Chapter Text
“-but when I got home and took the top off, I realized the paint was the wrong color,” Mom complains, her voice coming out all scratchy and distorted due to the poor cell connection, courtesy of the winding mountain road I’m currently navigating. “I don't know what I did wrong. The color looked perfect in the store…”
I can’t help but chuckle, thoroughly enjoying the conversation we’re having while it lasts. Soon I’ll lose cell signal and I’ll have to entertain myself with podcasts and music, but for now I get to enjoy the precious little time I have with my mom these days.
“Photographs aren’t the best way to get a color match,” I explain idly as I slowly round yet another sharp corner, much to the chagrin of the truck riding my ass. You can never be too careful on these mountain roads, and unlike the a-hole behind me, I don’t have a death wish. “Next time you need to chip a little flake of paint off the wall and bring it into the store.” It always gives me the warm and fuzzies when I'm able to make use of the knowledge I’ve amassed over the years, especially if it's art related. It feels even better when I can help Mom with anything. Mom has done so much to help me get where I am today, so anything I can do to make her life a little easier is a big win in my book.
“Oh, now you tell me Little Miss Art Major! That sure would have been good to know before I bought the paint!”
I can’t help but snort at her teasing tone and Mom breaks into mischievous laughter at the sound of my amusement.
“I’m sorry Mom, I would have handled this whole thing for you if I was home...” And just like that, the familiar heaviness I've been working so hard to keep at bay creeps back in, hanging over the two of us like a dark cloud.
‘Shit, why did I say that,’ I wonder, my shoulders slumping and my eyes misting up despite my efforts to keep my tears at bay.
It’s been a long couple of months since I was able to talk to Mom in person. While I’ve learned a lot during my time at college and I’ve managed to meet so many cool people, no matter how many friends I’ve made this year I just can't seem to shake my homesickness. My mom has always been one of my best friends and it’s hard not being able to come home to her and her warm hugs at the end of each day.
Of course, Mom, ever the empath, instantly notices the sudden shift between us. “There’s no need to worry," she assures me. "I can handle myself just fine you know! I’ve been a strong, independent woman for over eighteen years! Although it would be nice if you were here with me, you're where you need to be right now." There's a pause as she sniffles, and I can tell she's silently wiping away tears of her own. "I'm sorry. I'm just so proud of you.”
"Mom," I whisper, because maybe that would have been a comforting sentiment, had Mom’s breath not hitched on the last word. There's nothing worse than the sound of Mom crying, because then I'll start crying, and I'm already crying, and-
-Probably realizing we're both crying now, Mom's voice goes all high as she continues on like nothing's wrong. “Besides, how can I not be happy that my only daughter is off fulfilling her lifelong dream of becoming a world famous artist?”
My cheeks grow warm at the high praise and some squiggly and insecure part of me flinches at her deep trust in me. “Moooooom,” I whine, ready to protest about how I’m still just a student and that I have a long way to go before I can dare to call myself a professional, let alone ‘famous’, when a thundering rumble pierces the air. My whole body tingles as a primal spike of fear shoots through me.
Before I can process why, I hear the tailgating truck behind me slam on their breaks and I barely have time to wonder if I should do the same when I spot a large billow of sediment and rocks thundering towards me at an alarming speed.
“VICTORIA!”
Mom’s scream hits me almost as hard as the sediment does. The instinct to reassure her that I’m alright has me babbling out words of reassurance but before I can say anything concrete a boulder bigger than my car smashes into me with an ugly shriek of warping metal.
Everything around me explodes all at once. There’s pain, piercing and deep, and a cacophony of screams ringing in my ears, my mom’s chief among them, and for a moment all I can feel, all I can hear, is the overwhelming force of the screams. And then-
-gentle voices drift in and out around me, and I hear what I think must be my mom’s voice calling comfortingly to me, only, I can’t make out what she’s saying.
I don’t understand where I am or what’s going on, but I get the distinct sensation that some amount of time has passed since what must have been a landslide took place.
Be it minutes, hours, or days, I am none the wiser.
While I'm in this fuzzy fugue state no matter how hard I try to focus my eyes, everything is blurry. The sounds around me are muffled, and even though my limbs are whole and seemingly uninjured at the moment, my limbs don’t feel right.
