Serum

-Seven-

When I woke the next evening I had learned how to defend myself in a basic manner, ways to kill, stun or knock my prey unconscious. I had also learned that a vampire’s abilities were mainly an instinct that you could trigger, but that was obviously hard to do when you were a fledgling. I learned that the older a vampire got, the less it needed to feed. A vampire around my age could go about a week without having to feed again, unless I put my body under too much stress, then I would need to hunt. Most importantly, I learned if I let the hunger get out of hand, it would take control of me, which would leave me delirious, and savage, in which case I would attack and drain any “blood donor” in my sights. That thought was terrifying to some small part of my nature, but the rest of me took it into cool deliberation. The vampiric part of me was confident it would never let the hunger get out of hand deliberately. A soft murmur of voices tugged at my ears, interrupting my thoughts, so I c****d my head until the sounds became clear.

“..but she was crying!” Conner protested.

“Sometimes depression sets in to those inoculated with my serum… It’s a symptom that will pass.”

“I don’t think so, I don’t think she wants to be a vampire anymore. You can’t just change someone in the middle of their life and not expect them to be upset!” Conner said.

“Listen, we don’t even know if the effects are permanent. In cases like hers they’re usually just temporary. Hopefully it’ll give her enough reason to see the danger in us so she’ll leave you alone.” Lana replied

“But I don’t want her to leave me alone, she’s my friend! And a better one that anybody else of “our kind” has been! Just tell me please that the antidote works!” Conner insisted.

“I can’t do that. I haven’t yet found a viable formula that….” I ignored their voices, pushing it into back-ground noise, as Lana had taught me so I wouldn’t be distracted. After giving myself a few moments to become calm and collected, I decided to think back on my sleep. There had been no dreams last night, just an incredible blackness, my senses were completely alert and I heard the soft rhythms of people’s and animal’s blood-rush that lived or moved around the house, but no dreams. Probably just a symptom, I tried again to reassure myself, but a nagging thought kept me from believing it. Quickly I jumped up and headed towards the door. I’d make as much noise as possible so Conner and Lana would stop talking about me before I reached them. I thumped around in the hallway, purposefully banging on walls to make a bit of noise, the chatter from the kitchen ceased abruptly, and I walked in with a small grin on my face. Lana and Conner resumed chatting about the goings on in the vampire world as if nothing had been said about me. I sat at the table and listened to them talk for a while, then broke in with a question of my own.

“Do vampires ever dream?” I asked. Conner looked puzzled, while Lana shook her head.

“I just figured I’d ask because since I was given that serum I haven’t had a single dream, and I used to dream every time I fell asleep. I kinda miss dreaming…” I said wistfully.

“No, vampires don’t dream.” Lana responded.

“Oh well, what’s today’s lesson?” I asked cautiously. I wasn’t in for another beating from Lana.

“Well, I figured we’d talk just a little more on vampire anatomy this evening, and perhaps try fine-tuning some of your responses.” Lana replied, I winced at the last part. Lana sat down at the table without taking notice.

“Obviously you’ve learned that a vampire heals very quickly, did you wonder about the cuts on your feet? Have you looked at them recently?” I shook my head, then bent, twisting the sole of my foot upwards. The scars were completely gone.

“Within hours of giving you the serum, your vampiric anatomy began to heal the cuts, within one day they were no more than pink scars, and now they have completely faded from view, just a day and a half later. But these were superficial cuts. While possibly dangerous concerning humans because of weaknesses to infections, vampires usually don’t have problems with bacterium and such. This doesn’t mean you are invincible. Someone can kill you with a shot to the heart or head, any major organ that is damaged can lead to death. Fall on your head and you will die. So you must be cautious to a certain extent, despite your healing abilities.” Lana stated. I couldn’t help cringing internally, Lana talked about death so casually.

“Older healthy vampires, and less damaging wounds will heal more quickly.” With this Lana took up a kitchen knife and made a tiny incision in her right fore-finger. Within minutes the cut had stopped bleeding.

