Immortality of Sickness

This is a three-headed beast. One part inspiration from The Strain, one part creating/brainstorming a character for the annual family Halloween party, and one part self-reflecting parable.

Here lies a living corpse
restrained to his own anguish.
Shackled to the guilt of the deeds done in the flesh.
His once mighty limbs reduced to frailty.
The mere act of breathing now a struggle.
Tangled tubes.
Needles exposed.
Used and discarded.
His life barely sustained.
Fed intravenously
Blood he was once wont to draw himself,
Now withdrawn from the fount of his own vein.
A cripple.
Barely immortal.
The last of his kin.
Sanguine corruption decaying his mind.
The hunter polluted by the slow decay of his prey.
Centuries of bloodlines tarnished through sin.
None remain from which to drink,
all having gone astray.
Purity only to be found within
the vessels of self-demise.
That which makes him stronger
slowly killing him.

by Derek Herzberg

"Les amants trépassés, The deceased lovers" by Unknown - Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-DameNative nameMusée de l'Œuvre Notre-DameLocationStrasbourg, FranceCoordinates48° 34′ 51.23″ N, 7° 45′ 04.96″ EEstablished1931Websitehttp://www.musees.strasbourg.eu/index.php?page=musee-ond. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Les_amants_tr%C3%A9pass%C3%A9s,_The_deceased_lovers.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Les_amants_tr%C3%A9pass%C3%A9s,_The_deceased_lovers.jpg