We were both startled. Shawn furrowed his brow in confusion, but my eyes widened in alarm. I barreled past him and threw open the door.

There was a conflict between two very different women. A wiry-framed girl with long, jet black hair was clinging to a heavy-set woman with spiked, bleach blonde hair. The former had her teeth sunk into the latter’s neck. Splotches of blood marred the otherwise pristine white carpet around them. A man near the struggle was held in place by shock, fear, and confusion, but his arms were outstretched with desperation. Through deductive reasoning, I surmised that the two women were the mother and daughter of the Hasbrook family. The man, the father.

I sprinted across the room and sprang off the back of a leather couch like a professional wrestler jumping from the top rope. I connected with the mismatched pair, causing the woman, the girl, and I to sprawl out on the floor. Cara, the daughter, scrambled to her feet. She was wearing a gray sweatshirt and faded pajama pants with little ice cream cones on them. They were both stained red. Her white, soulless eyes scoured the room. I reoriented and reached out as she prepared to lunge back toward the blood fountain next to us. My arm curled around her neck, but my momentum sent us careening into the foot of a hospital bed. The sudden appearance of fuzzy black walls threatening to collapse the tunnel of my consciousness indicated my head was the primary point of impact.

Thankfully, I maintained my grip, otherwise a bump on the head would have been the least of my worries. Her arms extended toward her parents like a baby crying to be held, except she was hissing like a vampire. Red droplets sprayed from her mouth, further corroborating the comparison. She had been trying to drain the life from her mother who was now frantically trying to stop from bleeding out.

I tightened my grip around Cara’s neck and grabbed her forehead with my other hand. My priority was keeping her teeth away from me. I wasn’t interested in becoming the second course. She squirmed and flailed wildly, her arms still reaching out. I tried to wrap my legs around hers to prevent her from bucking, but a wild kick near my nether region almost ended our wrestling match entirely. I tried dragging her toward the wall behind us, but she was inhumanly strong. I wasn’t equipped to deal this.

There wasn’t much practical experience that I could fall back on to handle this sort of emergency. I had only been told about it during my training and my other experiences in battle were under much different conditions. That’s why I took my time bringing someone back to life. I’d much rather be healing than monster-slaying. What I remembered from my lessons though, in her current state, Cara was just a husk. She didn’t have thoughts, she wouldn’t feel pain, and her strength would far exceed a normal person because she was constantly burning all her energy. To stop her, the space housing her soul would either need to be filled completely or drained entirely.

My grip was getting tenuous, but with a deep breath I calmed to venture a look around the room, it appeared to be a combined dining and living room. The dining room held the hospital bed that love-tapped my head; Cara must have been confined to it as her health deteriorated. Beyond her parents that created a threshold between the two rooms, there were two other people cowering behind the couch I’d overturned; they must be the aunts that Shawn had mentioned. Framed between their hiding place and another couch, a fireplace displayed decorative bird plates on the mantle. I immediately hated those plates.

The plates reminded me of the sort of day I was having. It was the kind of day where a bird might poop on your shoulder. Nothing was going right, and I expected something like that to happen in addition to everything else. It would be the straw that broke the camel’s back and subsequently caused its death.

I caught another glimpse of the terrified face mouthing wordlessly at the ceiling, blood seeping into the fibers beneath her. She was out for the count. A what-do-I-do gesture was being expressed by her frozen husband standing over her. Him and the two cowering women, hidden by leather upholstery, seemed more like audience members that anyone to be relied on. Near the door, Shawn also appeared to be frozen, but with fear, or awe, at the undead teenager I grappled with. He seemed like the only viable tag-team partner available. Death help me.

Shawn was inexperienced, but at least he had some training. He’d need to help Mrs. Hasbrook while I kept our opponent busy. I wanted him to evacuate the arena, I didn’t want any more audience members getting injured, but first, we had to help the one that was dying. Wouldn’t want our franchise getting sued.

I shouted at my unwanted apprentice, “Shawn, put pressure on that lady’s wound.” The shocked expression barely left his face. “Move or she’ll die!” I nodded toward Mrs. Hasbrook. Motion entered his body. As if crossing a plush white and red ocean in a rowboat, he made his way over to her.

He knelt on the blood-stained carpet, his hands shaking as he descended. The woman’s frantic eyes softened as he pressed his palms against the wound. I tried to offer encouragement and direct him, “Good! Now push your energy into her neck and it should close by itself.” The look he gave me, however, made me realize a major flaw in my plan. Even though Mrs. Hasbrook was bleeding blood, he was still afraid of bleeding light. All the times he passed out, before finally grasping my lessons, had given him a complex. I tried to reassure him: “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.” But he didn’t look very reassured. I may as well have been shouting, “Don’t think of a pink elephant.”

I was going to continue with something a little more convincing, but Cara rewarded my lapse in focus with an elbow to the stomach. I gasped, and she pulled free. I still managed to hook my foot around one of her ankles before she advanced. She toppled over, and my feet were under me before she could gather herself again. That didn’t matter, however, because air refused to enter my lungs. From a feral crouch, she bolted toward Shawn. As a result, he removed his hands from Mrs. Hasbrook and turned, scrambling toward the couches. Cara’s grasping, undead fingers grazed the back of his head, but I tackled those fingers, and the body attached, before they could take hold of his luscious locks. Cara and I clambered through the mess of blood coating the floor.

