Monster I Have Become

Behold! He has risen! Vampire Frollo!   I should have saved this for Halloween...but that's a long way off. Happy Easter everyone!

Music  www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX5qpR…   Terminus  - Audiomachine




In fire and madness it ended.
He felt nothing, not even perceive the passage of time, Around him was nothing but endless and absolute darkness. From somewhere in oblivion his consciousness screamed voiceless out against the nothingness, desperate for some sort of contact or stimulus, though he no longer felt physical pain, it was nevertheless of a whole different kind of agony in this place of absolute emptiness, with not even a tormentor for company.

"Stone and flesh, much of is it the same with this one." A voice in the dark spoke; angelic or demonic, the disembodied soul did not know. " Hollowed is the soul, and yet, there is a great passion, heretofore suppressed, it is wild and untamed, seeking a release."
"For this one, it will be no less what he has made of himself. "Replied a second. 
Together the voices spoke as one. "It is decided. The plea has been heard and the sentence is pronounced. It is done."

Blackness reached, Claude swam through the darkness, stroked the surface, he cried out for relief, more out of automatic ingrained response than a gasp for air, for the need to breathe had passed with his life.  A moan escaped from him, but the deep sound gave him something to swim towards, something to hold on to as substance was restored to him.  
 All of a sudden, he felt himself jerked back towards his own body as if his soul were on a string. He felt the stretch of every muscle and the expansion and contraction of his lungs, it pulled him up out of the black pit that threatened to enfold him fast, like being pushed upwards out of a grave into the light of consciousness.  

 His senses and mind returned to him with a preternatural clarity as if a great weight had landed on his shoulders, it was almost painful, as he was forced to reflect on the events that had led up to this moment. The raging madness that had saturated his brain had faded, but the realisation that he was in love with the Gypsy girl had been almost like a physical blow. Since the deaths of his parents, his whole life had been solely concerned, at first on his own survival, and later during his career as a Minister and caregiver to Quasimodo; with all its pressures and responsibilities, love had not a luxury that he was able to indulge in nor wanted.
  The concept of love and passion was completely foreign to him, for it served no useful purpose or part of his plans. But the emotion had burst out of him so strongly, like some beast, clawing it's way out of its prison that was his skull. It was a completely new and seemingly unnatural experience, and it had sent his mind reeling into unforeseeable madness, wild desires and pure single-minded determination had caused him to tear through the city to flush her out and thus purge himself. In those hours it seemed that Hell itself opened up under his touch as Paris burned...and taken him down with it.

  And yet now...  he lived, in some form, some reality at least. It certainly wasn't Hell he expected with fire and brimstone, but far from Heaven too, delivered to the exact same spot of his passing on the steps, his final resting place in the shadow of the great church. How strange it felt to be literally standing upon one's own grave, he had to repress a shudder. Through all the madness, that at least had remained constant, a beacon of familiarity to get his bearings. Deep down he knew that forever he would feel that connection, always would he be drawn too it. The blood on these stones ran deep.
  At that moment he became acutely aware of how under-clothed he was. All of his symbols of power, his hat, his rings were gone. He was dressed in a simple gossamer white chemise, and what appeared to be a shadowy, partial facsimile of the tattered remains of his robes that swirled about him like smoke. Yet he did not feel cold, far from it. Other than a strange growing sensation within he couldn't yet identify, he felt quite comfortable. Only his modesty made him feel uncomfortably exposed.
 
  He marched towards the church, but as he approached the great doors it seemed that the very air through which he moved became thick, and upon reaching the threshold, a brilliant light blinded his vision, causing him to shield his eyes with his hands, he could do nothing but stumble back onto his knees, the light fading as rapidly as it had appeared.
''What is this madness!'' he spoke as he examined his hands. The fingernails were lengthened and tapered to points.  He saw that the flesh was free of burns,  pristine and whiter than what was natural, as if all the blood had been drained from him. Within his mouth he felt teeth that were longer and sharper than usual, the tips occluding neatly into corresponding grooves in his jawbone, like blades into scabbards to accommodate for their increased length.
 