Luckily, I’m no longer in any kind of pain, and perhaps I’m not dead or dying, but I still know deep down that something is terribly, horribly wrong-
“No- no - no - no - no,” I sob, holding my head in my hands, my suddenly normal, uninjured hands, and-
Another horrible scream fills the air, as a man I’ve never seen in my life writhes in agony at my feet.
Suddenly, everything is crystal clear and I can see, hear, and smell better than I've ever been able to in my entire life. I can see every individual follicle of hair on the man's head and hear every rustling leaf in the thousands of trees around me. It’s like a veil has been lifted and I nearly fall over from the vertigo of it all. It’s so overwhelming that it takes me a moment to realize I’m not breathing anymore.
Only, I’m not suffocating, and how is that even possible?
So many things are impossible at the moment. I- ‘I need time to think, time to figure this out.’
I slam my eyes closed and try my best to compose myself, but the calming breaths I try to take only end up making me feel worse. The way the air feels as it enters and exits my lungs- it’s not natural. It’s robotic, uncanny, and functionless.
“Please. Please. . .” I beg, unsure what it is I’m even asking for.
Just as my panic is reaching its crescendo something deep inside my being feels like it snaps into place and suddenly I feel a bit more emotionally regulated.
Now that the - something - has clicked into place, I’m actually able to calm myself down.
Everything I was feeling just moments prior feels like it's been shoved into the back of a closet, just out of my reach. But this isn’t the numb feeling that comes with going into shock. Instead, what I feel is true, genuine calm; the kind of calm one experiences when everything is right in the world.
But everything is wrong, wrong, wrong. So why do I feel so right?
“I can’t focus on that right now,” I mutter to myself, clenching my jaw as I carefully start to take in my surroundings, pointedly ignoring the man at my feet for the moment. I’m in a forest now (not a car, not a hospital: a forest) and it’s just me and the unknown man in this wide, moonlit clearing.
Oh, that and about a dozen dead bodies.
I find myself idly gazing upon the gruesome sight with blank, unimpressed eyes. I should be sobbing or gagging or searching frantically for the source of danger but instead there’s a grim satisfaction blooming in my chest as I gaze upon the fresh corpses.
Somehow, the weirdest thing about it all is the smell. The bodies. They smell... No. I don’t even want to think it.
But, they smell amazing.
Delicious, even.
I’m pulled away from the gruesome yet mesmerizing sight when something wet unexpectedly slides down my chin and falls onto the face of the writhing man at my feet, just below his right eye. For a brief moment, I muse, it’s almost like we’re crying together.
At the sight, I instinctively lick my lips, which I’m only now realizing are wet with something, and I nearly moan at the taste that greets me. Before I know what I’m doing I quickly gather the rest of the liquid onto my fingers and suck until they’re equally as clean as my face. I pant, suddenly finding my breath again, and a feeling of satisfaction the likes of which I’ve never experienced in my life shoots through me.
I pause, fingers still halfway in my mouth when my brain finally manages to finish buffering.
That was unusual, to say the least. There’s a sharp pang in my chest as I think about all the things that are wrong with me at the moment. It’s enough to nearly send me into another spiral but I manage to pull myself back from the edge just before I fall off.
‘Okay. It’s okay. Just focus on one thing at a time.’
In an effort to reground myself, I experimentally sniff at the crisp night air and lean down towards the (dying?) man at my feet, drawn in by his alluring scent. I examine the drop of liquid on his cheek, the one that dripped off my chin a moment prior. With great difficulty, I manage to refrain from licking his face, and the fact that I have to hold myself back at all worries me greatly.
I sniff the night air again and realize the most alluring of the smells in the clearing is coming from the living man, specifically his neck. There’s something almost fresh about it, but I can’t exactly put my finger on it, because that doesn’t make any sense.
And so, mindful of his pain, I gingerly turn the man's head to the side and am greeted with the sight of something coating his neck. With my newfound crystal clear vision, it's all too easy to see the liquid for what it is.
Blood.
Bloodbloodblood.
That’s what I’d just licked off my fingers.
‘But why would I do that unless-?’
I instinctually shove my hand into my mouth and touch one of my incisors.
Dull
And yet. . .
