Hungry

She shivered in the cold wind that blew off the canals. Venice was no place to go hungry. No one noticed her, no one even bothered to look her way. Their blindness provided her a sort of protection. If they didn't see her, they couldn't harm her. But she was ravenous; her hollow emptiness extended to the level of her soul. She felt as if her stomach was gnawing through her abdomen, devouring her from within. That very emptiness defined her; the whiteness of her face, the icy chill of her skin, her huge, dark, pleading eyes could all be traced to the hunger that threatened to destroy her. She had seen her reflection in the waters of the canal… She knew that her face was terrifying, that her pale lips, high cheekbones, and sunken cheeks gave her a sort of horrifying beauty. But it was a beauty that repelled, rather than attracted. It was best to be invisible; If they saw her, they would hunt her, and she would never be able to satisfy her hunger…

She had stolen down to the port because she'd heard about the strange vessel that had put in here this very morning, only a handful of hours ago, while she still slept in her darkened alley, fitful and cold, and troubled by nightmares. It wasn't strange to the people around her, the ones who strode by without seeing her, who never noticed her tucked in the shadows, avoiding them. They called it a submarine, and the bits and pieces of excited conversations that she managed to overhear told her that it was an important American vessel. They didn't call it a ship, and as she looked out over the port from her vantage point in the shadows beside one of the canals that flowed into the bay, she could see why.

It looked nothing like the ships she remembered; though her memories seemed strangely distant, and there were many gaps, she knew what a ship was. Tall and majestic, with white sails, like the wings of birds, that unfurled before the wind, driving out to sea in stately fashion. She had yearned to sail with them in the years before… Before her memory blanked out, and she woke up here in a dark basement, lying in dark, cold water… Since then, she had hungered. She had tried desperately to eat the scraps she could pull from trash cans, or found floating in the canals, but they sickened her, and she soon vomited them up again. It wasn't until one night – a night she dreaded to remember – when she had sucked the blood from the cut on some poor drunken soul's arm, that she had felt her hunger ease a bit. But blood was not sustenance… It was life, yes, but it couldn't be drunk, it couldn't really relieve her hunger. But she had kept it down, and she had not sickened from it. From that day to this, she had not eaten again…

There were many homeless wretches hunkered down under the piers that stretched into the canals. Most of them were drunk; others she'd seen inject themselves with something that made them behave like drunks or madmen… Occasionally, she had been able to lick and suck the blood from wounds on a few who were oblivious to her unwholesome attentions. The act sickened her, but she couldn't stop herself. When she saw blood, she was driven to act. And blood seemed to be the only thing she could stomach. She craved it increasingly, but couldn't bring herself to seek it.

So the hunger gnawed at her, and the chill numbed her skin and darkened her eyes. She distracted herself from it any way that she could. Tonight, she had come to see the submarine, and found it strangely inviting.

Long and sleek, like the bullet from a gun, but with a swelling like wings at its nose, it rocked gently, sitting low in the water. It carried a tower on its deck, that soared upward, with wings on either side, and a collection of masts at the top. Not the kind of masts that carried sails, though. And most strangely of all, it was made of metal. Just above the water, at its nose, it carried a set of windows, and her vision – honed by months, perhaps even years of deprivation – could see clearly the men who scurried about inside. She ignored them in favor of the ones who worked on the deck, and the two who stood atop the tower, looking down on the avenue that led past their vessel.

She slipped out of the shadows, clutching them around her as if she could take them with her. As she worked her away along the canal to the port area, she started away from anyone who came too near. It was late; there were only a few people that hurried through the night. She closed her eyes against the red glow beneath their skin that flowed like blood. Her vision had been changed after she'd waked up in the flooding basement. Before the blackness in her memory, her eyesight had been poor indeed. She had seen the world enveloped in a blur, smearing across her vision. Afterwards, she could see more clearly, farther than she ever had, with a sharpness that surprised her. But every living creature glowed with a red flood beneath the skin, beneath the fur. It was a tangible thing, pulling at her, calling to her. She expended every ounce of her ravenous strength in resisting that call. It frightened her; it exhilarated her… She didn't know what to make of it.

As she approached the submarine – such a strange word, implying as it did that the vessel could sink beneath the waves – she realized that another man stood on the docks, calling out orders to the men on deck. He must be an officer; he wore a uniform the color of fine sand, and he was tall and slim, and darkly handsome. The glow beneath his skin pulled her toward him, magnetic in its attraction, but she pulled back into a patch of shadows before she reached him, just in time.

Another officer, this one also slim and handsome, but with the fair hair of the Scandinavian travelers that used to visit her father's spice shop in the heart of the city, along the Grand Canal leaped nimbly across the gap between the dock and the rocking submarine. He called out to the other man, but she couldn't understand the language. Undoubtedly it was English, since the submarine was said to be American. Her father had lectured her about learning other languages, but she had never had a head for them. And then her memory had gone dark, and now… Now she was afraid to try.

