Chapter 2 When I was awakened by the sounds of horseshoes on the cobblestones, I barely could open my eyes. Also, the weight of something, which I eventually learned was garbage and refuse, had trapped me because of my vulnerable condition. I began to think about the man who pounced like an animal and attacked. After several minutes, I gathered all my strength to push the debris off of my weakened body. The part of my ordeal that really upset and frightened me was when I touched the spot where the gash was supposed to be and it was not there anymore. No infection or wound. Not even dried blood. I could not even feel my heartbeat or blood surging through my arteries and veins. And when I tried to walk into a lit area of the alley, my skin was seared like the flesh of a boar on an open fire. "What had he done to me?" was my desperate beckoning at the time and my hands trembled as the possibilities raced through my head. Did he cut me or inject me with something? Am I going crazy? That was the one I really wanted to believe-that I was imagining the whole thing. I would have even preferred going insane to the truth. The truth that I was condemned in immortality to the night and the shadows. The truth that I would feed on the blood of mortals like cattle. And the truth that William Robert Sanderson really had died. Very little time passed before I realized what had become of me. I'm plagued to remember every detail for it has become my curse.