Name: Thomas “Tommy” Pulfer
Age: 184, appears late 20 to early 30s
Birthday: October 27th
Gender: male
Species: Vampire
Category: Citizen
Career: Doctor/Apothecary
Appearance Description: Tommy is your stereotypical vampire. Black hair, pale skin, has a hatred for bright colors and a pair of sharp fangs where his canines used to be. Usually, though, those fangs are a little less obvious. Tommy has pale blue eyes that turn a red maroon shade when he is angry or out of control. He has high cheekbones, a square jaw, and low set brows which give him an air of severity. He has a tired, but easy going expression. Quick to smile, but soberness rarely leaves his face completely. He likes to keep himself close shaven and occasionally shaves completely, but it depends a lot on how lazy he’s feeling. Being un-dead, his hair doesn’t grow fast, so he’s grateful he doesn’t have to shave often. He keeps his black hair cut short and brushes it up into a messy ruffle.
Tommy has a general hatred for all things brightly colored. He lived through the 70s and that whole era just ruined colors him. If it’s not black or dark, muted colors, he’s not going to wear it. He is not good at fashion and he is glad that of all the time periods he’s lived in, that this one is the easiest. Dark jeans and a collared shirt are acceptable in almost any arena. He has held onto a few of the nicer pieces of clothing he has collected over the years, but other that cool Halloween costumes, they’re not particularly useful. Tommy is on the physically fit side of average. He looks like he could probably take your average person in a fight, but be crushed by a small football player. Lucky for him, it doesn’t really matter, he’s much stronger than humans anyways.
He stands about six foot, but years of being bent over a work table have left him with a slouch, which is especially bad when he’s working. Occasionally, he has to go check on sensitive plants during the day and has been known to wear gloves, a long cloak, and a wide-brimmed floppy hat to protect himself from the sun. His hands are rough with calluses and often dry and crack from obsessive washing.
Personality Description: It’s rather ironic that he owns a shop, considering how much Tommy hates people. He likes doing the work, and meeting interesting people, but he has a low patience level and his sarcasm has no mercy. Between his misanthropy and his sarcasm, he has a very biting and morbid sense of humor. Tommy hates other vampires above all else, he’s still extremely bitter about having become one of them and doesn’t like being told what to do, so he tends to avoid the covens and other vampires. Tommy enjoys being alone with his plants and his remedies. Even as a healer he is very forward and cold, he’s not the kind of man one would seek pity from. He’s likely to berate someone for their stupidity while he’s bandaging them.
Tommy’s often too honest and straightforward for his own good. He isn’t quiet about things that bother him, in fact he’s very opinionated and very harsh oftentimes. If someone insults him they are likely to get an earful and a kick in the rear. He doesn’t make friends easy, but that’s not to say he doesn’t enjoy them. Having someone to rant with over a drink is perhaps the best kind of therapy, after all misery does love company. The list of people that he likes is rather short, and even friends of the vampire find him closed off and cold. He doesn’t like it when people try to get behind his walls, he has them for a reason and he’ll likely snap at the wrong question. Likewise, Tommy isn’t particularly interested in people’s life story, if it doesn’t have a point he’s not interested.
While quite intelligent, Tommy isn’t particularly clever. His line of work relies heavily on memorization and formulas and doesn’t lend itself well to a wide array of interpretations. As such, Thomas usually sees things very black and white. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing things. He’s not very forgiving of failure, of others or of himself. Being a doctor he leaves himself with the knowledge that he did everything he could. Making herb mixtures relies of meticulous measurements and accuracy and he will take all precautions. His attention to detail is sharp, while his ability to work through an open ended problem generally leaves him frustrated. He doesn’t like irrational emotions or thoughts and will do everything he can to snuff them out in himself.
Species Abilities: As a vampire, Thomas is stronger, faster, and more agile than the average human, heightened senses, and an unshakable need for human blood. He doesn’t need much in the way of sleeping, eating, etc. but he sometimes enjoys doing them. His fangs are retractable, as are his ‘claws’ which like his teeth appear over his nails. He heals quickly, but is sensitive to the sun and cannot stand its rays. He is nocturnal, but due to running his shop, he is out and about most days, working with curtain covered windows. Tommy tends to his plants in the early morning or twilight (or on a particularly cloudy day) and usually spends the night working at the hospital or doing something fun, unless of course he’s feeling lazy and wants to crawl into his dirt filled coffin. He can only be killed through incineration, a stake through his heart, or beheading. Personally, he likes the idea of a stake through the heart, it just seems poetic.
