It ended suddenly with a sharp intake of air.  I did not survive the blade, and yet I lived.  I tried to open my eyes but the lids wouldn't come and I thought myself blind.  I groped my face searching for some hole to rip open so that I could get out of this corpse and be nothing once more but in the process tore through the fragile skin of my eyelids and I could see once again.  The light hit my eyes much like a physical blow and I through my arms in front of me to block it out.  My body was reeked with the smell of the grave and that in fact was where I was, for the room around me was an open tomb.  Passed the cobwebs and moldering stone of the tomb, passed the bright light that filled the chamber obscured all that I could see stood a shadowy figure.  He approached me with the silent grace of a owl striking out at its prey. 

             "Arise."  The figure commanded.  "Arise Raziel."

             I rose to a sitting position in my casket and still blocking out the light with my hand looked apon the one who called out the name that must only be my own, though I could not remember if it really was.  My eyes adjusted and the horribly bright light turned out to be nothing more than a torch glowing softly just outside the chamber.  The thing before me was not a man, but I did not care for I had died and returned and must not be human as well.  He stood tall and had the countenance of a leader, though I could not imagine the army he could command.  He was white as a sheet and he hair was the same, the only color that came off of him was the soft yellow of his eyes.  He held out a hand and I took it. 

             "I am Kain, your maker."  He said to me with an ironic smile accompanying a sense of pride. 

             Free of the grave as I was I found myself in no state to question Kain, for he is all I knew then.  As far as I knew he was all that was. 

             "Come forward my child."  He whispered to me.

             I let go of the edge of the coffin I had been using to stay upright and took a step in his direction.  Surprised that locomotion could be so easy after however long I was dead I tried to rush forward to him and stumbled.  Kain was there to catch me although no man would have reacted in time.  He held me there by my shoulders and looked apon his child with joy and satisfaction.  Then all that was gone, Kain released me and turned about quickly.  He raised his hand as if to halt some one from coming further and a bolt of light shot from his palm and exploded through the room into the chest of an approaching man.  This was no doubt a man for when he was flung back against the wall a trail of blood painted the wall behind him as he slid slowly to the ground.  He was clad in armor from the bridge of his nose to his feet and though now clearly dead would have been in life a great warrior.  Draped between his legs a banner hung bearing a symbol that tore at my very being.  It appeared to be a broken ahnk, malicious and pointed at its apex.  I knew what it was but the truth lay just out of reach.  Kain grabbed my hand and beckoned me to his attention. 

             "They are coming, we don't have much time."  Kain said to me once again lifting me to my feet.  "I can get you out of here safely but you will have to fend for yourself for a while.  Then when the Sarafan dogs have dissipated we will return for the others."

             "Ahhh... Kain!"  I cried out as he pushed me forward.  Once again I felt the pull of weightlessness, the freedom of mindlessness but it lasted only for a moment and when the mist settled around me I was somewhere far away from the dank tomb of my rebirth.

             Where before there was silence now there was a massive cacophony to assault my fragile ears.  All around me the lights and sounds of the city bore in on me weakening me.  I felt a need then, a wanting that I felt must be satisfied but I could hardly put a finger on it.  I was lying in a pile of garbage crumpled at the mouth of some back alley.  All around me boxes lay collapsing on their sides or shattered exposing their rotting contents.  To my right I saw the booming roads of this foreign place.  This was a place of commerce and I could now admit to sensing all that could be sensed.  Something about the way I saw and felt and smelt was enhanced by death and the world around me grew away from a frightening horrible place into a great and intricate palace of possibility.  The little details of the brick on the opposite wall seemed a wonderful tapestry.  The garbage bellow me became an overwhelming sensation of texture and sound as I shifted about reviling in my new found vision. All this not to mention the marketplace that seemed distant and vast though only a few feet away.  I was a child again, seeing the forest for the first time and not able to take it all in.  This ment nothing but everything to me but I could sense that in time I would understand, be it a year or a millennia.  I tried to stand and found it possible and was ready to see more of this world 

             The unknown need remained though and it gripped me tightly now seemingly pulling me body to its center and I buckled beneath the pain it caused.  I clenched my teeth and stuck my head on the ground trying to ward of this sensation for it ran into my others like messy black paint.  I could not see with it there nor could I use any other of my senses.  The need overruled all else.  This pain was nothing simple as casual mortal suffering but it seemed nearly as amplified as all the other senses and yet I felt deeply interested in it.  "What could I be wanting?"  I asked myself.  Food, it had to be food.  I was starving to death in this little alley and all I could do was stair at bricks like some befuddled mortal buffoon.  I was beyond that now, and survival came first.  I rose again as best as I could, but could not extend my body to stand upright.  Instead I remained buckled over gripping my sides and dragging along the wall.  Soon I had fallen again this time near a puddle of filthy water.  My hand landed in it and I pulled it from the fluid as from a flame.  My already scared appendage smoked and sizzled from the immersion and I howled in agony.  Water, simple water did this to me?  What had become of me?  The scream could be heard throughout half the city I'm sure and soon some one was causally approaching where I lay gripping my body and wimpering. 

