I don't remember when I died. I suppose I should, most of the vampires I've met consider it almost holy. Another thing those pig-fucking Romans stole from me. I was taken at sword point because they thought I would be a good slave. They kept me in one of their "cities" on our land. They had taken me from my wife. I had been gathering herbs for my favorite stew she made. She had been teaching children in the village.
There were many shades of Roman, even a few who looked like my people. I tried to talk to them in the languages I knew, but they were as cruel as the others. They did not hear me. I was not a human to them.
I do not know how long they kept me before I turned. I was beaten often, and they liked to laugh when they did it, like my suffering was some kind of hilarious joke. I was raped multiple times. I think they liked when I struggled. I guess I understand that now, though I keep all my struggles consensual.
They liked making us fight. I've since learned it was a cultural staple, like noodles, or soup. I hated it but I refused to die. Ironic, nowadays, but during the truly worst time in my life I was committed to surviving.
One night they brought a new man into the fighting pits. He had dark skin and eyes of golden and the sharpest fangs I've ever seen. None of us knew what he was. I still don't know how they captured him. Maybe he was having fun with them. Maybe it was just fate.
I had been winning a lot in the time before they captured him. They thought it would be funny to put their best slave against this new competitor.
We fought like a feral dance. He didn't choose a weapon, so I didn't either. We came at each other with fists and legs and nails. The fight was a whirlwind of motion. He bit me many times, I remember that. I decided to do it back. I bit his arm as hard as I could. I drew blood, and it got inside my mouth. He froze then, and stared at me. I spat at him.
"You perfect fool," he said in an accent I did not place but in my own language. Then he leapt higher than I've ever known a man to be able to leap and fled into the tops of the trees. None of us ever saw him again.
My change was difficult. I did not count the days - I would have lost them if I had tried. At one point they buried me, thinking me to have died. Well, I suppose I had. They did not expect me to dig my way up with new strength.
Then I did what anyone would have done.
I did not leave a single camp-follower alive.