Powers: Tommy can shift into a great horned owl, it’s one of his favorite things to do, though he doesn’t have much need for it now that he’s on Manta Carlos. It takes a matter of moments to shift, but depending on how much blood he has had recently he can hold the form from anywhere to an hour to about 6 hours. He’s never held it longer than that, but in theory if he’s fully sated when he shifts, he isn’t particularly starving after 6 hours and so he estimates he can make it 12 hours or more if he really tried.
What small magic he has, he has focused on healing. With the blood of the person he is helping he can heal a minor injury or diagnose a tricky ailment. He can only use magic with blood and personally he doesn’t like that much, the healer in him balks at hurting people in order to help them. When the healing is particularly intense, like healing broken bones, he sometimes has to mix his blood into the magic, he hates doing that because whatever it is that is hurting the person feels like it transfers to him. He doesn’t use it for benign things, he’ll help set and arm and use blood magic to speed up the process, but because it’s not life threatening, he lets them heal on their own, with just a little help. If someone comes into his office having been shot on the other hand, he mixes his blood with theirs and heals them fully. Problem is, for the next few hours Tommy feels the pain just as if he had been shot. And he really doesn’t like that. Luckily that is a rare occurrence. Thankfully, modern medicine has given him a way to avoid having to take that responsibility on.
Biography: Thomas was born in the 1830s in a small town in southern Ontario. He was raised as a healer by his father and learned about apothecary work and followed in his father’s footsteps. He had skill with plants and learned quickly to recognize the plants that were poisonous and the plants that were beneficial. He worked with his father for many years before his father decided to take a step back and leave the Apothecary in his son’s capable hands, focusing on his study of anatomy and medicine. Thomas was 18 at the time and his father’s skills for healing sickness, stitching wounds, and setting bones were well known in their area. Thomas kept up that reputation, falling back on his father if needed. By the time he was 20 people would travel days to get one of their remedies. He was 24 when his father started seeking a wife for him. Thomas balked at the idea of an arranged marriage, especially since his beloved Sarah was not up to his father’s standards. But to defy his father was not something Thomas was able to do, so Thomas was unhappily married to the wealthy daughter from a neighboring town.
Her name was Emily and their shared loathing for each other was about the only thing they had in common. They fought constantly and one day when they were fighting, everything changed. In an attempt to hurt him, Emily blurted that she had been sleeping with someone else. To her surprise, Thomas then admitted to seeing Sarah. In that moment a beautiful friendship was born from their mutual betrayal. Thomas kept seeing Sarah and Emily kept seeing other men, keeping it a secret to all others except themselves. In fact, Emily and Thomas became quite close and started confiding in each other, the fighting all but stopped and they lived a happily unfaithful marriage. At least until Sarah herself married and told Thomas she would not betray her husband.
Thomas was devastated and in an effort to cheer him up, Emily introduced him to a good friend of hers, Eliana. Thomas had heard Emily talk of her often but had never met her. When he saw her, he was immediately captured by her beauty. She had long red hair that she wore daringly uncovered and she wore dresses that scandalized the old fashion men and women of their small town. Thomas found her charm intoxicating and quickly fell for her. For a year they saw each other and fell in love. It was Eliana that started calling him ‘Tommy’, he protested at first, but soon others took it up and it was done. Eliana kept telling her she wanted to give him a gift but wouldn’t tell him what it was. Then one night they were laying together, Eliana bit his neck and when he struggled, she pinned him with ease, as if he were a child. Tommy was terrified, thinking she had drugged him.
The more she drank the weaker he felt, until he could barely see her at all. He closed his eyes and felt something warm and wet on his lips. “Drink, my love,” she whispered in his ears and he obeyed, feeling his strength return as he did so. He wasn’t sure what happened the rest of the night, but he woke up the next morning and the sun in the window was blinding. He hissed and cowered away from it. The sounds of the world were too sharp, the colors too vivid, and time too slow. The sensory overload scared him. His eyes found Eliana, more beautiful than ever, “What did you do to me?” He growled.
“I’ve made you one of us, a vampire, my love,” she had said smiling with fangs he had never noticed.
