the midnight vargas tapes

Lemme start at the beginning.

Technically speaking, I'm an immigrant. Wasn't a week old when my ma had to leave Cuba for the States. My biological dad had to stay behind to cover for us. Never even met him. Don't even know if he's still alive, for all I know he got offed by the government. Do they do that down there? I don't fuckin' know.

The only dad I ever knew was a Southern guy that my ma hooked up with at some point before I was sentient. He on his own wasn't a bad guy, lookin' back. Kind of a sweetheart, really. Gullible as a drugged dog, though. Truly thought he was gonna find salvation through livin' the way the elders on this... religious compound, told him to. My ma, well... she was religious herself. She ate it up, I guess. So we moved in with him.

Well as it turns out, the elders of the compound thought the medical system was gonna send you to Hell, or at least that's what they taught everyone else. The doctors'll just lie, kill you in your sleep. Y'know what that includes? Vaccines. Vaccines that keep little children from catching horrifyin' diseases. Kinda like me! You know measles can render you blind? I sure do. But hell, you figured that out a long time ago. I was considered one of the lucky ones, even. Some of the other kids? Brain damage. Death. It was 'God's plan', they kept sayin'. Like I was meant to be blind, like my friends were meant to die.

That was where the hell that is my life started goin' downhill. Of course 'no medical help' means no cane for the blind girl. My very first cane was the one you gave me when I first turned up at your door. I was expected to just feel my way around the place. What, did they think I was gonna turn into a bat? Guess I did get pretty good at hearin' my way around. Not for the reasons you think, though. Had to make sure the elders weren't on the way to ruin what little fun I had. Toys? Imagination? Nah. You were expected to read the Bible. Fuck you if you couldn't, I guess. They'd beat you if you went against that. Got caught pretendin' to be a dragon, once. That's how I got the scars on my wrists. Switches fuckin' hurt.

Then my ma got pregnant. Never knew what exactly was wrong, only that they wouldn't let her go to the hospital when birth started. Even lettin' in a midwife was askin' a lot. A lot of the time I still wonder what happened to that poor lady. She said she'd get the blame, lose her license if her client or the baby died... well, as it so happens, both of 'em did. Woulda had a little brother. Shit, though, maybe it's for the best. Wouldn't wish that childhood on anyone. Got left with my gullible dad and the elders.

We were barred from school. Somethin' somethin' evolution. Really? Probably was just to keep us dumb and ignorant. They taught us their agenda instead. How any little mis-step and you were goin' to Hell in a handbasket. I already know I don't talk too smart. No one needs to tell me that, but they do. Sometimes I wonder what they'd think if they knew. Spent my formative years gettin' intimate with every single one of Jesus' individual cock hairs but I never got a single lick of useful information.

Cut to age nine. I remember, it was some exercise where we had to raise a barn or build a house. Fuck you if you were blind, you'd get beat if you couldn't do it. I don't even know what we were buildin'. You think I could see it? I just remember I was high up. Real high up. I tripped over somethin', and I fell right outta the rafters. You could hear the crack. That was the first break. You know what they did? They popped the bone back inside the skin, and gods do I remember how that felt clear as day, and they made me lay there with it put up on a couple books. No cast. Not even a splint. I was a squirmy kid. Never did stop hurtin'. I just got used to it.

Then puberty hit. Periods? Forget about it. You'll bleed and you'll like it. Never mind the pain. And don't you even think about doin' anything down there till you're good and married off. And only when you're ready for babies, babies, babies! Because God forbid you like another guy, or another woman, or want to just do it for fun, or don't want ten kids. Why, that's just a one-way ticket to buttsex with Satan. And you wouldn't want that, would you! It's all barbed! He has lava for spoot! Don't you dare ask how it works or, gasp, learn to masturbate! You'll go blind, good heavens!

Fuck them and fuck that saying. Yeah, that was about the point I got fed up. I taught myself to jack it. Did I get caught? Yeah. And I got beat for it. Didn't matter. I'd stopped being scared of them. What were they gonna do? Kill me? Nah. They couldn't cover that up. Maybe I'd like it too much.

Eventually, I got fed up enough to leave after I got caught, again, and got publicly lashed for it. I was thirteen. The night I left, I ran into a police officer. He wanted to know why the hell I looked like I lost a fight with a whip. They always told me the police can't be trusted as much as Jesus can. I wasn't havin' it. So I told him. I spilled everything. The fuckers got arrested on a solid twenty counts of child abuse, and a couple counts of neglect and manslaughter for the measles thing.

I got to lock 'em up. I was happy to see 'em get their just desserts. Less than happy to hear that they were puttin' me in the system. So I did the same thing. I ran for it. That was the night I got cornered by a Snake. He tried to bend me to his whim, and... that's when it happened. Somethin' told me to do somethin' and I did the only thing I knew how. I talked my way out of it. Apparently that was good enough 'cause from then on I had a chorus of screamin' soccer moms in my head. Specifically soccer moms, they sounded like, lookin' back.

That was also the day I dropped the Christian bullshit entirely. It was the day I stopped being Magdalene and started bein' Midnight.

...You're surprised, ain't you? Yeah, that was my name. Was. Can't make that clear enough.

No, I never got it legally changed. Wish I did, but what judge is gonna let me change my name to somethin' a thirteen year old perpetually angry edgelord made up? I don't mind the name I got now, far from it, but the fact still stands, yeah?