A series of images suddenly run through my mind with vivid clarity:
A group of grown men and two younger boys, all walking together behind a horse drawn wagon-
Those same men as I rip them apart with my dull teeth-
Blood spraying as I rip them apart and I can feel the gratification that flows through me at the violence alone-
The last man in their group, the one who still lives, in my grip when I suddenly stumble back, clutching at my head in pain and confusion, the likes of which I’ve never experienced before, not even when I-
I let out a little grunt as the visions pass.
And now, here I am, uninjured and inexplicably whole, at the center of a massacre (evidently) of my own making.
I allow myself to fall into a seated position at the man’s feet as I let out a long and pitiful groan. I hesitate for only a moment before I make the bold decision to grab the suffering man’s hand in my own.
He immediately squeezes back and the amount of force he is exerting should be incredibly painful, yet it doesn’t come close to hurting. I stare at our intertwined hands, my eye twitching as I listen to the unnatural creaking sound my hand makes as it's squeezed. It's like the sound of porcelain cracking, which. Also doesn't make sense.
'My god. What the hell is going on?'
In that moment of disbelief, I happen to glance down at my legs and realize something else too. I’m wearing completely different clothes than I was before.
Also, my chest is now entirely flat?
My mouth hangs open in shock as I slowly move my free hand to rest on my chest and those are definitely ‘pecs’, not boobs.
I bite my lip, a sudden wave of embarrassment washing over me as I carefully move to grope at the place between my legs and oh, yep, that’s an outie, not an innie.
Suffice to say, this is not my body.
A light breeze blows through the clearing and a strand of my hair tickles my cheek, a feat which should be impossible when one has a fresh buzz cut like I do- or, well, did.
With a deep sigh, I curiously grab a strand of the hair between my fingers and notice it's a rich auburn color with stunning flecks of fiery red peppered throughout.
Like every other revelation I’ve had so far, none of this information about my new body draws a particularly strong emotional reaction out of me beyond some kind of stilted confusion. The weight of all of these revelations should have broken me. I should be an absolute mess right now and yet I am left instead with a grim sort of acceptance of my situation and the uncanny sensation that everything is actually as it should be.
I can’t help but wonder, am I in a coma? Or maybe this is what my dying brain’s version of my life flashing before my eyes is? I mean, if this whole thing is just a delusion of my unconscious mind, that would certainly explain my strangely blasé attitude right now.
Yet, something in me seems to scoff at the idea of this being a dream, and I get the sense that someone, somewhere, is judging me for coming to this conclusion.
“No?” I mumble to myself. “If I’m not in a coma, then where the hell am I?”
While I wait for an answer to come to me, a strong gust of wind blows through the clearing, casting the moon's light all around me, momentarily stunning me with its beauty.
When I receive no conclusive answer to my question I huff out another question to the moon. “What am I?”
This seems to be the right question to ask because this time something deep within my being seems to answer, throwing me into an impossibly deep chill.
"Vampire," I mumble softly to myself, my gaze suddenly laser focused on the blood strewn about the clearing. "I'm a vampire."
After that, I sit in the same position for hours, motionlessly holding the man’s hand in contemplative silence while he screams and thrashes in my hold. I’m as still and stoic as a statue and while it concerns me how apathetic I am I also can’t help but start to feel relieved. This doesn't seem like the kind of situation where a complete emotional breakdown is an option, so I’m weirdly grateful for my newfound floaty detachment even if I worry, on some level, that I’ll never be able to feel the full human range of emotions ever again.
‘Another thought to file away for later,’ I decide with that same grim firmness that seems to have come prepackaged with this body.
There are so many things about this new me that feel so wrong, but I can’t focus on that right now. All I can focus on is the man and the process he is undergoing. Now that I know I’m a . . . vampire . . . I know the man before me must be turning himself.
If my heightened eyesight is to be believed, I (or rather the original owner of this body) must have bitten the man. As far as I’m concerned, that makes the turning vampire my responsibility.
‘He’s mine,' some foreign, possessive part of me growls. 'Mine and no one else’s.’
It isn’t until the moon has almost finished its long journey across the sky that I truly begin to panic.
Perhaps I’m not being as level headed and rational as I initially thought, as a crucial bit of vampire lore only just now pops into my head.
