The well-worn mahogany creaks beneath Mira as she rolls onto her side. It comforts her, in a strange way, that this bed had been used by generations of vampires before her. Of course, they didn't sleep on it. Vampires don't sleep, so beds serve as a place to rest and think. Mira runs her tongue over one of her glistening ivory-colored fangs that decorate her mouth. She has a feeling that something bad is going to happen, and ever since she had chosen to be bitten and become a vampire, she had learned to trust her feelings. The small silver cross hanging by a chain around her neck helps calm her somewhat. It's an ordinary necklace, but it makes her completely invincible for 100 hours per year. November is drawing to a close, and she has three hours left. Her fingers brush against her weak spot, her Achilles heel, the spot below her ear where her jaw begins. If she's not wearing her cross and she gets stabbed there, she'll die. A shiver crawls down Mira's spine and she rolls over again.
A couple of hours later, brightness floods the room and the light cascading from the doorway throws shadows into crazed lines. Mira sits bolt upright, her cross clutched in a fist. A figure with chest rising and falling in heavy breaths and a long slender knife dangling in one hand is backlit into a perfect silhouette. "Chris?" Mira asks tentatively. "Is that you?" Her older brother had gone missing one day a few months after Mira had turned, and she hadn't seen him once in the three years since. His voice had the raspy hiss of a snake's, and his skin seemed papery. His eyes were the color of calligraphy ink. "Yes," he growls. "I'm here to kill you. Startled, Mira says, "You can't!" He laughs--a low, dry, not-quite-human sound. "Well, Mira, dear sister, I'm afraid I can. You see, your cross has run out of time, hasn't it? I'm now free to hit you in your weak spot." Mira sputters, "How do you know that? Are you a vampire too?" Chris suddenly roars, "Yes! You made me into a vampire! Don't you remember? We were wrestling, and then you bit me on accident, and all of a sudden my veins felt full of fire and I grew fangs!" Mira utters in a terrified whisper, "So it was unwilling? You have to kill me?" He snarls, "Yes. I know I'll die too but it'll be worth it." Mira scoots back slowly and declares defiantly, "Well, I still have time on my cross!" Chris shakes his head and in one swift motion yanks on the chain around her neck so hard that it snaps. "Oops, now you don't." Mira raises a hand to her throat, and Chris sneers, "So, your spot is on your throat, huh? Is it...here?" He flicks the knife over the underside of her chin and she whimpers as blood drips onto the gray carpet. "How about...mm...here." The knife slices underneath her ear, right on her spot, and the last thing she sees is the knife falling to the ground, sending a couple drops of blood onto the otherwise pristine white wall.
YOU ARE READING
File Under: Fiction, Speculative
Short StoryThis is a collection of short stories I write/co-wrote at a class I went to over the summer called Speculative Fiction. Don't judge me too harshly.
