There have been many transformations in my life. Some fleeting, some drastic, some sought after, and some thrust upon me.
In my final years as a mortal man, I spent my days and nights looking toward that one final transformation that we all must face. They say that we all die a little every day, but it’s fair to say that after one passes the seventieth year, the process seems to be somewhat accelerated.
Though I admitted it to no one else, and barely to myself, I was afraid. It wasn’t a frantic fear, or one that brought me to my knees. It was a measured fear. It was like a soft melancholy in the slow hours of the early morning, when sleep eluded me, and I found myself surrounded by the melodious whispering of anxious thoughts in my head and all around. It seemed to be an almost hideous thing, that the day was long and the sun was bright, and the world no longer seemed to be for me.
Of course, there was very little that could comfort such a fear, and very little to cure it but the passing of time, death, and consequently its own redundancy.
But I had another who always seemed to soothe me. One who had himself defied death over the years, one who had mastered the secret of immortality, and passed it on to those most dear to him.
On the night that I spoke to Lestat for the first time, he asked if I would accept immortality if he offered it to me. I said no to him then, and over again for many years to follow.
But he would not so easily let me go.
I will not recount the tale here, and undermine an experience best enjoyed in the novels, written in Lestat’s own words. But I will say that after that night, I was left with no cause to fear death.
Since then, I have been welcomed into a new family. My story has become inextricably wound up in theirs, and my desire for companionship and belonging is best satisfied in their presence and understanding.
I would like to say a word or two about them here.
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