For Love & Country

Ferrara

Like sunflowers peeling open their petals in the direction of sunlight, my chest puffed up, inflated with air the minute the sun sank down the horizon. All signs of sleep and sickness rolled away, my nerves refreshed and active more than ever.

Quietly, I rose up, pushing open the glass coffin lid. My sole evening ritual whenever I woke up required me to gulp down a jar of pure, undiluted human blood. To keep up my supernatural strength, make me feel all powerful and immortal like a true king. But for once, in decades, I didn't feel like drinking anything. I didn't feel like recharging my drained body. I felt weak, confused...sad.

Closing my coffin, I stretched out on it, my calloused hands clasped together as though in silent prayer. But who was I kidding? Who would I pray to? In all my years, ever since I was turned and became a king, I was the closest thing to a god. An immortal being, worshipped and revered by my people. By the world. I made the earth tremble underneath my