Anyway, spent a bunch of years like that. It wasn't so bad. The soccer moms only started screamin' sometimes. But I only ever knew how to talk when it came to the supernatural bullshit brigade. Turns out, you make friends by talkin'. Sometime in there I got better at thievin' by a long shot. Started cuttin' deals with 'em. I'd be their dealer, I'd get 'em money, I'd reward 'em for not killin' mortals if they could prove I could trust 'em. It worked out. Still works out. Started learnin' a lot about 'em, too.

'Course they ain't always decent. You know that, I know that. The leg broke a couple times more just runnin' away from the nasty ones. Not like I could fight 'em. That was when the pain got cripplin'. I heard talk of painkillers, so I sought 'em out. Yeah, I can own up to it, I'm hooked on this shit. That's what happens when the only way you can bear to walk is when you're takin' em. Couldn't go to any hospitals, I'm uninsured. I was then, and I am now. The pain made me start wonderin' if it wasn't just best to jump off a bridge somewhere. The pain and the blindness. When the soccer moms started screamin', that didn't help either.

And then... then I met her.

She was still mortal at the time, pretty sure. Don't actually know for sure. She was lookin' for weed for her twin sister. That, that was easy to get. She saw my leg, and she told me to get to a hospital. Was tough to get her to see that that wasn't happenin'. No insurance, and I didn't mind it much anyway, y'know? But, well... it got us to talkin', on the regular, even. We got to bein' pretty good friends and she was never anything but sweet to me.

Don't remember just when I started gettin' sweet on her, just that it happened at some point. Learned she was a vamp, or became one, later on. Could never bear to have the Sight on around her. I always wanted to see her for what she really looks like. Still do. But all I got is imagination. Think it was after that that I met you lot. You know a lot of what happened from there. But... hell, after that, the messengers? They stopped bein' screamin' soccer moms. Sometimes it is, but... sometimes it's just one voice. I don't get it. Maybe I'm not meant to.

Reva says she always thought they were other folks like us who got dead. If that's the case I guess one took a liking to me. Hope that's optional if she's right. I wouldn't make a good messenger, I think.

But that's gettin' off base. For a while I didn't want you all to get attached, 'cause there was no doubt I was gonna off myself for a while. It was best if you didn't miss me. I turned into an unrelentin' bitch. But I guess that just made you try harder, huh? Thanks for that... you been like the mom I should've had for my whole life.

Got worse when the preacher man moved in a couple weeks ago, that suicidal bullshit. Shit... he starts talkin' about that shit, about needin' to train us or whatever, and... well, I'm that scared little girl at the mercy of the church elders again. Bein' that vulnerable again scares the ever-lovin' hell outta me. You already know I been dodgin' the place. First it was Benj's apartment to give him the moral support. Then it was the flat I had you drop me at the other night. Started thinkin' about good excuses to overdose. Wasn't a good place.

Think it spooked her, too.

The other night, the night before that whole thing... well, she up and came out at me with a train metaphor. Took me a minute to get what she was sayin'. Guess I kinda jumped on the metaphor wagon, too. We spent the night watchin' cartoons and snugglin' under a blanket. It was fuckin' wonderful... It was like, suddenly? Killin' myself would be givin' somethin' up.

Then comes the incident from the other night. Guess all it took to snap my leg in two again was a fuckin' soda can. Layin' there, in agony, even though I just took two pills... I thought she was gone. Funny how the best you ever felt can be followed so close by damn near the worst you ever felt. And then again by almost the best. Whatever that power was, it really was a miracle. I can walk. You know how huge that is. You were there. Hell, I'm glad you were there with me. Proves I'm not crazy.

Then after that her sister gets called out for whatever reason. We had the place to ourselves. We... well... we had a good time. It was amazing. God, I love her so much... Anyway, we got done, we laid there for a while... we pillow-talked. Then she gets a knock on the door. Wouldn't you know it, there's Three-Eyed Hobo Jesus, wantin' to use her shower. Wasn't much of my business. They start talkin' about vampire stuff after he gets out. Turns out, he can teach her that power. I'm thinkin' hell yeah. World needs more of that.

You know what a blood bond is, Marine? It's what happens when you drink their blood instead of the other way around. You start gettin' attached to 'em, apparently. And, and I guess this is the important part, you can't hurt who you're bonded to. Her sister says it ain't that bad and it stops her from hurtin' her when she shifts. But... fuck if I ain't scared. He asked her to do that. And I get why. I do. Yeah, I'd want to make absolutely sure I wasn't gonna get fucked too. And, well, she did it. Guess it means that much to her to learn this. Gotta give it that, it's a hell of a show of trust. She really does just wanna help... but... I won't lie, I got spooked. I got scared as hell. I don't wanna lose her. How far's it go? I don't know.

I'm fine with him. Hell, you think I wouldn't do him just for the leg thing? I would. He seems decent. He keeps sayin' he won't get in our way, he knows what it's like to put all your love in someone and have it taken away and that he wouldn't wish it on anyone. But fuck if I ain't still on edge. Maybe it's just nerves.

Shit, I'm terrified of a lot of things lately. There's that, but that's.. minor, really. I think more than that, I'm scared of gettin' old. For the first time in my life, I'm scared of dyin'. I don't want her to see me wither away. I wish there were some fuckin' way, some way at all, that I could stay.

I like to think that in the end, I'll reincarnate. I like to believe I'll find her again, with a better life, better health, a chance at being with her into forever. But fuck if I didn't wish that were just worst case scenario. How am I gonna remember, in that case? I wanna be with her in this life.

I'm scared, Marine. I never stopped bein' that scared little girl after all.