Campaign Character Backstory
Character: Samson
Word Count: 4000
The night air was crisp, just cold enough to raise goosebumps on Samson’s arms. His arms, of course, were bare; the gig had been in a small and stuffy venue barely big enough to squeeze in fifty people and he knew from experience that wearing sleeves was the absolute worst thing to do. Even so, his shirt clung to his shoulders and back from sweat and was rapidly cooling against his skin as he walked, head low and hands in his pockets. The bundle of bills was clutched tight in one hand, a pathetically small amount for actually selling out the venue.
A taxi blared its horn barely a few feet from him and he startled hard, heart leaping into his throat. The driver rolled down the window and started arguing with the jaywalker they’d almost hit, and Samson quickened his pace. The last thing he needed tonight was more New York bullshit.
As he let his feet carry him, Samson’s thoughts drifted once more to the good old days. It was hard to believe that basically a year ago, Our Savior had been selling out halfway-decent venues and more than recouping booking costs in merch sales. Fans would queue up hours ahead of showtime. Their website crashed more than once when tickets went up.
Now here he was, practically a nobody, scrounging up bar gigs for barely enough money to make rent. Half the bands he drummed for weren’t even halfway decent, and the other half never thanked him for his efforts or called him back for more shows.
His muscles ached, but in a good way. That, at least, he had going for him. The burn was one of the last reminders he had that he was good at this. Really good. Walking away from a show on gummy legs with shaking arms was almost as good a reward as actually being paid. And the cold night air helped cool the adrenaline rush that propelled him through the shows better than the drugs or the alcohol the rest of his old bandmates had turned to.
He ducked into the alley, scrunching his nose at the smell but powering through it. As he walked, his mind drifted from reminiscing about his friends to the new curiosity following him. This was the fourth show he’d spotted the shock of long white hair near the back of whatever venue he’d performed in, standing almost a head taller than most of the crowd. She couldn’t be a fan of Our Savior otherwise she probably would’ve approached him by now for an autograph or a verbal lashing for letting the band fall apart. But still he’d seen her, smiling and bobbing her head and seemingly having fun at more than one show. She wasn’t following any particular band, since each of these gigs had been him filling in for a different group. Maybe she did recognize him. Maybe it was just coincidence and she liked shitty grunge punk bands that probably wouldn’t book another show. Anyway. It wasn’t like she’d been waiting out front, or out back, after the shows ended to catch a minute of his time. Just showed up for the music and left when it ended.
The rattle of glass bottles and plastic garbage bags pulled him out of his thoughts. He blinked, looking around to get his bearings. The flickering streetlight at the end of the alley he was currently in looked familiar. Just a few blocks from the tiny studio he called home and paid a disgusting amount of rent for. A few blocks from a lukewarm shower and a bed that was more quilt than mattress. Maybe he had enough money to actually buy breakfast after he paid the landlord tomorrow.
More rustling. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled – not from the cold, though goosebumps lined his arms. New York at night was not exactly the friendliest place. Of course, the tattoos and the piercings often deterred wannabe muggers. But not all of them.
His fists tightened in his pockets.
A shape stepped around the corner and stood under the flickering light. They were hooded, hunched, but broad-shouldered.
Samson exhaled through his nose. So it’s gonna be one of those nights, huh?
But those noises had come from behind him.
Shit.
He slowed his pace slightly, weighing his options. One person in front of him. He risked a glance over his shoulder.
At the other end of the alley, three figures crowded together. All hooded, dark clothes, walking with the kind of gait muggers often used when pretending to be drunk. Okay. Forward it is. He turned back, only to see a second person had stepped under the light as well.
Now there were five.
“Fuck,” Samson muttered. Not loud enough to be heard, because the last thing he needed was for these people to think he was scared or nervous. But five against one wasn't the odds he liked. How long had they been following him? Since the gig? Surely they didn’t think the drummer of an unknown band with a single show to their name wasn’t flush with cash?
But the two figures ahead of him stepped forward. Two in front. Three behind. Surrounded.
I can take them.
A shoe scuffed behind him.
Samson spun, arms coming up to block his face just in time as a fist came swinging at his head.
The blow had strength behind it, forcing him back a couple steps, forearms stinging. The man’s face was mostly obscured by a face mask, but his eyes were narrowed and focused. They meant business. He swung again, forcing Samson to duck and step back again. The two thugs flanking his attacker were cracking their knuckles, rolling their shoulders, looking ready to back up their buddy.