             "Whose there!"  A large man called out.  "I'm warning you!  Come out now or I'll call the guards!"

             I could see him now but he clearly could not see me.  The darkness of the alley seemed like a thin veil of smoke to me while to him it was an impenetrable black blanket.  He was a strong man and he wore the apron of a blacksmith adorned with its many pockets and hanging tools.  I waited to be discovered and at the moment gazed into the puddle of moist grime.  My face was a hollowed out scared mass of tissue that clung to my bones and threatened to fall off.  I could not be found like this, the man would take one look at me and call the guards as he had already said he would if I not show myself.  I tried to shuffle away but he heard me and ran forward grabbing me by my thin ragged shoulder.  He flipped me over and all the color drained from his face at the sight of me.  He half choked out the word vampire and I felt the need take with twice the force than before.  It wasn't food I needed but something from this man.  My fragile body leaped upward grabbing him around the shoulders and I not knowing exactly what was happening tore at him wherever our flesh met.  He screamed and fell backwards into the garbage with me hanging from him like a shredded sheet.  Where my teeth hit his shoulder the blood flowed the most and the need subsided slightly with its touch to my lips.  It began to bubble up from the small wound and flow into me by some power I could not understand.  I gripped my mouth to the wound and let the act continue for with it I felt ecstasy that I had never known.  The screaming lightened to a whine and then died altogether as he died in my arms.

             I had made quite a mess of myself, the blood dripped from my face and was soaked through the blacksmiths clothes.  I looked down at his glassy eyes and saw myself again only this time my face was fuller than before.  The ragged laps of skin that opened up to exposed bone where gone and I appeared almost human.  I was still a very thin and sickly man but not so much as to cause alarm.  The tracery of scars and veins across the pallor of my skin was all that remained to show that I was once dead.  My tongue then struck something odd across my teeth and I lifted my lips to reveal what it was.  My canines where extended several times past there original length and looked sharp as any sword.  I would have to be careful with how I showed my teeth as to not expose my true nature.  I looked up then to see Kain standing in the alley watching me.  It was all a simple test, and I had passed for Kain was smiling.

             Vampire, the man had said, his last words.  This was my nature.  Kain raised me to be a lieutenant in his great army of our kind.  We would retake the world from the foolish mortals and rule over Nosgoth like great kings.
He lead me to a carriage and said in a while I would have no use for such things, that my speed alone will carry me across the land.  He said to me that I was to be his favored son being the first vampire he had ever made.  We traveled by night for several days and when the sun rose Kain stood guard while I slept.  He told me of the troubles of the sun to a fledgling like myself and warned me never to enter it.  We fed on stray travelers and left the bodies buried in the ditches that lined the road.  "Soon we would not half to fear where we left our victims." Kain would tell me.  "When we rule Nosgoth together the bodies will fill every street and vampires will be born who never know hunger."  The next morning he would wake me quietly with a nudge and we would travel on again.  One such dusk I awoke to the sound of a great celebration.  I rose from the thick blankets that blocked out the sun during the day and begin walking towards the sound in the distance.  I entered a clearing with a great fire burning on some ancient edifice.  All around vampires danced in the moonlight and reveled in the beauty of the night.  In the middle of this place of broken pillars sat Kain and he motioned with a hand for me to come to him.

              "This will be our palace, our great sanctuary like no other ever built for vampires and all will be welcomed here."  Kain stood while speaking these words.  He had built a crude chair around the pillar nearest to the center and this was and is his throne.  About this simple chair would be placed a great stone seat for Kain to look out on all of Nosgoth from, but for now it was just wood and on this wood leaned the soul reaver.  Kain raised the ancient blade and hung it from his back as he presided over the festivities before us.  I could not stop looking at the sword and felt that it held as much power if not more than any vampire that danced around me.  I joined my bothers in their mad dance and we reveled together of the sensations we felt and the future to come.  All would be great, we would be great.  The six of us would be brothers in arms and great friends for all time and nothing would come between us.
Centuries passed and Nosgoth's great kingdoms fell beneath our armies.  The land was shaped around us to fit the lifestyle of a vampire and no force known could topple our empire.  This was the great age of peace in Nosgoth.

             Kain is deified. The Clans tell tales of Him. Few know the truth. He was mortal once, as were we all.
However, His contempt for humanity drove him to create me, and my brethren. I am Raziel, first-born of His lieutenants. I stood with Kain and my brethren at the dawn of the empire. I have served Him a millennium.