To See Or Not To See

                   To See Or Not To See

         Leon d'Strif looked around his 'crypt' in satisfaction. The walls were chaotic in their alternating patterns of red shades; but then again, few humans spewed the exact same color of blood. "What's a decorator to do?" Leon chuckled.
         He scoffed at the other vampires who, after thirty years of villainy, crawled into the ground to rot. They chose to die because they couldn't handle the changes in the world. But Leon had found the secret.
         Dominating the center of his crimson chateau was a large tri-fold mirror. Here his loyal slave would bring the latest fashions to this countryside retreat so that Master d'Strif could adorn himself appropriately. And given enough time in front of the mirror, the eternally handsome Leon grew to appreciate the finer cuts of cloth being produced in the city.
         Perhaps this cultivated his sense of vanity - (indeed many times after a kill, he stopped to check his appearance in a button or lapel of his victim) - but Leon had now lasted for eighty years. He was the oldest, strongest, and most learned vampire that he had met. And still his appetites for life - and death - were strong.
         Igomodo the hunchback brought in the two lost boys he had found. Deformed himself, he realized it was his destiny to serve a demon. The Master would be well pleased with these fresh young lads. The Master liked well-born meals.

         His thirst slaked from the choice victims brought by his faithful servant, Leon rested. He sensed the approaching day, and his senses dulled. The hunchback closed the thick curtains around his Master's four-post bed and dismissed himself until the night. Leon, for the first time in four score years, dreamed...
         Fingers poking his back startled Leon. He should have heard anyone approaching. But upon turning, he saw no one was there. A jab stung his buttock, but again he found no one to murder for the offense. The imperious vampire was becoming unnerved.
         "Show yourself!" he croaked out in a rough voice, as if he were a human with the throat sickness. But no being showed itself to his hyper-aware eyes. Instead, whispers floated tantalizingly into his ears:
         "Enjoying your death, are you?" and "His pride and vanity are appalling" and "The order is now unbalanced" - voices he couldn't recognize or trace teased him.
         Leon felt the pit of his stomach constrict, and in a moment of weakness he wailed in despair. He sat up and looked around, arisen from his slumber. Night quickly approached, and he heard the steps of his hunchback servant in the hallway. Perhaps it was only a dream, he thought. But past his ears wafted one last whisper: "Suffer as you were meant."

         Igomodo dared not question the Master's cry. He performed only those duties that Master d'Strif made known to him, and in no other way was Igomodo a hindrance. Today's task had been to acquire an elegant green tunic, trimmed along the collar in gold as was popular these days. He laid the garment carefully across the foot of the Master's bed.
         Slowly Leon returned to his routine, dismissing his dream as the night returned him to his fully heightened senses. He dressed in his trousers, clipping his suspenders over the impressive new garment his servant had fetched. With his hair slicked back, Leon would cut a striking figure. He marched into his foyer to witness his own splendidness in the mirrors.
         Moments later the hunchback cowered in the pantry. The Master had launched into a rage, destroying every mirror in the house. Igomodo himself had never seen Master d'Strif upset since the day the servant had thoughtlessly brought a victim of Mongolian descent, whose blood the Master thought unfitting to drink. Cries of "what did you do!" carried through the kitchen, and Igomodo made his final prayers that his soul would be rewarded for faithful service to his demon master.
         Leon strode frantically through the town, scanning every shop window and jeweler's glass. But in each case it was the same: he could not see himself staring back. He accosted citizens in alleyways, demanding to know if they could see him. "Yes!" they always answered to the madman, before he took their lives. But Leon grew weary of killing nobles whose gaudy brooches gave not the slightest shadow of hint that a murderer loomed in outrage over the bodies of the slain.
         After a struggle to make sense of the phenomenon, Leon came to peace of mind. He returned to his crimson chateau, vaguely regretting that he had slain his faithful servant during his fit. "I am handsome," Leon testified to the remnants of human life decorating his walls. "I am in style, and I know it. These fabrics were fashioned not a fortnight ago in the trendiest of shops. Steal what sight you may, Fates, but you cannot take my knowledge."
         Leon lay that night, not in trepidation, but in triumph. He challenged the Fates to bring him another dream. But the Fates declined, and the vampire d'Strif awoke with a smile.

         The old vampire glanced forlornly around his once grand countryside retreat. The walls were faded in alternating shades of splotchy purple and putrescent black. Leon groaned, remembering the days when his loyal caretaker had kept the place spotless.
         "Do not slouch," instructed the painter in heavy accent. Leon sat up, unaware that his posture had suffered. It was getting so hard to attract painters out to the house. Too many locals told horror stories of talented artists not returning from the woods east of the city. Leon, once Master d'Strif, now took orders from those humans whose services he could not render himself. He glanced into his bedroom, where nearly two dozen canvases lay, each a portrait of perhaps a stranger, perhaps Leon himself.
         "Do not turn your face away," reminded the painter. Leon looked back at the artist who sat diligently oiling his image onto stretched paper. It's about that time of month again, Leon thought sadly.
         Suddenly the vampire stood, breaking the painter's concentration. "Good sir, I shall pay you in full now, after you answer me one question." He walked around to see the gentle figure mostly finished on the artist's side of the easel. "Does this person here look exactly like me?"
         The painter wasn't sure whether to be insulted or complimented. Gruffly he replied, "But of course, exactly like you Herr..?"
         "Herr d'Strif, good sir. Come right this way," the vampire said, leading the artist into the bedroom. Together they both stared at the many paintings of the same man, each one done by a master artist and each one featuring a different outfit.
         After one last meal, Leon burned the stock of paintings together with the remains of their painter. Got to be safe after all, Leon thought.
         Master Leon d'Strif brushed the ash from his jacket and called out to his dried-blood walls in a timid voice, "I exist! Take away my knowledge of it, but I still exist!"
         No wispy voice visited him as they had forty years prior, but even so the idea formed so solidly in his mind that he could have sworn it was told to him: "Don't I?"
         Staring at the moth-eaten curtains, Leon could not find rest in his bed. Even as he felt the approach of the dawn, he knew he no longer belonged in this world. His clothes were uncomfortable and silly, and he couldn't be sure that painters everywhere weren't playing jokes on him. He was a stranger to himself, without identity.
         "I don't matter," Leon considered, and wept for the first time since his death. At age 120, he was still the oldest vampire he knew. But he rose from his bed and walked outside. Whether to crawl into the ground or to greet the morning sun, Leon would not live to see a hundred twenty-one.

[Auth note: this is why vampires don't have reflections, so that they might not enjoy their deaths too much!]