“Shit! The sun!” Vampires die in the sun! And here I am, sitting like an idiot, while the sun creeps ever closer to the horizon line!
With a great amount of effort and grunting I somehow manage to pry the turning man’s fingers from my own. It would seem in the few hours since I first grabbed his hand his grip strength has gotten much stronger.
'I really don't have time for this,' I think, as my eyes frantically dart around the clearing for potential solutions to our looming sun problem. I have no idea where to start. I don’t know what kind of vampiric abilities I have other than super senses, so I don’t know the most effective way to solve this problem. If I can just find a house or a cave then our problems will be solved instantly, but I somehow doubt things will be that simple. I suppose we can always try hiding out under the wagon but I have no idea how deadly the sun is to us. The wagon has no top to it and has gaps in the wood planks that make up its body so it won’t offer us full coverage from the sun. If we hide under it we’ll likely have part of our skin fried by the sun, and in the worst case scenario we might even catch on fire and die.
Before I can get myself too worked up, another vision flashes through my mind's eye. This time, I can see my vampire self wearing a cloak, walking casually through the woods. I can feel myself trying to keep my skin as covered as possible, but there is no fear in my heart as I do so.
I can sense it as clearly as anything, 'the sun is no enemy of mine.'
For a moment I feel embarrassed about my mistake but in my defense, almost every iteration of vampires I've ever heard about were known to die in the sun. The only exception I can think of off the top of my head are the vampires in the Vampire Diaries, but that probably doesn’t count since the vampires in that show needed daylight rings to do that, and the rings were in incredibly short supply.
I tentatively try asking my body a follow up question to see if I'll get anymore visions but nothing happens.
I sigh deeply, suppressing a growl, and have to hold myself back from punching a tree, so I guess I can add anger management issues to the afflictions this body faces.
Moving back to the man's side, I tentatively slip my hand back into his, wincing when his grip is actually beginning to become painful.
I don’t know how long the writhing man will take to finish his turning process, or even if he’s on track to survive, but I will be here with him every step of the way nonetheless.
When the sun finally starts to rise for the first time since I've taken over this body I’m tense and unblinking.
Waiting for the creeping sun’s light to touch my skin for the first time feels like standing in front of a target while an archer tries to shoot an apple from my head. It shouldn’t go wrong, but it could. The only way to know if it’ll work out or not is to wait and see.
As the sun slowly inches ever nearer I find myself closing my eyes. This approach always seems to work well with shots, so why not now?
Several minutes go by with no horrible pain and after some hesitation my eyelids finally flutter and then tentatively open.
The sight that I’m greeted with is indescribable. My skin is shimmering, almost like it's reflecting the sun itself. I look like a subdued version of what I’d imagine an angel would be like in their natural form. It’s beautiful, yet frightening and entirely inhuman.
I can’t help but laugh when a thought occurs to me and the more I think about it the harder I laugh.
I put on a fake tortured and gravelly voice and say, “this is the skin of a killer, Bella.”
If I thought this situation was funny before, it’s positively hysterical now.
As I flip my hand over and experimentally wiggle my fingers I wonder, ‘is what Edward Cullen would look like?’
Or, rather, what the fictional vampire would look like if he were real, because, ‘oh yeah, this is what the vampire’s in Twilight are supposed to look like in the sun, isn’t it?’
I spend the next two days in a near meditative silence which is only broken when a hysterical laugh suddenly bubbles up in my throat.
No matter how hard I try I just can’t keep it in anymore and for the first time since I found myself in this clearing I allow myself a moment to really grieve.
I would cry, but I get the feeling that I can’t even do that anymore.
“I’m dead,” I laugh grimly. “I’m definitely dead.”
I’m dead and I would probably never see my mom ever again. ‘Oh God, Mom. . .’ She must be traumatized. She’d heard me die. And considering I died in the mountains she’ll probably have to wait hours on end until she finally gets confirmation that I passed in the accident.
Despite the lack of tears gathering in my eyes, my body heaves with dry sobs that I can’t hold back no matter how hard I try. It’s awkward and not nearly as cathartic as truly crying is but I can’t stop myself from doing it. It’s a relief to know I can actually feel to this degree in this body. I initially thought it was impossible, but it seems the longer I stay in this body the more I’m able to feel a full range of emotions again.
