What makes the moon glow red? It doesn’t happen every full moon, but it always does happen on a full moon and never half, quarter or new, as bright as the fiery sun and yet fiery tainted in darkness, glowing most ominously for graveyards especially like a bloody wave over bodies that now bleed a whole lot less on what once gave life.

The general consensus had been devilry, for what else a fresh wave of blood favouring graveyards tainting an already gloomy atmosphere into the depths of evil. It had been further proven for the ominious, the devil’s luck itself gracing the population in those nights from unexplained clumsiness, festering crime and a rise in victims. A witch’s night, people had whispered. The devil at foot, people had agreed. A bad omen together.

Truly concluded, by an incident that still scarred a small village-town’s simple graveyard where a blood moon had glowed eerily bright. Right at a newly dug graveyard, mourning a young chap simply gone by nature’s whimsical accidents right into a river at one’s folly. Friends had retrieved the body, and the eerie coldness without any response that subsequent panic had driven action to revive had simply declared the man dead. The doctor that came after simply bowed his head, doing even more than those friends to confirm what had been dreaded true at first touch, with the eerie coldness never belonging otherwise to warm alive flesh.

What they had thought true, after the funeral and solemn wake simply stating ‘He was young.’ And yet the young were more inclined to life, as truth inverted in the ominous blood moon when a hand reached out the grave digging out the young man that had been dead only for a day and buried mere hours. Breathing, eyes darting and thoughts spinning, to finally spot a person, just wanting to inquire.

That person had been the undertaker, doing his daily rounds in the graveyard to witness the strangest sight beyond his wildest nightmares even when he knew this night like no other always carried an unease for something bad to happen.

Before the young man could even utter a sound, could continue living, the undertaker in fear with ideas about the devil-touched instead of miracles at such a horrifying site about a dead man coming back to life when even the undertaker who had helped with the body’s burial felt how far from life the man had been with the coldest flesh embraced most deeply within Death, he had took up a silver knife that he already kept close for dangers with only the luck such metal he could only afford and stabbed the young man right in the heart, real blood mingling with the red waving light passing off for blood in the graveyard.

Staring at each other in shock, as the man had reached for the knife in shock, the undertaker feared he might be witnessing the real undead when the man so much had twitched, could still move his hand, could still show such an expression on his face but the man’s eyes rolled upward with a lurch forward at first for the undertaker to feel the same cold skin only mixed with surpising warm blood befre falling back to the grave. Truly dead.

That had been decades ago, discovered the very next day and weaved into a story about the terrible blood moon. The young undead, never deserving to leave so early and how the blood moon grants just the warmest blood to the coldest flesh in order to continue living. It was confirmed for the youth because it’s within those same decades that graverobbers had started searching through graves and were truly shocked at how young the chap looked even in death. Not bones and skeleton that rot over time the usual fate for those in ground.

In the very same village-town that birthed such incident, its lord in a manor most high could only scorn at such fanciful stories because it only came from a singular one without any repeat incident in the coming time that relegated such story simply fanciful nonsense or a retelling from the insane or even boastful. Surely placebo, surely nothing but old wives tales. Maybe even that the man was never dead but buried alive because even with the statement to cold flesh, the man fell in a river for the Lord’s sake, so surely such cold flesh is just from the icy cold water that doused the man.

And yet, it would be noted that the same lord was still scouring through the story with great interest, especially what really proved the story as not the undertaker’s retelling that passed on to this day but to the graverobber’s statement about such a young body still lying afresh despite time that wears down what doesn’t bleed and rejuvenate the flesh and bones before wearing it all down to nothing but skeleton and even dust returning to Mother Nature.

The blood moon. The witch’s night. The devil’s luck wrapped around just for the moment. Such forces untouchable to the common kind, still cursed out and deeply feared within a society with royalty, lords, nobles and commoners that understand their place unlike those that disrupt.

