Chapter 1: Rock Bottom

       My name is Jack Edward Price, but they call me Jack Darkness. For hundreds of years I have roamed this apocalyptic world infected with the curse that is vampirism. My life has been anything but pleasant, and I'm not going to lie and say anything contrary to the truth. I've suffered far too much to still be in that pathetic state of trying to lie to myself in a sad attempt to convince myself that my life is normal and that I'm just stuck in a world with elaborate, vampire filled phantasms. No, I can at least say that I've moved on to accept the fact that I live in this hellish world as a vampire who is the mere shell of the man he once was. I admit to the fact that I tend to succumb to nostalgia a bit too much for my liking, but one's weakness can often be turned into their strength. Others such as my sire Orlock, believe that holding onto one's past is a sign of being a pathetic, sniveling fool. But I on the other hand, view it as my strength. I'm not the man I used to be, physically and mentally. I suppose it's a good thing that I don't remember my old life vividly, it's hard enough to think about how much I've changed without referring to my past life. In my past life, I was a happy man with a beautiful family. Now I've fallen so far from that perfect picture that it's safe to say that I've hit rock bottom numerous times. But this thing about hitting rock bottom is that there's only one way to go, up. Of course the process is not nearly as easy as saying "Okay! I'm going to turn things around and pick myself up!". Heh heh, of course it's not that easy. But that's were those memories that I mentioned earlier help me. Though it may be a weakness to hold onto them, I use them as my strength to fight against Orlock. My memories are few and of poor quality. It's hard to focus on my past sometimes, and it only seems to become blurrier with each passing day. But I will never forget their names: Emily, my beautiful wife and Julia, my sweet baby girl. Even if I eventually forget everything else about my past, I could never forget their names and I will never let myself forget. With just their names I can remember all that I need to. I can remember the fact that Emily and Julia are dead because of Orlock and that I'm like this because of him. Orlock, my sire, master, "father", self-proclaimed monarch, and the sole reason why I'm here today. He is the reason for everything and I will always hate him for it. Make no mistake, even though it may and most likely is impossible to overthrow and kill Orlock, I swear I will somehow find a way to make him pay for what he's done. Emily, Julia...I promise you both I will pick myself off of rock bottom and claw my way to the top. Orlock won't keep me down, not as long as I can keep remembering my past. Till my last dying breath I will keep hating Orlock.

       It started out as simple night, but it soon grew to be quite the interesting one. There was some commotion at the nearby human base that night; Riff-Raff Van Victor, to no surprise, was raiding the base with Maila. I was pissed beyond belief at Raff's actions, but because of him I was able to meet her. It's ironic that something good could come from Riff-Raff's stupidity. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her, she was really quite stunning. And her resemblance to Emily was astounding, especially her eyes. But of course as accustomed to having Raff being involved with anything, something always gets fucked up. Raff managed to fatally wound the girl and she was dying. I didn't panic though, because from the moment I saw the girl I made a silent vow to myself to do whatever it took to keep her with me. Thankfully, the night did not turn into a loss, but into a gain instead. The girl valued her life and agreed to let me turn her, although I'm not sure what I would've done if she said no. I would never want anyone to suffer like I have, and forcing her to become a vampire would make me no better than Orlock. But I'm not sure if I could've handled the loss of those beautiful eyes a second time; not when I was so close to being able to see them for all eternity. But alas, I'm not going to linger over this issue when things turned out the way I had hoped for already. I soon found out that the woman's name was Jill Cross. Jack and Jill, how ironic in a charming sort of way. I was overjoyed that Jill agreed to be my sireling and that I could be fortunate enough to see those same eyes that Emily had everyday from now on, but the good times never seems to last for me. Jill as I had expected, but really had hoped against, reacted the way that most sirelings reacted. She is sadly not as overjoyed as I am that she is now a vampire and has become extremely temperamental, angry, and wondering whether or not death would've been the better path. And even better for me, Jill is quite stubborn about things and seems unwillingly to understand any vampire's point of view, especially mine. That was obviously sarcasm in that last statement there in case you couldn't tell. I didn't expect it to be easy for me to gain Jill's trust, but I wasn't prepared for it being this hard either. I'm going to try to give her some time to sort things out, which won't hopefully be too long. I fear what my sire will do now that there's a new sireling in our bloodline. You never know what Orlock is going to do, it is after all impossible to try to understand someone who's completely insane. He'll want to meet Jill eventually, I know he will. But how long before he demands to see her is what worries me.

