The beginnings of Casper's story

I'm trying to write the beginning of my weird "humans vs vampires in a world war" story. Here is what I have managed to write so far. This is a rough draft done late at night so don't be expecting anything Nobel prize winning. Here you go:


I had figured that there were three possible ways for me to die. I hadn’t expected this to be one of them. For a start, I never thought I’d live to be dead.


The first way I had imagined was what I expected to happen, had life remained the same. I expected to grow up, get good grades, go to university, and end up in a dead-end job anyway. After a string of whirlwind romances in my early twenties, I would have settled down with a polite, well-bred man, ten years older than me, with thoughtful eyes and curly hair. We’d have a few children; they would grow up and have children of their own who I’d dote on, and we’d holiday in Tarriland or the Bai’lai Islands every summer. My husband would die at seventy years old of a heart attack; I would move to a little country house, where my children would visit me every week, when they remembered. After being cooked dinner, I die in my sleep on the morning of my eighty-fourth birthday. Oh, the joys of suburbia.

The second way I had imagined was that my punk band, Everything Sarah Said, became huge after our debut album – recorded when I was sixteen – became everyone’s new favourite record. Our sound developed from snarling punk into snarling alt-rock, and we became a cult band for the first six years, and gained amazing influence. By the time I was twenty, I’d sold two hundred and fifty thousand records, and yet managed to keep my private and public lives separated. Finally, at age twenty-nine, after a night out drinking with the girls, I accidentally crashed my motorbike into a tree. The whole of the Vessenian speaking world mourned my loss, and I was hailed as a real rock star. That’s the dream, anyway.

The third way was what I was now ninety-nine per cent sure was going to happen. Since the war with Jesnar started, and all the conscription started, I am now sure that I will die on the battlefield, blown up by a Jesnari bomb in Intoh or Genoland. Maybe I’ll be captured and die in a prisoner of war camp. Maybe I’ll be hit by shrapnel or fall from the sky in my shot down aeroplane. In any case, I will die fighting for my country for values I don’t believe in. But I guess it’s better to be killed in battle than be shot for treachery. Maybe I’ll object on moral grounds and die doing hard labour, or run away to West Seminor on a boat. But more than likely, it’ll be this: I will die making sure that Jesnar does not take over the country where I was born.

Well, that was what I assumed would happen, anyway. But it turns out that I’m not allowed a nice, neat death like everyone else. But before I go any further into the present, allow me to explain the past.