Tommy was scared and furious all at once. He screamed at her, called her foul names and threatened her. All the while, she looked at him with gentle eyes and nodded. Tommy’s heart ached, he had been tricked, betrayed, and his life stolen from him. He would never forgive Eliana for turning him. He ran off soon after they argued and he ran through the streets, dazed by the sun, ducking and swerving unsteady on his feet. He heard jeers from the townsfolk, mocking him for drinking too much. Somehow he found his way to Sarah’s house and when he could open the door but couldn’t cross the threshold he cried out for Sarah. She invited him in and drew him to the kitchen. He was suddenly only aware of one thing, that Sarah was full of blood, and he was so, so thirsty.
Sarah screamed as Tommy’s eyes went blood red and he attacked her, drinking her lifeblood until she lay still and motionless on the floor. Sated with blood, some sense returned to Tommy and he beheld her on the floor and took in the blood on his hands and the taste in his mouth. He turned to run and barreled into Eliana who caught and held him. He screamed and wept, crying out “You did this to me!” She didn’t let him go, Eliana held him more tightly than anyone should. Eliana drew him away from this place and took him home. She told Emily that he was very sick and should not be disturbed under any circumstances. Then for the next few months, Eliana taught Tommy how to be a vampire. Gradually he got used to his new found strength and speed, learned how to filter his new heightened senses to avoid getting overwhelmed. She taught him how to feed without killing people and keep them a secret.
After a few months, once Tommy had gotten himself well under control, he emerged and returned to his apothecary. His friends would comment on how he must have been very sick, as he was so pale and cold now. He found that his heightened senses were better at identifying illness and with a little extra blood he could actually see the illness in a person and snuff it out. However, when word got around that Tommy was using blood to heal people the whispers started. Tommy’s shop became empty and even Emily avoided him. He quietly closed his shop and left. Eliana found him on the road and tried to stop him. He insisted they part ways. He never did forgive him for turning him into a monster.
A hundred miles away, Tommy opened a new Apothecary and his herbal remedies were even better than before. With his heightened senses he could make better mixtures and diagnose illnesses better. He was much more careful about using blood for his spells, acting subtly. For most thing he didn’t need blood, or the patient was always bleeding and it was easy. If he needed it, he would tell people that if he drew blood, he could use new tests to examine their health. He told them he had been to University and in the small towns, no one asked questions. He never stayed in once place too long, as eventually someone would get suspicious about him and the strange things he did.
When the American Civil War rolled around, it was a no brainer for Tommy to join the effort, he joined other doctors and healers in the tents and tended to the wounded. The amount of blood in the air was intoxicating and it took all his self control to not go into a rampage. He couldn’t heal a lot of the things he saw without suspicion and his emotions got worn down watching people die. The day they got word that the war was over was one of the best he had ever heard. There was nothing he wanted more than to go back to his shop and live quietly. And he did, he even attended University and officially got certified as a doctor. In the peace following the war, Tommy settled into a routine. Some people encouraged him to get some sun or otherwise teased him for his nocturnal habits. He would smile in good nature and ignore them.
But yet again, people started getting suspicious and some pretentious priest pointed a finger at Tommy and declared him a demon. Initially some of the townsfolk came to his defense, but one just didn’t protest a priest and soon enough rumors started to spread. He didn’t appear in mirrors, his shadow pointed the wrong way, and other ridiculous stories. He started to plan his next move and just in case he decided to try shifting. Eliana said he could, her form was a bat, but Tommy hadn’t been particularly interested in doing so. He willed himself to fly away and to his surprise he did shift. It was an odd sensation, to be tall and then looking up at the tables in the back of his shop. He looked around at himself and lifted his arms to find wings, lifted his legs to find strong talons on his feet.
He gathered himself up to fly and made a few fluttering beats before crashing to the ground. Whatever hopes he had of just magically knowing how to fly went right out the window. With some effort Tommy figured out how to turn himself back and decided to wait until nightfall and try it in the open air. Careful to make sure he wasn’t followed, Tommy wandered into the forest and climbed a tree. Crouching on a branch he transformed, he ended up beating his wings to make sure he didn’t fall out before his talons could grip the branch. He practiced gliding first, it was a clumsy awkward thing but he made it from the tree to another without falling. He glided from tree to tree until he was close to the ground and tried flapping a bit. He did okay, but it took him another three days to get the hang of it.