         Jack walked swiftly down the hallway towards his destination. By the way he quickly walked almost seemed like he was late for something or in a state of urgency. "Damn it all," Jack cursed under his breath as he continued to walk faster down the hallway.

         BAM!!! Jill jumped a couple of feet at the sudden loud noise of her door being slammed open by none other than Jack Darkness himself. "What the hell is your problem?! Is that how you enter any room, slamming the door like that and scaring everyone half to death!?" Jill yelled angrily at Jack. "Well if you want to get technical, you already died, but came back to life as a vampire...so you've already been to death and back which makes being half to death not that big of a deal," Jack replied simply. "Who the hell cares what the politically correct term is?!" Jill screamed back. "Relax, I was just pointing it out that's all," Jack said simply. "Ugh! What do you want anyways?" Jill asked. "We need to talk," Jack answered as he sat right next to Jill on the couch, leaving no space between them. Jill gasped slightly startled at Jack's insensitivity towards her personal space. "There are a few things we need to go over now that you're a vampire," stared Jack. "Ugh! Do you mind?!" Jill asked as she snapped out of her daze and moved to the other side of the couch as far away from Jack as possible. Jack quickly responded to this by moving as well, right next to Jill even closer than the first time he sat down beside her (if that was even possible). "As I was saying, we need to go over some things," Jack continued. "Like what?! Being a vampire can't be that hard!" Jill said angrily, clearly unhappy at how close Jack was. "It's harder than you think. You'll start out slow though, nothing too fast since I don't want you to be overwhelmed. You did after all just become a vampire as of last night," Jack stated. "This is stupid! I should have never chosen to become a vampire, I wish I died instead," Jill muttered. Jack stared at her for a moment, before letting loose a small, amused chuckle. "What's so fun-" Jill started to ask before Jack interrupted her by placing his arm around her shoulders. "Yeah I felt that way for a long time too, but don't worry, that feeling will pass the more you get used to your new powers and lifestyle. You can handle being a vampire, I know you can," Jack said with a smirk. Jill blushed slightly at the compliment as she sat there quietly, unsure of what to say to such a remark. "Hey Jill," Jack started. "What?" Jill asked. "...How good are you at biting?" Jack questioned. Jill's eyes widened for a second and then quickly angered as she pushed Jack's arm away and screamed: "YOU PERVERT!" Jill stormed away and angrily sat down in a nearby chair, crossing her arms as she scowled. "You're absolutely disgusting, you know..." Jill started to scream as she turned back towards the couch where Jack had been only to see an empty couch. "that....." Jill trailed off as she wondered where Jack could have possibly gone. She didn't have to wonder long as a pair of arms suddenly draped themselves around her from behind. "You know, we really have to stop meeting like this," Jack chuckled as he rested his chin atop of Jill's head. "Why you-" Jill started to scream. Jack chuckled once more at Jill's reaction. He had to admit, it was pretty amusing how easily Jill got riled up and how she let every little thing bother her. He couldn't help but push her buttons like that, just to get a reaction out of her. "Relax Jill, there's no need to freak out. I merely asked that question so I could figure out what I need to teach you when feeding. You need to know the proper place to bite when feeding or you'll end up biting into the trachea, which really isn't too pleasant," Jack informed. "I-I don't want to feed on humans, that's horrible!" Jill panicked. "Didn't I say to calm down?" Jack asked. "You'll start out easy like I said you would. All you'll have to worry about for now is drinking blood out of a glass, but eventually you'll have to learn how to feed properly." "This....this is too much...I can't deal with this," Jill said silently. Jack sighed; he was trying to ease Jill's fears to get her to trust him, but he only seemed to reinforce them. "Look, there's some fresh clothes on the table over there and a bath in the next room. Why don't you...go clean up?" Jack suggested as he let go of Jill and stood up straight. "I'll meet you in that room that's through that door," Jack said as he pointed towards which door he was referring to. "Yeah....okay," Jill mumbled. "I'll talk with you later," Jack said as he opened the door and exited the room. Jack shut the door and leaned against it, listening for what Jill was doing. He heard some movement inside and a door being opened and closed, and eventually running water. Jack sighed in relief at the fact that she was at least moving around and not just sitting on the chair moping. The talk with Jill didn't turn out nearly as well as he had hoped for.

