I waited still as could be until the pointless arguing ended and they moved on back towards the lobby, finally letting myself slide down the door as tears slid down my face. They were cold, even in comparison to my skin. There was no acceptance on my part, just an inability to deny.

My skin was pale and as cold as snow. My tongue could feel the sharpened points detracted and resting where my chipped canines should’ve been. My eyes could see the black claws placed where my fingernails once were. My ear, capable of perceiving things they shouldn’t have like the passing foots steps of someone overweight or muscular a floor or two down, yet they remained stuck like glue on the slow, methodical beating heart that would not suffice for a living human.

This was no lie, no matter how much I wanted it to be. These dead black stone walls offered only the promise of blooming despair. A place filled with monsters, same as I.

I get what Lady Rez meant. The exit being open wouldn't change the fact that I can't escape this. Pity there are no doors that lead back to humanity.

Both sarcasm and cynicism were my only reliefs from the pain burrowing through my soul. They were the same coping mechanisms I’d used when I was… human, and they helped to remind me of the fact that I was still the same thing, monster or person. I’d allow myself to be as bitter as I wanted if it would halt this sinking feeling from swallowing me whole. Though I knew it would do me wrong, the question of how or why this happened plagued my mind sitting against the wooden door, my head propped on a hinge.

The how was the easiest to deal with because I knew for certain that I had a memory of it and that just like the knowledge of Vampires it was hidden, taken from me by some force out of my control. Maybe my sire, as Vanngrash called it. The person who had done this to me. Like the bitter emotions, I was able to get some calm in the human-like rage I felt just thinking about who could’ve done this.

Father had always preached to be the better man, regardless of the crimes committed.

So when I found this person, I knew I’d only have the resolve to TEAR THEM IN TWO.

Yes, just thinking about that brought me some peace of mind. As for the why, well I just attributed that to my horrid luck. To call me cursed in my opinion was an enormous understatement. There was a streak of bad things that had occurred over and over enough times to see it as less of a coincidence and more of a pattern that I always received the short end of the stick.

“I always thought I was okay with that, so why do I feel so… spiteful,” I whispered to myself, hoping no one would hear.

The reason mattered little, the fact that this had been done was all my conscience needed for the thoughts of unfairness to fester.

No, I shouldn’t think like that, glass half full, right?

Asking myself to look at things from a lighter perspective was very apparently an abnormal thing, even to me. Then again, I struggled to rebuke that there were no silver linings to this otherwise depressing situation.

I could stand again, walk like I hadn’t in months and run like I had dreamed of for years. My sickness no longer had any apparent hold on me, something I had wished for years on end.

No longer would I be a nuisance and embarrassment to my family either, since I was likely thought dead, set free from the burden I was. The recollections of how my father would be constantly insulted and measured by his “betters'' for my existence in spite of his years of service to the crown. Reminders of how those fat pigs had demeaned both my sibling achievements as compensation, making their effort seem like nothing more than a desperate attempt to hide the failure trapped in his bedroom. The spineless oafs lacked the courage to say it to my father, who could skin them alive, but they had no quarrel mercilessly berating children and then teenagers for things they couldn't control. My blood boiled to steam just thinking about all those nobles.

“Ow,” I spoke out of response to the growing pain in my left palm.

When I loosened the grip I could see how I’d buried my new claws into the bare flesh so deep they almost came out the other side. The pain stung, but it didn’t hurt nearly enough for such a ghastly wound.

Has my tolerance to pain gone up?

I wondered, unsure if it was a stacking mental fortitude in this dire situation or the adverse effects of becoming what I had. My mind was becoming tangled again so I moved on from the last strands of thoughts and instead chose to circumvent the crushing weight of reality under the distraction my room offered.

Let’s see… well this is unquestionably more enticing than the sanctuary.

From my estimations, the room was around five metres in width and eight metres in length, leading to a home that was somehow cozy but not constrained. It had a bed of fairly decent furnish with a canopy and deep green sheets sitting opposite the door, allowing one to just jump in after arriving at their room if they so wished. Fun.

A standing cupboard for my non-existent belongings was to the right of the door and a desk to the left with a dresser further down. They were all constructed rather well in my honest opinion, made from polished dark brown wood that resembled somewhat the tree’s father had spoken of, during his time in the southern side of Pora, the kingdom I called home.

There was also a small mirror on the desk perched in a silver holding like my sister would use to check and fix up her appearance and a bookshelf filled with so many spines I had to question how rich these things were. Even my mother didn’t own that many books and she was downright fanatical about literature. Frankly, it was a little off putting at times.

My body ached for some reason, filled with a nagging to relieve it somehow, but I didn’t care. Fuzzy as it was my mind pushed me up and towards the bookshelf, something that felt more familiar than anything else I’d come across so far. Fear that hadn’t left since the moment I woke started to fade, drifting my hands over the rugged or soft spines of so many wondrous things.