But she wanted aboard the vessel that rocked in the gentle waves of the bay. If she could just manage to make her way into it, she could find shadows to hide her, and the submarine would take her far from Venice, from the filthy canals, and the people who refused to see her, and the homeless drunks under the piers. There was nothing here for her anymore, and she had always longed to sail out on the ocean, to feel the gentle rocking of the waves…

Both men turned toward her, as if they sensed her there in the shadows. She shrank back away from their combined gazes, but they couldn't see her. She knew they couldn't. She closed her eyes against the red glow beneath their skin, but she could picture them against the backs of her eyelids.

The darker one was older perhaps, but not by much more than a handful of years. He had warm olive skin, blushed by the glow beneath, and surprisingly light, hazel eyes that reflected his emotions expressively. His dark hair was charmingly unruly, curling across his forehead. He had a Mediterranean look about him that was familiar to her. Her brother had looked much like him, in the years before her memory had died, only to awaken again in the cold basement of her father's spice shop. She had never known how she had come to be there. And when she looked at her own white skin, there was no red glow beneath. She had wondered at that, and been frightened by it…

The other, younger man was more exotic to her eyes. His ice-blond hair lay perfectly, not a hair out of place, and his glacial blue eyes were far less expressive, though she could sense emotions beneath the façade, as if he were hiding them away. His skin was fairer than his companion's, and the red, warm glow beneath gave it a rosy hue that was very pleasing to her eyes. A casual observer might make the mistake of thinking him cold, but she knew somehow that he wouldn't be, that his blood ran as hot as the other man's, though he kept himself under such tight control.

She opened her eyes and looked at them again. There was an ease between them of years of friendship. They moved together, their mannerisms echoing each other. The darker man tended to move his hands as he spoke, emphasizing his words with gestures and smiles. The fairer man gave an impression of uncanny stillness, and his smile, when it came seemed slow and almost hesitant, as if it were a rare thing for him to smile. It lit up his face, and thawed those frozen eyes, lending a warmth to those classical features. Two such different men; she felt the magnetic pull of both, and inched closer to listen to their warm baritone voices as they spoke, enjoying the lyrical sensuality, even though she couldn't understand a word…

Oh, yes… She must somehow steal aboard this vessel, this submarine, if only to watch and listen to the men aboard. Their blood called to her; for this moment, she was unafraid of that call and what it meant. This submarine would take her far from Venice, in good company, and she couldn't wait to be away, sailing over the horizon. Would they walk that low deck when they were at sea, or would they stay inside? Would she feel the salt spray against her skin?

Could she satisfy her hunger at last? It gnawed away at her, devouring her from the inside out, and she knew she would perish of it, if she couldn't find a way to feed without sickening herself… Perhaps these men, this vessel would be her answer…

She watched as the two men walked away together, passing only inches from her hiding place. She could have reached out and touched them, had she wished to… But she didn't, knowing that the act would ruin her chances of getting aboard, of finding a place to wait out the hours before this American submarine would sail again. Where would it take her? She closed her eyes and threw her head back, drawing in the salt-rich air, the wild scent of the sea. She had always loved it, yearned for it, wanted to ride away from here on the ships that sailed away to freedom. Her father had held her back, his disapproval destroying her young dreams. Now, she would fulfill them at last.

Drawing the shadows around her, she moved toward the dock. It was tricky, this shifting manipulation of shadows. She didn't know how she could do it; she only knew that she could, and that there were times when the ability had saved her life. There were always places where the shadows could hide her, even in the brightest areas. The deck of the boat was brightly lit, but she manipulated the shadows around her, slipping aboard lightly, keeping to the edge of the deck where the shadow of the waves that whispered against the metal sides of this strange boat could hide her. There must be a way inside… She looked for it, finally found it in a door that opened in the tower atop the deck, and waited patiently for someone to open it, so that she could move inside.

Freedom… To be away with the tide, moving out across the face of the ocean… She couldn't wait…

But, oh, the inside of this boat was strange. The metal walls created a tangy echo that sounded as if her footsteps, though they were whisper-soft, were being dogged. The shadows were harsher somehow, brighter. She had to keep very close to the walls to weave them around her, to hide within them. The place seemed so cold and antiseptic…

Yet there was warmth, too. The warmth of a hundred heartbeats, thundering all around her with a deafening rhythm. It was different from the sluggish drone of hearts under the bridges and in the dark alleys of Venice. This boat was alive with the sound, exuberant with it. She could have danced to the beat, but she had to keep out of sight, until she could reach a place of safety. Where would that be on that this strange craft?

She came to a place to descend further into the boat. The stairs were incredibly steep with open spaces between the treads. She went down slowly and carefully, hanging onto the rail. Did the men aboard go down as slowly as she did? She doubted it somehow…

At last, she reached the bottom, and looked about her. The corridor was bright, but she clung to the shadows along the edges, slipping quietly into the deeper darkness under the stairs. This place was not deserted. She could hear men speaking all around her, and see their shadows pass up and down the corridors around her, but none came within her sight. There must be a place to hide somewhere; she couldn't take the chance that she would be found, before this strange vessel set sail. With determination, she set herself to find a hiding place.