At first, I'd thought it was just a threat.

I'm staring at myself in the bathroom mirror; the pale face looks back at me.

I'm going to die.

My hands clench and I feel my nails digging into my skin, as the sheer sense of fear grabs me. My stomach churns and I'm shaking, my knuckles white. I try to force myself to breathe, but all I can think is that the mechanism forcing my lungs up and down will soon cease.

I cough and I feel it coming ever closer. I've heard how it happens. Blood – so much blood spurting out of your body until there's none left.

Pain flashes through my mind as I dig my nails in harder. Why was I ever Marked? From the moment I got here, I never felt that I belonged among these people, if you can call us that. I'd been happy in my old life, just going through school like any normal kid until the day that the Tracker had ripped my forehead apart with pain. They dumped me here – a place I've never called home.

Everyone else loves being a fledgling vampire. They work hard in class, they enjoy the rituals of Nyx. They don't talk to me unless there's something they want. Primarily my blood. I'm just the refrigerator kid, after all.

The coughing is getting worse. I know that it's time for class now. I struggle to put one foot in front of the other as I make my way towards the classroom.

I don't want to be alone when it happens.

The teacher starts talking and her voice just makes the pounding in my head feel worse. I put my head down on the cold hard desk. I close my eyes and wish that this was something else – that I'd be safe –

The most agonising pain I've ever felt stabs me. Hacking up my lungs, I see blood coming up through my throat and splattering the vague shape in front of me. Noise – voices make my head feel like the day I've just been Marked only worse. Trying to make out the distortions around me, I figure out they're getting Neferet.

Blood, desperate to leave my body, rips it apart in order to escape, wave after wave of pain –

Neferet was there – helping me – supporting. I have to say something, feeling it more intensely than the agony inside me. I cough again, trying to force the words upwards through my throat. "Will you tell my mom" I choke out. The words feel distant but I see the figure in front of me answer in the affirmative. One last look at the room before Neferet takes me away to die.

The sensation of someone touching me, forcing my head backward. A sweet liquid is being poured into my mouth. I know it's important that I swallow it. Blocking out everything else I concentrate on getting my throat to make the right movements. I feel it slip down –

I cough violently again, the force shaking my entire body – I'm going to be sick. More blood dribbles down my chin. My throat burns as I feel the bile coming up. My body shudders as I can no longer stop myself from throwing up. This time I'm strangely detached from it even though I feel my body shaking. Panic grips me – as if feeling no more pain allows me to focus on what's about to happen –

Looking down across my body I see more blood oozing out of my chest. I can't help thinking that I should be already dead.

We stop moving. I see a bed on the floor in front of me. She puts me on it. I think of everything I've lost – my friends, my family, my life. They all blur into one another as consciousness slips from my grasp…

I'm awake now. I feel an emptiness inside me. I get the feeling that whatever it was, I lost it a long time ago.

I see someone standing over me.

A crimson mark scratched across her arm.

The swelling inside me of a hunger so intense I cannot resist.

I suck. The blood expands to fill the emptiness.