Being on the defensive wasn’t the best plan. But this also wasn’t the first time Samson had to throw down. He waited until his attacker swung again, ducked, and brought his own fist hard against the man’s stomach. He doubled over with an almost comical oof, coughing, as Samson clasped his hands together and slammed his fists down between the man’s shoulderblades.
The two thugs both sprang forward, seeing him actually put up resistance. He didn’t have time to check behind him for the other two as suddenly there were four fists coming at him instead of two. It took all his attention on the two in front of him. Despite his best efforts, one fist connected with his side, just above his kidney. Another caught his shoulder, spinning him off-balance. He tried to use the momentum to spin and throw a kick at one of their knees, but he’d only ever seen the move in a shitty kung-fu movie and misjudged the distance. His foot connected with one of the thugs’ thighs instead, only forcing him back a couple steps. The one he’d winded was catching his breath and leapt into the fray again.
Samson backed up again to avoid an uppercut and felt his heels hit the bricks of the alley wall. Shit. Wait. Play it smart. The first thug pulled his fist back, eyes blazing, and drove it forward. It would’ve connected with Samson’s nose, but he threw himself to the side at the last second.
The thug yelled out as his knuckles split against the rough brick with a very unpleasant crack. Samson stumbled, barely stayed on his feet, already feeling the bruises from the blows that had hit. Now he was regretting exerting himself for the ungrateful band. That strength could’ve been useful here.
The two that had blocked the front of the alley stood in front of him. One kept his hands in his pockets, standing almost casually, watching the scuffle. The other stepped forward, pushing his sleeves up to expose muscled and tatted forearms. Samson barely had a second to think before those fists came at him as well. The first one went wide, but the second connected with the side of his jaw and he tasted blood, stumbling, his shoulder colliding painfully with the wall.
A foot smashed into the back of his knee, sending him to the ground. Four thugs loomed over him, taking turns kicking and stomping. He tucked into a ball, knees pulled to his chest, arms covering his head and neck, but each blow hurt more and more. He gritted his teeth, debating whether or not to just give up and scream at them to take the cash, when the kicks stopped. He peeled his eyes open, blinking against the darkness.
Something metallic glinted. The first thug had stepped up, his hands no longer in his pockets. Clutched in one was a wicked-looking blade. Not a tiny switchblade. This was a blade that meant business.
Cold that had nothing to do with the night air flooded Samson’s body. This wasn’t a standard mugging.
Play it smart, play it smart, playitsmart besmart getupdon’tliedowndOSOMETHING
The knife-wielder stepped up. Samson pulled himself into an even tighter ball, shifting just enough to get his knees under him, bracing his elbows on the filthy ground.
He launched himself up like a missile, angling for the thug like a linebacker. The two of them went flying, but he couldn’t tell if his attacker actually dropped the knife or not. He pushed away, whirling, trying to see a way out. All four of them surrounded him, and his heart was pounding so hard he thought it would rip its way from his chest. Blood filled his mouth from his split lip, and he spit on the ground.
“Right then. Let’s dance,” he growled.
Each punch he landed was returned twofold. He felt one of their noses crack under his knuckles, another got an elbow to the nuts, a third got his fingernails across their cheek. But a boot almost dislocated his kneecap. When he threw another punch, the thug caught his arm and tried to twist it hard enough to send jolts of pain up his shoulder before he wrenched free. Another blow he didn’t even see coming sent stars across his vision and something warm and wet dripped down the back of his scalp. When he hit the ground again, he scrambled as best he could on all fours towards the distant blinking light underneath the blows raining down on him.
His hand closed around something cold and sharp. A broken shard of glass, possibly from a window or a bottle. He held it, felt it cut his palm, but it was risk ruining his hands or not leave the alley at all.
Hands grabbed his shirt and when the fabric tore, moved to his shoulders. They forced him up off the ground, tried to hold him in place. The thug with the knife was on his feet, breathing hard, hood fallen back to reveal a man who couldn’t be much older than Samson – but there was a dark glint in his eyes, a determined grimace on his face. Samson didn’t hesitate and threw himself to the side again, trying to unbalance the men holding him. The hand holding the glass shard ripped free, and he drove it into one thug’s stomach. The cry of pain echoed in the alley and he felt warm blood drip onto his wrist when he pulled back. He swung again, somewhat wildly, and the shard cut across another thug’s forearm as they tried to grab him again. The edges cut into his palm, making it hard to hold on but he gripped harder. There were no thoughts anymore, only survival. He tasted blood in the back of his throat and only dimly felt the ache in his face, not even sure when one of them had broken his nose.
