She held in her hand now what amounted to a marker of her failings. A broken wire. There was nothing special about this wire, nor had she made it. It simply marked an undeniable truth: There was nothing she could add to the world. As long as this wire existed the world was where it was now, the modern era, the 2000's. It had all been done, and this small wire was the messenger of this. What had led to it being broken however was definitely her fault.
If one where to walk in on the scene with no prior knowledge they would see someone panting madly holding a bitten up white string, some copper showing through. This mad person was bleeding a little out their mouth, a fact they seemed all too aware of as they tried to catch the blood in their hand, shoving it back in when the chance arose. Of course knowing would just make one chuckle a little at the current scene.
Besides the odd thought process of the one here their anatomy was also slightly off, at least from a human perspective. One would note that this person looked as if they had never seen the sun, not altogether odd. Their hands looked at least a bit cut up and their clothing was baggy, once again rather normal human traits and not abnormal. Then they would note the, compared to a human, dagger like teeth and it would hopefully click. And yet this person was altogether harmless in the current year.
No the night stalker here had, in a moment of pure stupidity, gotten the now destroyed wire wrapped around their teeth while spacing out, a common pastime of all sentient beings of the 21st century. While they freaked out they had bitten down on the offending wire and both shocked themselves slightly and broken the wire in one swift motion, leading to the bit of philosophizing that we began this scene with.
She finally threw the wire away, missing the small can that sat near the bed she had been on before this whole thing, and walked out of the small room, still lightly bleeding from her mouth. They walked swiftly now through the admittedly small apartment to a rather familiar white rectangular box, also known as a fridge in most circles. Rather than opening the fridge she pointed a finger at it.
Unlike most people for whom at best this might, assuming one was in the vacuum of space, eventually cause the door to come towards the pointing party this had a purpose. As some of the still leaking blood flowed out and wrapped itself around the handle of the white box, a seemingly common occurrence from the visible staining. This flow pulled it open, before falling ineffectually to the floor, leaving yet another stain. She now licked the once bleeding spot and reached into the rectangle, also known as a fridge.
Pulling out a red bottle with a medical sounding label out it she returned to her bed, one of her two pieces of furniture. Sitting down she pulled out a glowing rectangle known simply as a smart phone and turned it on. Hand met forehead rather quickly as she remembered the recent wire incident. A moment later she noticed the words that had snuck their way on-screen: "World celebrates 50th anniversary of artificial solutions to 'carnivorous humans'".
She mentally adding "chronic asshole syndrome cured, but only for the fanged fucks" she felt a bit conflicted about this news though. For one it meant she had never had to experience what her parental figures had called being hunted, it left her in the state she was now. Not all vampires,"carnivorous humans" as some called them, were created / born equal after all. Some, unlike her, were absurdly strong, smart, or fast... she was not.
She touched the spot in her mouth that was bleeding earlier, it had sealed perfectly now. That was useful, at the least. Bored again she drunk from that red bottle. It was cold, logically. And bitter. Of course one couldn't argue with murder-free food but you think someone might try making it taste less horrid at some point in those 50 years. Not that she had much frame for reference, having never bitten anyone besides herself on accident, as one does when they carry sharp edges in their mouth.
She had been told as a kid that she would become more powerful with age, of course that meant when she was old enough that every human born when she was would be dead or senile, not exactly inspiring at the age of eight when she had only ever tasted bitter. She plugged the phone in and laid down, she would need to be up soon. As she dozed off she wondered what it would be like, if only for a little while, to be like the vampires in the old stories, who lived in castles and were terrifying, even if she could never be that.
* * *
She had a dream as she slept, a meaningful dream that she and all of her kind had before. In it she came before a large podium with many religious symbols plastered to it and a man sitting behind the podium, wearing the symbol of the most believed religion, in this case a cross, judged her with a number (in this case a .5) though it was always below 1, as some odd kid nearby told him off. This was followed by the beating of a heart that got quickly louder until it was visible, booting her awake with hunger pangs.
While this was a normal dream for her kind... it was essentially equal to entering puberty, or at least the vampire equivalent, an event she had gone through years ago now. She had remembered old bedtime stories her parents had told of the kid being some god or something and the dream being meaningful, but she wasn't the religious sort.
At this point she lifted her head as one does when waking up, and reached around to find the bottle she had fallen asleep next to. At this moment she touched stone. Not fully awake she kept trying to reach around for the bottle, only feeling more cold stone and eventually finding the bottle. She looked over at it now.
