1 The Bite

Running is useless, I have found that fact to be very obvious, yet I am still running from her.

She caught me off guard.

I didn't think she was dangerous because I knew her. I worked with her, learned from her. She was this harmless, etherial beauty in my mind. Not this...monster she has become.

Rather, the monster she has always been. The monster I have just discovered. The monster hiding under that etherial beauty. It was surprising to find out.

Ah. I can't run anymore. I can barely breathe. My heart is beating too fast; my chest heaving. Running is useless.

I hear her slowly clicking high heels on the floor.

Click, clack.

Click, clack.

Approaching me slowly and surely.

There's no running from her. I'm already injured, and my weak constitution is not ideal for a situation where I am to become food.

I hear her chuckle. A rich and deep chuckle. A hypnotic noise. And her dark purple lips smile, her teeth wetly stained with blood.

My blood.

"I have to hand it to you, Asmodeous Klyde. You lasted longer than the others after a bite from me," I could see her now, meters away, in the dark.

"And considering the fact that your injured. This is what you Americans call short of a Miracle, yes?"

"Hah, no. Wrong phrase. You let me get away, didn't you, Professor?"

"I didn't." She said with a bloody smile.

How could she still be this beautiful, even with my blood in her mouth? It was like she was one of the Succubi from legend. No, she was even worse.

She was a thing of nightmares; a living dead.

A vampire.

"Are you going to kill me?" I asked her, panting heavily. I was too tired to move now. There was no going back, only forward.

Even if forward led to my death.

"I must say, I am impressed you are still alive, young one. So surprising." She said, animatedly crossing her fingers behind her back.

"Blame it on my strong constitution." I told her. That was a poor joke. And it fell flat. It was silent, the only sound my loud breathing. I was weak. Bleeding. Tired. It didn't help that I'm pretty sure I sprained my ankle running.

"You can still joke, I like that." She said.

She was close enough now. I could see her features clearly under the unyielding lamplight. I noticed how her chest wasn't moving. No sign that she was even remotely breathing.

How had I never noticed it before?

"You really aren't human huh, Miss Shade?" It was a rhetorical question; that we both knew.

"You really are unique." She told me.

Then she went for my throat.