A Dance Macabre

Something told him he belonged here.
 
Around and around the dancers turned in graceful and elegant movements. Around and around the dancers moved with that inhuman grace of which he could only borrow a mere thimbleful - or else risk drowning in the endless blood of his curse. Some dark and shadowed part of him called for it, longed for it, to just... give in. To give up. It would have been so simple to give up and relax the mental muscle that was always tensed. How simple, some part of him mused, as he watched the vampires descend on their fallen comrade.
 
How simple, his body informed him as he felt his fangs descend in his mouth, to simply take.
 
And then they were on him and any illusion he had of being the predator, being the hunter of those monsters, fled in a panic he could feel running through him like an electric current. He was insane, he was foolish, he was deluded to think that he alone could fight the darkness. Under a swarm of fangs and claws and limbs he felt the bite and sting of every one as if simply to prove that he was weak, powerless, and would simply be better served by giving in.
 
The air of the hallway was stifling, even as his deathless lungs never moved. The phantom impressions of a pulse in his veins thundered in his ears even as he knew it was false.
 
There was one door remaining, and how could it possibly be worse than seeing the horrors of his own self image preying upon himself?
 
And then, somehow, it was worse.
 
The food, his mind noted, looked amazing. Food and he had a strange relationship since he was never particularly hungry, though he did enjoy the process of eating and the taste of good food and better ales and yet...
 
The Hunger roared to life with enough strength to knock him from his feet, staggering him. The food looked amazing.
 
His companions looked better. For the second time in as many minutes he felt his fangs descend and with an effort of will clamped his jaws shut. Step by aching step he took past the feasting table which instilled in his mind vivid images of lovemaking with Alex as his fangs buried into her neck, of tearing the cleric's clothes away and splashing vibrant red blood against pristine white skin, of chasing Schatzi through the hallways of the house, one more bit of prey to be felled, drank, and left as a corpse.
 
Step by aching step he had walked past that table, his mind filling with images of how easy it would be to hunt in this city, in the warrens - after all, wasn't he already practicing that? It would be so easy to take the mask off and simply feed each night instead of this constant aching emptiness inside him.
 
Eventually, the doors opened and closed, and the night air greeted them again, but that pressing Hunger remained behind visions of red eyes, dancing, and enough blood that he might never be hungry again....
 
I'm turning into a monster
You better run and hide
Turning into a monster
Right before your eyes