It was a good thing too, since things can turn on a dime. Six days after he discovered his shifting form, he was forced to use it to escape an angry mob of the same people he used to heal. If Tommy was being honest with himself, he was more disappointed than angered. He didn’t necessarily blame them, he was a monster, after all. That was his life for the next fifty years. A constantly repeating cycle. During this time he ran into other vampires and Eliana herself. Some towns he was in, he was forced out by a resident coven he refused to join, or an older vampire who sought to make Tommy their underling. He hated the whole lot of them. And he hated Eliana for doing this to him. In other towns he found other hidden creatures and depending on the creature, Tommy either moved on or stayed.
The first World War gave him a respite from his running for a few years. He was sent overseas as a doctor and while the ride on the ship was terrible, he found he really liked Europe. At least until he met the European vampires. They were even older and stuffier than the North American ones. They had their noses in the air at the mere sight of him and they were quick to show their superiority over Tommy. They were insufferable. In fact, Tommy found himself spending all of his time with humans just to avoid them.
He fought his first vampire while in France. A vampire had come skulking around the medical tents looking for a snack, he was several hundred years Tommy’s superior, but Tommy told him to go nonetheless. Tommy supposed having a young vampire tell an elder what to do didn’t sit well with the older one. The older vampire ignored him and Tommy lunged, biting the older vampires arm as he went to grab one of Tommy’s patients. The vampire was stronger and tossed Tommy away. Snarling Tommy opened his mouth to demand that the medial tents and their patients be left alone, but he never got the chance. The older vampire caught him by the neck and tossed him through the canvas wall onto the streets. Before Tommy could get his bearings he was struck again. Since becoming a vampire, Tommy had never been in so much pain, after so many years it was unfamiliar and Tommy didn’t know how to handle it. He had attacked an elder and was being punished for it. The older vampire practically ground Tommy’s nose into the pavement before Tommy relented and submitted to his elder’s strength. It also earned him painful bite in retaliation for his own attack.
Tommy then was forced to sit by while the vampire’s coven used the medical tent as their personal grocery. Tommy would snarl and growl at the vampires that came, but after the beating he received he didn’t intervene. He hated them more than even Eliana. He was very grateful when he was transferred to a different area and was able to get away. Heading back to the US after the war was strange. It was like nothing had changed but everything was different. Guilt for his failure to protect his patients follow him even now. The wound was still too fresh that when the second World War started, Tommy joined the home-front battles and volunteered to stay and work as a healer at home.
The world was war weary and so was Tommy, he watched with nothing but sadness over the next several decades. As the world grew more advanced, Tommy had to get clever about changing his names and getting himself new documentation. He went to medical school again in the sixties to get his credentials ‘renewed’. He was glad for it too, a lot had changed since he had last gone to school. Luckily, he had timed his schooling well and was able to avoid the Draft that way. He watched the world race through changes in that time. He hated the 70s. It seemed like everyone was on drugs and he saw more and more people coming to him with addictions and people who had melted away their minds. It was frustrating.
Tommy was tired of the world and even more bitter for his state as an immortal. During one of his more grumpy decades, Eliana found him. It took all of his energy not to throttle her. She was excited to tell him about this place she had found, a place where people like they didn’t have to run. Intrigued, Tommy listened and decided to give this Manta Carlos a chance. When he had packed and was preparing to leave, Eliana grabbed his hand. “Tommy, would it matter if I said I was sorry?”
Tommy turned his hard eyes to meet hers and shook his head, pulling his hand from her grasp and leaving her behind. He would never forgive her, not for as long as he was living this undead life. This was a lonely life and it left him cold and tired. Immortality, it was a curse.
He had low expectations coming to Manta Carlos, but he opened his Apothecary like usual and offered his services to the hospital emergency room. After a decade, Tommy found himself eyeing the people around him, waiting for them to chase him out of town of look suspiciously at him. But rather, a friend or two would shake his hand in passing, they themselves residents of this haven unwelcome in the outside world. The second decade of his tenure in Manta Carlos, Tommy spent waiting for the other shoe to drop, but gradually, Tommy has found a home here and he may even be beginning to feel content here.
Additional Information: Tommy owns an Apothecary in town, now mostly a clever name for his shop. He sells herbal remedies, teas, dried herbs and plants for spells. He grows all his own plants in a garden behind his shop. Since he doesn’t have to sleep, he splits his time between the Apothecary and graveyard shifts in the Hospital. This is getting to be a bit much, so he is considering hiring an assistant.