And yet, it could be very well feared that the very same lord supposed to rule over the small village-town with their prestigious duty and responsibility chose to disrupt, to figure out the blood moon because ruling high above normalcy would be a desire rarely spoken and yet coveted deeply with the lord simply having the courage to seek out.

Eternal youth. It was by his father’s death at a younger age than when he had to take up the mantle that had seized him deep with fear about time’s clutches. It was about the women coming his way, for the idea of an heir and yet without much success as less women come by him, where aging came with its own problems, temparaments and away to his finances, his vitality, his charm to bring forth woman and keep up continuing what his father and ancestors started.

To keep up a legacy, as the lord of this place and continue on his name, when he cannot birth an heir at all. Not only to be immortal, but to keep up an eternal youth, to keep his finances, vitality and charm that would only rot away at time’s merciless clutches he fear he could not affford. The blood moon had been his only answer, even if it meant asking the witch and the devil. For the idea of youth even beyond death and living despite death, knowing that it had to start somewhere.

It was through research, a wish and only enacted after the last spurned woman, a failed night exactly at the very night of omens that same woman feared and cursed out as the reason for a horrible night that the lord wanted to try his luck. He went to the very same graveyard that once housed the most heinous tale. As if such fervent desire would let him witness the miracle others thought as curse. The blood moon shone, it’s bloody visage bleeding within the graves as the lord saw but not letting another hand claw out with its cold flesh once more given life. The lord searched for that singular grave, marvelling what it takes to still be youthfully alive before dying once more and knew he wanted to find the process without dying to begin with, calling out for the witch and the devil and wondered what he could do to overcome the lonely fate, the aging fear, the bloodline that refused to continue without heir.

It was such thoughts that the highest mockery came on his path. A lone babe, lost in the land of the dead. With such warm blood flowing throughout the grounds in contrast to the pinkish flesh bare in front of the lord and with the stone graves silent mouths to this moment in contrast to the babe’s wailing, the lord could only see red. He could only remember his father’s departure, the duty he had to shoulder at a young age, the disappointment from women and lack of heirs and the legacy coveted. He remembered being the lone lord, being whispered in gossip about the family lack, the disastorous tries and the families that the common folk could just make as simple when someone priveleged like this with gifted right simply failed at. He remembered fathers, mothers and especially children, with their youthful potential he lacked and the bloodline continued he simply craved so deeply and yet was so proper to refrain from acting at what laid within sinful thoughts.

The highest mockery indeed, to let such thoughts surge up at such sight but in fate’s way wished upon the witch and the devil, backed by the stories in this cursed but natural phenomena, named the blood moon for that very reason that the lord acted upon his youthful desire.

He scooped the babe up with such hungry eyes, unknown to the babe that only felt safety within such strong and yet gentle hands.

“You are so lucky,” the lord whispered into the night, said like it was a promise. Said like a desire.

Washing away in red, the lord’s teeth bit the babe’s neck at yet another wail as the bloodline flowed from such young eternal potential to rejuvenate the lord’s own.

Only warm blood can revive cold flesh.

Then only young blood can revive old flesh.

As he felt fate foretold. As he felt his thoughts and desires led to. And even as the wailing babe had grown quieter under his caressing arms, the lord could only feel new life sprung within, feel himself transforming and knew that the devil and the witch answered. Such euphoria did not deafen him from the scream that followed once he stopped feeding.

It was a young woman, as common as the women the lord spend his nights were lavish. Abreast with knowledge about the land he rules over, he knew that this was the graveyard’s undertaker and with the grief laced upon her features at the sight of the babe, he knew that he had killed a mother’s child in the surge of jealousy and desire to a fanciful and yet cursed idea.

So it wasn’t surprising that the scream from grief became the war cry from rage, speeding the woman along to the lord with eyes that did not recognize the master of this land, eyes that said she was looking at the witch, the devil and even a monster themselves. The knife, similarly silver as the undertaker of this graveyard, was thrusted right into the lord’s heart, if he didn’t dodge having no desire to let history repeat.

