Path of the Vampire forum

I remember a time when I used to have family, maybe 10 years ago. They took care of me and made sure I felt comfortable all my life due to my sickness. My curse. Cancer. I hated the way people pitied me, looked at me with those sad eyes. Thinking back now, I think I felt angry at the time. Wanted to hide away in a dark corner where no one would ever find me; feeling that and knowing I would die soon made me wish for death all the more. Everything would just wink out of existence, and it would be like I was never born. Yes, everyone would cry and feel sorry for my family, but I wouldn't be there to know. It'd be their problem then. Except I didn't really want to die. All I wanted was for them to look at me and treat me like a human being, not some tainted burden they'll have to pay for for the rest of their lives. Then I overheard my mother. Or maybe I dreamt it. Didn't matter though, because it hurt just as much if it were my own imagination telling it to my face: my own mother felt relief and solace that she had another baby that wasn't broken. That didn't have some vile, alien growth inside them. I wanted to scream at them, all of them, but by that time I had no voice left to use. My only spoken word was "Beep. Beep. Beep."

I lay awake every night staring at the ceiling, tears streaming down my face as I thought about how unfair the world had been to me. But why? The world owed me nothing. Life spits you out into a desperate, stinking cesspool with nothing more than the hand you're dealt. Sometimes you got the Joker. Sometimes the Ace of Death. Sometimes a King. And hey, sometimes you get cancer, and as a bonus, the doctors get to pump poison into your veins. Never enough to kill you, though, but just enough to make you sick as a dog. After a while my mother visited me less and less. Dad said she couldn't handle seeing me like this. Couldn't handle it? Couldn't handle it?! Try living it! That's what I wanted to say to him. But it wasn't his fault. Dad came to see me every day, but as time went on...as my time ran short, he saw me every other day. Then every three days. Then only on weekends. The one person I clung to and depended on could no longer watch his little girl die slowly. Painfully. By that time there was nothing more the doctors could do. My chemo treatments stopped, and there I was, eaten alive by the very medication that was suppose to cure me. After all that time, all that suffering, cancer won.

And then I saw her.

She had an ethereal quality about her, with skin like milk and eyes as black as the shadows that surrounded her. I couldn't see her face at first, but I realize soon after that she had no real face to speak of; no nose, no mouth, and just the barest sense of cheekbones. I wondered if God forgot to finish making her. Then she spoke to me in the most haunting voice I had ever heard.

"You are going to die soon," she said. I nodded.

"Are you afraid?" I nodded again. "Don't be. It doesn't have to end this way."

I must have been fifteen or sixteen at the time, and though I considered myself naive in retrospect, I knew that woman could not be trusted under any circumstance. I knew that if I asked her to leave - no, told her to leave, she would go away and never return. But I was so afraid, felt so cheated out of life that I could not resist hearing what else she had to say. What could a few more minutes hurt if I had were to die. The strange woman's lipless face continued to speak, and with each passing word, my heart felt fainter and weaker.

"Almost time now," she whispered. Even in the dark I could see the edges of my vision grow blacker. My consciousness ready to be snuffed out forever; I panicked and tried to push the emergency button, but my hands did not work. Meanwhile, the woman in the room just watched.

"H...help me," I breathed.

"I will. But first you have to give me something, my dearest."

"A...anything! Please...!"

Her hand pressed against my forehead, and the invading black consuming my vision vanished; I could see as clear as day, even without lights. "Then I will give you a price. Look over here." A slender digit lifted toward the corner, toward my sleeping family. Mom, dad, and my baby sister, all huddled together on a hospital bed and chair with blankets all around them. "I want them."

"What?" My heart nearly stopped, but from the rapid beeping of the heart monitor beside my head, I knew fear gripped me once more. This woman...this monster wanted my family? My first reaction was to scream NO, but that fear, that lingering instinct to cling to life made me stumble and stutter over my words.

"It's not so uncommon. One life for another."

"You're asking for three!"

"Then how about just this one?" The woman's hand touched the soft brown curls of my baby sister's head. Just a month old and as beautiful as any baby could be. "She has barely lived at all, so it's not like her death will mean anything. They could always make another one to replace her. Just like this one replaced you."

"But she's still my sister," I whispered. Guilt wracked my chest, because I considered her proposal for just a split second; that was all it took.

"Barely that at all."

The woman was right. Only a month old, and I have hardly ever seen this..."sister" of mine. I never even had a chance to hold her in my arms like a proper older sibling because my mother was too afraid I'd drop her or hurt her with my frail, bony arms. "Barely that at all," I heard myself say in reply.

"What's her name?" the woman asked.

Then I looked at the baby. My mother's baby. My sister. "Qwynlyn."