The silver glint of metal caught his attention too late, though. By the time he turned to face his attacker, the knife was buried up to the hilt in his side. The pain was immediate and concentrated. He couldn’t scream because he was too winded, and could only suck in a shallow gasp through gritted teeth. It burned. The man’s other hand clamped down on his shoulder, holding him in place, and then the knife twisted. Sam’s vision went white. His scalp tingled. He couldn’t breathe.
When he blinked again, he was slumped against the bricks. Blood trickled down the back of his neck, and he felt his pulse slow and heavy in the back of his head. He was shivering, sweat soaking his shirt and dripping from his arms.
No. It wasn’t sweat soaking his shirt.
It was blood.
His own blood. Dark, almost black in the poorly-lit alley, pooling beneath him. Each breath wheezed in his chest, heavy and slow. He lifted a hand and tried to press it against the wound, remembering how all the crappy medical dramas on TV always said to put pressure on a bleeding injury, but there was no more strength left in him. It didn’t even hurt that much anymore, which probably wasn’t a good thing.
With fingers slowly going numb from the cold and the blood loss, he took an agonizingly long time to pull his phone from his pocket. The screen stayed dark, cracks spiderwebbing across it. Even if it hadn’t been broken, he’d left the venue with the battery at 6%. It was dead. And he’d probably be dead soon, too.
A broke, sad, washed-up drummer who would be remembered in poorly-lit pinup band posters and memorial fan-cams if anyone managed to find and identify his body. Angry tears prickled in his eyes. Was this really it? Dead in an alley?
Would anyone even care?
He tried to stand. To move. If he could even crawl towards the light, maybe he could call for help. A taxi would see him. Someone would find him.
But everything was heavy. Tired. Numb. Tears ran down his cheeks as black spots danced in the corners of his vision. It was so tempting to just… sleep.
A cold hand cupped his chin, lifting his face.
He blinked, vision blurry through the tears and the headache.
White hair. Pale skin, almost glowing in the darkness. Eyes… eyes that blazed like embers. Five silhouettes swaying behind her. A smile.
Lips against his neck.
Pain.
Bliss.
If he’d been freezing, now he was burning. His heart hammered in his ears, behind his eyes, pushing the last dregs of blood through his veins and out of the gash in his side. But she was holding him. Caressing him. Cold hands holding him down, holding him in place, sliding over his shoulders and down his back as he slumped forward. It was getting harder to breathe, each breath coming faster and shallower until he was practically panting. His eyes fluttered shut, the blush creeping up his cheeks even as his fingers and toes went numb.
Everything was going numb. His world was shrinking, darkness closing in until it was him and the woman with her lips against his skin, her hands pressed against his back, and something sharp against his neck.
And then there was nothing.
****
There was a blanket smothering him. It was heavy, weighing him down. It was so, so very tempting to let it drag him back down into nothingness.
But the empty, hollow ache inside him wouldn’t let him.
Even opening his eyes was a struggle. A flash of something too bright made him turn his head away. Spots danced behind his eyelids. He tried to lift a hand, to rub his face, remember where he was. The ground beneath him was hard and cold. It wasn’t his bed. Something pounded in his ears, a steady beat like the kick of a bass drum.
An alley. A knife. A fight.
A knife.
Samson’s eyes opened as panic fought through the haze in his mind. Brick walls rose on either side of him, the rusty brown offset by blue-hued shadows. Blindingly bright light shone from somewhere to his side, forcing him to keep his head turned away. Was it daytime?
Something pulled against his skin. His hand drifted to his side, and he tried to blink through the strange colors and too-sharp details to make sense of what he was seeing. His clothes were cold and sticky, discolored with something even darker black than the fabric itself. A cut across the fabric just above and to the side of his bellybutton exposed pale flesh beneath.
The empty ache suddenly twisted, clenching, making him double over as the most intense pain he’d ever felt wracked his body. It dragged hooks across his nerves, pulling his lips back from his teeth in a silent snarl. Everything went rigid as the spasms wracked his body for several long moments before easing up.
Finally, his lungs unlocked. He sucked in a breath, feeling the cold night air hit the back of his throat - and with it came a scent unlike anything he’d ever smelled before.
Rich, metallic, warm. He tasted it as much as he smelled it, and it smelled so fucking good. It was all around him. He lifted a hand, saw the dried red staining his palm, dimly remembering the pain of glass cutting into it but now there was nothing but unblemished skin. He pressed his palm against his face, inhaling again.
No, that wasn’t right. The blood on his hand was cold and dead. The blood covering his clothes wasn’t what he was smelling.
It was coming from the same place as the drum beats.
Not drum beats.
Heartbeats.
Five of them.
Five men, lined up in a half circle not five feet from him.
