Molly Hooper had always been a rational human being. Oh she'd done her fair share of fairy tale reading and Disney movie watching, sighing wistfully over the romance and magic of it all, but in the end she always knew where fiction ended and reality began. Knights didn't run around in shining armor or wax poetic, though she sometimes fancied they wore Belstaff coats and waxed acerbic. But most of all Molly Hooper didn't believe in monsters of the inhuman variety, not until she woke up one.
She felt dirty, filthy in ways that had nothing to do with the blood coating her chin and throat. Her mind warred with itself, alternately trying to deny what had happened, what she had seen happen, and trying to process the changes she felt in her own body. The world seemed sharper. It was almost as if the glass through which she viewed it had shattered and she now risked cutting herself on the jagged pieces. Her nose felt assaulted with coppery tang of dried blood and the suddenly too strong aroma of the citrus body lotion she used to help cover up the scent of chemicals and decay that came from working in a morgue. Sounds were louder, traffic and people and that god awful rap music the teenager three floors down liked to listen to merging together to build a dull throb in her already overtaxed skull. She wasn't sure which was worse, hearing all of that or the gut wrenching realization that the one thing she couldn't hear was the beating of her own heart.
It was this that finally sent Molly running for the bathroom to heave up what she was sure was everything she'd eaten in the last twenty-four hours, finally crawling into the shower when she was finished. Even turned to the hottest setting the water wasn't enough to keep her from shivering, huddled as she was at the bottom of her tub. She felt undone and broken, sobs racking her body as she wrapped her arms around her knees and tried to pull herself together. To tell herself it would be okay.
She'd never been one for a lot of monster movies despite what many people thought. Oh the occasional werewolf, elf or alien epic was alright here and there, but Molly had spent far too much time dealing with the dead to find anything believable in the undead. She openly scoffed at tales of zombie apocalypses and vampire hordes, sneered at sappy romances that paired off innocent young women with immortal creatures of the night. It wasn't how death was meant to work. It wasn't the natural order of life. When people died for real they stayed dead. That's the way it was supposed to be. It was a tenant she'd based her life and her work around. Even the science of it had won out over her Catholic school upbringing, replacing the overly idealistic belief of a heaven with the cold logic of death being the final stop. And yet she couldn't deny the knowledge that she was still here, still conscious and thinking. Okay freaking out more than thinking but given that she couldn't find her own pulse and seemed to be breathing more from habit than necessity she figured she had the right.
The water had long since turned ice cold by the time Molly found herself able to pull herself up and strip her sodden clothes off, however as she did her best to scrub her skin raw the scientist in her registered the fact that she felt as unaffected by the chill as she had when it was scalding. If she was able to detach herself emotionally from the whole thing she was sure she'd find it all fascinating. Maybe later, if or hopefully when she manages to come to some grips with her current predicament she could examine the changes to her body's natural state with something other than abject horror. For now her brain couldn't get past the pained realization that some monsters were real, that she was now one of them, that she was now a vampire.
It wasn't until she'd dragged herself out of the shower and dried off, wrapping up in her most comfortable, and admittedly rattiest, pajamas and dressing gown to sit and sort out what to do that everything fell apart again. A hard knock sounded at the door just as the scent of fresh blood hit her nose, sharp and sweet. "Molly! Molly you in there? We got a call from your neighbor. Said there'd been a scuffle and some cryin', wanted to make sure you're alright." It was as Lestrade's voice called out that the hunger hit, doubling her over with a pained cry. "No! No just stay out! I'm fine!" She wasn't fine, she was far from fine. She'd never felt so hungry in her life and she feared what she'd do in this state if Greg came through that door. However it was when she realized the pounding in her ears came from three sets of heartbeats that she truly started to panic, grabbing her coat and purse at the sound of Sherlock's voice. "Oh for god sakes Gilbert of course she isn't alright. Now either break the door down or get out of my way!" She whimpered at that, half out the quickly opened window when she heard John throw his two cents in. "Sherlock calm down, you're not helping. Molly! Molly we're coming in! It's going to be alright!" She could hear her door slam open as her feet hit the street and all she could think was that it was not alright, it was never going to be alright again. Stumbling towards Bart's, the only place in the world she could think to hide at the moment, she tried to block out the world around her for fear of doing the unforgivable and attacking someone. Whether she had an immortal soul or not may be a philosophical debate she wasn't up to currently however she knew that either way her heart wouldn't survive knowing she'd killed some innocent person in this state.