Updated 04/04/11.

1663

Carlisle

The burning was finally receding, but that thought brought me little relief. I could only assume that once the fire was over, my transformation into a demon would be complete.

Will I become no better than the fiend who attacked me? Will I attack innocent people for their … their blood? The thought disgusted me. I tried to imagine myself attacking someone and draining him or her of their blood, but it was an unthinkable thought.

Surely, I could never do that.

But would I have a choice given what I was now in the process of becoming?

A blood drinker. A vamp … vamp … I couldn't bring myself to finish the thought. I just couldn't envision myself as such a creature, and yet I knew that was what I would be when I resurfaced.

As the last of the fire cooled, and I felt my heart stop, I made a promise to myself. I would not kill anybody. There was only one foreseeable way to keep this promise.

I have to destroy myself.

It was the only acceptable option available to me. I would not live the rest of my life as a cold-hearted murderer of innocents.

Slowly, and without opening my eyes as I could not bear to see myself, I stood up from under the potatoes. As they fell off me and dropped onto the floor, the sickening smell of rotten potatoes lessened in my nose. The scent had been overwhelming, much stronger than I ever remembered it being beforehand.

Before I… I couldn't finish the thought. I knew denial would get me nowhere and yet it was so comforting to cling to it. To try and tell myself that maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out alright in the end. That the fires had served a different purpose, were just a short test of my faith, and nothing else had happened. That I was still human.

But my heart stopped…

Maybe I was dead instead and now the fire had stopped I was allowed to enter Heaven. Maybe the Catholics had been right after all and there was such a thing as purgatory and that was why I had suffered through the fires.

Any of those ideas were more comforting than having to face the most likely option.

As the stench of the potatoes receded from my nostrils, it was replaced with a aroma much more tempting. My mouth watered at the scent, except I realised the substance filling my mouth was no longer salvia. I did not even want to consider what it actually was. My throat, which was the only part of me still burning, burnt hotter then ever. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recognised the sound of several heartbeats, as well as a set of footsteps, which were walking closer towards where I was stood. Another part of my mind recognized that this was not right, that I should not be able to hear such sounds with such clarity from this distance.

The tempting scent was become closer as well, pulling me forwards automatically. My eyes flickered open on their own accord and I saw for the first time the cellar I had hidden in. It was non-descript, dark and damp, full of old boxes and crate. The only noticeable feature was the pile of potatoes littering the floor. Yet, despite the plainness, of the scene, it was the brightest and most colourful place I had ever seen.

My mind processed all this in under a second, while it had been doing so my feet had moved me of their own accord to the only door that exited the place. In the next second, I was up the stairs. My movements were not being coherently thought through, my body was acting on its own accord and to fulfil its own desires.

"Susanna, come back, if thou art going down to the cellar, take this down for me," a sharp voice rang through the room from somewhere above me.

"Yes, mama," a little girl replied, her voice was sweet and gentle.

The footsteps started heading away from me, presumably they belonged to the girl whose voice I had just heard, and she had turned around per her mother's request.

My hand was now on the door handle, the door half-open. As the girl's footsteps grew fainter so did the trace of her perfume, or whatever it was, that was so strong and called to me. With it gone, I was able to regain some control over my thoughts.

There could be no more denial now. I was not human anymore. The evidence was too substantial. I was creature of the Devil. I was a demon. A blood-sucker.

Blood! Was it that which I sensed of the young girl? Was that why it called to me? Why the mere presence of its aroma caused my throat to burn so excruciatingly that I could not fight my desire to cool it. It stung too much, I could not cope. I would have to cool it soon.

By killing! I reminded myself, outraged. My throat prickled against me in response, reminding me of what it needed. How it could so easily be made content once the girl returned.

The girl! A young girl! If I am here when she returns I will surely kill her!

Even while my mind recoiled in disgust, my body produced more of the liquid in my mouth and my throat burned even rawer, informing me yet again of my new body's eagerness for her death.

The scent of her blood still lingered in the air, though it was not as strong as it had been earlier. My throat continued to burn undeniably and all I could think of was that I had to cool it. It was intolerable, I could not fight its need.

No! No! No! I will not kill.!

I did the only thing I could think of doing. I fled. Fled into the streets of London, knowing I could not be in that cellar when that girl arrived, for I would surely kill her. I

t took all the self-control I was still clinging to desperately to force myself to run from the promised delight when the girl returned.

No! No! No! Not a delight! Murder! A sin! A crime! An act of unforgivable cruelness.!

It was sheer luck that it appeared to be the middle of the night, so late into the night that it was in fact quite probably several hours into the morning. The same time of day I had once so frequently wondered London during, though I did not recognize any of the streets. Somehow, in such a short amount of time, I had managed to flee my father's parish.

And I must never return.

There could be no denying that fact. For my father would no doubt have me killed.

Yet did I not just promise myself I would make sure exactly that happened?

If I had promised myself I most die, then why not return? If anyone would make sure a demon like me died it was my father. And wasn't that what I wanted? I did not want to live this cursed life.

