CHAPTER FOUR
Ailsa
I WAS SWIMMING in a sea of darkness, inky swirls prowling around me, threatening to pull me under. Or maybe they already had.
Maybe this was death.
Had I died?
I must have because I’d never felt this at peace. This euphoric.
The sound of my blood thrummed in my ear. It was like music, ethereal and beautiful.
But it wasn’t my blood.
It was his.
Wait… Where was I?
I was part of the night, it welcomed me, shadowy and calm.
No, no. That couldn’t be right.
I was dreaming.
I had to be.
I looked down at myself, suddenly aware of my bare feet on the cold damp cobblestones and the light breeze of the night making me aware of something damp around my face.
On instinct I went to wipe at it with my hand, only to see it stained dark when I pulled it back. I frantically wiped at my face with my other arm. It too came back stained in crimson.
Blood.
It was blood.
There was blood on my face.
A lot of it.
Why?
I wasn’t sure how, but I knew right away that it wasn’t mine.
This wasn’t a dream.
My hands were shaking as I became aware of my surroundings.
The last thing I remembered was standing in my bathroom and seeing fangs in my reflection.
Fangs.
I quickly ran my tongue over my teeth, but nothing. Everything felt normal and the pain was certainly gone. But, it was replaced with a new type of torture.
My senses were on fire.
Heightened. Unnatural.
My ears were ringing. Sounds penetrated my brain from every direction and I shook my head to rid me of them to no avail. I felt as though I could hear the entire fucking city.
And my eyes. I could see everything, every detail in every shadow I shouldn’t have been able to make out.
I was in an alley a stone's throw away from the bookstore.
I definitely shouldn't have been able to see anything here.
I'd always avoided this alley, particularly in the dark because of how dangerous it appeared.
Then it hit me.
The smell encased me. Filling my nostrils, suffocating me with every breath. There was no mistaking it.
Blood.
That's when I noticed him.
He was on the ground beneath me, a foot or so away. Still.
Deathly still.
I looked towards the lit street and instantly cowered back, blinded by the headlights of a passing car. At that moment, I had flashes of memories.
Memories of that damn insatiable hunger, of me staggering down the narrow flight of stairs. Timothy's face glaring at mine like he'd seen a ghost.
Of him running in fear.
From me.
Of me sinking my teeth into his neck.
Of me drawing his life from him in its entirety.
Him collapsing, lifeless in my arms. I glanced down at my hands again, the evidence of what I’d done staring me in the face. My normally pale skin was unrecognisable in the grotesque cover of human blood. The blood was all around us. His blood.
I froze.
Unable to process, my whole body broke out in uncontrollable shakes.
And then it dawned on me.
No.
No.
No.
I had killed him.
***
I was back in the lake—or was it an ocean… I didn’t know, but it pulled me under. Whispering to me.
Flashes of light.
Cold liquid on my face.
Lacing up boots.
More blinding lights.
Make it stop.
I was swimming in delirium.
***
Somehow, despite the haze of it all, I must have gone back to my apartment to get cleaned up and changed. And came to the realisation that staying anywhere near… near what I’d done wasn’t a good idea. Good to know my sense for self-reservation wasn’t completely gone.
Perhaps a better person would have gone straight to the police station, or at least called them to hand themselves in.
But I wasn’t a better person.
I mean, I didn’t feel good about what I’d done. If I’d even done it at all, I still wasn’t convinced I wasn’t dreaming—despite the tender flesh on my arm where I’d repeatedly nipped at myself.
Even if this was real life, I couldn’t just go to the police. Imagine I’d handed myself in and told them everything, they’d brand me a madwoman and lock me in an asylum.
No, I had to figure this out on my own.
My senses seemed to be calming a little, enough for me to retain control over my mind at least. I’d lost a lot of time tonight, that much was obvious, and I’d rather not lose any more.
I wasn’t sure exactly where I was, only that I’d made my way deeper into the old city, the parts I didn’t normally frequent. The seedy dark corners most people would rather forget about. It was still night, but the streets here weren’t empty.
I scowled as I walked past a dodgy bloke trying to sell me a rose. My feet were doing the thinking for me, taking me God only knew where. The rain from earlier in the night had stopped, leaving everything wet and glistening.
I looked at my warped reflection in a puddle, between debris and dead leaves that had drained into it.
I looked the same.
Yet I knew I wasn’t.
My life was over.
I swallowed hard at the thought of trying to explain this to Claire. Would I even do that? Could I hide it from her? Would she accept me? Or be scared of me? Would she even be safe around me—from me? Would I even be able to return to my apartment?
Fuck my life.
This can’t be happening.
Yet it was.
Vampire.
The word slithered its way into the forefront of my mind, over and over. Digging in deep, like a thorn embedding itself into bruised flesh until it was the only reality left.
It was absurd. Unfathomable.
Vampire.
My fists slammed into my temples as the events of the night kept replaying in my head.
There was so much blood, and I… I could still taste the sweet coppery tang of it. Flashes of my own broken reflection haunted me.
It didn’t make sense, but there was no other way to explain it.
Vampire.
The mere notion of it was bizarre, yet I knew deep in my soul it was true.
Vampires were real and I was one.