They say just before you die that your life is supposed to flash before your eyes, mine didn't – maybe I just hadn't lived long enough. Then again some strange thoughts did pass through my mind; the most prominent was that I wasn't meant to die like this, I'd narrowed down the ways I would probably die to three, each involved me being over 40 and starting to slow down reflex wise, I always thought I'd either die from being bitten by a black mamba or king cobra, or crushed and then eaten by a green anaconda.

Another thing that crossed my mind was regret, regret that I wouldn't get my argument with Lucile; it would have been interesting to say the least.

And so I waited to die, a few seconds later I opened my eyes wondering what was taking so long, I was stunned, Lucile had Louis in a headlock and by the looks of it Louis had stabbed Lucile and broken his blade on her.

"Run!" Run? I doubted I could crawl at that moment in time, and what was the danger? Lucile had Louis completely immobilized and... hold on a second, Lucile is a vampire, vampires drink blood, I have blood, bingo threat figured. Still didn't change the fact I can barely move.

"I can't" I wheezed. God I sounded bad, my injuries must be worse than I thought (which was definitely saying something).

" I said get going,"

"I meant it Lucile, I physically can't, I doubt I could manage a slow commando crawl right now"

"Then crawl!" she sounded vicious almost feral this time – I started crawling.

It was becoming increasingly obvious that being anywhere near her in the near future would be a very bad idea, so I crawled, not on all fours, I was crawling one arm in front of the other dragging myself along. I heard Louis scream, I increased my pace fully aware that if I didn't hurry I would be the one screaming. To be completely honest I was deluding myself, I had as much chance of escaping the blood maddened fiend I was trying to evade as I had flying to the moon.

A few minutes later the screaming stopped, if I were to guess I'd gotten 100 maybe even 200 metres away from my starting point. I briefly wondered if Lucile had left after 'lunch' before deciding it was irrelevant and continued crawling.

Ten seconds later I stopped as a pair of black high heeled walked into my line of sight; I gulped inaudibly and looked up, sure enough there she was, her eyes were blazing red, not just the crimson colour of earlier but a deep blood red colour that seemed to almost burn your sight with it's intensity.

"Good meal?" I asked nervously, "filling I hope?"

She laughed, though I was unsure if it was at my obviously strained voice or the actual question itself.

"It tasted good enough, though I'm not quite full yet."

She grabbed my shirt and picked me up with only a single hand, I was too weak to even lash out, in other words I was entirely at her mercy.

She leaned in, she wasn't breathing even more evidence of the strangeness of the creature which it seemed was about to kill me, as I felt her fangs on my throat it seems in a last attempt to salvage some sense from the situation my mind decided it was time to faint, and I don't mean just fell to the floor fainted; I mean eyes rolled up into the back of my head fainted, the last I saw was Lucile withdraw surprise on her face as once again my vision went, completely unsure if I would ever wake up.

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An unknown amount of time later

I woke up. Which to be honest was a rather large surprise, surprise number to was to realise I was asleep in my own bed wearing a set of pyjamas I hadn't worn in ages. The next few things I noticed was that it was light, so at least the following day, I sat up slightly and glanced at the clock, 12pm it read, the next thing was that I still hurt all over so I hadn't been submitted to hospital, I put a hand on my chest and pushed, to my disgust the amount of pain caused me to whimper slightly – which meant my ribs were still broken. It shows my frame of mind that it is only then that I noticed I wasn't the only one in the bed; I narrowly managed to stop myself diving off the bed.

"Leave now!"I hissed. I honestly didn't know if she was asleep or even if she could sleep, but come hell or high water she was leaving.

No response except a light snore, which was actually kind of cute though it gave away the fact it was all an act as I knew she didn't need to breath.

"Get up, I know your awake the snore gave it away." She sat up, her eyes were still blood red but no longer hurt to look at, as she sat up the quilt covering her slipped revealing the fact she was completely nude. I was fuming, here I was barely able to move and she was still playing mind games?!

"GET OUT!" I'd finally lost my control over my long subdued anger. "IF YOUR NOT GONE IN 30 SECONDS I WILL FIND A WAY TO KILL YOU!"

There was a blur and she was gone. I was actually quite shocked that she'd listened, then again I was angry enough to actually try and follow through with the threat, and I might have succeeded.

I stayed resting in bed for the next 2 days before hunger and dehydration finally persuaded me to use what little strength I had to get up. I cooked a large dish of pasta, ate a 3 packets of luncheon meat in the fridge then drank 2 pint glasses of milk and 1 of orange juice before going back to sleep.

This continued for a month as I slowly healed, I got my school teachers to email my schoolwork to me, by the time my ribs had healed and most of the bruises had faded I had ran out food in the fridge and freezer and all I had left to drink was water. On the bright side I saw neither hide nor hair of Lucile.

And so February moved into March I was finally back into my normal condition, well almost, I was slightly malnourished where I wasn't eating properly and slightly weaker from lack of exercise.

The 1st thing I did once I was well enough to leave the house was walk down to the local co-op and stock up on food and buy some milk and some teabags, once I got back I put the shopping away and went back to sleep.

The following morning was Monday and I was seriously starting to wonder if that 1st night I had been set upon and then hallucinated the rest as I healed.

School was normal, the teachers were impressed that I'd actually done all the work they sent me, I quite honestly answered that there wasn't much else to do.

It was surprisingly easy to fall back into the old routine, then again why wouldn't it be? Nothing had really changed, right?

And really it hadn't.

A week later and no contact from Lucile, which was relief, although I did feel like I was deliberately closing the door on a major scientific opportunity, I mean vampires weren't supposed to exist, and according to logic couldn't exist.

Still no going back, and I still had my old dreams, the dreams which had kept me forging my way through my education as quickly and as accurately as possible, when I finally left school the first thing I'd be doing was buying a plane ticket to Brazil. Then I'd use any money I didn't need for the return ticket to hire a guide and some supplies. I still wasn't sure how long I'd spend in the Amazon at least a month, possibly up to a year, or if one of the native species got me, an eternity.

Funny thing eternity it's easy to use as a word yet when you actually think about it it's nearly impossible to get your head round, same problem with infinity

And so the days passed and the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months, and fact turned to memory and memory to dream and dream to a mere memory of a dream. And so the events were slowly buried deep beyond even the subconscious buried beneath layer upon layer of useless data stored away just in case it might one day be used.

In other words I forgot.