Age: 184, appears late 20 to early 30s
Birthday: October 27th
Gender: male
Species: Vampire
Category: Citizen
Career: Doctor/Apothecary
Appearance Description: Tommy is your stereotypical vampire. Black hair, pale skin, has a hatred for bright colors and a pair of sharp fangs where his canines used to be. Usually, though, those fangs are a little less obvious. Tommy has pale blue eyes that turn a red maroon shade when he is angry or out of control. He has high cheekbones, a square jaw, and low set brows which give him an air of severity. He has a tired, but easy going expression. Quick to smile, but soberness rarely leaves his face completely. He likes to keep himself close shaven and occasionally shaves completely, but it depends a lot on how lazy he’s feeling. Being un-dead, his hair doesn’t grow fast, so he’s grateful he doesn’t have to shave often. He keeps his black hair cut short and brushes it up into a messy ruffle.
Tommy has a general hatred for all things brightly colored. He lived through the 70s and that whole era just ruined colors him. If it’s not black or dark, muted colors, he’s not going to wear it. He is not good at fashion and he is glad that of all the time periods he’s lived in, that this one is the easiest. Dark jeans and a collared shirt are acceptable in almost any arena. He has held onto a few of the nicer pieces of clothing he has collected over the years, but other that cool Halloween costumes, they’re not particularly useful. Tommy is on the physically fit side of average. He looks like he could probably take your average person in a fight, but be crushed by a small football player. Lucky for him, it doesn’t really matter, he’s much stronger than humans anyways.
He stands about six foot, but years of being bent over a work table have left him with a slouch, which is especially bad when he’s working. Occasionally, he has to go check on sensitive plants during the day and has been known to wear gloves, a long cloak, and a wide-brimmed floppy hat to protect himself from the sun. His hands are rough with calluses and often dry and crack from obsessive washing.
Personality Description: It’s rather ironic that he owns a shop, considering how much Tommy hates people. He likes doing the work, and meeting interesting people, but he has a low patience level and his sarcasm has no mercy. Between his misanthropy and his sarcasm, he has a very biting and morbid sense of humor. Tommy hates other vampires above all else, he’s still extremely bitter about having become one of them and doesn’t like being told what to do, so he tends to avoid the covens and other vampires. Tommy enjoys being alone with his plants and his remedies. Even as a healer he is very forward and cold, he’s not the kind of man one would seek pity from. He’s likely to berate someone for their stupidity while he’s bandaging them.
Tommy’s often too honest and straightforward for his own good. He isn’t quiet about things that bother him, in fact he’s very opinionated and very harsh oftentimes. If someone insults him they are likely to get an earful and a kick in the rear. He doesn’t make friends easy, but that’s not to say he doesn’t enjoy them. Having someone to rant with over a drink is perhaps the best kind of therapy, after all misery does love company. The list of people that he likes is rather short, and even friends of the vampire find him closed off and cold. He doesn’t like it when people try to get behind his walls, he has them for a reason and he’ll likely snap at the wrong question. Likewise, Tommy isn’t particularly interested in people’s life story, if it doesn’t have a point he’s not interested.
While quite intelligent, Tommy isn’t particularly clever. His line of work relies heavily on memorization and formulas and doesn’t lend itself well to a wide array of interpretations. As such, Thomas usually sees things very black and white. There is a right way and a wrong way of doing things. He’s not very forgiving of failure, of others or of himself. Being a doctor he leaves himself with the knowledge that he did everything he could. Making herb mixtures relies of meticulous measurements and accuracy and he will take all precautions. His attention to detail is sharp, while his ability to work through an open ended problem generally leaves him frustrated. He doesn’t like irrational emotions or thoughts and will do everything he can to snuff them out in himself.
Species Abilities: As a vampire, Thomas is stronger, faster, and more agile than the average human, heightened senses, and an unshakable need for human blood. He doesn’t need much in the way of sleeping, eating, etc. but he sometimes enjoys doing them. His fangs are retractable, as are his ‘claws’ which like his teeth appear over his nails. He heals quickly, but is sensitive to the sun and cannot stand its rays. He is nocturnal, but due to running his shop, he is out and about most days, working with curtain covered windows. Tommy tends to his plants in the early morning or twilight (or on a particularly cloudy day) and usually spends the night working at the hospital or doing something fun, unless of course he’s feeling lazy and wants to crawl into his dirt filled coffin. He can only be killed through incineration, a stake through his heart, or beheading. Personally, he likes the idea of a stake through the heart, it just seems poetic.
