Yesteryear Fiction

Literary Blood
By Rania Hanna


The literary ghoul fed off the withered pages of decaying literature. Voltaire spoke to him from the fading inks coloring the pages; while Thoreau whispered haunting politics. He fed off the thoughts of dead souls. His blood was books. He wandered around the maze of unforgiven mental revolutions, feeding off the carnal words of forbidden literature. He fed his knowledgeable zeal with impeccable devotion. The pages bled out their ink. Bringing the books to his lips, he drank the blackened liquid and gained nourishment in this way. He ripped out the pages of the books, feeding his mouth with them. Through the eroding library he wandered around, ripping his victims out from their binding and gorging himself on them. The words he hunted, while they themselves hunted him. Emerging slowly from the leaves, the words haunted him. They attacked his fragile sanity, and terrorized his brain-washed mind. The chains that fettered him were tightened agonizingly by the thought of the past. But still he fed, the words nourishing him. Without their knowledge, he would die. But with them, he would also die. Death was inevitable; but a brain-washed death was honorable. Thus, he fed and swallowed insatiably. His mind evolved as the literature devolved. This he understood not, but still he remained in the books’ intoxicating presence. They hunted his mind, and haunted his sanity. And he ate. He stalked predator and prey. He tore at the pages, chewing them thoughtfully, swallowing them ravenously. He became drunk on the lies, but he believed them as unadulterated truth. His pale flesh soaked in the inky darkness, and painted itself with truthful untruths. He wandered outside, his soul slumbering and dead. He thought and thought, his mind spitting forth wild theories. And his wild theories called for even wilder actions. He preyed on living flesh, craving the blood of actual corporeality. He saw the girl and stalked predatorily to her.

I sensed danger pervading the atmosphere, but I didn’t move from my desk. I sat still, pen in hand, the paper before me painted madly with thoughts and symbols. I heard the library door open and saw a silhouette slowly walk over to me. I saw him look at the books, his insatiable hunger carved painfully into his face. He hesitated, hungry for knowledge, and hungry for live blood. Tracing his fingers lightly over the dust-blanketed books, he watched me out of the periphery of his vision. He grabbed a book off the shelf and flipped it open. He devoured it, attacking blindingly into his mind the thoughts of mortal men. He ate insanely, his hunger growing with the more knowledge he gained. He turned to me suddenly, his eyes a pale red-purple, eyeing me suspiciously. He came to stand directly before my desk, his tall figure throwing a large shadow over me, blocking much of the room’s light. He grabbed my throat and lifted me out of my chair. I stared into his deep eyes and lost almost all conscious thought. The last thing that registered in my mind was sanity—murdering pain raging in my chest, and the sight of my beating heart resting upon his hand.

I awoke in semi-darkness, tall objects looming over me. Bookshelves surrounded me, with thousands of lies lining its space. I felt a deep hunger within me, and my throat burned with an unquenchable thirst. I grabbed the books, wolfing down the thoughts contained within them. I swallowed unhesitatingly the lies and deceptions contained within them, knowing them to be untruths. I ingurgitated everything, poisoning my mind, becoming intoxicated on the fraudulences, becoming a literary ghoul, a vampire of deadly lies.


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Just another horror writer living in my own world.