“You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.” – Neil Gaiman

Blood Drunk

Outside was an unreachable place to the young girl. It wasn’t in reality. Her parents made it seem that way. What they told her was the most horrible thing she ever heard in her brief life. But she saw the animals on their farm, and they seemed harmless to her. Some looked cute, like the rabbits they kept by the back door.

She loved the feeling of her dog’s fur, but she longed to touch a rabbit and pet their funny-looking ears. She gave up on asking her parents to let her go to Outside, as they always sent her to her room for the rest of the day. There used to be others that told her of Outside, like her grandpa and her cousin, but they were gone now. She just woke up one day, and they were gone. Her parents didn’t seem phased. She learned from her grandpa that she used to have an older brother, but he was gone before she was born. She asked her parents about him a few times. They would always reply with “He was a good boy.” and not say anything else. She was always full of energy, but her parents were too old to play with her now.

As the years went by, she still never got to go to Outside. She only got to look through the dark windows. Even then, it didn’t satisfy her. She wanted to feel something other than wood under her feet, the cold from the air conditioner, and the smell from the fragrance her mother liked to spray. When she turned seven, she felt a dryness in her stomach. It started out as a minor annoyance she didn’t pay much mind too, but over the course of a month it turned into her only feeling. When her dog walked into her room, an intoxicating smell entered her nostrils. She turned her room upside down, searching for the source. Then she found it, her dog. He had a cut on him, most likely from the nails on the staircase. She pushed her dog down with a surprising amount of force, overpowering him. She put her nose to the cut, wanting as much of the smell as she could. God, how she loved it, almost like it was a sweet. Her nose opened the wound, and a little blood dripped into her mouth. She doesn’t remember this. She licked at the wound like an infant sucking milk from their mother’s breast. She sucked and sucked until it bled no more. It wasn’t enough. She took her small hands and tore the flesh of the dog from its body. She licked at every sliver of blood she saw. By this point, the dog was whining as loud as he could and flailing with all its might under the girl’s grasp. The girl was too focused on the blood, she didn’t notice her mother standing in the doorway, horrified at the sight before her. She wanted to stop her daughter, but knew if she did, she would attack her, and she wanted to avoid hurting her. After the girl drank all the blood that hadn’t dripped to the floorboards, and the dog showed no signs of life, she fell asleep. Now, the thirst was gone.

She was fine until the next day at noon. She needed another dose. Despite their wanting to protest, her parents knew that they had to give her some blood. They gave her a rabbit from Outside. When her father laid it in her arms, she forgot all her desire to feel a rabbit’s fur and tore its stomach open with her hands. Blood poured at the wood beneath her. She tried her best to save every drop she could, but at the end, her father gave her a bowl to preserve the blood. Her parents started pre-killing the rabbits and putting their blood in a bowl, letting their daughter drank from it. But she didn’t like it. She thought it tasted better fresh from the source, so her father showed her a trick. He cut the throat from a rabbit and held it over his mouth, showing her how to drink properly. She preferred this to any other method they showed her. It came to the point where one rabbit wasn’t enough. She needed at least five. Her parents said no, but relented when she started shaking violently if she didn’t get enough.

One day, the girl was laying in her bed, board out of her mind. She was getting impatient for her next dose of blood. She got the idea to try her own blood, but it tasted awful. It was nowhere near the sweet iron of animals. The smell of blood hit her nose. It wasn’t time for her rabbits, so she didn’t know what it was. She looked at the Outside. A man was delivering a package. She enhanced her vision and saw the bandage on his finger. He then turned around to leave. No. She wouldn’t let him. She needed something bigger than a rabbit. She ran downstairs and saw her mother at the front door, signing a paper. She pushed past her mother and ran out the door. It was the first time she felt sunlight and smelt smoke.

When she came to the next day, and she was in her bed with bandages covering the entirety of her body. She had a taste of blood on her tongue with a hint of iron. She stood, and her body cried out for her to lay back down. But her mind told her otherwise. She didn't feel the need for blood, but rather to move around. She looked outside and saw the moon. It was beautiful, more so than usual. She made her way downstairs and saw her mother asleep on the couch with a dead rabbit in her hand. She assumed it was the rabbit's blood that was smeared on her mother's face. She timidly made her way to the front door. It wasn't locked, and she didn't feel the heat she did the previous day. She walked to Outside and felt the grass for the first time. It felt wonderfully cold on her burned feet. She smelt blood. She followed the scent over to the barn. A feast awaited her. Her parents found all the animals, including some rats, dead the next day, and their daughter was gone.

The young girl made her way to the city. It didn't take long for her to find. She found that she had much more speed than the animals. She knew she couldn't let the sunlight touch her skin. She hid on top of a building with a shade she could hide under. She didn't feel tired, which boggled her mind. She kind of missed the sleep. Never again did she have pleasant dreams, or any dreams for that matter. It took all her willpower to not come out of the shade and suck the blood of the humans that emitted the smell. But that night, she let her lust for blood take her. She lost count of how many humans she sucked blood from. In the middle of the night, she had to discard all of her clothing, as she had grown too big for them. Now, she towered over most humans. The few who saw her and lived looked horrified at her figure, covered in blood. This continued for night after night. She could feel herself getting faster and stronger. Her eyesight was beyond anything she thought possible. Her strength was stronger than that of an oncoming car. She could climb to the top of buildings without a latter or staircase. And wings started growing their way out from the flesh of her back.

She stood at the edge of the building, looking down at all the humans looking up at her. They knew she couldn't beat her now, as they tried so many times before. They looked at her now as if she were a god.