Calla Redgrove wouldn’t normally walk home alone at night, especially across the old stone bridge. It was needlessly creepy and in the darkness, one could only see the lights at the other end, the middle it was pitch black.

Still, Calla had no choice tonight. Her parents had refused to pick her up, the lack of a loving relationship causing neither side to give way. So, in her black jeans and light blue hoodie, she made her way back home.

The night was quiet and disconcerting. Feeling the need for safety, Calla tucked her brown locks of hair down the collar of her hoodie and popped the hood up over he head. With only her phone for light during the hundred meter stretch, she couldn’t help but take cautious glances with her light blue eyes.

Walking close to the wall that ran along the bridge, her hand slid over the stone to give her a sense of guidance and stability. She walked briskly keeping her eyes trained on the street lights on the other side. They grew as she approached and she was counting the steps in her head to keep her mind occupied and away from the slither of fear she felt.

She didn’t see it as she walked by, but a couple of hands were holding the other side of the stone wall. The person dangling was above the concrete island in the middle of the running water. It happened quicker than she could turn. The person pulled themselves over the wall and descended upon Calla.

She struggled as arms clasped around her, she kicked and screamed to no avail as her hood was pulled down and her hair tugged aside. Calla felt something sink into her neck and her screaming grew. Her reaction to the pain was violent and in her struggling she backed her assailant over the wall and fell with them.

Her eyes rolled back from the pain as the person refused to let go and the pain in her neck intensified. Suddenly the air was knocked out of her and a sickening squelch resounded through the air. Calla felt something sticky cover the side of her face, but the pain that was spreading through her body overwhelmed her. And she gave in to darkness.

When she woke, the first thing she noticed was that it was day time. And a single thought clouded her mind. Danger. The sun was dangerous, or so her mind whispered. The whispers told her to stay put, in the shadows and the darkness.

Calla pushed herself to her feet and grasped at her throat. It burned like it was on fire but the whispers knew what she needed. Blood. She shook the thought away and tried to gather her bearings.

‘Was last night a dream?’ she asked herself in a daze. But she soon did away with that thought when she took in her surroundings. A body lay beside her, its head splattered across the concrete and blood oozing out of its body. But the whispers told her it wasn’t tasty, not satisfactory.

Raising her hand to her face, she felt the dried blood on her neck and face, where it had spurt when they fell.

‘What’s going on?’ she thought to herself calmly. Whatever had happened seemed to dim her emotions of panic and fear as she wasn’t freaking out like she should have been.

Blood. The thought came again as she clutched her throat. But the sun was dangerous, she couldn’t leave. The whispers told her so. There was only one source of blood, and it was the body beside her. It didn’t smell appetising but it would quench her thirst. She licked her lips and, as her tongue ran along the front of her mouth, she felt the pointedness of her fangs. They were slimmer and longer than she remembered.

And then her senses attacked her. All manner of noises, smells and sounds crashed into her and she clutched her head. It seemed like hours, though she knew it was minutes, before she was able to get a hold of herself and the whispers dulled the influx of information.

Tilting her head sideways in thought, her eyebrows raised up as she put together what had happened. A craving for blood, a fear of sunlight, enhanced senses and pointed fangs...she’d become a vampire. So the man on the ground was a vampire too and he’d changed her?

Our Sire. The whispers clarified for her. But he was dead so what did that mean for her?

We drink. Calla knew, she just knew, that she shouldn’t second guess the whispers and instinct took over. She bit into the man’s neck and sucked out all the blood she could, it was a dirty process. When her fangs pierced his flesh she had to stop the pleasure that rose in the pit of her stomach. It was easy to do as the blood that flowed into her tasted putrid and nasty.

She wanted to gag but the whispers told her that she needed to do this to survive. It was day time and walking in the sun would kill her, she needed to sate herself until nightfall. Her Sire’s body began to shrivel and dry as all liquid was sucked out. When she was finished, she threw the body on the concrete and viciously wiped her mouth to get rid of the taste.

