The blackness was soon replaced with a blazing pain that sent screams tearing from Alice's raw throat, a pain that seared, fire-like, through every vein. She must be dying, she thought, had to be...
When she fell back into an uneasy faint she thought for sure, it was all over.
But then the fiery pain dragged her awake again...
So it was hell, then. She had done something terrible, and now she would be burned forever in hell.
She started to sob, but hardly any tears would leave her eyes, which seemed strangely dry. She fainted and reawakened several times before she dared to hope that the pain was receding. Was it, slowly but surely, slipping from her veins? It seemed so, but she didn't dare to hope...
Yes. Yes, it was gone. She laid limp with relief on the wet stone, still crumpled behind the trash bins. How long had she been here? She opened her eyes cautiously.
Everything was amazingly bright and clear. The sun sparkled enchantingly off the edges of the metal trash bins and in the puddles on the ground. She could hear every tiny sound from the street, smell millions of scents that made her throat burn with longing.
Alice cautiously lifted her head, noticing a wet pile of ashes sitting sadly in the corner. The smell coming from them made her wrinkle her nose, and brought a brief, blurry rush of memory. Fire... and anger...
She sat up, shaking the memory from her head. Why linger on painful things, only half-remembered anyhow, when there was so much around her that was real and clear? Besides, she was hungry. And thirsty.
It was the oddest feeling, a burning thirst in her throat mixed with a growling hunger in the pit of her stomach. All those scents she had noticed when she first woke up smelled even more enticing now that she had recovered herself.
Alice stood up in a movement quick and fluid like a snake's, frightening herself in the process. She fell back onto the ground with a soft flump.
Standing up more slowly this time, she edged out from the alley. Her movements were still fast and foreign to her, but she supposed that was just because she had been lying on the ground for so long.
The burning sensation in Alice's throat returned with a fury as she inhaled deeply. Not pausing to decipher the medley of mouthwatering scents, she reached out and snatched the first person who came by.
"Wha-" he started, the indignant look starting in his eyes quickly turning to fear when Alice jerked him closer with a strength that surprised her. Letting her instincts move her along, she lunged for his neck where the sweet, warm scent was strongest. Her teeth broke the skin and she drank the hot red liquid that came pouring out, full of relief.
When the man was drained of blood, pasty white and empty-looking, she dropped him unceremoniously on the floor, kicking him back into deeper shadow. The fire in her throat and the scraping pain in her stomach had receded to a dull ache, barely noticeable.
Alice slipped into the stream of morning walkers, noting with interest the way they shuddered instinctively away from her thin body. A few wrinkled their noses- the better-dressed ones- no doubt noticing her ragged gray dress, cropped hair, and bare feet. She would have to do something about that.
Suddenly, a face filled her vision with such force that it sent her reeling against a wall. The feelings connected with the face were overwhelmingly strong, stronger even then the powerful thirst that even now lingered in the back of her mind.
The face was stark white and beautiful, with deep burgundy eyes staring from above gray shadows. Golden hair fell in dirty straggles around the angles of his features, stopping at his jaw. He was much more familiar to her than the faces around her, those warm, pink, fragile faces. He wasn't breakable at all, nor did he make the thirst flare up inside her. Alice had to find him. The compulsion was much more important than the need to feed. She knew immediately that she would willingly starve herself for just one more glance.
She set off purposefully, going much too fast to seem normal amid the fragile beings around her. Ignoring them entirely, she launched herself onto the roof of the nearest building and began to run, blurring into the dawn sky.
Constructive criticism would be appreciated. I wasn't planning to continue this story, but then I read it over again and I just had to…