Pain. The first sensation I had when I began to awaken from my unconscious state was outright pain. Unable to open my eyes, I lay on what felt like cold, uneven concrete. It seemed as if some specter had given the earth one last unforgiving kiss, sucking all life from its warm depths in the process. I took uneven breaths as my mind marveled over the seriousness of my situation. Reality no longer played this game of mine; it had been defenestrated as soon as brother darkness had come and robbed me of all that had been treasured and known. All that remained were flashes of images that insistently banged around my mind, intent on reminding me of memories lost during my temporary discombobulated state. And pain. That was there too.
As life slowly seeped back into my listless form, I began to check the functions of my body. Wiggling my fingers then my toes, I checked to make sure everything was present and working. I then focused on the vexing sensation who preferred direct and undivided attention. Spurring from the black like extravagant fireworks, I was surprised to find that my object of seeking was everywhere to be found. No one source was made prominent; instead, my very core seemed to be crying, tortured from who-knows-what and determined to let me know it was unhappy. Upon further inspection, I found a sort of desire, an antidote to this suffering, an elixir to heal my current weakness. I knew not what my body lusted for, but knew that it was animal instinct, and a dangerous one.
Now able to see my surroundings, I found myself in a lightless room, no windows to shed any comfort. Instead I was met with a musty brick wall and a sort of glass, both on opposing sides. The glass was smooth and cool to the touch, an angels brush against my weary figure. I leaned against such in a longing way, noticing now that my body was hot as if from a fever. I heard myself panting, loud in a cell exempt from life, and began driving myself insane.
Hallucinations pranced across my vision in darkened forms of grey. Voices spoke to my deterring soul, on the brink of giving in. The devils lurked in either corner, prepared to pounce at any motion, creating sadistic fronts in their stead. They stared down upon my life, chuckling at my misery and decided to give one more form of punishment for their amusement.
Suddenly, a door to my right opened, spilling a fiery brightness into my abode, interrupting my delusions and sending them back to whence they came. Though only a candle held by the last of its wick, more than enough light entered to see what I could not before. I was in a small room, longer than it was wide, the other wall no more than ten feet away. The glass I had been leaning on was entirely constructed of mirror, a reflective surface used for vanity none-the-less. A solitaire chair sat in the left-hand corner of the room, a lonely ghost expressing use only for blood-stained actions from the owner and her victim.
Looking up to the creature who had let such blinding brightness into this chamber, I saw a woman. Aged yet young, she was a human beyond comparison, more beautiful than Aphrodite with all of her features perfected. No, she was not human. She couldn’t be. With silver hair tied loosely behind her reaching to the floor like moonlight falling upon the earth, an unrivaled figure exposing enough to flaunt yet covering enough to flatter with a spun flax-golden robe of sorts for compliment, and stunning electric green eyes with a tigers’ ferocity, she could not be human.
A grin stretched across her lovely face in a dangerous mocking tone, then a voice reached out and roused my once drowning senses.
“I see you have awakened Rin.”
I clutched at my head as memories returned, unwanted suffering invading my ignorant bliss and returning the hatred I once knew. Like a fragmented picture, all the pieces were found and the puzzle reformed itself before its owner.
I was once an ordinary girl living in a small village, learning the trade of a wife from her mother and preparing the meals for her father and brother. I did housework all day and taught children in my spare time, waiting for the day when Cupid’s arrow would strike. I was simple, I was happy, and I was complete.
A day came when a stranger entered the village, offering to me lessons of self-defense in exchange for food and shelter. I accepted, only wanting to be kind, and found myself immersed in these lessons of his. Little did I know that they surpassed those skills of mere defense and went into a more mercenary field.
A few months after the stranger disappeared, disaster stuck my family. In the midst of night, shrouded by the shadows, a powerful women broke into our house. Like the grim reaper she bared her fangs and brought forth her scythe as she unleashed all of hell into my life. My mother, my father, and lastly my brother- they all were introduced into her red-tinted web of death. With all my success training in defense and attack, I found myself unable to even move my shivering pathetic self as I watched a horror scene play out. A beautiful painting produced all for me, I stared at the pale forms who were once my everything. Their souls sucked dry, they lay askew, eyes open, with such a blood-curdling expression on their countenance that I nearly blacked-out there.
The reaper approached me next, grinning a toothy fox-like smile, and reached out, not with her scythe, but with her thoughts, and held fast to my screaming mind. I drifted into unconsciousness, welcoming the blissful gift of amnesia that trauma presented, but was cursed eternally as the reaper came forwards and forced her own present onto me. A present only given with the exchange of blood through poison-tipped fangs, I was given such the honor as to receive that dreadful life of immortality.
I looked into the mirror wall beside me and saw a face I did not recognize. It was me, but without all of the flaws I was so proud of as a human, no longer a self I accepted.
I jumped in surprise when I noticed a vital part of me missing. That gentle bump sounding as a bluebirds’ wings in flight, a comforting rhythm that put worried conscious’ to rest, a notion that astounded scientists around the world"and I had it no longer. I did not have a heartbeat.
I turned to the woman who destroyed my life with a glare that spit venom, hoping to prove that such a strong hatred could kill merely with a glance. It proved wrong as she chuckled, and I cursed myself for failing.
“Come Rin, I’ve brought you your meal. Eat well as it is your first in this world.”