She felt a mental shift when she’d drained the man. But the whispers told her she wasn’t done. So she picked up his dried out body, that was now much lighter, and hurled it from out under the bridge and into the sun light. She watched with wide eyed fascination and fear as the body burst into ash and was blown away by the breeze. Leaving only his clothes on the grass.

Freedom. They spoke again. Freedom from what? Calla wasn’t sure, but when she had both drained his body and it was destroyed, she felt as though a great weight was lifted from her. She wasn’t sure what to do now, but she couldn’t move from the island. The sides of the bridge were too far away and the sunlight kept her trapped.

Calla followed her instincts and crouched where she was. It would keep her safe from attackers by minimising her body size and she could lunge forward to attack. The voices told her to wait and bide her time until the sun had gone and then she could move. Then she could hunt.

In the hours that followed, she stayed crouched and unmoving. But her thoughts were moving at a mile a minute. She wasn’t panicking or worried, rather she was scared of how easily she accepted this. And the whispers gave way to darker thoughts that she’d never thought she’d of entertained before.

She wondered what she looked like and pointed her phone’s camera at herself and snapped a shot. Disappointment was the first feeling she had when she saw her ‘new’ self. She looked as she had before, although paler with red eyes and pointed fangs. Calla assumed becoming a vampire would make her beautiful or something, instead she was stuck as the ‘quite pretty’ young woman she was before.

She did notice however, that her physical body had slimmed down a lot and had become more toned. She was like a woman who regularly used the gym, with defined muscles and even a six pack.

‘I wonder how strong I am?’ she thought idly but didn’t move from her protective crouch. ‘I struggled against my Sire and was able to move and fight against him as a normal young woman. So my strength shouldn’t be out of the realms of humanity.’

Other thoughts came to mind as she waited. Were her morals changed or did she just not care what people thought any more. The images in her mind of sinking her teeth into the neck of a tender young girl had her struggling to keep control. She imagined the softness of the flesh and her fangs rending it apart. Sweet red nectar flowing into her mouth and the accompanying screams and cries.

Calla found the idea almost sexual and she let out a hiss as she tried to stomp the images away. She didn’t feel bad but she wouldn’t be able to wait if they went any further.

Her senses had definitely enhanced, that much she could tell. The smoothness of the concrete was actually littered with tiny cracks and dips. To her human eyes it would have been perfect, but to her vampiric self it was not. The sound of the rushing river was beginning to weigh on her mind, but she could minimise it and block it out. But most of all was smell, she needed to get the smell of the other vampire off her. It was disgusting like sewage.

She edged closer to the water and stripped herself of the bloodied hoodie and white vest and threw them into the water. She felt no whispered warnings about the running water so she knew it was safe.

‘That’s one false rumour.’ she thought as she cupped water in her hands and began to wash herself. ‘What about crosses, garlic and holy water.’ She conjured up the images in her mind and the whispers didn’t react to any of them. Except garlic, which had her scrunching her face up in disgust. It was as bad as vampire blood without any of the benefits.

Disgusting. Strength. Grow strong. The voices whispered again as she thought about her earlier meal. Strength? Grow strong? Did drinking from a vampire make one more powerful? Calla’s questions rolled through her mind and she decided she needed to test it if she found another vampire. They would be easy to identify by their terrible smelling blood, she could pick them out of a crowd.

Calla wondered if she was immortal. The ideas of stakes, fire and beheading came to mind as they were the most popular fictional ways of killing a vampire. The whispers hissed in the fear at all three, but Calla could tell the difference in severity.

Fire invoked the greatest response so she knew it meant death. The stake and beheading not so, but the accompanying fear made her weak. The two methods would make her weak and vulnerable, incapacitated and helpless. And she couldn’t contain her own hiss at that thought. She needed to avoid all three things and be strong.

Finally she imagined missing limbs but the whispers didn’t seem to care. Her mind showed her images of arms being drawn back to her or regrowing. What about the heart? If it was detached it could regrow, but if it was in the body it couldn’t, or so the whispers said.

‘That must be why stakes are scary. They leave the heart in the body, so it cannot regrow and would leave me stuck.’

Once she’d finished cleaning herself she realised she’d had no spare clothes. But the sky was darkening now and that meant she would be able to move. To hunt. And to feed.