"What do you mean, a 'sense of entitlement?'" I asked with a confused frown.
"I mean that you guys always come waltzing up, demanding information about where we're from, who we're with, how to get in... you're all the same." He turned to his left and started to do an odd sort of combination of limping, shuffling, and dragging of his feet along the dry riverbed. I followed a few steps behind, holding tight to my pack. I'd begun to feel some nervous excitement over what I was hearing, that there might be anyone left, that there could be some hope of humanity in the world. Not that I cared too much. Caring is a lot of work. But still, I was interested.
"Except you." He announced, glancing back at me. "You're a bit different than the others. They beat around the bush a bit, trying to get us comfortable with them so maybe we'll give them some more information than we usually would. You jumped right into it. Quite violently, I might add." He said that last part with an airy tone, as if impressed. "But anyways. What I'm trying to say is that all anyone has been after is information, and all they've done is disappear as soon as they've gotten it. And it's been that way for a long time. And it's put us in a lot of danger over the past five years, in more ways than one. Sometimes it's because we let people in, sometimes it's because we've let people hear us, sometimes it's because someone fucked up along the way in some way or another. But the only solution we could come up with was to stop altogether. Stop telling anyone anything, stop recruiting people. It's the only rule simple enough for everyone to understand."
Tadge had been growing quieter and quieter as he spoke, and his last sentence was little more than a dry whisper preceding an eerie silence, interrupted only by the increasingly more labored thud of his feet and wheeze of his breathing. He sounded sad, though. As though he didn't want things to be the way they were. His sadness was rather contagious. My heart was hurting for him.
But who didn't want things to change. He was no different from me, or anyone else. Suddenly, I wasn't so sad for him. He was a jackass anyways.
A jackass whose walking was slowing down considerably, and whose wheezing was getting louder with every step. The sun was creeping towards the horizon, with streaks of pink and orange lining the desert sky. The nice thing about these vampires were that they weren't the recreational type, so I'd never had to worry about them strolling into my desert at night while I was asleep. I didn't know what they were doing in town, but it kept them good and busy. Still, I had a bad feeling about being out here with Tadge in the encroaching darkness. But just as I opened my mouth, he opened
"I mean that you guys always come waltzing up, demanding information about where we're from, who we're with, how to get in... you're all the same." He turned to his left and started to do an odd sort of combination of limping, shuffling, and dragging of his feet along the dry riverbed. I followed a few steps behind, holding tight to my pack. I'd begun to feel some nervous excitement over what I was hearing, that there might be anyone left, that there could be some hope of humanity in the world. Not that I cared too much. Caring is a lot of work. But still, I was interested.
"Except you." He announced, glancing back at me. "You're a bit different than the others. They beat around the bush a bit, trying to get us comfortable with them so maybe we'll give them some more information than we usually would. You jumped right into it. Quite violently, I might add." He said that last part with an airy tone, as if impressed. "But anyways. What I'm trying to say is that all anyone has been after is information, and all they've done is disappear as soon as they've gotten it. And it's been that way for a long time. And it's put us in a lot of danger over the past five years, in more ways than one. Sometimes it's because we let people in, sometimes it's because we've let people hear us, sometimes it's because someone fucked up along the way in some way or another. But the only solution we could come up with was to stop altogether. Stop telling anyone anything, stop recruiting people. It's the only rule simple enough for everyone to understand."
Tadge had been growing quieter and quieter as he spoke, and his last sentence was little more than a dry whisper preceding an eerie silence, interrupted only by the increasingly more labored thud of his feet and wheeze of his breathing. He sounded sad, though. As though he didn't want things to be the way they were. His sadness was rather contagious. My heart was hurting for him.
But who didn't want things to change. He was no different from me, or anyone else. Suddenly, I wasn't so sad for him. He was a jackass anyways.
A jackass whose walking was slowing down considerably, and whose wheezing was getting louder with every step. The sun was creeping towards the horizon, with streaks of pink and orange lining the desert sky. The nice thing about these vampires were that they weren't the recreational type, so I'd never had to worry about them strolling into my desert at night while I was asleep. I didn't know what they were doing in town, but it kept them good and busy. Still, I had a bad feeling about being out here with Tadge in the encroaching darkness. But just as I opened my mouth, he opened