My eyes flick icily over the bodies strewn around me, which have long since started the process of rigor mortis, and whatever joy I might have felt at this thought quickly evaporates.
‘But I still do not feel enough.’
The sun is setting on the third day of my new life when the man’s screams finally cease and his now very red eyes shoot open for the first time.
His eyes are cloudy and unfocused as they dart around the clearing. Confusion worries his brow as he takes everything in, and I instantly feel the overwhelming need to explain myself to him. “Hi, um-”
Perhaps predictably, instead of taking the time to talk to me like a calm and rational person, the newly turned vampire uses his vice grip on my hand to flip me through the air and power slam me onto my back. I let out yet another unnecessary breath in a harsh oomf as the earth beneath me cracks from the force of the impact.
The man wastes no time with me as he sprints off into the forest like a man possessed. I blink in stunned silence as I process these new developments. I guess I can add super strength and super speed to the checklist of vampire abilities I must have.
I don’t linger on the thought for long before I’m already off and running after him at an equally inhuman speed. It’s obvious to me which path he takes, not only because of the sounds he’s carelessly making but also because of the clear signs of disturbance in the foliage that my sharp eyes are easily able to pick up on.
The world wizzes by me in perfect detail and if the situation wasn’t so dire I would probably marvel at my surroundings. As things stand, I don’t have the luxury of such a thing. Especially not when I can suddenly make out the distinct sound of humans and horses clopping along in the distance.
My stomach drops at this new development. There must be a road up ahead. AKA, the perfect place to pick off unsuspecting humans. I need to stop the other vampire before he does something rash, but no matter how fast I manage to run, the newborn is five steps ahead of me.
‘Is he a naturally gifted runner or are newborns just faster in general?’
Despite my physical disadvantage, my body’s instincts attune me to the fact that the newborn is running erratically and without any real strategy. In the same moment I find I am able to sense the most strategic paths to take in order to gain ground on him. ‘Damn, this is like turning on cheats in a video game. Satisfying, but entirely unearned.’
By the time I manage to get a hair's breadth away from him, we are already extremely close to the humans up ahead. Just a few vampiric paces more and they’re done for, so my fear and frustration suddenly reaches their peak.
“Stop!” I growl, tone firm and full of authority.
Perhaps predictably, the newborn isn’t swayed at all by my forceful command and my frustration ignites into an raging inferno. The sensation is unfamiliar to me, but I know instinctively that this quick temper is not unfamiliar to the one whose body I stole.
But the newborn clearly only has one thing on his mind and it definitely isn’t introductions. My growl deepens as I allow my instincts to guide me further. I leap at a tree and kick off of it. The tree creaks and threatens to explode under the power of my feet and I just barely manage to apply the correct amount of pressure to avoid that from happening.
This time the other man actually does look back at me, surprise coloring his beautiful, glittering face as I manage to tackle him to the ground.
We wrestle with one another with the ferocity of territorial beasts and I can instantly tell in the struggle he is stronger than me.
‘I need to end this fast.’
In one clean move I manage to flip the man onto his back and I snarl in his face. “I said STOP.” I pull his face close to my own and then slam him back onto the ground, his head taking the brunt of the impact, leaving him dazed and possibly concussed. “Listen to me when I’m talking to you, newborn!”
I can see the calculations flash through his hazy eyes as he weighs his options in less than a nanosecond. He snarls savagely at me, showing off his blunt incisors as he does so. He's clearly irritated by this turn of events, but his eyes soften as he seems to come to his conclusion, his body going slack beneath mine as he makes his choice.
I take a brief, almost imperceptible moment to admire his restraint. He must be incredibly strong willed to contain his newborn instincts like this.
“Good,” I praise, the word coming out in a near purr, as I'm truly impressed and pleased with him. He must see the good will suddenly shining in my eyes somewhere beneath the simmering rage that still boils within me, because he seems to marginally relax in my grip. Despite this, I keep my arm firmly pressed against his neck in warning. I’m not foolish enough to let him up just yet. I even make a point of tightening my grip on his shoulder just to remind him who's in charge here. “I know it’s tempting, but you must refrain from killing the humans.”
