Journal of Lysander Valtz, 1473–2025

12 August 1473 – Salem

I belive I was slaughtered in a fire? Maybe it was that man. Although i can remember a little, i feel like this is all a dream, and the memories will fade, so im writing it down.

I was a man, once. A tailor’s son. My father died of plague, my mother; They said she was a witch when the rains failed, and the crops died. The priest gave the mob permission to burn her. I watched from the river, When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left of her but ash and a broken necklace.

I was found by him two nights later. Tall, pale, his voice like velvet soaked in wine. He said he could give me the power to make them pay.

I accepted.

The first taste of blood was bitter. The second was divine. By the third, I had forgotten her name.

3 April 1601 – New Ampsterdam

The boy was nine. I remember this because his mother begged me to spare him. She offered herself instead.

She tasted like rosewater, very delightful.

I kept the boy. Not out of mercy. I wanted to see how long it would take before he stopped praying. He lasted three weeks. I drained him on the fourth. He no longer cried.

I justified it, of course. All of us did. We were wolves among sheep. better, older, chosen. Men had burned cities, enslaved nations, and called it civilization. What was I doing that they had not already done in daylight?

17 October 1794 – Paris

Revolution is an exquisite feast.

They killed their own kings, and I stood among them, drinking the blood of those poor souls. It was a good show of guillotines. No one noticed the missing peoples. Too many heads fell each day.

I made others then. Fools, mostly. Angry men who wanted immortality without understanding the hunger. I told them it was a gift. They believed me. Until they couldn’t sleep.

One hung himself before dawn. Another threw himself into a furnace. I laughed then.

9 March 1916 – Verdun

Even vampires feel war.

The trenches were full of the dying. Rats fed beside me. I walked among the corpses, cloaked in their stink. The soldiers called me an angel once. I think they believed it?

They begged for death, and I granted it with a kiss. I drank from both sides. German, French, it made no difference. In war; all blood tastes the same.

I tried to stop once. Just to see if I could. I made it two weeks. By the end.. I was gnawing a horse’s throat in the mud.

However, I learned the German Language. In all my years on earth, I realized I had only learned 3 languages. I have all the time in the world to learn them all.

July 3rd 1943 — France

Im not sure what humans and theyre obsession with war is, or theyre obsession with beheading. Ive seen so many wars in my time. Ive become immune to pitying those young boys. This time it was especially bad. That German man Truley says much propaganda. And France is not doing great either. Perhaps I shall move to another nation?

30 November 1984 – Moscow

I fell in love.

Her name was Dasha. A violinist. She played like the world had never known war. I fed before seeing her, always. I brought her books. I brought her silence. She said I seemed like a sad man. I told her I was.

I never bit her.

But someone else did.

One of my progeny.. so starving.. rabid. I tore him apart in front of her. She screamed. I held her as the blood left her lungs. I turned her. I had to.

She opened her eyes the next night and hated me.

She walked into the sunrise.

14 May 2025 – Manhattan

They call her the Last Hunter.

I watched her kill one of my oldest. He tried to run. She pinned him like paper to a wall.

She’s not like the ones before. No holy symbols. No fear.

I followed her tonight. I let her see me. She drew her blade. I smiled.

But I didn’t run.

I came home and poured the last of the wine I stole from a noble’s cellar in 1731. It tastes like dust.

I’ve committed atrocities across five centuries. I have bathed in blood and danced in cathedrals desecrated by my own hands.

And still, I believe I was made by man’s cruelty, not born from it.

15 May 2025 – Before Dawn

I left the door open.

She will come.

She will drive her silver through my chest, and I will not resist. Not because I regret. Not because I repent. But because it must end. I have seen every side of man. savage, kind, indifferent, and I am still the worst thing he ever created.

When she leaves, she will find this journal.

If you read this, know: monsters do not rise from the grave.

They are buried in it first, by the hands of those who pretend to be good.