𝕄𝕪 𝔸𝕟𝕘𝕖𝕝// 𝔹𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕒 𝕊𝕨𝕒𝕟 𝕩 ℂ𝕒𝕦𝕚𝕤 𝕍𝕠𝕝𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕚

My Angel: Chapter 1

I cannot pull myself any farther. This cave will be my refuge until my body can repair itself, or until something or someone else finds me. The pain is excruciating. It comes close to rivaling the burn of venom during the change from human to vampire.

My only consolation at this moment is that I slaughtered every single one of those abominations. They were the last in our area, spreading their disease and madness. The deranged beasts unfortunately mangled me quite thoroughly before my task was complete. My regeneration would progress more quickly if I had a fresh supply of blood to flush their poison from my system. Given my current location-an isolated cave, and situation-motion impaired, I will be residing here with only my thoughts for company for the foreseeable future. Fabulous.

I think I will soon expire of boredom. I have cataloged every surface of this infernal cave, identified all the local wildlife I can hear outside of said cave. How long is my body going to take to heal? I wish I could lift my head or even twist my neck enough to assess the damage those beasts inflicted. I know it is severe. I've never taken this long to heal before, and I am becoming concerned. It is not normal for one of my kind to be rendered helpless and if I were discovered by some, in this situation, my existence would be ended swiftly and with a smile.

A week. It has been seven days and I have not improved enough to even lift my still partially severed arms. I have reached the conclusion that I do not have enough blood in my system to sustain healing, let along combat the werewolf poison left behind in the multitude of gaping wounds. How long will I rot in this dank cave? Surely I've not been missed yet, no one would consider an absence of a week odd for me while hunting those beasts. I have been known to take much longer.

A new sound has reached my ears. Footsteps are approaching. Will this mystery visitor mean my salvation, or my destruction? I groan internally. The visitor has a heartbeat. This is even worse. It could mean the exposure of our world. That this potential exposure could be my fault is highly ironic. But, try as I might, I can not make my limbs obey my urgent need to escape. Closer and closer the human comes until finally I can see the silhouette of a woman in the mouth of the cave. Hoping that perhaps she would take me for a mangled corpse and leave, I close my eyes. She comes closer still. If only I could move enough to get my teeth on her and gain access to her life saving blood.

I heard a soft intake of breath when she noticed me lying mauled and broken on the floor of the cave. Assuming that instinct would have her flee I was startled when I heard her kneel above my head and felt her smooth back a lock of hair that had been stuck to my brow. After releasing a long sigh, she rose again and made her way back out of the cave. I was relieved and perturbed at the same time. If it was so easy for one human to find me, how soon would it be before I was discovered by another?

The rest of the day passed and night fell as it had every day since the beginning of my entombment in this disgusting cave. In the early hours of the next morning a gun shot rang out, breaking the peace with its booming echo. Less than a half hour later I could again hear someone approaching. As I had yesterday, I closed my eyes, hoping to imitate one who had met an unfortunate end. I drew in the smallest breath I could manage without my chest moving enough for human eyes to register and discovered that my visitor was the same woman from yesterday. Why has she returned?

She approached me directly, this time sitting to the beside me, and once more her hand glided across my forehead. Did she return to perform burial rites or some such nonsense? When warm liquid entered my mouth the charade was over. My, now coal black, eyes snapped open and I choked on the dirt flavored liquid as I gasped in shock. Still the woman, young lady I corrected now that I'd gotten a closer look at her, remained where she was as if it were a common occurrence for her to find a severely mangled, cold, hard, but still not dead creature that drank blood. Her calm brown eyes continued to look upon me and a moment later she raised her eyebrows and lifted the clear container with the warm, red, but obviously not human blood as if to ask if I would drink it. Had she really shot and bled an animal to feed me?