8/15/02 - Victims of Circumstance

Things happened so quickly, Kennis Cooper was revealed to be a sabbat infiltrator (by her own admission) and the file with the names and details of kindred in the city had already been sent. We didn't at the time, know what this would all mean, we couldn't have known, but we would learn soon enough what chaos would be unleashed upon the city.

It started with a rumor, bikers from Detroit? Or somesuch nonsense, I didn't in the days that follow see a single biker, but I saw many other things - I wish there had been bikers. It was one night, the Nosferatu Jon mentioned this rumor, it was unconfirmed, but it spread as rumors tend to do, especially when I'm around. It was the next night that Elena Hawkley spoke to me, livid over the lack of being informed about any of this. Didn't she realize, that we were all reeling, trying to make sense out of the non-sensical. So sorry if no one left a message there to Elena, I'm sure it would have gone something like "Kennis is Sabbat, we think....there may be bikers...we think....maybe from Detroit...we don't know. Have a nice day". Meanwhile, hushed whispers circulated throughout the night, Arkady tried to call a meeting of the council, but they are, as per usual, unavailable. They would remain "unavailable" in the nights to come. And the outcome of Elena's metldown, her resignation and withdrawal of support for Arkady, in a time when the people of the city had the most need, as far as I know Elena left the city, leaving behind Bukowski, and a bad taste.

What followed was the abandonment of the Trainwreck and a relocation to headquarters set up by the Nosferatu, designated as Elysium, for what it was worth. Though such short notice required as huge organization of those that were often absent from the city, confused masses having no access and no where to go. I wonder how many of these lost sheep never survived to even knock on the door. It was the best we could do at the time, the world around us moves at light speed, even if individuals don't. Nothing like zombies and monsters and things with chainsaws to get us to pick up the pace.

This pseudo elysium was compromised early in the game. Some girl showed up, no one knew her, that alone was suspcious, the city was crawling with sabbat, the streets were dangerous, the world was turned upside down in a manner of hours. An impromptu blood test by Dr. Creed revealed that she wasn't from the home team, but by that time the girl had already slipped out. There was nothing to be done except go on. Does it matter when one building is discovered, when the entire city is surrounded.

Meanwhile those that were willing and able were dispatched to areas of the city, engaging in minor skirmashes and all out battles. Things that should not exist, reality bending things tore through the city, and the ragtag groups of kindred holding them off as best they can. There were wounded and those that were nearly destroyed, but all in all we lost very little, except maybe those that were never counted in the first place. Four nights it was, when you could hear the bap-bapping of pistols throughout the city, the rumbling of something moving through the buildings, even the screams of the dead and dying. Mortal authorities would never release the death toll of this particular natural disaster, like so many other things, it would be swept under the rug, as if these people and their lives never existed at all.

Four days I would remain in the elysium coordinating locations and communications, while the dead and wounded were paraded in, patched up and sent back out. Within the ranks of the Camarilla there was severe strain, lack of blood, lack of hope, infighting and snappishness, we would end up putting several down to prevent them from doing harm to themselves and others. Fallen warriors with sharp pieces of wood in their chest, victims of friendly fire and circumstance. Some would even die in such circumstance, like Izzy White, 3 week old primogen to the malkavians, staked and drug into the sewers by Trog, only to die in an explosion there. And we all kept going, driven by sheer will, the fallen brushed aside, mourning is for the living.

While it seemed we raged war against monsters that go bump in the night, city-sized monsters who answered to no reason, it would take two dozen of us to remove this thing. It is said there is another one, escaped into the sewers, dwelling within the city, one wonders what disease it will spread and if we'll ever flush it out. Pockets of resistance engage other groups, packs of sabbat weilding death and destruction, and more wounded are brought in, pale faces and blooded, eyes vacant, speaking nonsense. We patch them back up and send them out again. What else was there to do?

And on the fourth day, the zombies came. Something out of night of the living dead, but these zombies were decked out for war, bearing brutal weapons, implanted into flesh,their mindless flailing ripping flesh, cleaving bone. Twenty of them at first, four breaking into the elysium, dispatched by a Brujah named Kay, quicker than they eye could blink and only five minutes later she's got a stake in her chest, vacant eyes staring up, another victim of circumstance. And if we thought that twenty was manageable, then a hundred more came, scraping and scratching against the walls and doors, we all fell back, what was left of us. And there was no place else to retreat, the thing in the sewers, the zombies at the door, like Old Scratch knocking, and we couldn't go on and couldn't go back and couldn't go forward.

And somehow a deal was struck, not with these mindless corpses, but with something beyond that. A warrior for a warrior. Arkady versus Jameson, and yes I remember the man. Such brutality could never be ignored. And the zombies parted, like the sea so that Arkady could meet their champion. Though we still, those left to witness it, would not be sure what would happen when the dual was finished, no matter what the outcome. The zombies scratched like rats below us, and the battle was a furious one, with Arkady the victor, and amazingly enough the zombies retreated, as did whoever controlled them, moving back to whatever dark hole they came from, but not gone forever, just gone for now.

Had I been mortal, I would have been holding my breath, it was more like a suspension, and pause in the fabric of reality. The world moved at light speed, but my brain was on skip, never making it past the thought: "what if?" because to think past that would be too terrible to imagine, and its better to not think at all. Better to be sleeping with wood, a victim of circumstance. But I would have no such luck, and it would end that night, in some ways. Receding. Leaving scars that may not be so easy to patch up as stakes and burns and broken bones, leaving something dark in the souls of all of us, like the dark thing that now dwells in the sewers, eating at the core.

Though the casualties reported for the four nights were few, I can't help but wonder if we won't see the real casualties as we begin to pick up the pieces, those that lost something more important than their lives during those dark nights...victims of circumstance.