I'll Be Here All Life | ✓ | ONC 2021

[1] Eternal Life Sucks

"Is this thing on?" I chuckle. "I feel like none of you can hear me!"

Silence greets me, but I do not panic. I smile, my lips spreading over my new fangs. It's been a couple of months, and I still wasn't used to the way they could pierce my tongue if I spoke too quickly or if I bit my tongue to ignore the growing desire for the throbbing neck veins of nearly every creature in the room. Still, I tap the microphone in front of me and clear my throat. I gesture at a couple sitting at a table near the stage. "Drinking wine or blood tonight?" I ask.

I laugh, touching my hand to the bright yellow hat on my head. The crowd immersed in darkness does not. Gulping, I giggle nervously. "Well, it's certainly refreshing to be here. Thank you for inviting me in!"

Again, no one laughs. Damn. I spent a lot of time working on this set too. I gulp. I bet if I could still sweat, I would, but that is one of the perks of vampirism. At least, that is what the vampire who turned me tried to tell me as I sobbed endlessly into their shoulder. I think they must have regretted it because I haven't heard from them in a while...

"Anyway!" I gesture around. "I'm pretty good-looking for an undead enby, if I do say so myself. I really am the afterlife of the party, so hit me up!"

More silence. This is bad. Time is ticking, but my sense of time doesn't exist anymore because everyday stretches on like a Kafkaesque nightmare. You've seen that meme, right? Thank fuck the COVID-19 pandemic ended a few years ago.

"Well..." I gulp again. "Thanks for having me—I'll be here all life!"

Someone audibly groans, and I'm not sure if it's loud enough for everyone to hear or it's just thanks to my enhanced undead hearing. Regardless, I plop off the stage and slump over toward the counter where Abby, a fellow vampire, is trying hard not to snicker into her Cosmo. She coughs behind her hand, but I know it's forced because we vampires don't fucking cough. "Good job, Vick!" she says, cheery, flashing her fangs at me.

My eyes narrow as a zombie takes the stage and emits their jokes in "uuuuhhhh"s. On the one hand, Abby can be really critical and not-so-fun to be around. On the other hand, she's really my only friend in the Underworld, so I don't want to upset her either. Me having a hard time meeting magical beings is an understatement.

Honestly, eternal life sucks. I guess it's only been three months for me, but still. It especially sucks when my eternal life started literally the night the Underworld revealed itself to the human world. Needless to say, humans are taking it as well as they could have three months later. They freak out when they see magical beings out in broad daylight (yes, I can go out in broad daylight, so long as I wear a jacket, some shades, and use an umbrella), or other humans are so enamored that magical beings are real that they bother us doing the most mundane things, like getting a coffee. Honestly, people who haven't seen a fairy ordering a tiny ass coffee from Starbucks in these last three months are missing out. It's adorable.

There are those magical beings who think we should have never come out into the open; that decision was made solely by the Underworld government, so those citizens—us citizens—really had no say. I definitely did not have a say, seeing as I was newly turned when this all went down.

Anyway, dating apps have already capitalized on this whole experience in the past three months, which is what I see Abby go back to swiping on as soon as she's done faux-complimenting me, downing the rest of her drink in a flourish. Yes, dear reader, we vamps can indeed drink more than blood—but blood really is the only thing that nourishes us, so it's at our risk to try and get down a half a bottle of tequila. Not that I haven't tried, but it made me just as sick as it did when I was human. Abby has taught me a lot, and I'm thankful for that because the asshole who turned me from human to vampire has done very little to assist me in the afterlife.