Destined Part I

Discovery

The night was longer than I expected.

I laid there listening to the crickets chattering outside my window, completely bored and equally as frustrated.

Occasionally the realization that I was, in fact, a vampire would wash through me like a wave, and I would have to fight back the mix of emotions that rolled in with it. Anger, depression, fear…none of which I could afford if I was going to fight off the hunger that had quickly begun its attempt to torture me.

For the next three nights, this was the pattern. I would not sleep, I could not dream, and this incredible surge of need grew more intense with each passing hour.

It was such a strange sensation, this hunger. My skin chilled like ice, the cold rising up my body and even leaking through to my eyes. I would begin to shake all over, and the tremors reached deeper and deeper until my bones felt as if they might rattle out of my flesh.

I nearly ripped the sheets to shreds each time my hands clinched the fabric in defense of this monster that was fighting with shocking strength to surface.

And instead of healing, time only made the hunger worse. The suffering would last for hours even as I tried with everything I had to fight it off. My whole body would stiffen against each wave until the ice in my veins threatened to take over, and the starvation nearly cast me off the edge.

After the fourth night of this agony, I was forced to surrender.

I was spent to the last drop; I could barely move let alone fight the urge to feed. I now knew that my plan to refuse drinking blood wouldn’t work. But I also knew that I would not kill a human. However broken I had become, that conviction remained strong. Unfortunately, though, I had accepted that I would have to kill. It would just have to be an animal, some kind of animal that left me free of guilt.

I stalked out of my apartment, seeing that the night sky was black with no threat of daylight. This would give me time to find whatever it was I was looking for, wherever this starvation was carrying me.

Behind the apartments was an opening in the woods that I escaped to on occasion. The pine trees parted to create a narrow path, which lead deeper into the forest. I entered onto the trail, convulsing violently now, almost unable to see the ground in front of me. One foot in front of the other, I crunched along the gravel until it was swallowed by the growth.

But no dead end could stop me.

My eyes were focused now, the cold chill had turned my insides to stone and at times I thought surely I had stopped breathing. I was able to watch every bending branch; every whip of the wind like it was playing in slow motion. I could even hear the bugs creeping along the trail beside me. All time slowed for me, and seconds felt like hours as my stride grew longer, my steps getting quieter.

No longer did my mind try to reject what I had become. It wasn’t even in my power any longer to try. I knew now what I needed to do. The monster that was inside me, clawing its way out, had prevailed, overtaking any sense of human nature. With every step I got further and further away from any conscience I had previously tried so hard to hold onto.

Suddenly, there was a brief sound of rustling over my shoulder, its quiet crackle so low it would have been unnoticed by any human. But to me it was piercing.

My body froze.

In one swift move I was crouched down, my hands in front of me, my nails digging into the dirt. I could hear the wind whistling past me, the leaves fluttering shakily in the breeze. I heard everything. Every creature, every move.

And then I saw it.

The deer was standing not five feet away from me, feeding on the brush behind a branch that had fallen from the trees.