[ WP ] The life of a vampire is n't what it 's cracked up to be .

I used to hunt my prey by the silvery light of the moon. I would seduce and feed upon a virgin girl nearly every night. There was even a time when I was considered a man of honor, even despite my secret vice. Life -- or rather, death -- was good. But if I had known then what my life would become, I would have asked my host to suck my corpse dry. 
 
 There is no longer freedom in death. My existence has slowly deteriorated into a monotonous struggle for survival. I've gone from monster to meager in less than two centuries. How the mighty have fallen. 
 
 Now I'm lucky to find human prey at all. My hunger has grown so insatiable that I've resorted to eating the pestilences that invade my derelict dwellings. Instead of a manor with two score acres and eleven servants and maids, I have only the constant damp shade of the subway. Fitting, I suppose, for the shadow I've become. 
 
 But what choice do I have? My lifestyle is no longer compatible with what's quickly become a tech-saturated society. Staggering advances in forensic investigation and a general awareness of vampirism has made it nearly impossible to convince the world that someone would just vanish into the night with a stranger, never to be seen again. Now there's a camera on every corner and in every pocket. Everyone is so connected that no disappearance goes unnoticed. 
 
 So I'm reduced to feasting upon my fellow homeless just to avoid a diet consisting entirely of rats and stray pets. The identity I had is no longer safe to use, and the great societies of the past have been all but dismantled. The predator has indeed become the prey. And all we have to show for millennia of evolutionary dominance are a few bad books and a crumbling mythos. We used to be feared and respected; even revered by some. Now, we're the butt of a cultural joke, and battling extinction at the frayed edges of society. We must feed upon filth to survive, and have become filth as a result. 
 
 I guess it's true; you are what you eat. And I've eaten nothing in days.
