Vampires were real.
She had laughed when she'd first heard it. One, lone, crazy man in his basement, making a ridiculous podcast about being supernatural, immortal, feeding off of human blood.
At least that had been what Quinn had thought until she woke up able to breathe underground, as she clawed her way to the surface. She knew a few things logically. Her human muscles shouldn't have been able to do it. Climb or breathe. She should have died, buried alive. If nothing else, her muscles should burn now from the exertion, but they didn't.
Her throat burned, the most excruciating pain she had ever felt. Both dull and throbbing. It scorched like a sunburn, and gave the dull, hollow ache, like she hadn't felt since her heart had last been broken. She let out a scream from pain, but it just felt like glass tearing through her throat. There was a lake, river, bayou, nearby. She went and took a sip. It was cold, but it wasn't what her body craved.
Some people came running into the clearing, having heard her scream. It only took them a moment to see her body streaked with dirt, her dress stained with blood, for them to ask. "Oh my God are you okay?"
She couldn't explain the things that she felt then. She smelled something delicious. She was angry, the question was patronizing. "What the fuck do you think?" she growled at them, feeling an anger, a fierceness she was sure she had never possessed before.
The older man reached out to her, helping her to her feet. "what happened to you?"
Quinn racked her brain. What had happened to her? "I was attacked," she explained slowly. The words again slicing her throat. "He was so big and strong." She took in her surroundings. Nothing in Lima looked like this. "Where am I?" she asked them.
"Shreveport, Louisiana," the couple answered.
"He kidnapped me," she gasped out. Her hand flying to her throat. Tears starting to fall from the trauma. The crazy tattooed freak had taken her from Lima to here and had buried her alive. She remembered a struggle.
The couple's eyes grew wide and they stepped back from her. "No," Quinn begged them. They couldn't leave her alone, not after she'd been through so much. "Come back," she pled with them as they moved further away. "Please," she begged, but they were almost disappeared inside the forest. They became shadows in the black. "I need help," she screamed at them.
They were gone. But Quinn realized with a smirk on her lips. She could still smell them. She closed her eyes and moved towards them, opening her eyes to see that she was moving faster than possible, but as she smelled the man near instinct took over.
"Found you," she couldn't help but sing song at him. She grinned. She felt a feeling of joy that she didn't understand. Her heart was singing, as she heard his heartbeat pick up speed. Faster and faster. It made the burn stronger and stronger.
Her eyes met his, and she stared into them, until she felt a strange sensation. A sort of click. A sort of meld. Her mind had wrapped around his. "Don't run," she said, her voice low, soothing, a bit sultry. He stayed still. She was amused, confused. "Come to me," she said, and he took steps forward, until he stood before her. She was astounded. She was doing this? She reached out and took his hand into hers, staring at him, studying him, watching, trying to understand the bond they had at this moment. She leaned into his ear. "Don't scream," she told him simply just seconds before snapping his arm like a twig. He didn't, he choked on a sob and then cried silently. She grinned again, her baser insitincts, her darker side fully taking over as she spoke to him again. "Don't cry. Everything will be okay," she soothed,"Fast." And then she sunk her teeth into his wrist. She sucked against his skin hard. It soothed the burn, the hunger, the gnawing discomfort inside her body. She pulled the blood from his body until she was sure there was none left. Again she was filled with an inexplicable glee. The pain, the crying, the bloodshed. That is until the woman came into the clearing and screamed. Cried for her lost husband.
Then Quinn was Quinn again. She snapped from the moment, lost the glee, the hunger soothed for the moment at least. She looked down at her blood covered hands, at the dead man, at the crying girl. She had done that. Her breath caught in her throat. How had she done that? Why had she done that? She couldn't seem to explain it at all. She felt tears of guilt in her eyes. Everything she'd learned all her life spoke of murder as one of the worst sins against your soul. Her hands shook. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," she whispered, running from the woman, from the woods, praying that the burning would never come again. Not knowing that God wouldn't listen.
She wiped at her own eyes, and realized she was crying tears of blood. And then, all of a sudden, she knew. She was a vampire. It hadn't been a joke. She had been turned by one. And he had left her in the ground to rot like yesterdays garbage. The realization made her frozen. She had no idea what to do with herself. How was she supposed to live as a vampire? Could she die as one?
Quinn began to wish that she had paid attention to more of the things said about vampires. Her family as devout Catholics had taken the stance to not believe. To ignore. Every time vampire rights, or anything pertaining to them was mentioned, they changed the channel, tuned out, walked away. As a result she was completely unprepared for the transition.
