Akio was not feeling like himself.
For the past 24 hours all he had felt up to doing was lying on his couch with the TV on some cartoon station, volume down low.
He didn't look sick, and his temperature was actually slightly below normal.
So what was the problem?
It had started just a day before, this unknown sickness. Perhaps it was a higher power reminding him that what he had been doing was wrong. Parties were wrong. Especially at his age, when he should be worrying about his school work and not drinking and friends. College was serious business, and without it his future would be bleak. He had been serious about it up until a month ago, when he had met this girl. Kagami seemed harmless, surely she was easy on the eyes. She never had an unkind word to say about him, and supported him whenever she could. Of course, this was not very often. She had work to do too, and was only free at night, when they spent much of their time together.
Her hours made it difficult for Akio to concentrate on his work, he cut away studying time to spend it with Kagami, and she seemed incredibly greatful. More than once it seemed their relationship would further, but she had always stopped him, and reminded him that it was an event of a great deal of importance, something that should be waited for, as he had confessed to her that he was yet to partake in it with any individual.
"Kagami" he had said to her once. "Why are you so strict about my own well-being, as less about yours?".
She had never answered him, only gave him a loving kiss on the bottom of his neck.
And that had been enough for him.
Yesterday night, she had accompianed him to a small party, they had a nice time talking to people that Akio knew from college, and others that Kagami seemed to know all too well. It was then that they took part in the act that Kagami so warned him about, later that night, when most of the people had left and they had a room to themselves.
But not before she had kissed him again, longer than she ever had, and harder, almost to the point where it hurt Akio and his body weakened before she had let him go.
But he felt better then ever after it had happened. Actually, he felt total bliss. A feeling that he never could comprehend before he actually witnessed it in himself and his lover.
But now he just felt terrible.
His limbs were nearly useless, and it was all he could do to keep his eyes squinted open and glued to the television as he sipped Ginger Ale and forced himself to nibble on a piece of toast.
"Oh, Akio, what is wrong with you?" he asked himself finally, after he attempted to get up and use the bathroom for the millionth time.
As he sat back down, he felt a strange aching in his canines, and a heavy weight in his head.
"What have you CAUGHT?"
He forced his body up and into the bathroom and leaned into the mirror hanging on the wall, studying his skin. He was so PALE. He must have caught something especially horrible, because all the color in his face seemed to have melted away. And as he looked straight on, he noticed something else.
His eyes were terribly red. Not just an irritated red from rubbing or allergies or sneezing like most get, but a deep red that seemed to be more of his eye color and not just a discoloration of his eyeball. He gasped in surprise.
"I... wha-...".
And the ACHING. It grew, it terribly grew, and he felt the pain spread over his whole mouth, down his throat, and into his stomach. Until it turned and twisted to the point where he felt he may have to throw up everything he had eaten that day.
But he really didn't want to throw anything up, he realized. He wanted to take more in.
A lot more.
He was so THIRSTY.
In a daze, he stumbled back into his living room and out his front door, the night air outside clearing his head a bit.
Subconciously, a low rumbling protruded from his throat.
Oh, what would his family think when they saw him in this way?
He felt uncontrollable, violent. Oh what about his studies? What about his work? He could never let himself be pulled into this... whatever it was.
But he couldn't help it either. He suddenly felt his future crumble under his own fist.
He stumbled like a drunk down the dark, suburban streets. A few cars shot down the empty roads, but there were no passerbys, no innocents out this night.
Except one. And she looked so TASTY.
Something inside Akio snapped. He sprinted forward to the woman that he had centered his gaze on in front of her house, picking up a letter from her mailbox, obviously had forgotten to earlier in the day.
A quick tackle, a sharp turn of her neck, a bite.
And.
Ah, much better.
He gripped onto her as if she were the very thing holding him onto life, as if letting her go would mean his own death.
But unfortunatly for Akio, this was just the opposite.
A similar attention ended his life.
He picked his head up, gasped.
A bullet ended his life.
For next there was nothing.
It was still quite dark out, but there was nobody living stalking the night anymore.
Nobody... living.