"What a beautiful name for a beautiful child. What say you? Accept and live, deny and die. The decision is yours, child. And choose very carefully, because-"

"Take her."

I felt her smile, saw her nod. "I accept."

******

Do I feel regret for what I've done? For the decision I made that night? Sometimes. I remembered everything by the age of 10. My mother and father would have lost a daughter one way or another; I got to choose which one lived and which one died. I chose myself.

***** Present and Third (Person)

Daylight never came quickly enough in this city. Every day when the sun went down, the shadows crept out to find her, to twist her mind and rob her of sleep and dreams. The night terrors started just a few days ago, right after her twenty-first birthday; she could never remember a thing, but the fear lingered for hours. The cold sweat didn't help much either. It made her feel dead, and the only thing that reminded her she wasn't was her own heart trying to beat its way out of her chest. Qwyn turned to look at the clock - 4:00AM, hours before the dawn broke. "Great," she muttered to herself. She pulled the covers back over her shoulders; they probably found their way twisted around her leg from another violent thrashing episode. There would be no more sleep tonight.

Three days later Qwyn's night terrors grew worse. More and more she found herself at the foot of her bed, fingernails raw and broken from where she tried to dig through the hard wood floors of her apartment. One time she found a splinter the length of a sewing needle pushed underneath her index fingernail. She spent several hours waiting for the pain and the bleeding to stop. It still oozed lymph fluid now and again. Two days after that her downstairs neighbor came up to complain to Qwyn about the noises at night - the thumping, the crashing, and more and more often, the screaming. She explained about her night terrors, but the man didn't seem to care. A month passed, and the lack of sleep cost her her job at the local supermarket, and soon after that, her landlord evicted her. That's when the shadows came for her.

Deep in the darkest recesses of her mind, Qwyn always knew they were there, watching and waiting for a sign of weakness. Ignoring them used to make them go away, but they became bolder, more insistent, coming out even when she was looking. But they stayed away when others were around, so naturally Qwyn sought out public places to spend each night. When she couldn't, she stayed underneath the brightest lamp post she could find like she did tonight. The shadows liked it when that happened. They spilled out the cracks and corners like blood, thick and black and glistening, then streamed toward her slowly, like they had all the time in the world. And she sat paralyzed with fear, helpless as they crawled all over her, forcing their through her skin and into her veins. Qwyn choked out a sharp, pitched sound, barely able to form the word "No!" She felt pain on her arms, digging and piercing, and it was only after blood was drawn that she realized they were caused by her own fingers. Qwyn wanted the shadows out, even if she had to dig them out herself. Her uncurled her arms from her body and lifted trembling hands toward her face.

"Get out," she whispered hoarsely. She dug her fingers into her forehead and temple, pushing harder and harder until she felt something give; she felt something hot and warm and soft as her scalp collapsed underneath her own grip like a handful of wet crisps. "GET OUT!!!"

Qwyn screamed as she clawed desperately at her own face, at the destruction she had brought upon herself. But nothing. No damage. Her skull remained intact, and her body, though aching at the arms and temple, suffered no wounds or injury. Above her the street lamp flickered, then shut with an audible click and hum. Still whimpering and crying, Qwyn felt the barest sliver of relief when she saw the first rays of sun peek over the horizon.

Qwyn considered calling her parents on several occasions, but the nagging guilt of destroying their perfect image of her kept her from doing so. That, and a dead cell battery on top of empty pockets. Most of the payphones didn't work anyway due to disuse. The little money she managed to get her hands from came from pilfering out of tip jars, and when the situation became desperate enough, panhandling on a train or sidewalk. Today turned out to be one of those situations. Qwyn used an oil-stained pizza box for a sign, and for letters, large letters cut out of discarded magazines and fastened with a glue stick she stole from a supply store. It had the look of a ransom letter, but all she hoped for was the attention, that a little effort went into the plea for help. Passersby often enjoyed a bit of creativity from the homeless. Her sign read:

H_LP! DONAT_ MON_Y FOR LAST VOW_L TO FINISH SIGN"

It got her a chuckle or two and a few cents every hour, but not nearly enough to get her a hot meal for the night. Qwyn's stomach growled in protest. She could already feel a twisting pain in her side and a headache from the lack of blood sugar. With the sun quickly sinking behind the buildings, she folded up her sign and got ready to find shelter for the night. Then a stack of $20 bills landed at her feet. Qwyn dove for it out of reflex and caught someone's hand instead. The mystery woman's skin felt cold, despite the warm summer night; she hopped back with a yelp.

"Take it," the woman said softly.

Qwyn didn't even look up; her eyes stayed trained on the folded stack of bills. Without saying anything, she snatched the money from the woman's hand and ran off. She wanted to say thank you, to express her gratitude, but in that moment, she just panicked. If she ever found that woman again, she will find some way to repay her.