She now had darkness living inside of her. A demon. She was no longer a child of God. She was cursed. She'd never felt greater agony than knowing this. Than knowing she was unnatural. Than knowing that she was dangerous for any and all humans. Than knowing there wasn't a heaven for her. This was her eternity. Alone. Cold. Shamed. Hiding in the shadows. Overcome with darkness. Her future was that of a murderer. She didn't want it.
She'd tried to burn in the sun. but she had underestimated survival instincts, and her own weakness to pain. She would hide herself away long before death could claim her. The pain was excrutiating. And so was the healing. Sometimes she wondered if perhaps she wouldn't heal. One time she'd just stay mangled and disfigured. She'd tried to find it inside of her. To locate the darkness, to claw it out, to cut it out, to remove it entirely. But she could never find it. She could never be rid of it. It was a part of her as much as her heart or brain. Sometimes she wondered if something new had found it's way in, or if her soul had just found it's way out. After all, we all have mean, evil fantasies. Maybe the soul was just what stopped us from acting on them.
In the end, she found herself to be helpless to the darkness now residing in her. She killed, she glamoured, she played games, she tortured, she drank them dry. She became a slave to her hunger, the burn in her throat. She couldn't stop. She couldn't help it. She also discovered that if she sang, she could glamour large groups of people. She could feast. And feast she had. But usually she'd throw some of it back up. Her version of contrition. Her apology to God. She was sure she was the first bulimic vampire.
And in moments of absolute weakness, she would call home. Her parents would answer. Quinn, honey? She would be silent. How could she talk to them? How could she tell them? They would renounce her for who and what she was now. She would be no daughter of theirs. She knew it.
She had numerous messages from the members of the Glee club. All the same. Are you okay? If you get this, come home. You're parents said you called last night. They heard you crying. I hope you're safe. We know you're alive. Please call.
She had called Finn once. She had cried to him, told him she could never come back to Lima because she cared about all of them too much. Told him not to call anymore.
Once she had growled at Rachel that she would kill her.
The only one who still called was Puck. But what was there to say to him? Anything that might have been happening between them couldn't happen now. And for some reason this was the bond that she couldn't manage to untie.
This was how Eric found her one day. He'd been hunting her for a while. She was causing too much of a stir here in Louisiana. She was ruining progress for vampires. Something had to be done. She had fought him every step of the way. Not that all vampires didn't fight capture . But she fought blindly, almost like she didn't understand what was happening.
"Stupid fledgling," Pam had muttered under her breath, as Quinn lashed out with nails and teeth, cutting her deep. Eric hadn't liked it, so he knocked the girl out, taking her back to the basement of Fangtasia.
When she had awoke, she had screamed for hours, worse than the humans. She had broken the wooden poles, had slammed against the silver door repeated, ignoring the burns. He could hear her crying, whimpering.
That's how Eric found her when they first spoke. She was crying quietly in the middle of the floor, surrounded by her wreckage, burns on her skin, her chest cut up, by her own hand. No one else had been down here.
He felt empathy for the girl. "What have you done?" He leaned over and stroked her hair that was matted with blood from her tears, and her blood on her hands that she must have run through her hair.
"Have you ever tried to get it out? The dark desires?" she asked him. "they take over my head. I don't want to do it."
Eric chuckled a little. "No," he told her,"It doesn't work that way." Then he asked,"How long have you been one of us?"
Quinn's brow furrowed. How long had it been? "Months," she said, though she had no measurement for it. No number of months.
"Who created you?" he asked.
Quinn slowly sat up. She shrugged. "Some big, weird eyed tattooed guy. He left me."
This made Eric's blood boil. "left you?" to which Quinn simply nodded. He studied the girl for a moment. "So you know none of our rules?"
"No," Quinn answered simply. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to control it. It claims every part of me when the hunger begins to gnaw at me." She couldn't stop herself from asking the next question. "What about God and heaven?"
Eric's eyebrow arched. "Religious?"
"Catholic," she answered. "My parents would never accept me like this."
That's when Eric explained everything he could to her about vampires and their way of life, even the things that he thought were common knowledge. It all seemed to be new to her. And she seemed to perk up some when she heard about True Blood.