Powers: Tommy can shift into a great horned owl, it’s one of his favorite things to do, though he doesn’t have much need for it now that he’s on Manta Carlos. It takes a matter of moments to shift, but depending on how much blood he has had recently he can hold the form from anywhere to an hour to about 6 hours. He’s never held it longer than that, but in theory if he’s fully sated when he shifts, he isn’t particularly starving after 6 hours and so he estimates he can make it 12 hours or more if he really tried.
What small magic he has, he has focused on healing. With the blood of the person he is helping he can heal a minor injury or diagnose a tricky ailment. He can only use magic with blood and personally he doesn’t like that much, the healer in him balks at hurting people in order to help them. When the healing is particularly intense, like healing broken bones, he sometimes has to mix his blood into the magic, he hates doing that because whatever it is that is hurting the person feels like it transfers to him. He doesn’t use it for benign things, he’ll help set and arm and use blood magic to speed up the process, but because it’s not life threatening, he lets them heal on their own, with just a little help. If someone comes into his office having been shot on the other hand, he mixes his blood with theirs and heals them fully. Problem is, for the next few hours Tommy feels the pain just as if he had been shot. And he really doesn’t like that. Luckily that is a rare occurrence. Thankfully, modern medicine has given him a way to avoid having to take that responsibility on.
Biography: Thomas was born in the 1830s in a small town in southern Ontario. He was raised as a healer by his father and learned about apothecary work and followed in his father’s footsteps. He had skill with plants and learned quickly to recognize the plants that were poisonous and the plants that were beneficial. He worked with his father for many years before his father decided to take a step back and leave the Apothecary in his son’s capable hands, focusing on his study of anatomy and medicine. Thomas was 18 at the time and his father’s skills for healing sickness, stitching wounds, and setting bones were well known in their area. Thomas kept up that reputation, falling back on his father if needed. By the time he was 20 people would travel days to get one of their remedies. He was 24 when his father started seeking a wife for him. Thomas balked at the idea of an arranged marriage, especially since his beloved Sarah was not up to his father’s standards. But to defy his father was not something Thomas was able to do, so Thomas was unhappily married to the wealthy daughter from a neighboring town.
Her name was Emily and their shared loathing for each other was about the only thing they had in common. They fought constantly and one day when they were fighting, everything changed. In an attempt to hurt him, Emily blurted that she had been sleeping with someone else. To her surprise, Thomas then admitted to seeing Sarah. In that moment a beautiful friendship was born from their mutual betrayal. Thomas kept seeing Sarah and Emily kept seeing other men, keeping it a secret to all others except themselves. In fact, Emily and Thomas became quite close and started confiding in each other, the fighting all but stopped and they lived a happily unfaithful marriage. At least until Sarah herself married and told Thomas she would not betray her husband.
Thomas was devastated and in an effort to cheer him up, Emily introduced him to a good friend of hers, Eliana. Thomas had heard Emily talk of her often but had never met her. When he saw her, he was immediately captured by her beauty. She had long red hair that she wore daringly uncovered and she wore dresses that scandalized the old fashion men and women of their small town. Thomas found her charm intoxicating and quickly fell for her. For a year they saw each other and fell in love. It was Eliana that started calling him ‘Tommy’, he protested at first, but soon others took it up and it was done. Eliana kept telling her she wanted to give him a gift but wouldn’t tell him what it was. Then one night they were laying together, Eliana bit his neck and when he struggled, she pinned him with ease, as if he were a child. Tommy was terrified, thinking she had drugged him.
The more she drank the weaker he felt, until he could barely see her at all. He closed his eyes and felt something warm and wet on his lips. “Drink, my love,” she whispered in his ears and he obeyed, feeling his strength return as he did so. He wasn’t sure what happened the rest of the night, but he woke up the next morning and the sun in the window was blinding. He hissed and cowered away from it. The sounds of the world were too sharp, the colors too vivid, and time too slow. The sensory overload scared him. His eyes found Eliana, more beautiful than ever, “What did you do to me?” He growled.
“I’ve made you one of us, a vampire, my love,” she had said smiling with fangs he had never noticed.
