I’m not quite sure how much being staked by someone who’d call himself your lover should irritate me. Somehow I can’t bring myself to being confused over that. And in all honesty, I did push for it. Well, not quite. I wasn’t begging to be staked. I was provoking him into action. One option was staking, I guess.

Motivation aside I really should get into what all of this felt like.

The pain itself is quite exquisite. Nothing like the dull pain the usual headaches would give me. This one was sharp, cruel. While the object itself is relatively blunt, compared to the edge of a blad at least, the sensation it produces while passing through flesh, for lack of a better term, can only be described as cutting.

The stake in the heart triggers impairment. The victim finds itself absolutely unable to move, no matter how desperate, no matter how raging the beast inside may be. Not a single muscle would react to any order the brain may give.

Perception is unaffected by any of this. One can still hear, smell, taste and – in case the eyes were open when staked – see. Therefore whatever happens around the victim can be perceived and put to memory, if necessary. Nor is thinking altered much, aside from the fits of panic that are to be expected in a situation such as this.

It occured to me that when removing the stake small splinters might be left behind in the flesh. Should this happen at the beginning of said withdrawal it remains to be seen whether kindred find themselves still incapable of moving. In so many words: How big or small does any given piece of wood have to be in order for it to have the desired effect?

In combination all of this produces a feeling of vulnerability, of impending death. Hardly desirable for any predator.

All in all there are a lot of questions that remain unanswered. I really would want those answers, but being staked is something absolutely undesirable. So those answers won’t be mine to have any time soon, I guess.