From That Day On I Was His

from that day on I was his

Con sonido! 🔈🔉🔊

1. The Monster In Me (WODtober 2023)

Vamptober 2023 begins - or as it's called this year, WODtober! (I prefer Vamptober, but oh well) Using the prompts I'm going to attempt to 'tell a vampire story', as Jason Carl so eloquently puts it on LA by Night! As with last year, I don't really know how it's going to turn out as I'm taking it prompt by prompt, so comments, suggestions and ideas for the final title are welcome! Entries will be collected on my Contents page as the month progresses.

Word Count: 483 words.

CW: Blood. Lots of blood.

Image from @worldofdarkness on Twitter.

Blood.

The taste was heavy in her mouth, coating her tongue, teeth, lips. The scent was all around her, overpowering, intoxicating. Her veins hummed with it, vitality flooding through her in a slow, comforting wave. Her fangs slid out slowly, instinct momentarily overcoming her sated appetite, then retracted to nestle comfortably in her gums. She stirred, stretching luxuriously, and opened her eyes.

Where am I?

Above her was a high ceiling of dull grey tiles. The floor she lay on felt like marble but wasn’t - some cheap imitation. Around her, walls of concrete painted in corporate grey. Floor to ceiling windows letting in the light from the streetlamps outside. A desk, behind which a glowing sign declared it to be ‘Harrogate Enterprises’. All of it, smeared and splattered with crimson.

She looked around her and saw the bodies. Security guards, a few people in business suits. She counted eleven in total. All dead. Some torn apart, others drained of blood, their skin shrivelling and turning grey under the bright fluorescent lights.

Did I do this? 

The question seemed foolish even as she thought it. Their blood was in her mouth, in her veins .. and all over her hands and clothes, she realised as she looked down. In her shirt, directly over her heart, was a neat round hole, the skin beneath it puckered in a scar that was fading away as she watched, healed by the blood. 

Did somebody stake me? 

She looked up and again found her answer. A wooden crate, just big enough for a body to rest in, lay open near the doors, and next to it a long pointed piece of wood, the sharp end bloody. 

But the next question that occurred to her was not so easily answered. 

Who am I? 

She searched for the answer, groping around in her mind, but it was like rummaging around in an empty box. Nails grating over the insides, irritating, coming up with nothing. She grimaced and dug in deeper. 

The slowly swelling wail of sirens didn’t distract her from her thoughts, but the bright strobes of blue spilling through the windows did. She turned her head to look and saw multiple eyes staring in at her. Wide, horrified. Phones raised, camera flashes twinkling. Rough voices shouting at them to stand aside, get out of the way, police coming through.

Her name - of lack of it - forgotten, she let instinct take over. She scrambled to her feet, boots slipping on blood and the slick marble floor, and bolted to the back of the building. Office buildings seemed to all be built the same these days, and she found a fire exit with no trouble, shoving it open and racing out into cold winter rain, ignoring the blare of the alarm she’d triggered. It was way too late to be stealthy - she just needed to get away. As far away as possible.