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The two scientists stood on both sides of her coffin. To be woken up by humans was something that had never happened to Clothilde: it was always the call of the blood that roused her. The hunger. A forced awakening hurt.
The curtains on the windows were heavy, thick and black. Clothilde had not really seen daylight, only artificial lights, moonlight, and starlight, but the hint of brightness that seeped around edges of the blinds could only be the sun, she realized in shock. The killer was barging into the room.
"Tonight is the evening!" said Danjuma, a dark-haired woman who took a swab of the inside of Clothilde's cheek every evening and then peered at colorful blobs on glass screens. She called that "doing the tests". "The tests show that your genetic modifications are now complete. It's safe for you to go outside at sunset!"
"I'm very scared," Clothilde said.
"The composition of your cells has become such that the rays of the setting sun can do you no harm," said Danjuma, "although I would still not let you out at mid-day. But what's even better, we are sure that the red rays will trigger a nutrition reaction in you, which is what we've been trying to achieve all this time. You will no longer be dependent on blood. So let's go!"
Clothilde didn't have a choice. She had been kept alive only as an experimental subject. The last time she tried to feast on a human, she was shot, and it was only these researchers that saved her from being put down. She was transferred to the lab in the middle of the woods where she could go hunt rabbits and deer and feed on their blood, all the while the researchers experimented with her genes to enable her to receive nutrients not from blood, but from the mere sight of color red - as long as its source was naturally occurring.
Holding her on both sides by her arms, the two researchers led her out of the house. She kept her eyes closed at first, and then, coaxed by the duo, she opened them.
The sky was drenched in crimson; swaths of red stretched above the houses, the trees, the horizon. Just the view of this much red made her feel so full she was about to explode. And the height! The incredible height, rising to infinity. Having seen the sky only at night, she never imagined that there was this much to it, that the height of the world did not end at treetops. She closed her eyes, unable to bear it.
"Keep your eyes open," said Satoru, the other scientist. The three of them were sitting in the folding chairs in an open field by the lab. "You are now feasting through your eyes, remember? This will last about half an hour. Can you endure it?"
She lifted her gaze to the sky again.
"Hold my arms, both of you," she whispered. "Hold me so I won't fly away."
* * *
"I feel sated," she said later, when they were back inside, in the breakroom. "I don't feel any urge to hunt!"
They beamed at her.
"I can't believe I have a whole night to myself! What shall I do with all that time?"
"Perhaps you could start learning to read and write," said Satoru. "Then you'll be able to write your memoirs, all 500 years worth of them! You were there when the kings fell, when the industrial revolution started. Your memory is invaluable to humanity!"
"But first let's go to the lab and do more tests," said Danjuma. "We must check if the state of your cells is the same as when you feed on blood. This will show if you received adequate nutrition."
They got up. She followed, and then suddenly halted. She took a few steps backwards and stopped in front of the mirror she had just passed.
"I saw a movement," she said. "In the mirror."
Currently the glass reflected nothing but the room, like it always did when she looked at it. She walked a few steps left and right.
Danjuma gasped. "I saw a flicker of motion. Like if the air was rippling. I wonder if..."
Clothilde understood.
"... if this is the beginning?" she said. "Right now the mirror only catches my movement. But at some point in the near future it might start reflecting me."
The two scientists traded somber, pained looks, and Clothilde realized they had not foreseen this.
* * *
"Well, what do my cells show?" Clothilde asked when Danjuma finally got up from her desk.
"Your nutrition levels are adequate!" Danjuma said with forced cheerfulness.
"But?..." said Clothilde. She waited a few seconds. "There's something else, Danjuma? Tell me."
The silence continued.
"Give it to me straight," said Clothilde. "Does this have to do with me becoming more like a human? Like the hint of my reflection in the mirror?"
Danjuma sat down and propped her head on her elbows.
"You are becoming more like a human, Clothilde. In ways we did not predict. Your remaining lifespan might approximate that of a human. I'm sorry, Clothilde. I am very sorry."
After a long pause, Clothilde spoke first. "That's alright," she said. "Remember, you gave me back my nights! You gave me more time than I would have ever had."