An unconscious John Doe was tossed into my cage, prey for the contained predator. As soon as she did, my senses went into hyper-drive. That scent, what was it? Such a delectable taste filled my entirety till all moral compasses swung a deep south. A sound filled my ears, a constant sort of hum driving me even more so into that interminable abyss, fusing with my being till I no longer could tell the difference between his innocence and my monstrosity. That lovely heartbeat of his-- I longed for what I now lacked. Such a beautiful symphony began, a new wave of crimson washing over the audience. Each instrument, each performer, they were all dyed in that provocative color pushing me ever closer to the edge.
Near a cliff, I was, waltzing ever so closer to an endless drop that I pursued with mightily enhanced motivation. Satan lured me with his guilt-laden temptations that had drawn a countless number of willing followers into his burning forest before. Listening to whispers preserved for only this time, I nearly performed a magic trick into the deathly crevice-- a disappearing act predecessors knew too well. Winds whistled around my hesitating figure, a storm brewing in determined fury to attempt to aid in Satan’s wishful thoughts. Dirtied skies swarmed all around, pressure becoming too great for even the most strong-willed. So close to relief, so close to paradise, so close-- and then I looked up.
That sadistic Reaper peered down upon her new pet. An attitude of mild expectations filled her face, expressing an unorthodox appeal towards such a scene. Her eyes glowed with with a dark, haunting shadow, a ghost electrified by its own memories of countless other experiences. She had taken lives-- numerous in thought. She had taken my family from me, my sun who had kept me warm and loved. And she had taken my mortality, the only shred of hope in keeping my sanity. Though she must have seen such a play performed multiple times before using the same script, the same act, she seemed to feed on that distress and hunger her pet felt. I would not submit to this woman.
Attempting to push back the wave of red, I turned away from John Doe and turned towards my captor. Every fiber of my being shrieked in annoyance, pleading to continue with the path I had been treading, a path of animal instinct. Refusing to acknowledge such a need, I glared defiantly into the woman’s eyes, remembering my shattered heart.
“You will not survive if you do not eat,” she chuckled, amused by my bold self-control. “I would let go of your human moralities, for they will do you no good in this new world.”
She glided closer to me, speaking as she did.
“There are only two types of creatures in this world: the hunter and the hunted,” she knelt down next to me, arrogantly taking my chin in her hand. I was surprised by the strength I felt in such a seemingly delicate monster.
“Now tell me, which are you?”
Suddenly, I felt a surge of anger fly towards me, into my mind, hitting me like a tsunami fresh from its earth shaken brethren. All of the tragedies this person-- no-- monster had caused me, all of my loved ones it had stolen from me, all of my humanity it had drained from me-- I would stand it no longer. I would survive, live to be the greatest demon her night world had ever seen. I would be at the top, feared by all the rest, grinding her proud name into the soil like the scum it was. If I had to feed like a demon, so be it.
“Hunter,” I whispered in a gravelly voice, twisted by a demented force so cruel that it kicked out any remnants of my old self. She smiled in a malevolent sort of giddiness, proud of her pets’ choice. She didn’t even suspect betrayal.
A gasp left her cold, snake-poisoned lips, a sign of her shock at my next move. Paralyzed with the force of my mental attack, I grabbed her shoulders with all my might and plunged my own fangs into her skin. It was incredible. A new sort of warmth rushed up my cold interior, refreshing my once dead soul. An unnerving sense of power flowed from her bloodstream and into mine, connecting our lives and strength. It reenergized my weary system, giving a kick-start to all my muscles and senses. Like a fire it spread throughout my being, bringing an ancient sort of power that had once been dormant within me alive. Electricity seemed to flow through my veins, her “life” being sucked into me. I felt her struggle, attempting to free herself from my death grip, but I was already too strong, maintaining dominance as if she were nothing but a simple flea.
Her memories began to poor into me-- an endless parade of century old tales. Death, fighting, black-hearted devils, they were terrifying night terrors in which she had prevailed. They were not only hers, but the minds of all she had taken. Bankers, prostitutes, others like herself, she stole her might from others less fortunate and created servants from those she found entertaining. One had suffered through the eruption of a volcano, its ash staining his clothes as he narrowly escaped the burning lava. Another had lived through a time of trench warfare, with its disease and mustard gas killing nearly everyone surrounding him; death was going to be pleasant to his tired soul. And another, just a girl maybe 7 or 8, skipping home with a dolly in her hand. She never had a chance. All of these innocent lives ripped from humanity and planted in hell had suffered in the hands of this woman. And now she was dying in the hands of one of her own creations.
A hand fluttered across my dampened hair, resting on my head. The monster began to speak in a strained voice. I was still feeding; she didn’t have long.
“You are stronger than I thought, maybe the strongest of us all,” she attempted to chuckle but ended in a fit of coughs. “Do not fall to anyone, especially one of your own.”
Her body shuddered and then went still. The last of her blood I drank in sour revenge, satisfied in her death. I let her lifeless body fall to the cold ground below, resting next to what was supposed to be my meal.
I turned to John Doe and knew I would return him later to his own sunny world, back to where he could live in his oblivious bliss. A place I could no longer return to.
Staring at my tainted hands, I thought of my next move. I was strong and intelligent, with a mind nearly 2,000 years old, and enough experience to know what to do next. I would train my new abilities and find a new resolve. I would survive.
Standing up I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror-- my new body. Beautiful black hair feathered my ivory countenance, creating an offset effect similar to that of a raven’s wings. My body was slim and stealthily cut, like a hungry cat on the hunt. What astounded me were my new ocean deep eyes, a color of azure stimulated by the recent commotion. I was lovely. I was perfect. And I hated it.
Turning towards the exit that led to my new blackened life, I knew one thing for certain, my thoughts confirmed-- I was officially a vampire.
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