His senses were considerably heightened. All around him was dark, yet he saw through the night as clearly as if it were on the brightest of days. Scents and sounds saturated the air. There were no other people in sight, yet he knew them to be there, behind the walls of their houses. He perceived the frantic scurrying of rats and other forms of small life in the eves and the gutters; the thud of their heartbeats compounding into one deafening drone...blood pumping, arteries surging...life...
The very thought of it brought moisture to his mouth. Suddenly with horror, he realised what that hollow sensation within was, the hunger pangs of the sustenance that he now craved, he knew now what he now was. A creature, an escapee from the pits of Hell, under a thin veneer of humanity.
" No!" he despaired, he beseeched the Virgin Mother, burying his face in his clawed hands. "This cannot be the way! My life and work were of dedication and righteousness. Why does fate make me suffer.... to be deserving of this?! " He pounded a fist onto the stone step, his increased strength cracking its surface. His face lowered, so close that the tip his nose brushed the cold ground. A sob escaped him, but his wracked breaths no longer misted in the frigid air. He was cold inside, so cold. His fear suddenly slid to anger "I knew it! That witch! ... She cursed me to walk the Earth as strigoi!" 

   Looking up, he rose from the ground. The soft light rays of a crescent moon streamed down through the trefoils from behind, silhouetting them darkly against the rapidly darkening sky, silvering their edges of the towers with an ethereal radiance. He got the feeling of a pressure as if the cathedral was considering him so closely that the whole weight of its thoughts was bent on him, looming. A physical representation of the Divine on Earth.    
 Even the brightest of lights could cast shadows, blind, betray, he thought bitterly. He was so angry, angry at her, and at the Lord for allowing it. For now, he was barred, cut off from that light to be a creature that dwelled in darkness. So be it. He turned his back on it, barring his newly sharpened teeth in such a way, it felt so natural. At this moment he cared not if his heart was stone or if it even beat at all. And in kind, the sculptured stone monsters and guardians on the facade leered and roared at his unwelcome presence, at this monster he had become. There was no truer description. Even before his fall, he had become a hollowed out husk of a man, feared and despised by all, the monster of children's tales and whispered in nightmares. He'd morphed into a bloodthirsty fiend a long time before it became this physical reality.  

  How much time had elapsed between the moments of his death and resurrection he couldn't tell.  For high above, the jutting stone gargoyle that he had clung to had been repaired, resuming its place on the cathedral to gaze across the city in an eternal untiring vigil. It was all as if nothing had ever happened. Had they forgotten him already? Could he dare reveal himself? Explain his changed appearance and miraculous return?
  That's what he would say it was...Yes, miraculous! Righteous and Divine judgement. He had been sent back granted with powers that would enable him to smite sinners forever. After all, he reiterated, the Lord works in mysterious ways. That has not or never would change.

He saw his shadow cast by the moonlight move across the ground like a wraith as he set off purposely into the night towards the Palace of Justice, his footfalls all the more eerie in their silence, effortless; it seemed that he glided on the air.  A rat shrieked in alarm as it scuttled across his path. It's fear of him only increased his desire. This new kind of hunger superseding another; a reminder of a hidden part of himself that was starving.

In a burst of speed, he had caught it swiftly and to his surprise, it seemed to relax in his grip as if in a trance.  As he brought it to his lips, the thought of consuming blood repulsed him, but could he resist? Perhaps, for a while, after all, there was more than enough vermin in Paris, and he didn't necessarily mean the rats. 




I decided to place his fangs on where the lateral incisors would be,  because personally, this more anterior placement on human mouths work better as we don't have muzzles, with side opening mouths to allow a wide bite, unless they have jaws like snakes or can be extended them or something. It also helps if they aren't mega long- just need to be really sharp.  Besides, even vampire bats draw blood with their incisors. 




Now as I sink my teeth into a chocolate bunny, here's more Vampire Frollo pictures I have encountered from my wanderings   
[music  www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4so4u…    Our Solemn Hour - Within Temptation]

Kindred Frollo  
Quando Judex Est Venturus And check out the awesome comic too! 
She will be mine ... forever! (Frollo x Esmeralda)
Frollo's vampire costume
Frollo vampire
Vampire Frollo
Rookie. 
A horrible price


_{'The Hunchback of Notre Dame' © Disney/Victor Hugo
Artwork © cyberraven}