Crazy Theories

Ellias was confused. Where had Milena gotten such a treasure? 

The Lunar Republic was the ancient name of this same Solar Kingdom both of them were born in. That was long before the Ice Age had f****d a complete shift of the Political System and thrown the whole Country into disarray, over three centuries ago. Old maps had shown that, during the Golden Age,  this country had once been fifteen or twenty times bigger, with vast forests, rivers, and many, many cities… Probably in a warmer climate, too. The Lunar Republic had a Capital in the south, a flourishing economy, and… much fewer vampires.

The Great Catastrophe was known as the event that had changed their world. 

All the children learned about it in school. Twelve years of heat, a terrible heat. It had decimated countless species, spread diseases all around and chased the vampires, who couldn’t stand the scorching heat, to the north of the country, as far as they could go up North. The fires had appeared everywhere, drying the soils and bringing famine. After the last five years of horrible heat that had almost killed all living vampires, the Ice Age began. 

Ice and snow, for years and years. As if they had used all the sun’s warmth in those last years, suddenly the temperatures dropped drastically. The rivers that had almost dried previously were suddenly full again, then flooded, and started to freeze one after another. The burnt soil was slowly covered in more and more ice. Countless natural disasters had followed, one after another. 

Ironically, the northern part of the Country where the vampires had fled was the one that survived the Great Catastrophe. The Ice and snow that had won over everything else stopped right in this area surrounded by the mountains. However, the Lunar Republic had drowned. With most of the Country gone, including the Capital and bigger cities, the survivors were in utter despair…

Then, one family of nobles had stood among the others. The young man who would later become King Silvius the first, along with his human and vampire siblings, worked like crazy to put what was left of their country back on its feet. Maybe because they were a mixed Family, they managed to gather Vampires and Humans together, and despite the Ice Age, built a new Capital, a new country. 

To bring hope to the people, on that myth that the Ice Age would end someday, they named themselves the Solaris Family. Persuading people that Vampires and humans would survive if they worked together, they buried the remains of the Lunar Republic and opened new trades, a new economy, a new system.

Because most of the Lunaris Republic had disappeared in such a short time, most of its culture had disappeared along. Hence, the book Milena had was definitely a national treasure! Ellias couldn’t keep his eyes off it, completely stunned.

“Milena, how… Where did you get a book like that?”

The Duchess sighed while she kept turning the pages, visibly looking for something precise.

“I had forgotten about that book. A few years ago, when I was young, my older brother took me to see a painting in the Royal Gallery. It was the first Solaris royal family, their family portrait. Back then, I became obsessed with Princess Silvra.”

“Princess Silvra… You mean the first King’s sister, the Dhampir?”

“That one,” nodded Milena. “I… I wanted to know more about the previous Dhampir before me, so I started researching anything I could find about her. She was the only one who still had anything about her put in records, anyway… My brother would take me often in the Royal Library back then, remember? Once in a while, he had access to the Royal Archives, and I… I found this book, and took it home to read it.”

“Lady De Crescent, did you just admit you stole from the Royal Archives?”

Milena clicked her tongue, a bit embarrassed.

“I was much younger and very stubborn. Moreover, it was so hard to get any information about Princess Silvra…”

“One could argue you’re still just as stubborn, but we’ll leave that to another day. Anyway, why would that book be related to both Princess Silvra and our case…?”

“Look at the Author,” said Milena.

She raised the old and corny cover, to let him read the name on it. The surprise once he found it let the Prince speechless, staring at it and Milena in awe.

“Prince… Sleverin de Solaris? Wasn’t that…”

“Their third brother, right. King Silvius and Princess Silvra had three younger siblings, Sleverin was the third one and only other human. He was an alchemist, most of this book is about all his thesis and everything he wanted to experiment on...”

“I know!” Said Ellias, excited, rushing to her side to see the contents of the book. “Prince Sleverin is known to have revolutionized the scientific world as it was back then! A lot of his ideas were known as nonsense until he proved them and was recognized as a genius! That prince is a legend for any modern scientist… and you’re telling me all this time you had his… his anthology stored here?”

Milena shrugged.

“I didn’t think it was so important, most of those concepts were too advanced for me… And it’s not really an anthology, more like… a sketchbook or a notebook. He may have had a few theories right, but there was a lot of nonsense too. Like how to create synthetic blood, time travel, body conservation, the power of the Sun, the Moon controlling the sea, artificial wings, and so on… I think he went a bit nuts towards the end.”

“I guess so,” sighed Ellias. “At the end of his life, he became crazy about bringing the dead back to life and went as far as to kill one of his own younger brothers… I think he was arrested and the King confined him or something.”

It was a bit sad to think most of those five siblings had met a tragic end after they saved this country from its ruin, but it was a story for another day. 

Milena finally found what she wanted, suddenly stopping at one particular page.

“At, there it is! So, Wendigo was the name of a creature born from a legend of a vamp…”

Milena stopped talking, too disgusted about the words she was reading after that. She brought her hand to her mouth, feeling sick. Ellias, just as shocked, kept reading in her stead.

