The Kiss of Fangs

Behind the Scenes

Dimir Clive Hale - Journal Entry No. 204 - September 21th Year 2024

Limbo, Purgatory, the void, oblivion; whatever you have been conditioned to call it.

For us, it is the Gates of Janus.

It has been two hundred and four years since the day I passed. Since the very thing that had thieved me of my entity, finally surrendered my soul. I crossed the threshold, bested in front of my dear sisters by my father's brother. If I had known the day I stole their lives, that he would've been waiting at the front door, I would've run. I would've taken the money I saved and bought a new home for Florence and Alice. Somewhere near a woodsy creek, so little Florence could skip her rocks while Alice admired the bugs.

I pondered what had happened to them after I perished, after I tried to rid them of an unfair life and left them instead.

I will never forgive myself.

Though, I had a strong sense they had gone to the Gates of Avalon.

After death, you can feel the things the living couldn't. In touch with a spirituality side, but never the physical. I could sense when a soul had traveled to the beyond, but not touch the clothes that hung from my ghostly form. I find it to be quite hysterical.

The Gates of Avalon are a never ceasing brightness. A constant song of love and laughter. While Tophet is full of fire, burning of the limbs and torture in the finest arts. But Janus, is duality, neither worthy of Avalon nor Tophet. Two faces, representing the dead that was neither good nor bad.

Janus, which has been my home for the past two hundred and four years. Its dark hallways were sometimes bright, and the empty rooms shifted from big to small. It was a labyrinth of feelings and emotions, and sometimes nothingness all at once. It was a lot like being human, but the changes more dramatic and seemingly harsh at times. We were gifted with periods of extreme joy, and extreme suffering.

I had always resided in the library of the ashen castle, only when Delarosa didn't need me. She was the deity of Junas, the guidance and God that had us under her finger like fools. I never knew the past deity, but from secret words passed from spirit to spirit-I was led to believe the former was much kinder-and I trusted them. 

Delarosa had taken a liking to me the day I showed up, broken and scarred. We had died in the same small town, the place she forces her followers to haunt. She ushered me to be her right hand, and I refused for many years until she remarked, day after day, she just couldn't make decisions without me. 

And how did Delarosa come to be deity of Junas you may ask? 

Making deals with the Gods is how. 

In a specific text I found in the library, written by an unknown author, it states:

"Delarosa was one of the many spirits residing in Junas, a bittersweet life that was just too "mundane" for her-her words precisely. One day, she decided to toy with the deity. He was a bright man but loved his gambling and games as he did in his past life. And when the deity saw Delarosa-being as breathtaking as she is-he was weakened to her pleasure of games as well. The snake had wrapped around her prey, biting his head off in the process. Now of course you cannot kill someone who is already dead, instead, she beat him at his own game. 

Delarosa constructed a contract, begging the deity to take her to the physical world. He denied it, time after time until one day-he lost a game of cards to her. Of course, she had cheated, but the deity was too blinded by her seductive advances.

Once the deity had taken Delarosa to the physical world, things had grown repugnant quickly. Delarosa had immediately gone to Avalon and Tophet, warning them that the deity they had chosen was taking spirits to the physical world. Alas, she was believable. The deity's past had made Avalon and Tophet worried he would not do his job. They eventually came to an agreement, to banish the deity to the gates of Tophet, to burn for eternity. They promptly replaced him with the likes of our new deity, Delarosa. 

Though this information is forbidden, I want to make it known. Under this new deity's commands, a number of spirits, otherwise known as her followers, are secretly gathered to participate in "The Order of Reprisal". This event is celebrated from the first full moon of September, to the last in October. It was created under the hand of Delarosa's rage and resentment. Nobody knows where her vengefulness lies, only that her followers abide by her rules, play the roles, and torture the people she admittedly hates-those of the living. 

Spirits, let us come together as one. Let us start a defiance against the wickedness and expose her and her followers. Let us go to Tophet and Avalon to tell..."

I pushed the writings under my own, trying to hide the pleading that this spirit had written. The journal should've been rid of under my supervision, but underneath my facade, I wanted the truth about Delarosa to spread throughout the realm as well. 

The click of her ruby heels echoed on the marble floor, signaling for me to put down everything that I was doing, and give her my full attention. She wore a black and white patterned dress, looking like a yin and yang symbol. It was tightly sinched to her figure and the long tan legs underneath seemed to stretch for miles. She gave me a sly look, as if observing where my eyes had wandered. 

"Dimir Hale," she spoke my name slowly, savoring each syllable. "Up to no good I presume?" She questioned, her gaze striding over the papers in front of me. 

"On no account." I said, giving her a dark smirk back, playing into her hand like she wanted. 

Delarosa walked around the long table to where I sat, wrapping her gloved hands around my back and draping them over my shoulders. I could feel her wicked grin on the side of my cheek as she whispered into my ear. "The Order of Reprisal is almost hear, darling." 

I gulped, remembering the events that took place last year; the monster she had turned me into to fuel her twisted fantasies. 

"I was wondering what part you'd like to play?" She pulled her hands closer to my face, feeling the corner of my jaw and running her fingers down my lips. 

She made me sick. 

"Do I have a say?" I said, standing up and trying to subtly push her arms off from around me. I kept my gaze down as I effortlessly slipped the treacherous pages into my journal and flipped the cover over- tucking it under my right arm. 

Delarosa frowned, putting a hand on her hip to signify her displeased attitude. "No, you don't." She said flatly this time, no more persuasion in her voice. "Of course, I chose what you've always been for me."

My stomach dropped at the words, not wanting them let loose into our realm. 

"A vampire." She spoke.