Mari: Year One [Completed]

Chapter One: Marinelle Antonia Cruz

"Fuck this hurts." Mari moaned, as she woke up the next morning. Her head pounded like crazy, and the alarm clock wasn't helping at all. She was staying in a bare apartment, nothing too classy, yet not shabby either.

Her thoughts were scrambled, her muscles ached and her bones seemed to creak with each motion.

Enter, Marinelle Antonia Cruz, a young woman currently in college studying Political Science. She had transferred to her current university two weeks ago, and so far, her interactions had not been good.

"Going to be late." she muttered as she got out of her bed and hurried to the shower. A hint of suspicion crossed her face as she caught a glance of herself in the mirror. Ebony black hair, brown eyes and striking features. But something felt off.

The constant hunger within her, clanging and banging away at her insides seemed to have subsided.

"Looks like someone had a girl's night out." Mari muttered to herself, as she tried to remember last night's events. She blacked out right after class, after having endured what felt like a cycle of eternal hunger.

Guilt crossed her thoughts this time, worried that her loss of control resulted in the deaths of innocent people.

"Gotta find a way to repress this thing." Mari told herself as she continued to the shower.

Half an hour later, she ran out of her apartment, slamming the door shut and zoomed off with a piece of bread in her mouth.

"Hoy, you might trip ha?" an old woman warned her as she exited the gates of the apartment, it was her landlady, Mrs. Ricarda Matulin.

"It's fine, Miss Matulin!" Mari said in a muffled voice.

"Young people these days!" the old lady laughed to herself as Mari ran off.

She was still able to consume human food, it satiates her hunger on one side, but it does nothing to the vortex of feeding that the other side also needs.

It only took her a few minutes to get to school, the perks of having an apartment close by. It could take her an even shorter time if she indulged in her own 'powers' yet Mari actively stifles it.

She feels as if it is something that she needs to keep sealed and hidden away, the shame and guilt it brings to her whenever it crosses her mind drives her up the wall.

She passed by the usual things she sees on her way to school, street vendors, carinderias and sari-sari stores. The faint smell of garlic being used and cooked by the carinderia made her nose flare in disgust and anger.

"Gross." she muttered, taking a bite out of her bread as she tried to avoid the wafting aroma of said dish.

Two minutes later, she crossed through the university gates and continued on to her first class. The smells of younger humans, children like her, tried to overpower her senses. The scent of mostly pure and untainted hearts, valiantly trying to chase after both dreams and ambitions, forcing the hands of fate to bend their way lingered on her nostrils, yet she was not tempted. She was seemingly satiated, though she was annoyed at how intrusive her thoughts could be. It was only going to get worse as she went through the motions of classes, being boxed in a room filled with humans in a usually compact space.