           Jill sighed as she slid into the bathtub. "It's not fair, vampires have all of the luxuries," Jill pouted as she noticed all of the nice things that Jack had. Jill sighed again as she leaned her head back and looked at the ceiling. "Can I really do this?" Jill thought. "I spent my whole life running from vampires, hating them, fearing them...and then I just turn around and become one just like that. But is it so wrong to want to live? Maybe this life will be better than the one I used to live." Jill thought back to how Jack talked about feeding and how she had to learn how to feed "properly". Her stomach turned at the mere thought of feeding and biting into a human's neck. But now that she was a vampire, did she really have any choice? Maybe she could just drink blood out of a glass like Jack said she would be doing at first, but what if Jack insisted she learned how to feed on a human? Or even worse, what if she liked the taste of blood so much that it caused her to go on a feeding rampage, devouring any human that she came across?! Jill shook her head in an attempt to get such gruesome thoughts out of her mind. "What have I gotten myself into...?" Jill wondered. She couldn't help but feel that she had gotten more than she bargained for when she agreed to let Jack turn her into a vampire. Maybe she should've thought it over more carefully, but she didn't have the time due to the injury from that crazy, blue-haired vampire. Would it really just have been better if she just let herself die from the wound to end her misery? "There's so much you could learn...so much you could do...instead of just fading away." Jill remembered suddenly those haunting words that Jack had said to her before she made her decision to be turned. She never really thought about those words seriously before...but how they truly haunted her. All her life, all she had ever done was run from vampires. If she looked back on her life, nothing stood out. There's nobody that would miss her, nobody that would notice that she was gone. She could've ended up like Anthony or Koen, dead out in the desert with no one to even mourn for them, or give them a proper burial. Jill couldn't decide which was more cruel: dying out in there all alone without anyone caring or doomed to forever live an immortal life cursed by vampirism and plagued with its horrors. "Life is just too cruel," Jill said sadly as a single tear rolled down her face.

               Jack let out a frustrated sigh as he rubbed his temples. "What a night this turned out to be," Jack muttered. It's going to be much harder than he thought to gain Jill's trust. It'd be an understatement to say that Jack was aggravated; he knew from experience how hard it can be for new vampires to break out of the cycle of depression. Not that he could blame her, but for once he wanted things to turn out like he had hoped. Jack smirked as he remembered that there was at least a way for him to vent his frustrations. He still had to deal with Riff-Raff and punish him for his atrocious crimes. Jack walked down the hall to the weapons room to choose out a nice weapon to "greet" Raff with. He walked around the room and wondered which weapon he should choose. "Hmm, pole ax maybe? No, that's really Topaz's thing. Sledge hammer? No, not sharp enough. Chain saw perhaps...wait what am I, Ren? I really should stick with swords, you can't go wrong with sharp, pointy weapons. Plus a nice, sharp sword will scare the crap out of Raff, which is always funny to see," Jack thought as he headed over to the numerous shelves that were filled with a wide variety of swords. He browsed through the shelves looking for the right sword for the job. "Ah here we go!" Jack said happily as he picked up a sharp, black colored blade. It had a nice, creepy look to it which would be sure to scare Raff. Jack swung it a couple times just to see how well it would swing, and was satisfied with it. It was one of the best swords that he had in his collection. But not even Jack's best sword could protect him from what was to come. He knew Orlock would be wanting to see Jill soon and there would be nothing that he could do to stop that. It was hard for Jack to accept the fact that he was one of the most powerful vampires to walk to the Earth, but yet he was completely helpless against one vampire. It was hard to say what Orlock would do once he saw Jill; Jack couldn't help but have a slight fear that Orlock would take Jill away so he could personally train her like he did with Jack. Jack didn't want to be forced to kill Jill, but if Orlock was going to torture Jill like he did with Jack to train her then Jack would have to stop him. Orlock did say that he promised that any sirelings that Jack made were completely his, but you could never trust Orlock to keep a promise. He is after all, completely and utterly insane. What Jack wouldn't give to slice Orlock's head clean off his shoulders with his blade, oh how Jack dreamed of it. To one day rid the world and everyone of the monstrous Demon King would be pure ecstacy for him. But all Jack could do is dream of the day that he finally got his revenge on Orlock and eliminated him. "Well no use just standing here dreaming of things that will probably never be. I still have the matter of dealing with good ol' Riff-Raff," Jack smirked as he walked out the weapons room. Jack opened the door to the grand room where Topaz, Maila, Vallov, and Raff were located. Jack's smirk widened as he walked up to Raff carrying the sword in plain sight for Raff to see. Raff shivered as he saw Jack come up to him with a huge sword and a murderous glint in his eyes. "Hi," Jack said as stopped right in front of Raff and started to think of which part of Raff's body he should cut off first. Oh yes, it would certainly be a most interesting night.

The End....