“This cut will probably be completely healed within a few hours, but it was but a small nick, and I’m nearing 50 years of age.” Lana tells me. I flinched, she looked to be merely in her early twenties.

“Younger vampires like you and me could take up to a day or so to heal a small cut.” Conner puts in.

“Also, concerning aging: vampires age like humans until they reach their teens, when puberty ends the aging process begins to slow. Conner here is nearing twenty-eight years, while he looks to be around twenty. He will remain thus for many a year, and time will only slowly take its toll. Vampires are not immortal, they just have extremely long lives, as long as they are not injured badly enough to cause death. Humans are lucky to make it to one hundred, but we can live to be five, ten or fifteen times that. Our years stretch on without number. No vampire has yet lived long enough for us to tell how long exactly we can live. Each long-lived has met his or her death due to an injury, or years ago, due to witch hunts and such. When vampire stories first started circulating, many a person, vampire and human, was killed when they were believed to be “evil blood-suckers”.” Lana continued.

“What about food?” I asked quietly. “I noticed that mostly what you have in the house is “party favors” like what you’d serve if company came over.”

“Vampires don’t need it, our digestive properties aren’t quite compatible to living off of it entirely either. Not that there aren’t the odd ones that consume food, but it’s not necessary to our survival. Everything on a vampire moves much more slowly, everything is digested more slowly, you require feeding after a longer period of time, you age more slowly. As you know, young vampires will need to feed more often, but the older you are the longer you can go without feeding. Young vampires tend to try food more often than the older ones. Some types of food can cause complications, so I wouldn’t suggest eating food very much, remember your digestive properties weren’t made to handle it, and they work much slower than a human’s.” Lana explained.

“Now onto different types of blood. It may not seem like it, but as with most of the human food you previously consumed, different types of people have varying nutritious values floating around in their blood. Older human’s blood tends to be less nourishing, as well as the very young. We tend to avoid both classes unless absolutely necessary. Very plump humans may have too high of cholesterol levels or other problems, such as thyroidism or diabetes, none of which is very healthy for you. A slightly plump, active and healthy human is the best to go after, they have just enough plumpness to have an ample blood supply, while their bodies don’t generally contain all of the toxins I’ve mentioned before. Young adults also provide a good nutrient source….” Lana continued talking, but I had zeroed in on Conner. His heart rate had suddenly jumped and he was nervously shuffling from foot to foot. A sudden thought occurred to me.

“That’s why you were after me, wasn’t it?” I quietly broke in. Conner looked ashamed, then slowly nodded. Lana got up quietly and left the kitchen.

“Yes, I trailed you from the road across from your house. You were a perfect target, alone, with earphones in, obviously in a huff and not paying attention to your surroundings, and just slightly “chubby”, but healthy enough to be a good donor. But I couldn’t do it, because when I snuck up on you the first time, you knew I was there! You had sensed me the whole way, I could tell, but you knew! And then when I came up by your side and you jerked around, there was just something in your eyes, it made me stop in my tracks. Kind of a deep intelligence, pity, kindness and sorrow all rolled into one, nearly masked by your anger and fear, but I saw it there, and it stopped me.” Conner sounded exasperated, slowly he broke off and heaved a big sigh.

“No one else has ever looked at me with eyes like that.” Conner whispered. “I had it in for you and you didn’t even know. That’s why I told you how dangerous it was for you to be out so late at night.”

“And then you escorted me home. Why?” I asked.

“I had come so close to harming you, and I knew by the end of the walk that it was a dangerous mistake. One that I couldn’t let anyone else make. You were too precious to be lost or damaged by one of our own. You don’t know yet how mindless most people are, they’re like walking animals lost in their own dream-world. You were special…” Conner abruptly stopped talking as if he had run out of things to say. “And some people never recover from the bite, they just know that something wrong has happened…” He sat down across from me at the table, as if exhausted, refusing to meet my gaze. I slowly reached across the table and placed my hand on his.

 “Thank you.”