Tommy was scared and furious all at once. He screamed at her, called her foul names and threatened her. All the while, she looked at him with gentle eyes and nodded. Tommy’s heart ached, he had been tricked, betrayed, and his life stolen from him. He would never forgive Eliana for turning him. He ran off soon after they argued and he ran through the streets, dazed by the sun, ducking and swerving unsteady on his feet. He heard jeers from the townsfolk, mocking him for drinking too much. Somehow he found his way to Sarah’s house and when he could open the door but couldn’t cross the threshold he cried out for Sarah. She invited him in and drew him to the kitchen. He was suddenly only aware of one thing, that Sarah was full of blood, and he was so, so thirsty.
Sarah screamed as Tommy’s eyes went blood red and he attacked her, drinking her lifeblood until she lay still and motionless on the floor. Sated with blood, some sense returned to Tommy and he beheld her on the floor and took in the blood on his hands and the taste in his mouth. He turned to run and barreled into Eliana who caught and held him. He screamed and wept, crying out “You did this to me!” She didn’t let him go, Eliana held him more tightly than anyone should. Eliana drew him away from this place and took him home. She told Emily that he was very sick and should not be disturbed under any circumstances. Then for the next few months, Eliana taught Tommy how to be a vampire. Gradually he got used to his new found strength and speed, learned how to filter his new heightened senses to avoid getting overwhelmed. She taught him how to feed without killing people and keep them a secret.
After a few months, once Tommy had gotten himself well under control, he emerged and returned to his apothecary. His friends would comment on how he must have been very sick, as he was so pale and cold now. He found that his heightened senses were better at identifying illness and with a little extra blood he could actually see the illness in a person and snuff it out. However, when word got around that Tommy was using blood to heal people the whispers started. Tommy’s shop became empty and even Emily avoided him. He quietly closed his shop and left. Eliana found him on the road and tried to stop him. He insisted they part ways. He never did forgive him for turning him into a monster.
A hundred miles away, Tommy opened a new Apothecary and his herbal remedies were even better than before. With his heightened senses he could make better mixtures and diagnose illnesses better. He was much more careful about using blood for his spells, acting subtly. For most thing he didn’t need blood, or the patient was always bleeding and it was easy. If he needed it, he would tell people that if he drew blood, he could use new tests to examine their health. He told them he had been to University and in the small towns, no one asked questions. He never stayed in once place too long, as eventually someone would get suspicious about him and the strange things he did.
When the American Civil War rolled around, it was a no brainer for Tommy to join the effort, he joined other doctors and healers in the tents and tended to the wounded. The amount of blood in the air was intoxicating and it took all his self control to not go into a rampage. He couldn’t heal a lot of the things he saw without suspicion and his emotions got worn down watching people die. The day they got word that the war was over was one of the best he had ever heard. There was nothing he wanted more than to go back to his shop and live quietly. And he did, he even attended University and officially got certified as a doctor. In the peace following the war, Tommy settled into a routine. Some people encouraged him to get some sun or otherwise teased him for his nocturnal habits. He would smile in good nature and ignore them.
But yet again, people started getting suspicious and some pretentious priest pointed a finger at Tommy and declared him a demon. Initially some of the townsfolk came to his defense, but one just didn’t protest a priest and soon enough rumors started to spread. He didn’t appear in mirrors, his shadow pointed the wrong way, and other ridiculous stories. He started to plan his next move and just in case he decided to try shifting. Eliana said he could, her form was a bat, but Tommy hadn’t been particularly interested in doing so. He willed himself to fly away and to his surprise he did shift. It was an odd sensation, to be tall and then looking up at the tables in the back of his shop. He looked around at himself and lifted his arms to find wings, lifted his legs to find strong talons on his feet.
He gathered himself up to fly and made a few fluttering beats before crashing to the ground. Whatever hopes he had of just magically knowing how to fly went right out the window. With some effort Tommy figured out how to turn himself back and decided to wait until nightfall and try it in the open air. Careful to make sure he wasn’t followed, Tommy wandered into the forest and climbed a tree. Crouching on a branch he transformed, he ended up beating his wings to make sure he didn’t fall out before his talons could grip the branch. He practiced gliding first, it was a clumsy awkward thing but he made it from the tree to another without falling. He glided from tree to tree until he was close to the ground and tried flapping a bit. He did okay, but it took him another three days to get the hang of it.
