War Against The Dead

Two

I was walking home from my job at the blacksmiths, the smell of flames and burning metal still covering me. That's when I saw him. I didn't think much of him at first, he was just an old man standing in an alley. Wasn't that a common experience? I ignored him and kept walking. I thought about my father's service the next morning, where he would pull me up and make me speak on his behalf, to pass on the torch to his only son. I was focusing on that when I should've been focusing on the fact that the man was following me. I didn't start thinking about it until he grabbed my neck and pulled me back, shoving me against the brick wall. I grabbed his hands and tried to pull them off of me, in fear of his strong grip cutting off the circulation to my brain.

"Please!" I cried. "I don't have any money -nothing to my name!"

"You foolish child," the demonic man replied. I felt his hot, ungodly breath against my neck, sticky with nervous sweat. "I don't want your money. What I want from you is much more...valuable." He leaned in dangerously close to my neck. I started praying under my breath to anybody who would listen to save me. He saw what I was doing and scoffed. "You're so ignorant, boy. Do you truly think god will come and save you? Don't you get it? There is no god." I ignored him and prayed harder. "Shut up, boy. It's time for me to do what I was created to do, so stop your blubbering and stay still." This only made me squirm and struggle harder. The next thing I knew, he was licking my neck. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced my head up to the sky. Just do it, I thought. Just kill me already, stop terrorizing me and just kill me.

Then, I felt it. His teeth dug into my neck, tearing the flesh as blood poured out of the wound and seemingly down his throat. I screamed in pain as my body shuttered and ice flooded my veins, burning every inch of my body. My skin turned ghostly pale, and I felt my canine teeth fall out as longer, sharper ones grew in their place. The world around me turned blood red, just for a moment, as my eyes burned as if somebody had stuck matches in them. I grew weaker, and weaker, until I could no longer stand and fell to the ground. I felt tears well up in my eyes. The man stood above me, his bloodstained lips curled in a vicious grin. I looked at him with loathing.

"What have you done to me!?" I croaked, staring at him evilly. I could no longer feel my heart beating in my chest, or my lungs fill and deflate. He dropped a mirror in my lap. I looked down at it and screamed as I looked at the monstrous teenager inside of it. His blood red eyes were widened in fear, his fanged mouth wide open as he screamed. I threw the mirror towards the opposite wall and broke it, not wanting to believe that the boy in the mirror was me. I slowly made my way to a standing position, leaning against the wall behind me for support.

The man spoke. "I suppose, as any good man would-"

"You aren't a good man," I breathed. He ignored me and went on.

"I must tell you your fate."

"I'm not interested in my 'fate', you monster."

"Oh yes, you are. You see my son, I turned you into what the church likes to call, a vampire."

"No..."

"Yes.You'll live off of human blood, as I do and have done for the past century. No more of that silly talk of god and reincarnation, no holy water or crosses. Immortality is in your future, along with the powers of healing and changing people's mortality with those."He gestured to my newly acquired fangs. I bit my mouth shut. "You can't go home, child. Your parents will never be able to understand you anymore, let alone finish raising you."

"No!I'm going home, th-this is all some dream! I-I just need to...wake...up..."

"This is not a dream," he extended his hand. "It's a reality.Take my hand and explore the gift I've given you." I stood taller, stared at him, and ran. I was still so, so weak, but somehowI managed to run all the way home, with the help of walls I leaned onto support me.