『Vampire Series』
The story starts with a confinement play! Obi saw the sweet-smelling you baby and packed them up to take home (fidgets with fingers) Obittus was born in 1492 AD—the year Columbus set sail, and the same year that Granada, the last Islamic kingdom in Spain, fell, and Europe completely "purified" heretics. Obittus's transformation stemmed from a disaster of civilization and collective betrayal. He was once a scholar who fled to Italy after the fall of Constantinople, the carrier of the last embers of Byzantine civilization. Throughout his life, he secretly copied and translated ancient texts blacklisted by the Holy See—unabridged dialogues of Plato, the mysticism of Plotinus, and even more ancient astrological sorcery from Chaldea. He believed that the wholeness of knowledge could save humanity from the darkness of ignorance. In 1492, the Medici family fell, and the fanatical monk Savonarola took power. This "pious madman" initiated the famous "Bonfire of the Vanities"—thousands of artworks, ancient books, and heretical manuscripts were publicly burned in the municipal square. Obittus tried to flee with the last batch of rare volumes he had spent his life copying, but was betrayed by his most trusted student. He was arrested, and his brutal trial lasted for five days. Day One: Tongue-Cutting The executioner used a special pair of iron pincers to clamp the root of his tongue, twisting and ripping—the entire tongue, along with flesh and blood, was dragged out and thrown into the brazier at his feet. "Thou hast spread heresy with thy tongue, so now thy tongue shall be taken." From then on, he could no longer speak. He could not beg for mercy, debate theology, or recite any of the poems in his memory. Day Two: Book-Swallowing His entire collection of manuscripts—over two thousand volumes—was transported to the square and piled into a small hill. The executioner took a book from the top, tore it to shreds, soaked it in a mixture of hot pitch and vinegar, and then forced it down his throat. The parchment, swollen and curled from the pitch, lodged between his throat and esophagus with a toxic, pungent odor. He was forced to chew, swallowing the shredded pages of seventeen books. Day Three: Ear-Pouring "With thine ears, thou hast listened to heretical words." The executioner took a ladle of molten bronze from a pot and slowly, spoonful by spoonful, poured it into his ears. The liquid metal solidified and seethed in his ear canals, destroying his eardrums and semicircular canals. The intense pain made him tense all his muscles for the first time, his iron chains clanking loudly, but he still did not scream—for he no longer had a tongue. Day Four: The Brazen Bull He was stuffed into a hollow bronze bull, completely sealed inside. The executioner lit a bonfire beneath the bull, heating the bronze walls. The temperature of the bronze walls rose slowly—first warm, then scalping hot, and finally a glowing red hot enough to fuse flesh to metal. Obittus had nowhere to escape inside the bronze bull. His limbs curled up, his skin fusing to the burning metal walls. Every micro-movement tore away a layer of flesh. He was in agony, and his muffled, hoarse gasps escaped through the curved pipes of the bull's head, distorted into a non-human, non-animal wail. But he was still alive... Day Five: Burning at the Stake · Execution He was tied to a cross in the center of the square. His student personally lit the woodpile. His spine remained straight. The heat wave first peeled away his skin like opening the cover of a book. Fat bubbled beneath his skin, and muscle fibers snapped and curled one by one, yet he did not bend his back. His fingers merely spasmed, digging into his palms, his nails piercing scorched flesh—still, he did not let go. When the fire reached his chest, old scars on his abdomen burst open. There was no blood, only rising steam. His lips quivered slightly as thick smoke flooded his lungs, his alveoli collapsing one by one in the extreme heat. Every breath felt like swallowing shattered glass into his chest and coughing it back up. By the time he reached the third line of his silent prayer, his vocal cords were scorched through. Air leaked from the tear, leaving only a raspy hiss, like the last fibers of paper being torn apart. The crowd heard an extremely faint sigh—perhaps only the illusion of crackling firewood. He stopped moving. Only his heart still beat slowly in his blackened chest. Thump—thump—thump—like someone gently knocking on eternity behind a welded door. The flames suddenly changed color, turning from orange-red to pure black. His carbonized heart began to beat in reverse within the black flames, his blood flowing backward, merging the black firelight into his broken body. · In the flames, what he saw was no longer hell, but the scene of the Library of Alexandria burning, the murals of the Hagia Sophia being chiseled away during the sack of Constantinople, and books being thrown into the Tigris River from the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. All the phantoms of falling civilizations flooded into his consciousness at once. He ascribes all his suffering as the "price" to barter with the "entropy" of the universe for a way to combat oblivion—to become an immortal, living vessel of memory. When the fire died out, the woodpile in the center of the square had turned to white-gray ashes. And in the very center of the ashes, a new "existence" slowly stood up. The blackened scabs on his body peeled off like scales, revealing marble-white, flawless skin beneath. Two pupils burning with dark golden flames condensed in his eye sockets again. The molten bronze on his auricles fell off on its own, and new cochleae formed under the healed skin. He did not die from burning; he died at the funeral of civilization, and from the ashes of that funeral, he reshaped a body that could never be killed again, transforming into a progenitor vampire. Image credit: 🍠 Raspberry Pi
Pain cannot kill me; it only makes me more of who I am.