It was a good thing too, since things can turn on a dime. Six days after he discovered his shifting form, he was forced to use it to escape an angry mob of the same people he used to heal. If Tommy was being honest with himself, he was more disappointed than angered. He didn’t necessarily blame them, he was a monster, after all. That was his life for the next fifty years. A constantly repeating cycle. During this time he ran into other vampires and Eliana herself. Some towns he was in, he was forced out by a resident coven he refused to join, or an older vampire who sought to make Tommy their underling. He hated the whole lot of them. And he hated Eliana for doing this to him. In other towns he found other hidden creatures and depending on the creature, Tommy either moved on or stayed.
The first World War gave him a respite from his running for a few years. He was sent overseas as a doctor and while the ride on the ship was terrible, he found he really liked Europe. At least until he met the European vampires. They were even older and stuffier than the North American ones. They had their noses in the air at the mere sight of him and they were quick to show their superiority over Tommy. They were insufferable. In fact, Tommy found himself spending all of his time with humans just to avoid them.
He fought his first vampire while in France. A vampire had come skulking around the medical tents looking for a snack, he was several hundred years Tommy’s superior, but Tommy told him to go nonetheless. Tommy supposed having a young vampire tell an elder what to do didn’t sit well with the older one. The older vampire ignored him and Tommy lunged, biting the older vampires arm as he went to grab one of Tommy’s patients. The vampire was stronger and tossed Tommy away. Snarling Tommy opened his mouth to demand that the medial tents and their patients be left alone, but he never got the chance. The older vampire caught him by the neck and tossed him through the canvas wall onto the streets. Before Tommy could get his bearings he was struck again. Since becoming a vampire, Tommy had never been in so much pain, after so many years it was unfamiliar and Tommy didn’t know how to handle it. He had attacked an elder and was being punished for it. The older vampire practically ground Tommy’s nose into the pavement before Tommy relented and submitted to his elder’s strength. It also earned him painful bite in retaliation for his own attack.
Tommy then was forced to sit by while the vampire’s coven used the medical tent as their personal grocery. Tommy would snarl and growl at the vampires that came, but after the beating he received he didn’t intervene. He hated them more than even Eliana. He was very grateful when he was transferred to a different area and was able to get away. Heading back to the US after the war was strange. It was like nothing had changed but everything was different. Guilt for his failure to protect his patients follow him even now. The wound was still too fresh that when the second World War started, Tommy joined the home-front battles and volunteered to stay and work as a healer at home.
The world was war weary and so was Tommy, he watched with nothing but sadness over the next several decades. As the world grew more advanced, Tommy had to get clever about changing his names and getting himself new documentation. He went to medical school again in the sixties to get his credentials ‘renewed’. He was glad for it too, a lot had changed since he had last gone to school. Luckily, he had timed his schooling well and was able to avoid the Draft that way. He watched the world race through changes in that time. He hated the 70s. It seemed like everyone was on drugs and he saw more and more people coming to him with addictions and people who had melted away their minds. It was frustrating.
Tommy was tired of the world and even more bitter for his state as an immortal. During one of his more grumpy decades, Eliana found him. It took all of his energy not to throttle her. She was excited to tell him about this place she had found, a place where people like they didn’t have to run. Intrigued, Tommy listened and decided to give this Manta Carlos a chance. When he had packed and was preparing to leave, Eliana grabbed his hand. “Tommy, would it matter if I said I was sorry?”
Tommy turned his hard eyes to meet hers and shook his head, pulling his hand from her grasp and leaving her behind. He would never forgive her, not for as long as he was living this undead life. This was a lonely life and it left him cold and tired. Immortality, it was a curse.
He had low expectations coming to Manta Carlos, but he opened his Apothecary like usual and offered his services to the hospital emergency room. After a decade, Tommy found himself eyeing the people around him, waiting for them to chase him out of town of look suspiciously at him. But rather, a friend or two would shake his hand in passing, they themselves residents of this haven unwelcome in the outside world. The second decade of his tenure in Manta Carlos, Tommy spent waiting for the other shoe to drop, but gradually, Tommy has found a home here and he may even be beginning to feel content here.
Additional Information: Tommy owns an Apothecary in town, now mostly a clever name for his shop. He sells herbal remedies, teas, dried herbs and plants for spells. He grows all his own plants in a garden behind his shop. Since he doesn’t have to sleep, he splits his time between the Apothecary and graveyard shifts in the Hospital. This is getting to be a bit much, so he is considering hiring an assistant.