“A legend of a vampire who would have committed an act of cannibalism on… one of his peers. Though most vampires are naturally attracted to the blood of humans from the opposite sex through their sense of smell, I have been curious about why no vampire was ever been attracted to the blood of one of his own. My research has demonstrated the difference of the vampire blood being of seemingly different composition than that of a human…”

Ellias skipped a few lines, where the author was describing some components of the vampire blood and so on.

“Ah, there it is… Hence, no vampire is ever attracted to drink another vampire’s blood, as it has no appeal to them. To explain it to my non-scientist brother, I would compare it to a human drinking mud. It has little nutritious value and a truly horrible taste, to my own bad experience. Absolutely no reason to do so. However, I have been curious about that old legend I once heard about, and resolved to test this by having a vampire prisoner eat… How gosh, this is disgusting. You’re right, Sleverin was a bit crazy.”

Milena sighed and took the book back to read along with him.

Followed the long description of an experiment, were a vampire inmate had been f****d to eat, day after day, vampire flesh. For a scientific purpose, the author had also f****d another vampire inmate to do the same, though the second one had no idea what he was eating. 

In both cases, the Prince got the same results: after a few days’ time, both inmates had became addicted to eating flesh and went insane. The physical changes Milena had remembered reading about were indeed strikingly similar to what they had seen, but the scientist prince described it as the vampires consuming their own flesh from the inside, as if their own body had became addicted to it as a whole. Like addicts, those inmates became obsessed with eating flesh, and became insane over time, attacking anyone who came close.

“They don’t give many details about why the experiment was ended… Apparently they were shot down by order of the King…” said Ellias. “Looks like King Silvius wasn’t fond of his brother’s experiments.”

“I can understand why,” snickered Milena. “I would think my brother is crazy if I saw him eat mud and feed vampire flesh to other people...”

Milena was clearly shocked and disgusted by everything they had read. She would definitely be unable to stomach anything for a while. Ellias sat down next to her, looking shocked too.

“It’s… scary, but brilliant. Prince Sleverin created those creatures and proved a legend true… Moreover, from that basis came his observations about the opposite gender’s human blood compelling to vampires, and his theories on homosexual vampires too.”

“...He proved those creatures had to be created,” said Milena. “In any case, no vampire would willingly eat flesh, but someone had to force them to, for a long time, until they turned into flesh-eating addicts… into wendigos.”

Ellias nodded, and they both remained silent for a little while.

It was a lot of information all at once. The Prince and the Duchess slowly sipped their teas for a while, lost in their thoughts. Though Milena was somewhat proud to have found more information in such a short time, it hadn’t helped much with the ongoing matter. 

If that wendigo woman had been created, how did this happen? In the book, the Prince’s experiment took place in a matter of weeks, but the timing with the undertaker’s family didn’t match that. Moreover, the corpses found downtown had been bitten and sucked dry, not completely eaten…

“...What if someone had found a faster way?”

Milena’s idea chilled Ellias to the bone.

“A faster way to create wendigos? It’s disgusting enough as it is...”

“But the earlier victims were human women… It doesn’t match. Hence, we have two different culprits. One rogue vampire that had attacked so many women and sucked them dry, and one who turned that woman into a wendigo…”

Milena was unhappy. They were still obviously missing something there. Like a piece of the puzzle that didn’t match. What would be the point of creating wendigos…? It had to have been done on purpose, so why? 

She re-read the Prince’s notes once more, trying to understand. A vampire had to be f****d to… Eat vampire flesh. It wasn’t something any vampire would willingly do. Like the Prince had said, it couldn’t happen by accident, no vampire would eat his own. So what if they had been tricked into…

“I think I know how they did it,” suddenly said Milena, getting up.

“What?”

But without explanation, she went back into the castle, and ran upstairs, to her brother’s bedroom. Milena barged in, waking up Raphael who had just fallen asleep.

“Mi...Millie? What’s wrong?”

Milena approached his bed, out of breath, sitting on one end of the mattress.

“Big brother, would you be able to tell the difference between animal, human or vampire blood?”

“Human and vampire blood? Milena, what the heck are you talking about? You know we don’t drink vampire blood! I already have a hard time finding… decent human blood for myself…”

He was cautious with his words, noticing the Prince that had followed her and stood at the door.

“What if it was mixed with human blood? A big ratio of human blood?”

“Can you explain what we’re having this conversation so late, Milena?”

“Big brother, I’ll explain, but please!”

Raphael sighed.

“I… I guess it would be harder to tell the difference. Vampire blood doesn’t smell like anything, as you know, while human blood is really appetizing. I know your sense of smell is different, but you should know the difference, Millie.”

Milena nodded. She had asked him to confirm since she always doubted her own senses as a Dhampir, but… her theory was probably the right one. 

Those women hadn’t been sucked dry, their blood had been taken to be mixed with vampire blood, and fed to another vampire. Milena suddenly went white. That meant there was another wendigo roaming free. A male one.