The heaviness pervading my every move took its course but not before I grabbed a book with a thin black covered, titled in strange almost cursive words “The five steps to perfect domination”. With my back firmly against the green sheets, still fully clothed, my last thoughts were not of the magical or political wonders I had imagined but rather descriptions and manuscripts of acts that made my mind light and my cheeks warm. At the very least it had calmed me down somehow, descriptive and downright criminal as it was.

Ahh… the hypocrisy… of it... zzzz.

*********

Cold sweat dripped down my back and my eyes narrowed like a cat’s as I felt a terrible aching sensation taking hold over all of my body. In short, it felt like something was eating me alive. I was hungry, no I was starving. Food. Must. Find. Food.

But there was none around me, not a single morsel insight. I sniffed trying to source some, but again I found nothing. My sight was either gone or I could no longer use it, both cases attempting to stop my overall goal. Food, I needed it. Something to stuff within this stomach that made me suffer so.

Food.

Food.

Food.

Huh?

In aching on some soft surface I finally smelled it, I finally heard it, I finally felt it. Food, coming towards me. Oh, thank the god’s they had smiled upon me. Closer, closer closer. I moved even though my body felt like a thousand needles were stuck through it, just to meet the food.

My head was buzzing like insects on a humid summer day, burning a hole in my train of thought. Ignore it, need food. Food is coming. Good. Great. Spectacular.

My strength was all but gone so I was forced into a crawl, wrenching myself towards where the lovely smell was coming from. Closer, better. An accursed ringing resounded as something akin to wood slid against metal chains and something cracked open.

“Kole, tell Lady Rez that the stray’s state has deteriorated beyond expectation since yesterday’s dawn.”

A rough voice smelling of rot spoke to another creature that shared his putrid stench. Disgusting. Chains were dragged near me as I heard the scraping of metal against the ground and finally I felt it, food. It is close, so close.

I can feel my choking voice calling out to it.

It was red, no, pink. Peculiar that I could tell such things even though I lacked sight. That mattered not. Using my weakened hands I embedded pointy claws into the ground, using them to pull myself forward and reach my food before someone could take it, or the silly thing could escape.

A beating sound like a drum resounds from deep within, huh? I had thought it was an apple, a pink juicy apple. Perhaps apples have drums inside them now? As long as I got my food the little details mattered not.

My hands finally found their way onto its skin, tender smooth and ripe. Easy to breakthrough. I could feel a sort of stitched rag around it, that went out the window with one rip from my excited hands. Oh, this apple will be great. I could literally feel it anxiously awaiting and squirming in my grasps, trying to entice me further to devour it whole.

I obliged, feeling my up jaw spasm as two sharp fangs fall into place. Perfect, I don’t even need a knife.

My teeth bared down on it and finally, I was given my moment of bliss, as those two porcelain points dig beneath the flesh and into the tender juice beneath. It tasted like, no, exactly the same as the apple pastries my mother made during the winter to warm my belly and fight off the cold. Tasy, sweet, ripe, sour. metallic?

The skin began to squire even more but my grip held tighter. The apple was even bigger than I but I had managed to get in a position where its movement did little to help. Such a funny apple, able to move and attempt escape, maybe it was magic?

“P-pl...ea...sss..ee… st..o...p”

Oh? So it could talk too. Undeniably this apple was an interesting one.

The taste only grew stronger and more bountiful as I went from taking sips to gulps of its fruitful inner sirup. God this was wonderful. Somehow it was beginning to taste even better than my mother’s pastries, a feat I thought not possible. Whoever raised this apple and harvested it deserved a raise.

Scratch that, they deserved a double in pay.

In one last fruitless attempt, hehe... fruitless, the apple tried to attack me, swinging its flimsy little apple limbs at me. hehe, Stupid apple. I caught the attacks with ease and accordingly as punishment I beat the side of its little apple face into the black ground. One crack, two crack, three crack. So many cracks like the snapping of twigs, added to the symphony of food time fun!

God that was funny, I could hear myself manically laughing. It was muffled and gagged through the large gulps of apple juice I took but who cared. It’s not like apples could feel things.

“...By the Fall have you ever seen anything like this Jaye?”

“Never in a Fangless, but that thing still has skin so it couldn’t be that far gone yet.”

“I think I might be sick.”

“There's a- oh come on, not my boots man! you could’ve aimed for the tile!"

The smell of juice leaking from the other surfaces of its skin that’d I tore open in my joy irked me slightly but there was enough inside still for me to be content.

I drank, enjoying and savouring every gulp of this wonderful… indescribable… addictive…

...huh?

My eyes finally snapped open, encrusted under what I wanted to say was sleep dust but most likely was not, finally able to see the sweet, pink little… neck.