How to Fly

Good evening y’all!

It’s your boy, HP Sullivan, and thanks for sticking with me into the final chapter of our journey to flight. It’s the one we’ve been waiting for, gang! We’re doing this! We’ve come so far together and I hope each of y’all are proud of yourselves. I am. Lots of folks will have given up by now, but not you, and that’s really saying something. I mean it.

I know some of y’all are scared. Don’t be. Can’t go through life scared shitless, right? That’s why I’m here. To give you the shove you need. So to speak.

As always, I’ve broken everything down into easy to follow steps, and I’ll be right here the whole way. So strap those headphones on tight and get ready for the ride of your life.

Step 1: Get to your location

By now, I know y’all have done your homework from Chapter 5. If you haven’t, get your ass back there and call me when you’re ready. But hopefully, you’ve taken the time to find a good spot for your flight. It should be high, duh, without too many surrounding structures for obvious reasons. A cliff is perfect of course, but a tall building, a bridge, any of these will work. For some of y’all isolation is key. Just you and the wind. But for you wild cards out there, the jump itself won’t mean nothing without a buttload of witnesses. I feel you on that. If a tree falls in the forest, right?

Step 2: Prepare yourself physically

It’s harder than you think to step off a high building. And I don’t mean the part where you look down - we’ll get to that in Step 3 - but I mean the part where your mind is good to go, you’ve made your peace with what’s about to happen, but your knees won’t bend and your toes are clinging to the edge like it’s your mama’s you know what. So go ahead and do some of the stretches we talked about way back in Chapter 2. Bend those knees, do those side to sides and a couple of them overhead reaches. Let the body know: We Doing This! Throw in some deep breathing too. Believe me, you do not want to lock up halfway over. That’s a recipe for real disaster, and I mean mess, man.

Step 3: Prepare yourself mentally

Visualize what’s about to happen. Visualize the blood, visualize the family you’re leaving behind. Look over the edge. Carefully! We don’t wanna blow our load early, right? If you’ve chosen the wild card route, and if your building’s not too high, there may be people down there, people who are gonna see this. They may even see you and call up: Don’t do it! Don’t listen to ‘em. You got this!

This is the hard part. I’m not gonna to sugar coat it for y’all. And I ain’t gonna blame any of y’all that look over the edge, feeling nothing but the wind on your back - no parachute, no wings, no nothing - and imagine your body going splat on that sidewalk. I can hear you already. You’re like, Man, there ain’t no way in hell I’m stepping off that edge. If that sounds like you, go ahead and pause this, take off your headphones, and come back at it when you’re ready.

Look, I get it. You’re scared. I sympathize, but it’s gotta be done to get to the next step, and believe me, you wanna be 110% ready when you go for it.

Step 4: Take off your shoes

There’s a lot of good reasons for this - you don’t want laces tripping you up as you go off. And you don’t want them falling off midway down, hittin’ some random Joe. That ain’t fair to him - but for me it’s a comfort thing. One last connection to the Earth. Whatever your reason, go ahead and pop those babies off.

Step 5: Say Goodbye

Actually, I owe y’all an apology. You’re scared, and you know what, you have every right to be. Ain’t fair for me or anyone else to tell you not to be scared. What you’re about to do is some scary shit.

But you’re so close. You’re on the edge of something incredible, a once in a lifetime experience. And I’m right here with you.

So it’s time to look at the sunset one last time. Let the last rays of warmth touch your skin. Close your eyes. Really remember it. It’s beautiful, and maybe you’re like: I don’t want this to be the last time I see it. I hear you, I was you. You’re like: This is a mistake. This guy’s crazy, I ain’t going over. And why the hell did I take my shoes off? My feet are fucking freezing.

Feel that fear. No one ever said greatness was gonna be easy.

Step 6: Take a deep breath

This is important, cause what’s going to happen next is going to hurt a little.

If you’re still with me, and I hope you are, you’re gonna want to line your toes up right at the edge. Your body’s not going to want to do it, but that’s why we did all those stretches back in Step 2. Gonna be glad you did those now. Once your toes are lined up, go ahead and stretch out those arms. Give ‘em a little shake, make sure they’re nice and limber. This is the fun part, remember?

Then bend your knees, not too much, we’re not going for the Olympics out here, and push up through your heels, body angled forward at about 50 or 60 degrees. Once you’re most of the way up, shove off and start flapping.

I’m right here.

Step 7: Don’t panic

About now, you’re going to start thinking you made a pretty big mistake. Cause the part I said was going to hurt is starting. You’re gonna feel some burning all along the insides of your arms, and that cracking you hear? That’s your hands breaking apart. Fingers stretching to make room for the wing membrane. It won’t hurt this much next time, but the first time is hardest for everyone. Believe me, I know. It’s why I made y’all these tapes! You’re welcome.

If you were wearing shoes, they’d be hurtling toward the ground about now, but hopefully you followed Step 4 so we don’t have to worry about that. Your socks will go though if you were wearing ‘em, then any pants you had as your body starts the shrinking portion of Configuration. I know, I know, I didn’t mention at the top you were going to be finishing this up naked, but I found that turned a lot of people off, so I stopped mentioning it. You’ll have fur during Configuration though, so that’s something.

By now, you’ll also realize that you have not hit the ground. Didn’t I tell you not to worry too much? You’ll also notice a lot more sounds than you did before and that’s normal. Within the next month, the echolocation during Bat Configuration should feel pretty routine.

Step 8: Landing and Bipedal Vampire Reconfiguration

This part’s not so difficult, but I would recommend staying pretty close to your Launch Point for the first few flights in case you have difficulty with Bipedal Reconfiguration. Believe me, you don’t want to Reconfigure 80 feet off the ground. I’ve seen it happen and the clean up for the ghouls is not pretty and they tend to get pretty cranky. So better to keep the first flights short and close to a Landing Location.

After that, hard part’s over. Let me offer you a hearty congratulations on your first Flight and Final Transformation. No going back now! You’re one of us, and better for it. Thanks again for sticking with me, and I hope you’ll be back for Volume 2 where we’ll discuss Prey Selection and Exsanguination. Don’t get any bright ideas about turning your girlfriend or anything, though. You got at least four volumes until we get there. Until then, it’s your boy, HP Sullivan signing off. Have a great night and a pleasant eternity!