The God Files: Orroz's Story

Discovery: Flight

Despite our shaky beginnings, Isaac and I became fast friends. He told me he was of the First Generation: one of the very first vampires created (for clarification purposes, I will call them vampires, though the word did not even exist at that time). Not even he clearly remembers how he was made. But his age and time spent wandering the earth has let him obtain many secrets that are otherwise hidden from the world. And I had the honor of being given them.

I stayed with the vampires for two centuries. Most of our time was spent learning and developing our powers, as vampires were new entities in creation and had untold potential. Some had great strength matching even the strongest of God's creatures. Others could run even faster than Isaac, merely a blur when in motion. A few, while physically weak, had great power of the mind, able to hear the thoughts of others and even control them. A lucky one or two had multiple or even all these abilities. I was one of them, though in a most expectant way.

Technically, I was only partially human. Vampires are an extension of humanity, and thus they can only turn humans. As a nephilim by technicality, I had angelic as well as some demonic heritage. And my vampirism rapidly accelerated the development of my nephilim powers. My strength and speed grew increasingly, my senses matched even the greatest and eldest of vampires, and I discovered two unique and previously hidden powers.

On a moonless night I was training with my sparring partner, Fariba. She, like I, was of the Second Generation, the vampires the First Generation bit and created. She too was brought in by Isaac, but whether he bit her as he bit me, or he was merely the transporter, I never could say. But one thing was for sure; she was a goddess in sparring and battle.

She fought with incredible grace and fluidity, yet was savage like an animal. I was hard pressed to fight her off, and she had an annoying knack for using her beauty and mind power to distract her foes. With raven colored hair reaching down to her shoulders, ruby red lips and eyes like red wine, it was easy for her to use her appearance to her advantage.

                        "Come on, Orroz. It's a moonless night. You should be doing better than this!" Fariba taunted as she spun her blades at me, causing me to fall back hastily.

                        "Oh gee, I'm sorry, Fariba. I keep getting distracted by that piece of food stuck between your teeth!" I retort back and give out a sudden assault of feigns and strikes. I manage to press her back toward the corner. Soon I'd have her trapped and win the spar.

But among Fariba's many talents is an almost precognitive sense of intuition that caused her to move opposite of the corner I was trying to trap her in. Once again she pressed the attack, this time using her abilities to make me lose focus on her blades and replace it with...well, other things. As I soon discovered, however, I have a handy resistance to such magic. Despite this she was slowly pushing me back to the balcony. If she got me there, I would have to surrender or else enter a fall of a hundred feet or more. Not a very pleasant way to go. To my dismay I felt my lower back press against the railing and saw Fariba's blade inches from my throat. I drop my blade and put my hands in the air in defeat. Fariba gave her best winning smile and lowered the blade, letting me get away from the precarious drop. I gave her a grin as well.

                        "Good match, Fariba. You almost fight like a man," I complimented and teased at the same time.

                        "Huh, that's funny, I was about to say the same about you," Fariba retorted and gave me a friendly punch to the shoulder. However, though Fariba had great prowess while sparring, as only a recent Second, she still had trouble controlling her own strength, especially after a match. Her friendly punch sent me soaring over the balcony and into the open air. Fariba shrieked in alarm and rushed over to the railing, helpless to save me in what seemed to be a fall to my death.

Time has no grip on vampires. Age is laughed at, and death is scorned. However, vampires are not immune to every one of death's grasps. A stake to the heart, naturally, will kill us. Any sharp object, really, hit in that sweet spot will put an end to us. Decapitation, obviously, is another one. And so is falling a hundred feet or so to the cold, hard, merciless earth.

I felt strangely at peace as I fell. I don't know how to describe it. Everything happened to slow down around me. I was around a century old at this incident, and I was unaccustomed to the weight of such a life. So, nearly subconsciously I accepted death. Looked forward to it, almost. But soon I realized it was taking a long time for me to fall. I had closed my eyes almost the second I began to plummet, so I didn't have to see the ground rushing at me. But I opened my eyes and saw I was hovering about twenty feet off the ground. I jerked back in surprise and started flailing my limbs around, trying to get myself upright. The most I could do was a lazy backflip in the air. After a moment I stopped struggling, and almost naturally I began to hover upright. I looked up and saw Fariba starring, dumbstruck, at my survival. I made a jumping motion and I soared high into the air, stopping about a few feet above the railing.

                        "Cool, huh?" I asked. Fariba could only nod stupidly as I eased myself into the building and used one of the surrounding pillars to pull me back down.

                        "How did you--how could you..." Fariba stuttered. I gave her a wolfish grin and shrugged.

                         "Must be one of those 'hidden powers' Isaac mentioned to me," I said. After that we left and I probably drank half the supply of blood we had. Flying was exhausting.