As many busy days went by, everything carried on back to their original routine and Serena, luckily, did not see Master Ralph again after that dreadful incident. But unfortunately, she did however keep reliving that vile event every night in her nightmares, and she even continuously experienced the ghost of his touch on her skin making it crawl and making her hide deep within herself.
One cold and clouded evening, as all the girls were preparing to retire for the night, Serena's best friends Alice, from the orphanage, and Matilda, from the dormitory, were sat on Serena's bed discussing the day's events, taking comfort in each other's warmth and closeness, as well as speaking of what has been circulating from the rumour mill recently.
A drunk Master Ralph later stumbled through the closed dormitory door and into the room of startled young girls, carrying the stench of stale alcohol and urine with him. He stumbled into Serena's bed and tried to grab a hold of her, but she slapped his hand away strongly and looked down away from him, avoiding direct eye contact. He grunted impatiently and showing frustration as he snatched for Alice instead, dragging her off the bed and away back towards the door. She had just gotten over the threshold of the room and into the corridor before she started screaming and kicking him. Smack. The painful sound echoed into the room from the corridor, followed by stunned silence.
Something inside of Serena snapped instantly out of nowhere. She could not allow something like this to happen. She felt that what had happened to her was most likely deserved, in her mind, but her best friend did not deserve something like this under any circumstances. She was the kindest and most compassionate girl that Serena knew, and she could not allow that monster to hurt her as well. Far down within herself something awoke; a deep burning rage and primal hunger formed in the pit of her stomach, her slender throat started to ache and scratch with an overwhelming need to quench her thirst with something warm and thick, her eyes burned and watered as her sight changed and people took on a red hue from her point of view, and her jaw bones ached as if bruised from within as her teeth pierced through her gums and her finger nails grew as both sharped to a point.
She launched herself at Master Ralph and forced him down onto the ground as he hit his head harshly against the floor, an animalistic growl escaped her lips as a thrill consumed her.
"What are you?!" He gasped out with droplets of sweat trickling down his cheek.
"Your worst nightmare." She replied humourlessly, reciting back his own response to her on that dreaded night many days ago. Within seconds she had slashed open his torso with her new-found claws and was ripping into his warm pulsating throat with her newly acquired teeth and draining him dry. She feasted on his fresh flesh and ripped into the tendons and muscles with such excitement to the gargling sounds of his final breaths. Within moments she had devoured his throat so thoroughly that his head was almost fully decapitated from his body, barely hanging on by sinewy tissue and fine threads of skin. She soon lost her uncontrollable blood lust when his life essence stopped flowing, his heart stopped beating and the light had finally faded from his eyes. She ran to Alice to see if she was alright, but the poor girl was terrified, grateful to her friend for saving her from that sick depraved man, but now fearing what her friend had become in front of her very eyes. The screaming from the other girls in the dorm, that had witnessed the gruesome events unfold from the doorway, had alerted nearby guards to the scene and therefore dragged Serena away to be punished and dealt with accordingly.
Serena was taken away and hauled into a large and chilling room in the centre of the building, that she knew to have always been heavily guarded, but that she had never been allowed to enter. The room itself would have been grand and masterful at one time if it had been cared for properly, nevertheless it still had a very impressively high ceiling and was the grand size of a ballroom. Two large dark wooden, creaking doors with rusted brass handles, separated the large room from the hallway and was regularly guarded by one or two burly men. Upon entering the room, she was met by two middle aged men stood on either side of an elderly man sat in a chair on a platform at the top end of the room. She was thrown roughly to the feet of an older man, with long greying white hair and leathery wrinkled skin, that sat in a high-backed black ornate wooden armchair at the head of a row of other smaller less significant chairs.
"Well well well, what do we have here?" The elderly man asked with a somewhat bored tone. The guards that brought Serena here told the man of what had occurred outside the dorms. "That is very unfortunate, but very impressive dear. But I am sure he also had it coming. Did you enjoy it?"
Confused and scared she didn't answer, just looked towards the floor and wrung her hands together fretfully.
"Grrrr..hissss.... look at me when I am talking to you girl!"
She quickly glances up and looks the elderly man in the eyes, at first shocked but then a feeling of disgust and anger washes over her. How dare he speak to me like that, she thinks to herself, but then rights herself immediately as she remembers she is only a child and a slave at that, and these recent thoughts are all very new and foreign to her.
"Ah ha wonderful. Just look at her eyes, a rich deep crimson, she is most definitely a vampire." The silver haired gentleman responds as she investigates his very own, lack lustre grey ones.
"But she hasn't been turned my lord." The guard replies.
"How strange. She must be a born one. They are not very common, I have not heard of one of those is many years. But this is a fortunate discovery. She will be very strong and a great asset. I must inform the society at once, they will want to put her to work as soon as possible."
"Would it not be better for ourselves and our ranks to keep her and use her here my lord?" One of the guard's questions.
"Do not be a fool. If they found out we kept someone like her from them they would ruin us. It is better this way."
Sometime later that evening, Serena had what little belongings she owned packed away, had said her goodbyes to her small handful of close friends and was travelling down a rough dirt road in a rundown cart accompanied by a few guards. Whilst watching the abode, that had once haunted her sleepless nights but that she had eventually grown to call home for the past two years, gradually become smaller and more insignificant as it faded into the distance. She didn't even shed a single tear as surprise and confusion left her feeling numb. Instead, she sat patient and curious for what lies ahead for her in the not so distant future.