite a paradise for all of us, creatures of the night. Just like mortals are independent from the outside world, so are we. With the population of about ten thousand humans, and a few hundred Kindred with no attention from vampire focused threats like Second Inquisition or the hunters, we just spend our unlives relatively happy. I could even say it somewhat looks like the infamous "Twilight Saga" without glowing in the sun part - we actually burn under it. Remember though, that even in such a fairy tale "the bad vampire government" came to their little town to ravage havoc on local kine, because of some personal conflict. In our world, there are three main factions - Camarilla, Anarchs and The Sabbat. The thing is, none of those factions aren't exactly good. We are monsters, after all, and monsters like us tend to get very territorial.

You mortals have many expectations when you decide to have children. Nobody can blame you because you never know who your prodigy will become. We, on the other hand, embrace (which is our word for "making" a vampire) adult people that we usually get to know beforehand, so we can assume what they would do in their unlife. My childe, you see... got out of hand to say the least. His name is Richard and we are of a vampire lineage called clan Ventrue. Naturally, we are drawn to power. Our Beasts crave it as badly as the blood we feasted upon over millennia, but just like many of us can control their hunger, many of us can control their clan tendencies given upon our deaths. I am such an individual, as my clan Ventrue, like I previously mentioned, craves power and wants to reign over others, but I myself never wanted that. Over the years, I tamed this primal need inside of my soul and now I enjoy having control, but only upon my own existence and fate.

There was this one summer evening when I met Richard - a 50-year-old stylish gentleman living in Hope, working in the town hall. On that night, in a local pub, we talked for hours about our thoughts, dreams and passions. I felt like he was the exact spitting image of me, though he had the opportunity which I've always wished I had. He fulfilled his mortal life. He had his dream job, loving family and friends. As the time passed, his colleagues moved out of Hope to fulfill their big city dreams, and he was the only one who stayed. We began spending evenings together from time to time, having the time of our lives discussing various topics, hiking in the local area, and just hanging out in the local bars. I used to joke with him that I am really lucky to meet a person with such a deprived sleep schedule as myself. Little did he know back then... One night he said to me he thought of actually leaving Hope to travel the world, as if he felt done with his life in that town. His wife passed away a few years ago and his daughter Jenna had a child of her own, which she clearly could take care of with her partner. Richard felt like a burden living a few blocks away from them. He wasn't too busy at work either, so the only people he had were his family, but it wasn't exactly the same case on their side. He wasn't mad at them at all, actually he was relieved. That's where the "leaving for adventure" plan came from. I thought that since we've grown quite fond of each other, I revealed myself to him. Offering him the unlife we could have together. I thought I could finally have a genuine friend accompanying me in my travels across all the countries. After a few nights of not talking to each other, he came to me by himself and agreed.