Chapter Text
The shadowy figure had a name, as it turned out. Richard. Not the name I expected him to tell me. I felt like it was a lie, but I was not going to question him on the matter. The next night, Richard came and talked to me for hours. My memories are going so quickly now, I hardly remember what I was so sad about before. But I remember the sadness. Richard brings little trinkets every night in his pocket, wanting me to guess what he’s brought. I need only to concentrate on what they are to see him putting it in his pocket around sunset.
Today he had brought a candy, which he gave to me once I guessed correctly. “Have you had any new visions lately?” he asked. He always asked this question. I always lied and said no, but today I hesitated.
“Yes,” I said. I kept my eyes trained on the ground. “There’s a man with blonde hair. He’s in a town he sniffs the air and then he runs – he runs so fast, Richard. So impossibly fast. Then he’s here, and he is also trying to kill me.” My eyes flick up to his face. “I don’t know when, but he wants me dead.”
Richard nodded. “I see.”
“I don’t.” I stood from my seated position, barely bringing myself above Richard’s eye level. “Why is it that I am a target? Why did you want to kill me?”
The silence between us was heavy, but I refused to be the one to break it. Richard had stilled so much I feared he died, but finally I see him breathe. “There are beings beyond humans, do you know? I am not talking witchcraft and the silly women peddling themselves as psychics. Something truly other. Creatures who are immortal. Live forever. Feast on human blood.”
I nodded . “I have read Dracula. You don’t expect me to believe vampires exsist, do you?”
“I do, considering you’re speaking to one.” His lips twitched, as if to smile before thinking better of it. “I can hear your heartbeat.” He pats out the beat, each one getting faster as I felt my heart begin to race. “I can hear your breathing, smell your blood. And your blood smells delicious. Since the night you arrived, I wanted to taste it.”
I cursed the question that came from between my lips. “Why didn’t you?”
“Your gift.” His red eyes met mine. “Tell me, if we were to leave, now, would the hunter still find you?”
I shook my head. “I can’t know. I can’t just use my gift at will.”
“Have you tried?”
So I did. I closed my eyes and pressed my mind forward, searching. And found myself and Richard in a forest, and then the hunter upon us.
On a night-covered beach. And the hunter upon us.
On a snow capped mountain.
On a sailboat.
On a train.
Always, the hunter.
“There is no getting away,” I whispered, terror filling my voice. “None.”
“I will find a way to beat him.”
Richard left, picking up the mop he always left outside my door.
He came by every night asking for more visions, more options, until finally I felt the dread of danger. He was getting ready. “He keeps catching us sooner, now,” I tell Richard. “He’s getting closer.”
Richard paced my room, slight twitches of his hands the only signal that he was thinking. Then the stopped directly in front of me. “I have an idea.” He placed his hands on my shoulders and looked me directly in the eyes. “Become a vampire. I will turn you.”
“Richard, I don’t know.”
“See if it works. That’s all I am asking.”
I saw Richard biting me in the next moment, stuffing me away somewhere on the asylum grounds, fighting the hunter.
“He’s coming now.” I look up at him, my heart exploding in my chest. So low I don’t know if he can hear it, I whispered. “Do it.”
The pain came.
I thought the pain of therapy was death, but this was beyond death. This was hell. Fire, pure fire. Everywhere.
Once the pain subsided, I laid perfectly still. It was over. Whatever it was, it was over. Slowly I opened my eyes. The walls were covered in tools. A small unused cook-stove was in a corner. Shovels were pushed into another.
The pain gone, I stood and opened the door to the pitch of night.