And have then that both their eyes widened, when the knife still went into his chest with blood seeping, mixed both from his own bloodline with the babe’s that have left them still standing. The lord did not clutch for the knife nor fell down as his own thumping heart did not slow down, and a slow smile came out feeling more invincible than ever. Even when his chest burned, even when his heart was thumping too fast.

“Don’t worry, lass. I promise that you will live on within me. And meet your child not only in me but beyond.”

Those were the declaration that led to yet another bite, for the lord was as jealous of the youthful potential in children as the child bearing potential women possesed and yet barred from him in gaining an heir that he had desparately needed. Jealousy had turned into a thirst once fed from the babe now wanted to feed from the mother. Even when that mother had struggled, had tried to pull away the knife and even when everything felt like it would burn…

“Stop! In the name of the Lord!”

The lord almost wanted to profess that was his title to that unwanted voice but was stopped by the swooshing flame that had now lit up the blood splattered and turned the red light flaring around the graveyard into something hotter, into something burning.

“As death has rendered flesh and blood into ash in this very graveyard, may the curse from the blood moon be cleansed to ashes by the fire set upon. Pray be to the dead for forgiveness, for the dead can only remain beneath but those alive would not join this madness.”

The lord could not search who the lunatic was, as with the silver knife burning and yet finally ripped out by the mother with his own blood flecking the woman’s lips as her own blood flowed within punctures from the neck he thought impossible for teeth to produce until he saw a riveting transformation where the woman sprouted fangs and became even younger, and irresistable by the nudges of the blood moon.

“What have you turned me into? What have I become?!” the woman wailed, even as she raised the knife high for yet another blow. This time, straight to the heart he knew where it would burn like how the fire was burning everything. And if there was one thing he was not about to test his luck on, was to know whether he would survive the ashes.

Because death meant returning to ashes, and he still rather lived.

The lord then fled into the night, stopped by silver and fire as the lunatic tried to rescue the mother but it was too late for her, with the curse spreading like any maloveant entity and unlike the lord that chased eternal youth for life, the mother could not bear to live on without child, exactly like the babe’s killer that he turned her into. So with the silver knife pointed straight to her heart, she buried it straight within. Burning, in both silver and fire with only grief, sorrow and rage for the monster she had become, and the monster that she had let loose but with the hope that as her blood was cleansed with the ashes with her dead babe in her arms, that they could reunite without the monstrosity.

The graveyard turned into ashes at sunrise, where the blood moon’s malevolant evil bade the village-town farewell. The common folk, learning from the lunatic who became a hero in their eyes, were horrified by the depths of evil the lord had inflicted, unaware with the responsibilities and duties that have pulled through the village thus far after his father’s death. The burnt graveyard became a reminder, the woman a cautionary tale and the fled lord a target with silver and fire that had proved the only way to take down someone so cursed by the blood moon.

“May the cursed be cleansed in the ashes, may the silver be armed against the cold flesh’s false blood.”

No one knows whatever happened to the lord next, but some say he’s responsible for any youth’s life cut short. Even in decades, some people feel like they can see his youthful visage, mixed with what they once knew alongside the woman and child that gave a youtful visage only tainted and twisted by what it took to get there. The village-town and the descendants to come have made a promise to keep chasing after their lord, for the blood moon can take so much and curse so many but whatever comes, only a cleansing awaits.

It is the only fate worthy against the deadly blood moon creatures the present will call vampires.

Writer’s Notes

I remember years ago, this had been a backstory for one of my WIP’s chapter before it was deleted forever when the app I used to write up my drafts became obsolete and the file not retrievable forcing me to delete all my work, never to be seen again. Time has modified the telling but the core itself had not changed. A vampire’s origin, without any Twilight-esque idea of vampires. Purely the bloody beings they are. Cold flesh washed with warm blood, eternally youthful at the worst costs. The monsters that they have become, only stopped in silver and ash. Yeah, truly horrific won’t you say?