And they smelled incredible. Bright red blood dripped from one of the men’s noses. Another’s arm hung limp, blood dripping from his fingertips. Yet another stood with one shoulder drooping, bloodstain soaking his jacket and a thin gash in the fabric just below his ribcage.
Samson’s jaw ached. His gums tingled, and something crackled and shifted behind his lips even as they pulled away from his teeth again. The air he’d just drawn into his lungs escaped in a deep, rumbling snarl as his fingers dug into the concrete because he was hungry.
The men didn’t move when he leapt.
The first one crumpled beneath his weight and they hit the ground in a tangle of limbs. The man’s eyes were open and glassy and widened in shock and fear but Samson wasn’t paying attention to that – all he saw was the way the blood pulsed just under the man’s skin, the vein standing out in his neck, and then Samson’s mouth was closing over that vein and the crackling in his jaw turned into twin points of pain in his gums as something forced its way out.
Fangs dug into his once-attacker’s neck and Samson drank. It was warm and fresh and full of life and it tasted so fucking good. He bit down harder, feeling something crunch and tear and the blood flowed faster. His hands gripped so tight that the bones in the man’s body ground against each other until they snapped.
But it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough. The emptiness was too deep to fill with a single life.
One by one the thugs fell and Samson drank each of them dry. Maybe it was coincidence, or maybe the dregs of his jumbled memories recognized the man who’d drawn the knife on him and saved him for last. The man’s face was flushed, sweat pouring down his forehead, eyes wide and body trembling as he was held there by an invisible force, watching as each of his companions were ripped apart. Blood sprayed across the ground, splattered the bricks, as Samson’s impatience got the better of him because just biting wasn’t getting him blood fast enough and he had to rip and tear and get to the core of their very beings to feed that emptiness until it stopped hurting.
And then the man with the knife fell.
This one Samson was able to savor slightly. The desperate, thoughtless hunger was fading. He didn’t want the bliss, the warmth, the life to fade so quickly. He drank deeply, feeling relief from the pain in his gums because now there were teeth too long and too sharp that hadn’t been there before and the blood was a balm for the ache.
When he pulled his head back, sitting up and tilting his face to the sky, he expected to feel cold. After all, it was still night. The stars twinkled overhead – had they been that bright before? The light pollution was so bad it was a surprise he could see them at all. A light breeze drifted through the alley, but it almost felt… warm against his skin. The smile, because he’d been smiling without realizing, started to fade as his thoughts came back to him.
There were five bodies scattered in an alleyway where there should’ve been one. And he was drenched in their blood as well as his own. Everything reeked of it. It should’ve been nauseating. The ache in his stomach was still there. Muted, but bearable for now. The shaking and strain his muscles should’ve been feeling from the performance was gone. The pain in his side where he’d been stabbed was gone.
The horror and panic started to set in. His breathing quickened, but there was no relief. It didn’t even feel like the air was reaching his lungs. The blood was still warm against his face, and he tried to wipe it away and felt something sharp scrape against the back of his wrist when it brushed against his lips. Something was very, very wrong with his teeth.
And his body.
“Good boy.”
The voice washed over him like a soothing balm. A warmth unlike the blood and life he’d just consumed bloomed in his chest. The tension and panic faded to a distant corner of his mind, some tiny part of him screaming that nothing about this is okay and why aren’t you screaming?!
Sharp clicks echoed down the alleyway. A tall, pale, achingly beautiful woman with long white hair strode towards him. A smug, pleased smile exposed curved, sharp canines behind her perfect lipstick.
“You’ll do just fine,” she said, her voice like smooth whiskey against his ears. “Up.”
He stood up. Her eyes shone with a dark, warm orange glow as she looked him up and down, taking in the torn shirt and bloodsoaked pants. One eyebrow rose slightly, and Samson swallowed hard. He recognized that look. Appreciative. Judging. Gauging. Because she’d been watching him with that same look with each show she’d attended. And the way her smile widened now, exposing fangs that looked so perfect and right in her mouth, she liked what she was seeing.
She lifted a finger and curled it towards her. “Come.”
He stepped forward. One foot in front of the other. That tiny voice in his head screaming at him to stop, to turn around, run away, this is wrong, get away, what did she do – what did I do? What’s happening to me?
But the louder voice in his head wanted nothing more than to hear her voice again. To follow her. Do what she said. It was almost as good as the blood he’d gorged himself on.
“We have work to do,” she said, turning on her heel because of course she was wearing heels, god she was beautiful and she chose him, she chose me. She came to me. She saved me. She wanted me. Me.
He followed her into the darkness, the light flickering and fading behind him.