But he will burn you at the stake.

I did not tremble or shiver at that thought as I usually would have, this body no doubt would not allow me to do something as human as that. But I still felt the moment of fear.

There was no reason to involve my father is my desire to die. No doubt I would take the poor ill man over the edge if I did, which would as good as kill him, sick as he was.

If I did not do so first. The dark thought scared me and yet I could not argue against its truth, as much as I desired to do so. Father was human. His blood would no doubt be as enticing as the young girl's had been. If I were to go near him I would no doubt kill him. And the entire congregation while I was at it most likely.

I will not kill, I reminded myself once more. To my utter most disgust, my new body had tingled with delight at the thought of killing my father and his entire congregation.

I resumed my running, determined to be beyond the limits of London as soon as possible. Luckily, just as they had been when I partook in my night time wonderings, the streets were deserted. It was that time of night I used to love, when even the rowdiest of London's inhabitants were at rest. I dread to think what would have happened had I appeared hours earlier, when the streets would still have been filled with drunkards and scoundrels. Perhaps not innocents, but I would not have wished to kill them all the same. After all, killing a drunkard is still murder.

By nothing more than luck, I did not encounter another living soul.

Though actually, I am not one of them any more –a 'living soul', I reminded myself. I was neither alive nor had a soul anymore. For no creature such as myself could still be considered one of God's creations, and therefore my soul most have been ripped from me while I transformed into the demon I now was.

All around me, I could hear the heartbeats of the sleeping. And the alluring scent - the scent I quickly established was that of humans and their mouth-wateringly tempting blood - was all around me. Intoxicating me. Every minute I spent in London I knew was another minute where lives were at risk.

So, despite my body's outraged protests, I kept running. I noticed how fast the world was flying past me. The houses should have been blurry and yet my newly enhanced sight meant everything was still crystal clear to me. I would have marvelled in its magnificence if it was not a side-effect of becoming a demon. Proof that I was undeniably no longer human.

Within a short while I was out of the city limits.

How had I travelled so fast?

I soon realized it was just another of my new body's abnormalities like the heightened senses of smell, sound, and sight.

Finally, I stopped in a field, I had no idea where I was except that I had left London safely behind me. Somewhere in the distance, I noticed a lone farmhouse, but it was too far away for me to be tempted by its occupants. Looking eastwards, I noted the purple and red hues to the sky. If everything I had researched about vampires - for I realised I had to face that was what I clearly now was - was true, it did not matter that I was near humans, for as soon as the sun rose I would no longer pose a risk to them. Wasn't that why the demon had let me be the first time he saw me? Because of the impending dawn and the risk it posed to him.

The irony did not escape me. I had wanted to escape being burned at the stake, but instead I'd had to endure the fires that transformed me, was tormented by the dry ache in my throat and, in the end of it all, would be burned out of existence by the sun.

Under other circumstances the dawn breaking over the English countryside would have been a delightful sight; especially with the improved vision my … condition seemed to have given me. But I was in no mood to appreciate it, as I waited numbly for the end.

However, as the first of the sunrays lit the fields with a glorious glow, I did not burn, nor feel no pain. Instead, as the sunlight hit my skin, it was reflected back, glittering in a way that would put the most precious of jewels to shame. Every colour of the rainbow was there in my skin, visible only when the light hit.

I stared in horror at the unnaturalness of what was apparently my hand, terrified by the skin, the body, that did not belong to me. But despite my disgust, I could not look away; the beauty of it, the many sparkling colours, entranced me. I flipped my right hand over several times in quick succession, watching as the glittering colours blurred.

My trance was disturbed by an ear-piercing scream. Looking up, I spotted a woman stood in front of the farmhouse in the distance. She looked around about middle-aged and was still in her nightclothes.

A portly man barrelled out of the door and placed himself in front of her.

"Stay away, creature of sin," he shouted at me, he sounded truly terrified. He held up a large cross, much like the one I vaguely remembered hung in my father's church. Even as I focused on the man and woman, a part of my mind was able to note the peculiar dimness of my memories of my father and his cross, even though the sight of him preaching in front of it had been a daily occurrence for me.

The cross in the man's hand had no noticeable effect on me.

I knew I should run. At the moment I had gotten lucky and the wind was blowing their scent in the opposite direction to me, but it would not be to long before I caught a hint of it. I knew that they would die if that happened. If it hadn't been for the wind, I presumed the monster within me would have already won by now.

The majority of my mind was screaming run, but some part of it was transfixed by the look of horror on their faces.

They fear me. I truly am a monster.

And so I ran away again, before any harm could come to them.

I ran through fields after field, careful to always avoid any sign of human civilisation, after a few minutes a spotted a forest in the distance and aimed towards that instead. Hopefully in there I could manage to avoid human contact until I could find a way to rid this Earth of me.

Even if the sun and crosses cannot kill me, there has to be a way. I must find out what it is, before it is too late and an innocent person dies at my hand. There has to be some way out of this living embodiment of Hell.

Reviews are greatly appreciated. What did you make of Carlisle's awakening?