Challenge #02198-F008: Immortality Perversion
Little known fact: Queen Elizabeth II is a descendant of Vlad the Impaler, meaning she, and the rest of the lineage to the throne under her, are direct heirs to the bloodline of Dracula...
Kinda makes her remarkably long life seem a bit questionable now, doesn't it? -- Anon Guest
They say wealth has its privileges. One amongst many of those is being able to literally get away with murder. The only mistake -say- Elizabeth Bathory made was selecting someone who was popular as part of her gallery of victims. The elite have only become more subtle since then.
Teenagers go missing all the time, all over the world...
Science is gaining on them, though. Uncovering their methods. Highlighting the avenues of sanguine rejuvenation for all to see. They have injected older mice with the blood of the young to reverse signs of ageing in the older one. This has since memetically transformed into older people devouring the blood of the young to do the same.
Small children go missing and are never found...
How close, how very close they are to the truth. Every year, the statistics increase with the population. Murder becomes background noise in amongst the others. The relatively small number of sacrifices towards longevity vanish amidst all the other depravities stewing in a world turning slowly mad.
Wars make children vanish, too. Crime makes children vanish. An angered ex, a violent housemate, or simply tossing an unwanted infant into a dumpster. Children die all the time and nobody cares. Nobody cares because they are poor, because they are not the right kind of people, because there's just too much happening in every city in every country in all of the world. Because there are too many to care about, or for. Because it's what they deserve for being leeches on society, as some are wont to think.
We're close to the truth. Children go missing so that rich, influential people can live longer and continue being rich and influential. They have carefully cultivated an uncharitable mindset amongst the movers and shakers for decades. They have made people want to punish the poor just because they are poor and therefore deserving to get an even shorter end of the stick, somehow.
Children go missing so that rich, influential vampires can continue living. So they can continue being a corrupting force on the greater soul of Humanity.
Children go missing so that they can be raised in a healthy environment until their late teens, when they are... let's say 'harvested'... for the elite.
A child doesn't contain much blood. An adult human contains five litres of blood, which is more than sufficient to feed a vampire for an entire month. In order to maximise the longevity factor, it is advisable to take a young adult human just on the cusp of full maturity, before their telomeres begin their long, long decay cycle. Of course, the healthier the -ah- 'food' is before it is consumed, the healthier the diner as a direct result.
Some have been doing this for generations. Some have been keeping a healthy stable of growing children in the best possible conditions. Isolated far from anywhere, off the books, in self-sustaining estates with thralls tending every single need. Inhabited by the kinds of kids that nobody in alleged authority is expected to care about.
Once a month, the oldest and healthiest 'move out' for a glittering evening that ends in a sharp pain in their neck and a cold feeling creeping up from their extremities. The organs are quickly harvested for other rich people who haven't caught on to the easier way of staying young and vital yet.
Nothing is wasted. Not even the bits that the organ harvesters can't use.
Ever wondered why so many rich people have huge aquariums?
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / photosphobos]
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