Metanoia, a Ghost Bird Fanfic

Sang has a problem

Sang has a problem; her hair is on fire. Although the problem stems not from the fire currently turning her hair into smelly strings of wiry ash, no her problem is what that fire entails. As the flames crawled up her long (surprisingly flammable) hair, her life as she knew it was changing. She couldn't help the stray tears that escaped her eyes, lining the vice grip her mom clenched her face with. She choked on her sobs, breathing becoming impossible as her mom's hand covered the entire bottom half of her face. With strength unimaginable to her at the time, her mom hung her like a rag doll with fingers forcing her jaw open at a horrible angle. Although she was young at the time of the incident, around her 9th birthday, she was certain this memory will never fade.

"You Bitch!" her mother shrieked, eyes nearly overlapped by the skin she wrinkled as the screamed, "I saw you talking to him, selling yourself on the streets already. Guess you can't start early enough can you!"

Although she was young, Sang was quite clever. She needed to be to survive in this house, she needed to know how to shift the topic away from herself quickly when her mom tried to corner her, or maneuver through the house to stay in rooms where no one is. She learned at an unfortunately young age that a quiet, invisible girl is an alive girl. But despite all of her best attempts, she can do nothing when her mother is this lost to rage. 

The woman continued to scream as she towered over her but she couldn't understand over the deafening thumps of adrenaline pumping through her veins. As the lick of the fire on her upper back felt like death seeping into her body, Sang slowly began to accept death. The burning of her lungs slowly faded as the world around her grew darker and more distant, at the very least she was glad that the pain would stop.

However that was the moment she woke up.

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My lungs burned as they attempted to bring air back in from holding my breath in my sleep. I lay staring at the ceiling trying to convince myself that it was just a bad memory, that I'm safe now and get to live. After what felt like forever I touched my hair, and despite my best efforts not to, I remembered. I remembered the fire that mom decided to use instead of scissors to shorten my hair. I remember soon after that day we moved away and I was forced to attend school as a boy. Ever since then I live in fear of my mother's abuse and threats of what would happen if anyone found out I'm a girl. And the fear that I gained three years later when I discovered I'm a vampire.

To this day I never found out why I'm is forced to be a male, every time the subject came up my mother's abuse heightened to near-death. Although I'm curious, I avoid the topic like the plague. I don't want another experience like that day. It's my worst memory that still haunts me, especially in my dreams.

It's not that I hate dressing or acting like a boy. I've never been too worried about my appearance, other than keeping my gender a secret. But that day is my worst memory because it marks the time my mother's abuse got worse, and I had to fear for my life more often.

For the past seven years I've been conditioned to only answer to Sa. I've only survived this long by living one day to the next, trying to get as little attention as possible. Because I'm was always terrified of being exposed I never got too close to anyone. At school people eventually started avoiding me too, until recently.

The past two years or so females have been progressively attempting to 'befriend' me. I blame hormones, most of the time I'm able to make an excuse and escape before Marie gets bored and tells mother that I've been talking to people. However, it's getting harder to stay alone, which is how I ended up in my current predicament.

"Sa! Hey where are you going! You always try to leave me, stop being so mysterious." Some girl pouted, puffing out her chest. I had nowhere left to run to as she cornered me against my junior high school building's wall. You'd think females are all starved wolves and I'm a piece of fresh meat the with way they approach me.

"You know," she continued, stalking toward me like a predator. I quickly glanced around trying to find a way out. She followed me to where I normally spend my lunch; a small alley the architecture of the middle school provides. People only come here to fight or make out, but that's rare since the dumpsters are nearby and it smells horrible here. She grinned when she noticed the defeat in my eyes. I'd laugh at how overly intense she's being if this wasn't a life or death situation for me. All Marie has to do is take a picture of me talking to someone and mother would get so mad no one would be able to stop her. I shuddered remembering how she reacted when Marie lied I was talking to people; I could only imagine how bad it would be if she had evidence.

"Uh look, I really gotta go." I said, trying not to panic.

"Sa, you know," she repeated, inches away from me, "I can keep a secret" She grinned up at me and her hand slithered behind my neck as she tried to pull me into a kiss. However, her body soon became limp as I pressure pointed her hard enough to make her pass out. I sighed in relief and laid her down. Although being a vampire causes me a lot of problems, the strength I get from it helps me in tough spots.

Being a vampire gives me superhuman strength and it helps me pass off as a guy more easily in P.E. class or when someone tries to fight me or corner me like today. My voice is far deeper than it would naturally be after mom has repetitively poured vinegar and lemon juice down it as one of her punishments. I really need these masculine characteristics  because physically I'm quite feminine. My large green eyes, pouty lips and high cheek bones are anything but male and it doesn't help I'm hardly 5 feet tall and weigh less than 100 pounds due to the lack of human food and blood I've been provided (yes I need both). I try my best to avoid social situations as much as possible, but sometimes that just attracts more attention because a lot of girls label me as the 'bad boy' type. I'm just happy it makes me more masculine.

Being a vampire has some other perks, like heightened senses, fast reflexes, and better eye sight. These have gotten me out of sticky situations with my mom. How good they are depends on how much blood I've had, if I've gone over 20 days without any blood I'm basically comatose and my vampire takes over and finds the closest blood source. Because of that I try to make sure I always have enough blood in fear I might hurt a human because of my blood lust. I didn't know I was a vampire until a few years after I became Sa, when I found my fangs when brushing my teeth and grew a new fascination with blood. I never drank any until all I could feel was hunger, I become incredibly weak if I don't get blood and my fangs throb painfully. I didn't know I was supposed to drink blood. My first time was quite confusing, imagine my surprise when I was walking in a park and suddenly snatched a bird straight out of a tree and drank its blood, no clue why or what I was doing the whole time. It was a terrifying moment once I came to, it was like the animal inside me took control and possessed me to snatch the sparrow out of the tree. I've despised myself ever since, I hate harming things and I always drink whatever animal I feed off completely dry. I've tried many times to abstain from drinking any blood but in the end the animal inside me always wins because my instinct to live is too strong.

I don't know if there are any other vampires out there, the only place I've heard of them are from books in my school's library. None of them are any help, they always say ridiculous things like they die from garlic or sun and are immortal. A lot of the books depict vampires as monsters who feed on humans, I've always thought humans are the real monsters when people like those in my family exist, just the thought of drinking blood from a human disgusts me. I hate physical contact, drinking their blood would be way too intimate. I like to think I'm just like everyone else except I need to drink blood every few weeks and I have a few heightened abilities. But I'm sure no human would want to see me as anything other than a monster. If my mom found out I was a vampire she would probably hand me over to some scientist or the cops. Or maybe she'd just kill me now that she has an excuse. I've never known what to do about needing blood so I just try to hide and ignore it as much as possible.

However what I don't know is that soon all of that will change.