At first she was convinced she was dreaming. She was not in the room she had fallen asleep in. No, this place looked like an equally sunlight proof space that was made of stone and bare wood. Sure her bed had come with her but besides that nothing here was the same. Where here bottle had been was some glass equivalent that was still filled red. Not questioning that too much she got up.
Luckily she was still her, baggy clothes and everything. She wouldn't have minded new clothing if the world had decided to pull some dimensional / time travel shenanigans but this was at least comfortable. This room was not bare, there was some desk thing and a door though admittedly it was overwhelmingly dark. She could see if she tried, but that was a waste of energy so she only momentarily checked. She grabbed the bottle and opened the door.
It was night thankfully, but out here was the forest... and it smelt like a forest too. In this moment the reality of it hit her, vampires don't dream in smells so this was most definitely happening. Entering a panic she pinched herself, remembered that didn't actually hurt her all that much, and started breathing heavily, again kind of pointless. She heard footsteps nearby and reentered the house, hiding behind a wall but not bothering to close the door.
Honestly anyone would probably freak out if they saw a pale person in baggy clothing in the woods, that just wasn't normal after all. She hoped that no one decide to duck into this building, maybe it was normal in this time period, dimension... whatever was going on. Someone was coming now, it sounded like just one though. It looked like one too when they decided to peak their head into the door.
He looked dirty to tell you the truth, and gave off that generic peasant vibe. She wouldn't have been surprised if he had been farmed or the like before coming here, though that was a bit of a stretch on her part. He looked about as surprised as she did though, jaw dropped and reaching for something at his side. At this point she thought she try to chance it and talk
Let it be known that one with rather large teeth like her, without practice, when talking would sound a bit off. For the most part she had never practiced not talking as such, after all in her time most people didn't care one way or the other what teeth you had assuming they stayed in your own face and so while she tried to say in a calm voice, "Hi I am no threat to you" it came out more as…
"Hi I am no fhreat do you" is what came out of her mouth. This prompted the peasant to first tilt his head to the side momentarily and to pull the not mouth dagger from his side. No attempts at diplomacy it seemed here. Personally she had no skills at fighting, again she had never hurt anyone, but then again she was not exactly a fan of getting stabbed either. Less because it hurt, she had been cut many times by her own stupidity and it didn't feel like much, but more because it was a rather big waste of blood.
In the middle of her mental space out the peasant swung the knife at her, while it was not exactly accurate it did catch her arm, which snapped her back to reality rather quick. In a moment of panic she threw some of the leaking fluid at the man, which very swiftly smacked him across the face in a way that suggested he had said something rude more than just injured her. The magically flying blood freaked him out, causing him to run off rather quick.
She licked her wound, sealing it up almost immediately and reminding her that she was actually hungry... also that technically the thing that had just ran away from her was food. Shaking the thought away she looked towards the way that peasant had come from. Just forest, nothing else. Not thinking too hard about why that peasant was out this far she decided to walk in the opposite direction. Here was not safe, he might return.
* * *
It felt like hours of walking. Honestly she was not used to this, at least in forested settings. Sure there was no issue with stamina or pain really, but it was tiring in its own way. For one it was rather dark all things considered, which meant more energy being wasted on seeing. For another there were a lot of smells out here in the wild, each was distracting which meant she got lost often if she wasn't wasting the energy to see. This amplified any hunger she felt, which made her sense of smell better... creating a feedback loop that simply further complicated matters. Not the best of nights.
Right now however a certain scent was drawing her attention. Something absurdly sweet in fact, almost rose like. While it was honestly entirely possible that roses were out this far in a forest she didn't exactly know why she pick it up from among all the noise that was this forest but all the same she headed in its direction, slowly beginning to wonder why of all the things she had better smell was one of them.
As far as she walked she never seemed to get closer to it, even as she began to trip on the occasional rock or odd stick, even when it got stronger it seemed to stay about the same distance away, and yet she kept walking. She started to wonder if she was going crazy, maybe the dream was just starting to get odder and she had just never smelt anything while dreaming? All the same she marched and stumbled onward.
After about the fifth trip, which was just starting to get more annoying than anything at this point, it hit her. That is to say something solid hit the back of her head after leaving one of her back pockets. That was the first thing all night that actually hurt a bit. After rubbing the hit spot for a moment she finally decided to focus on the offending party, a glass bottle.