The man looks genuinely baffled by my statement. “Did you not kill all of my traveling companions? Why am I to ignore my hunger and show restraint when you yourself did not?”
I huff, irritated that I have to clean up the mess my predecessor left me in. “I am not responsible for that massacre,” I snap.
Which is true, but I have no way of knowing whether or not this man saw this body kill those humans or not. Considering how fast I am, it’s entirely possible he didn’t see it happen. However, if he did in fact see ‘me’ kill the other humans, then what? Do I let him kill these humans so I don’t seem like a hypocrite?
I could also try explaining I’m possessing this body, however, the last thing I want is to admit to such a thing. If there’s one thing I know about vampires it’s that they have a strict social hierarchy and the last thing I want to do is to stand out in that order. Standing out in the vampire world can easily result in my execution- or, worse, if someone decides to try doing experiments on me or to keep me as some kind of miserable immortal pet.
“If you’re not responsible for the massacre, then who is?” he questions, snapping me back to the situation at hand.
“Another vampire,” I shrug, not feeling the need to expand upon my half truth further.
The man seems truly puzzled. “A- vampire?”
I gaze at the man beneath me with half lidded eyes. I suppose it’s his turn to go through what I just did. I wonder what stage of grief I’m in? Have I finally reached acceptance? I sure hope for his sake I have. The last thing we need in this situation is two new vampires in states of emotional distress.
“Yes. Vampire. That is what killed your traveling companions. It is also what we are.”
A look of disbelief flashes across his face as he snarls beneath me. “What foolishness! You honestly expect me to believe-!”
Before he can finish his sentence I’m already baring my teeth in his face. “Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t expect anything. I command it.” With every word I hiss at him, I get a little bit closer to his face. “You. Are. A. Vampire. Accept it.”
I nearly hiss ‘or die’ but manage to hold myself back at the last moment. As I do, I get the impression the body I stole belonged to a man who had little to no regard for the newborn in front of me and I find myself wondering if he would've been allowed to turn had I not stolen control of this body.
The vampire beneath me jerks his head to the side to avoid the intensity of my burning eye contact. A rookie mistake. Everyone knows that such a move is a sign of weakness, of submission. If he still wants to win this fight then he has just made a fatal mistake. His nostrils flare as he holds himself back from outright cursing me out. “Alright. 'The other vampire.' So they are the one who made me like this, then?”
“Yes. I would not have done that to you.”
He scoffs. “How very magnanimous.”
His statement instantly rubs me the wrong way. “Shut up. This isn’t a joke.”
He laughs dryly. “I can assure you I feel no humor in this situation.”
A beat passes between us as we assess one another.
Because I'm the big bad vampire here I'm the first to break the silence with a sigh. “If I let you up, will you be good for me?”
His red eyes flash like a glint of steel. “What am I?” he spits, clearly offended. “A dog?”
My eye twitches and my tone turns downright nasty as I bite out, “I don’t know. You tell me.”
As our eyes lock in a fierce battle for dominance I distantly note the sound of humans bustling around in the distance is gradually getting fainter and fainter.
The other vampire chooses to say nothing in response to my last taunt but after a couple of tense moments his posture relaxes and I take it as a sign of his full submission to my will.
I am on my feet faster than any human would be able to perceive. “Excellent,” I chirp, offering him my hand as a gesture of reconciliation. He actually takes it and I suppose he must be the sort of man who values manners because he even has the grace to offer me his thanks for the gesture. A laughable statement in the face of our recent scuffle.
“I’m sorry to say that I myself am a newborn vampire so I won’t be able to guide you as well as the one who turned you would have been able to.” I look off into the distance as I say this in an attempt to keep my face smooth and unbothered as I attempt to bullshit my way out of this. The other vampire looks at me with none-too-subtle surprise and for some reason this also ignites my irritation. “What’s with that idiotic expression on your face?” I snap and, yep, I’m still acting far more aggressive than I normally would.
The other vampire’s face shutters as he explains his thought process to me. “I was expecting you to leave me like the one who turned me. Why do you care about me or any of them when the other vampire didn’t?” He gestures towards the still living humans while he says this, suggesting that he is also curious about my show of mercy.
