Blade's tongue darted out to lick away the blood at the corners of his lips as he cast an unfeeling glance over his shoulder. At the destruction he'd left in his wake.

Half a dozen bodies were strewn along the cobblestone path of the village he'd recently happened upon, their skin pale and their eyes glassy. Blade hadn't meant to lose control. He'd vowed to only take what he needed, maybe drink two or three people's worth of blood at most. But he couldn't stop himself. He hadn't fed in weeks in hopes of somehow stopping his ceaselessly beating heart. Instead of death, however, all he experienced was hunger and pain. Excruciating, mind-melting pain.

So he drank and drank and drank. He couldn't help the exhilarating thrill that rippled down his spine every time he watched the life fade from his victim's eyes. Felt their body stop fighting and go limp, their muffled screaming against his palm slowly going quiet as he drank and drank their thick, warm life force.

It was his own, twisted form of catharsis. To watch death claim everyone else's souls but his own. Centuries of immortality had passed him by, wearing away at his sanity and slowly driving him mad. It was all he thought of. Obsessively yearning for a release he knew he would never be granted. Praying to any and every entity in the cosmos to take mercy on him. To free him from this immortal coil and this sickening body of his that healed no matter how badly it was wounded.

Blade found himself crouching next to a woman he'd just fed from, his narrowed gaze observing the look in her lifeless eyes. Even when granted such a horrific death, she looked almost at peace. That peace was all he longed for. The sluggishness in one's bones and the warm acceptance that clouded their mind when they knew they were faced with something inevitable. Something final. Death. He wanted to feel that. That weakness and calm and release. He craved it desperately. But he knew death would never come for him. Such was his punishment to bear.

And then, footsteps.

Blade stood, his blood running hot at the thought of yet another human to feed from. Another life to claim. But instead of the trembling villager just passing by that he'd imagined, he was greeted by the sight of you. Defensive stance, hateful gaze, wooden stakes strapped to your hips and a pair of them in your hands. A vampire hunter, here to attempt to claim his life.

He wanted to laugh. How adorably innocent. How naive of you to believe your wooden stakes could kill him when he had tried just about everything to rid the world of his presence himself. Regardless, he slid to his knees as you approached, his lips ruefully curled upward as he spread his arms in a show of surrender.

"I beg of you," he challenged, "If you have even an inkling of belief that you can kill me, I beg of you to try."