It´s mid summer in the year 1197. I left Salerno, Italy, in search of a better place to live and a new practice as a doctor. Little did I know of the adventures I would take part of. But I should have expected some. It´s not easy being a vampire. It´s not easy being a jew either, and the combination is sometimes a hell.

I was born in 1176 in an old jewish settlement outside Salerno. My parents was farmers in a community mostly inhabited by traders and merchants. Early I showed great interest in taking care of others, especially after the plague in the winter of 1188 that took so many lifes including my two sisters. Already at that time i knew I would one day become a healer, a doctore.

It´s just one year since I graduated at the medical school of Salerno. It happened I had the foremost medical school in the Roman empire next door. I can say, not without pride, that I made a success as a student – one of the youngest ever to graduate – and have already a very good renommé around my hometown.

I planned for a journey to Constantinople. But just a month before my leaving I met someone.

And from here on my memory is somewhat dim. In the end I had become a vampire, shunning the sun, walking the streets in the darkest hours, hiding i cellars and underground dwellings.

There are memories, or at least dim visions, of a gathering. The number of seven echoes my mind and the picture of a chalice sits behind my eyes. Chanting of people around me and the taste of blood. And the darkness, pain, cold and feeling of being lost.

Soon I started having dreams in which I got the knowledge I have to today that make me survive one day at a time. I´m bound not to tell who the mentor is. And a lot of what I´m told is for my eyes only.

This and much more have happened since my graduation and one year have gone since then. The last months I went on a journey for Constantinople. Today I saw it for the first time and in a dream I got a task to fulfill. I will know tomorrow what´ll happen.