I rolled to my feet as quickly as I could, and dismay set in when I saw the terror in my pupil’s eyes across the room. His visage reminded me of a little boy’s, shaking his head, unable to comprehend the existence of a monster actually creeping out of the closet. He couldn’t keep it together; his base instincts took over. His choice between fight or flight was obvious.

It was the last straw that killed the camel. Stupid bird plates; this whole situation was watery bird excrement. I didn’t want to touch it and it was going to be a mess to clean up. What’s more, Shawn was the idiot bird that dropped it on me. My brain had to work double-time.

I needed a new plan, so I listed my options: I could just leave. Everyone could fend for themselves, and I wouldn’t have to clean up Shawn’s poop. They would all most likely die, but it would look like some psycho attacked the family. It sounded appealing, but Detective Got-Nothing-Better-To-Do-Except-Arrest-Me would probably detain me anyway; not sure why his mother named him that. I could use Shawn as bait, heal the woman, then try to fix the girl, but Shawn would probably still die and not buy me very much time. I could use the family as bait, save the woman, fix the girl, then heal the family, but I wouldn’t have enough energy to do all that. There was only one option that I could think of to save everyone and keep me out of prison, but future me would suffer the consequences.

Cara was already moving back toward the group. I diverted as much energy from my soul as I could, then circulated it throughout my body. The feeling of being smarter, stronger, and faster set in. The effects were surreal. My brain processed information like a computer. Cara’s desperate lunge looked like she was moving in slow-motion. Colors became so vivid I could spend my entire life staring at them. My body twitched with an eagerness to act. I had to end this quickly or my life would be forfeit.

I fell into a sprinter’s stance. From that position, the burst of speed I used to propel myself cracked the floor beneath the carpet. I hurdled over the girl’s lustrous black hair. My hand gripped her wrist mid-somersault and using the momentum, I flung her across the room. She spun over everyone’s heads and slammed into the wall between two windows that looked out to the street. The resounding crack of the drywall and studs was the gunshot signaling the start of the next race.

Before anyone could turn to look at where Cara had gone, I was already moving. I slid into the bloody pool and applied pressure to Mrs. Hasbrook’s wound. My clothes were starting to look like I had gone to my first interview then slaughtered the hiring manager. Maybe I could force Shawn to pay for dry-cleaning.

Injecting energy into Mrs. Hasbrook’s neck further taxed my system. She had been very close to dying. Life flowed out of me like water from a hose. My enhanced senses dulled, but I was able to stop the bleeding. Cara had also torn a piece out of Mrs. Hasbrook’s soul, so I poured energy into that as well. Her natural functions would be able take over and heal any collateral damage, so I mended the hole in her soul ending the procedure. The expenditure from the operation gave me a nagging hunger. The decision to skip breakfast had been a huge mistake.

Mrs. Hasbrook’s healing had taken longer than I realized. When I redirected my attention, Cara was no longer art hanging from the wall. A scream came from beyond the overturned couch. I vaulted over it. Cara was crawling on the ground holding onto one of the aunt’s legs. The aunt’s other leg was kicking her in the head. Mr. Hasbrook was trying to pull them apart, but he wasn’t strong enough. Neither my tag-team partner nor the last audience member offered any assistance. One was peeking at the scene from behind the upright couch, while the other was curled up in the corner pressing himself into the walls like they would wrap around him for protection.

Sailing over the struggle, I ricocheted off the couch that had been shielding the cowardly aunt, the result caused it to buckle. The redirection of my trajectory allowed me to crash into Cara extricating both Mr. Hasbrook and his sister, or sister-in-law. During my tussle with the monstrous teenager, she grabbed my arm and broke one of the unwritten rules of the ring. She bit me.

It wasn’t the pain of being bitten that bothered me; it was the troubling sensation that appeared along with it. She was draining my energy and it was dwindling fast. I had it circulating out of my soul space, so it was much more accessible. The gnawing hunger from healing Mrs. Hasbrook was replaced with the sense of starvation and nausea. Shawn was going to pay for getting me killed.

Similar to how it had for Shawn, dying was what awakened my power. It was painful and confusing, but it’s also how I met Al, my teacher, who helped me through it. There was still some unfinished business from back then and I procrastinated dealing with it. Maybe it was time I changed that; death was going to have to wait.

I pulled as much energy away from what Cara was trying to take and used it to punch her in the forehead. Her jaw released, but she had gotten a boost from draining me. She tried to bite down again, but I grabbed the front of her sweatshirt and slammed her into the floor creating another divot. I then dragged her over to the fireplace and threw her inside. Using the last of my strength, I heaved the bricks inward, crushing her. It wouldn’t hold her for long, but I needed a refill, and I knew the perfect reservoir to draw from.

I half charged; half stumbled toward Shawn. My whole body hurt as I fell toward him. As soon as my hand contacted his leg, I clutched it. My mind reached out to his and my consciousness crashed through the barrier of his soul. Time slowed further and I descended into a world of nightmares.