He got her some to try. Her first sip she spit out. She tried all the blood types and decided O negative was best. "tolerable," she christened it, as she drank the whole bottle and asked for another. Eric decided not to charge her with anything, since she was ignorant of how things worked. She stayed at Fangtasia. Glamouring large groups at a time. She fed when people would allow her to. But she never adjusted to the life. Often when she drank from humans, though it left her feeling more sated, she would vomit it back up. He watched her disappear bit by bit. Her connections were gone to her past. She missed friends and singing. She missed more innocent things. The only time she seemed to have life in her was when she was violent and brutal. The answer to all of her questions. The thing that she had wanted most. A way to not be that way was killing her, dulling her, as she denied her nature.
One night, Quinn took her cell phone out of her drawer where she had hidden it. She didn't know if it would still work. It had been almost a year since she'd last used it. She dialed Puck's number, wondering if it had changed. It rang, so she knew her parents were still hoping, still paying the bill. She felt the first tingle of a thrill that she had felt in months now, the first sign of life. When she heard his familiar voice, she smiled her first genuine smile in too long.
"Puck," she whispered.
"Quinn," his voice was excited, worried, panicked. "Don't hang up," he said. Tonight, she wouldn't. tonight she needed to say goodbye to him. "Where are you?" he asked her.
"Too far away from who I was for you to ever find me again," she said quietly. "I miss you."
"I miss you too," Puck answered,"I've been waiting for you. We all want you to come home. We're all worried."
Quinn took a deep breath. "You don't have to worry anymore. After tonight, it'll be over."
"Wait, wait," Puck was panicked. Quinn felt tears in her eyes. "don't do it. Just tell me where you are. I'll come get you. I'll bring you home. You're important to come people. You can't just…." He trailed off. "You're important to me." He finally declared.
"I know," Quinn answered,"You're important to me too. But what I am now…"
"what do you mean?" Puck asked.
Quinn knew she wouldn't have to spell it out. Puck knew about vampires. Had been curious from the first moment.
"I've been turned." He took in a sharp intake of breath before saying. "Babe, that doesn't matter to me."
"It matters to me," Quinn said finally. It did. She felt impure and unworthy. She didn't know if she could still love Puck in practice. She could just as easily kill him. "I need peace," she finally spoke again. "You have to let me go. I love you. Tell my parents I love them." And then she had hung up. And she had turned off the phone.
Eric wasn't expecting it at all. Quinn had appeared that night smiling. He had thought that something had changed for her. He had watched her sing for everyone, mesmerizing them. She had smiled. Winked at him. She'd jumped off the stage. "give me your hand," she'd said to the first. And then she had drank from him, until his heart stopped beating. And that was the first time that Eric knew something was wrong. One of the body guards ran for her, but she threw him off. Moving to the next person. She kissed him passionately before moving her lips down to his neck, while his hands roamed over her body. Until she dropped him dead to the ground.
She had fought and struggled, killing as many people as she could before finally being taken down by Eric. He hovered over her, a stake in his hand. All the human blood spilled, chaos all around now. Someone would need to be held responsible. It would have to be her. But he didn't want to do it. He had begun to like her. He felt bad for her. She was helpless in a lot of ways. She was stuck living a life she had never wanted. Separate from all the people she loved.
Quinn took one last look around. Walls and floor and counters painted in human and vampire blood alike. Limbs had been ripped off. Hearts ton from chests. Dead bodies. She wanted to lie amongst them. She looked up at Eric. "Do it," she said to him,"Please. Just do it."
And that's when he understood. She wasn't helpless. Or little. She was stronger than he could imagine. Strong like Godric, who had gone to meet the sun. And it was a shame to kill that strength, but what could he do? He gave her the final peace she was looking for. Amongst all the chaos, he granted her absolution, nodding, raising the stake.
Quinn closed her eyes for a moment to pray. And then opened them, smiling at Eric just before the stake drove into her heart. Still smiling as she exploded into pieces.
That night it was all over the news. About how a vampire in Louisiana had gone on a murdering spree at the club Fangtasia. They talked about her beauty, and her singing. They talked about how she had always been well behaved. They talked about how she had always entertained, kept it tame. How one night she had just snapped. How the owner of the club had killed her. Eric Northman. And how the club was safe now. But no one talked about the daughter she had left behind, or the friends who had wondered for over a year what had happened to her. They didn't talk about the people who had loved her. Who missed her. Who were shocked to see her a vampire. There was no mention of the fact that she was someone's daughter. No talk of those who cried over her loss. Just mention of the thing she had become. Just talk of the monster who had murdered.