I tilt my head back so I can see the slowly drifting clouds over our heads as I contemplate how to answer him. “Instinct, I suppose. I couldn’t just leave you there. And I can’t just let those people die either.”
Even if my body is apathetic and quick to anger I still know logically what I- the original, real me- would do in this situation. I refuse to let who I once was slip away from me now even if it would feel much more satisfying to give into my instincts and go wild like the one who belongs in this body would have.
“What do we do now?” he questions and I instantly feel the weight of responsibility crash over me as I realize I am officially the leader of our little duo.
“Now,” I say, grinning toothily at him with a blinding faux confidence that dazzles the newborn, “We hunt.”
Hours later the two of us stand over the freshly killed carcass of a rather impressive buck.
The other vampire subtly gags behind his hand at the smell of the animal’s blood. “Revolting,” he hisses.
He isn’t wrong. I myself am rather skeptical that this will work, but I need to at least try.
There is a rather weighty precedent in the vampire genre which says vampires can survive off of animal blood instead of human blood so it’s worth a shot. Despite my body's instincts screaming at me that what I'm about to do is disgusting I know that I need to at least try. It’s what the original me would want, after all.
'It’s what mom would want,' another voice inside me whispers, intent.
With that thought in mind I plunge right in.
Oh. Oh. Yep. That is absolutely foul. I really hope the other vampire doesn’t notice the way I shudder as I drink.
This tastes way worse than I thought it would. The taste is unthinkably disgusting but I have a responsibility to this newborn now. As far as I’m concerned, any blood on the newborn’s hands is blood on my hands, so I need to see this thing through no matter how horrible the blood tastes.
I somehow manage to pull back from the buck without looking overly stricken and turn to face the other vampire encouragingly. “Obviously,” I cough, “drinking the blood of animals is not as appetizing as drinking the blood of humans is.”
“So why even bother?”
His eyes are so callous. There is not a shred of sympathy in his gaze. The turning process must have sucked him dry of empathy alongside his humanity. It’s honestly a miracle I’m able to rationalize things the way I am at the moment because I know the same callousness rests just as heavily upon my heart.
Still, I can’t help but wonder. Maybe, through time and effort, the two of us will be able to regain some of our lost humanity.
It’s frustrating not knowing if that’s even possible. Everything I’m doing at the moment could end up being entirely futile. Hell, animal blood could even be poisonous to vampires for all I know. This entire thing could end in our deaths if I’m wrong about this.
And yet, I persist.
“-I persist because it’s what the human version of myself would have wanted.”
The other scoffs. “But why does that matter?” he asks again. “We are no longer human. We will never be human again,” he stresses, as if I haven’t already figured that out for myself.
I glare at him, already fed up with his words. “Let me be very clear. This whole thing is your choice. You don’t have to drink the animal’s blood. But if you decide to kill humans I will not stay by your side.”
Once more we find ourselves locked in a battle of intense eye contact. Many things go unsaid between us in this moment as we mentally fight the other for dominance.
He should really know by now that I have no intention of backing down. I am the older vampire between us (even if it’s technically only by three days) and I am already taking this role very seriously.
The other vampire breaks eye contact first and I instantly know that I’ve won. It would seem his desire for guidance and companionship have yet again overridden his desire for blood and violence.
I watch him carefully as he crouches before the buck. I make sure to keep an eye out for signs of disobedience in him as he begrudgingly begins to eat his meal. I make sure to leave him over three fourths of the deer, both because I am still full from the blood I woke up with already in my system and also because I am sure he must be absolutely famished as a newborn.
The vampire manages to finish his meal without further complaint, and I gaze upon him with satisfaction. I have a strong feeling he will keep his silent promise to behave himself. He is doing an excellent job so far, and I find myself swelling with pride at the thought. He is shaping up to be a wonderful childe.
Decidedly pleased, I find myself holding out my hand to him in official greeting. “My name is Seras. It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”
A small smile crosses his face and I find my icy heart thawing just a bit at the sight. Without taking the time to wipe away the blood from his face he grabs my arm by the elbow and squeezes it in a friendly manner. “A pleasure, my new friend.” His grip tightens on my arm as he eyes me with careful consideration. “If we are to exchange first names, you may call me Marcus.”