One thing that genuinely terrifies me about being kindred is the concept of time through a vampiric lense. I know that isn’t exactly a new take, but hear me out. It is generally understood that the longer you live, the more warped your perception of time is. A decade or so to a human is a lifetime for a dog etc.. yaddah yaddah. Nothing new there. Everyone wants to talk about the horror that is watching time pass, but no one talks about being time blind.
One thing I do not see discussed at all is how unreasonably fast time passes for kindred compared to other immortal creatures. Vampires only have HALF of a day cycle. Consider that a moment. If we’re being incredibly generous, let’s say sunset is around 8pm and you have a relatively high humanity. You basically have the equivalent of a 9-5 to experience your night and accomplish everything you’ve set out to do. There’s absolutely nothing for you after that point. Once the sun begins to rise, you embrace death once more.
Assuming you don’t have a flaw/skill that allows you to dream or an exceptionally high humanity, you’re trapped within a void until you reanimate again. Over and over and over, you awake into darkness and race against the sun to try to live whatever life you still cling to. With half the time. Far less the lower your humanity goes. Given how short your waking existence is, I can only assume that the nights must blend together maddeningly. How much faster do your loved ones die when you don’t even have a full day to spend with them? How much faster do you age? How much time do you lose when you barely have any to spend? What’s today’s date…?
