I Hate Myself but I Love You

Chapter 9

Laura's Point of View

I don't know where I am. Everything's dark, an endless void. My limbs are frozen in place and I can't even open my eyes. Did Carmilla go through this?

Everything is a contradiction. I am floating, but my body feels so heavy. There's a complete absence of light, so dark even the sun couldn't warm it, yet I am blinded by the brightness. I am stuck in a vast plane of nothing, yet the shadowy space surrounding me is so thick it's suffocating. My body is numb, but I am in agony.

My throat is stinging with an insatiable thirst that's burning me alive.

While I'm in this hollow place, I'm also aware of another me. She's on a bed with an exhausted looking Carmilla watching her with despairing, watery eyes. I want nothing more than to reach out and cup that gorgeous face and tell her that her Laura will be okay. But I'm stuck here, watching through a hazy looking glass.

That image fades and I want to shout at it to come back, but I am small and the universe is large and my voice is lost in the silence. So I try to distract myself by remembering the good times. My mother and I swinging on a playground. My father and I watching Doctor Who until one in the morning on a school night. Graduating high school. Seeing Carmilla smile for the first time. Seeing the terrified girl behind the sarcastic exterior. Carmilla and I dancing. Carmilla betraying everything she's ever known for me. Seeing Carmilla after thinking she died for me, because of me, for a week. Kissing Carmilla for the first time. Being able to call Carmilla my girlfriend for the first time. Making love to Carmilla for the first time. Hearing her tell me she loves me. Kissing Carmilla after weeks of torturous distance. Carmilla.

All I succeed in doing is breaking my own heart and I throw away that line of thought for revisiting later.

All of the sudden, the darkness fades. I can still feel it here, but I'm somewhere else. I give my eyes a moment to focus and would yelp at the sight before me if I were not voiceless.

I stand before... me. My eyes are silver and there's blood dripping down my chin. The other me grins, revealing fangs. This is me as a vampire. For some reason, I'm not freaking out too much, just staring at vampire me. Her clothes look like something I would wear now, but her body screams predator in a way my human body never could.

The view changes and I can hear rain lazily hitting a roof. I'm in a small room in what looks like a cabin. There's another me on a bed, terribly pale and unmoving. Carmilla's standing next to the bed, shaking, a chair leaning against a wall as if it had been pushed back suddenly. I walk closer, so focused on her I don't notice that I can actually move. Tears stream down her face and I know that the other me is dead.

Everything shifts and shrinks and I can see the two scenes side by side. Vampire me and dead me. I am randomly struck with the knowledge that I can move my body and I know this is for me to decide. To die, or to live undead.

I take a deep breath and I choose.