Stefans Diaries: Bloodlust Read online

Preface

 

  And the TV series developed by

  Kevin Williamson & Julie Plec

  Tis now the very witching time of night,

  When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

  Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood

  And do such bitter business as the day

  Would quake to look on.

  --Hamlet, William Shakespeare

  Preface

  The poets and philosophers I once loved had it wrong. Death does not come to us all, nor does the passage of time dim our memories and reduce our bodies to dust. Because while I was considered dead, and a headstone had been engraved with my name, in truth my life was just beginning. It was as if I'd been asleep these many years, slumbering in the darkest night, only to awake to a world that was brighter, wilder, more thrilling than I'd ever imagined.

  The humans I used to know continued their lives, just as I once had, spending their finite days going to the market, tending the fields, stealing secret kisses when the sun went down. They were merely shadows to me now, no more significant than the frightened squirrels and rabbits that scampered in the forest, barely conscious of the world around them.

  But I was no shadow. I was whole--and impervious to their worst fear. I had conquered death. I was no fleeting visitor to the world. I was its master, and I had all of eternity to bend it to my will.