For a moment she was confused, then irritated. After a minute or so of irritation however something else hit her, that rose scent from earlier. Maybe it was perfume? Regardless she grabbed it now, carefully as it was a bit cracked, mainly near the opening. Surprisingly only a bit had leaked out. The closer it got to her face however the sweeter it smelt, almost to a nauseating level even, and yet she kept wanting to pull it closer to her face. It wasn't a conscious choice at this point even.
Honestly she did not want to pull it any closer, she almost felt like throwing up what little fluid was left in her body now, but somehow she didn't and was even opening it somehow. Part of her wondered if she actually wanted to do all these things but some other part didn't. All that matter now, she guessed, was that the wanting part was currently tipping the bottle such that the sickly sweet liquid would begin to flow into her now open mouth.
Much like the wire incident from about a day ago now this was a scene that elicited different feeling depending on how much you knew of why it was occurring. For instance to the uneducated forest wanderer it would look like a camper taking the most conflicted drink of some beverage imaginable, having recently gotten out of a tent one would have to assume was nearby, both crying and yet trying everything imaginable to get the thing into themselves, perhaps an odd joke or one of the odder bulimia cases.
To the local peasantry it was something out of a myth, the kind you tell your kids so they remember to bury you the right way. A pale lady in the middle of the woods consuming what one would have to assume was some unlucky innocents vital fluids, all the while crying at the curse of undeath inflicted on her. A horror story or perhaps some odd tragedy.
To the one doing it however it was just confusing, the tears more due to the horrid smell than any internal conflict, save the not at all tearful one that was two halves of a whole deciding if that foul liquid was indeed food or not. At the same time this was in the middle of possibly the second worst night of their life, ignoring the one only vaguely remembered from long ago.... a thought that now made her embarrassed, but then again she was too empty to blush now.
That embarrassing thought and the internal conflict ended however as soon as liquid actually reached her mouth. Whatever it was, and she had some guesses, was better than anything she had drunken before. It was sweet much like the smell, though that was probably just the odd way that her mouth worked. With each bit that went down the smell subsided and her vision got better, yet at the same time she was left with a minor sense of... unease.
To tell the truth she had a very specific guess about what this drink was, she had seen things like the source before. Talked to things like the source before, probably made friends with things like the source before. And yet at the same time she felt like she was supposed to ignore that thought and just gulp it down. As if this was the way it was supposed to be.
By the time it was all down she could see as clear as day, or at least as clear as she had been told day was like. She now saw in the distance now another house, similar to the one she had appeared in earlier. She did not hesitate in walking there, everything was clearer now, save the smell which only lingered lightly anymore.
Entering it looked about the same as the last one, save the fact that where her bed had been there now lay a stone slab, and the lack of a glass bottle near the slab, traded for some old flowers. She felt lightly conflicted by that last fact, though decided it was for the best. It was almost day now, or at least the moon was in such a place that she didn't want to risk staying out longer. As such she shut the door and laid down on the stone slab. It was cold, and honestly a bit uncomfortable. Mind you it could have been worse, warm and uncomfortable. It took awhile but slowly she drifted off to sleep, the sweet flavor from earlier slowly fading away.
* * *
She had the dream again, same podium, same judge, same odd kid, same beating, same everything. The only change was the number, .49 now, That and she swore she heard an alarm ring when she came to. At first she freaked out a little, maybe the villagers had decided to come back? Maybe if she played dead they go away?
Then a robotic voice, in all the uncaring befitting such things, spoke: "Snoozing alarm for 7:30 pm," and she decided to actually open her eyes. Above her was her apartments ceiling, to her sides the walls of the apartment, and the glow from the ignored phone illuminated the room lightly. It had all been a dream. Relieved she got off the stone slab and grabbed her phone, as well as the bottle she had left last night... then she stopped.
There was, instead of her ratty old bed, a stone slab, the one she had fallen asleep on in the forest. Not only that she could swear she faintly tasted something sweet on her breath. Taking a deep swig of the bottle, bitter and tasteless compared to that thing from the day before, and reached for her arm. Much like she feared her clothing was lightly cut, like a dagger had passed through it...
In a hurry she opened her bedroom door to find... the rest of the apartment. Confused she looked around, seeing if anything else was out of place... it was not. Besides the slab and her body nothing was different. Her phone even told her that it was still the same day she had fallen asleep, only 10 or so hours had passed, exactly what she had planned to do.
Rather than wasting the day worrying about this strange occurrence she decided to cut her losses of one bed and her home clothes for a cool sleeping slab and a decent meal of... well she knew what she thought it was but she didn't want to admit it. She had things to do tonight after all. She worked the following night and tonight was the night she handled shopping, and so she began to get ready for the evening that followed.