Log 1 of however many logs this takes.
It's just me here, no other half.
He left the recorder and went out tonight. I'm not sure where.
And I'm not sure who will be listening to this, but it has to be at least documented.
Something about all of this is not right.
That brooch, it has some sort of power, but I'm not sure what.
And I'm not sure what he's going to do with it.
But that's not the worst part.
I don't know his name.
The speaker, the recorder, the guy behind this, the guy who met me in the catacombs.
I have no idea what his name is.
And in all the recordings I cannot find any mention of it.
It's small, I know, but it's not nothing.
There are occurrences of others' names.
Take a listen.
Yo Kelky, let's go.
Yo Vince, do you have an affordable charger?
Mary, is this our stop?
What, Nina?
Not once is his name mentioned.
Nothing.
It's odd.
There's something he's not telling me.
Whoever he is.
As history progresses, perspectives change.
These can be small changes, like pedestrian, meaning drab or dull.
Now it just means a passerby on the side of the road.
Some changes are larger.
Changes for progression.
For inclusion, understanding, political movements or protests.
There are a few examples, however, of perspectives changing for the worse.
I have one.
Vampires.
They are not the sexual, ever-youthful, gorgeous immortals they have been depicted at.
I know, because I met one.
Vampires, like many other mythical creatures, fall into the haunt category.
My fellow brethren.
Debatably.
Haunts like these cannot jump their consciousness between object or creatures.
They are a subset, a haunt stuck in one form.
But they still seek out violence.
Vampires are an example of these haunts.
Now, the reason vampires are some of the most encountered creatures is because of what they are.
To put it simply, they are haunts that have possessed their own dead body.
Throughout history, they have had many names that boil down to a single definition.
The vengeful one who walks after death.
Hence why the idea of zombies most likely came from a vampire encounter.
In German folklore, a vampire is known as a Nachsäger.
For the rest of the recording, I will be referring to them as vampires, because I know my German pronunciation is atrocious.
Why'd you stop?
Uh, I thought you might interject.
You've been quieter since Zurich.
Uh, I'm tired.
Alright, fair enough.
Vampires.
Unfortunately for us all, the real ones look and act more like zombies than vampires.
In some ways.
Vampires do not seek out and attack the living just for food.
Instead of explaining all vampires, I'll tell the tale of one specific vampire.
One I met.
Waking up inside a coffin is immediately terrifying.
Imagine it.
Waking up in the pitch black, not sure where you are, your memory is unclear.
You try to move, but your feet hit a wall, so do your hands.
You try to sit up, but you can't.
You're boxed in.
In this case, Johann was alive.
But not exactly.
He could barely remember who he was.
All he knew, all he felt was the pit in his stomach.
The gnawing, aching, growing pit that told him he had to feed.
So, before anything else, he tore, writhed, squirb, and tore.
He scratched his flesh, tearing it off and funneling it into his mouth.
He couldn't stop.
With every bite, every swallow, he could feel the pit shrinking.
But it wasn't enough.
So he kept tearing.
No one above ground would know, as he tore most of his flesh off and ate it.
But he ran out.
Muscle wasn't the same.
He tried to bit off his arm.
He needed flesh.
He needed more of it.
He had to get out.
He had to dig.
And so he did.
He scratched at the coffin, digging his nails into the wood.
It tore them from his fingers, left splinters in his veins.
After about three hours of nonstop digging, he broke to the surface.
It was dark.
He came out of the hole, wondering where he was.
A large stone was in front of him.
It had his name on it.
That was his name, right?
What was he?
He knew he shouldn't be alive.
But it didn't matter.
He was hungry.
He was still hungry.
At that moment, the cemetery was empty.
Best-case scenario for any human.
But Johan was still hungry.
Graves.
They had people.
They had flesh.
He moved to another.
One recently laid.
The dirt was loose.
He began to dig.
He had much more energy than he remembered ever having in his life.
He felt stronger.
This new existence was painful, but if he was hunting food, he was strong.
And fast.
Within two hours, he reached the coffin.
He didn't hesitate, tearing through the wood like it was dirt.
The body inside was not fresh by any means.
But there was still flesh.
He tore, and he ate.
About four hours later, Johan had dug up a different body.
He tore off some rotting flesh, just like the last one.
Only this one had no taste.
It did nothing to satisfy the clawing ache in his stomach, no matter how much of it he ate.
In that moment, for some reason, he understood.
He needed the same flesh.
He needed the flesh with the same blood as the first body.
In this new form, whatever he was, he could hunt.
He could still taste the flesh, smell it.
He could smell the others.
The ones alive.
That was when we met.
I was taking a walk, and happened to pass by a local cemetery.
Not the Munich Cemetery, a smaller one.
It was empty, and I slowed down as I passed it.
I'm not sure why.
But with everything I've seen on the trip, everything I've hunted down,
I figured I might find something interesting in there.
Sure enough, I heard noises.
Small, quiet noises.
I did not enter the grounds.
I know better.
I stood still, and waited.
I almost missed him.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure jump from the top of the fence
onto the roof of a nearby building.
In my mind, I was going through all the list of possible creatures this could have been.
When we made eye contact, I knew what it was.
There he was, crouched on the roof, staring at me.
I could see his flesh, some hanging loosely off, some gone completely,
showing the raw tissue and bone underneath.
His eyes glowed in the dark, like a nocturnal predator, which is all he was now.
I wondered how long it would be until Johan realized he had to stay in during the day.
You see, without flesh, the sun can be quite painful.
He looked at me closely, watching, smelling, waiting.
After realizing I was not a relative of the poor body he tore into a few hours prior, he left.
He scrambled higher up the roof and disappeared into the night.
Should we try to warn the people?
No. It's not necessary.
Johan is at rest.
How do you know that? Isn't he still on the hunt?
Even if the sun is up now, won't he come out again tonight?
He's at rest. For good.
What did you do?