Full Summary:
"So, choosing the right victim had never been just about taste. The realization settled over her with such force that Nadja thought she might be sick again. Suddenly it all made sense, those seemingly random stomach upsets - they were rare, but they had always come after draining some depressed human. How could she have been so stupid as to miss such an obvious connection?"
Sad victims don't sit well with Nadja.
Five times that she suffers the consequences of draining a miserable human, and one time someone else does.
Nadja had never been a stranger to hunger. Even before that strange creature - the one whose bite had filled her veins with fire, and left her skin pale and her heart sitting silent in her chest - she had spent countless nights shivering under threadbare blankets and trying to ignore the persistent growling of her stomach.
This new hunger was different, though; a ravenous appetite for human blood that had come with the sharp fangs needed to tear flesh apart. Nadja had, of course, resisted for as long as she could. She had tried eating what little food her family could spare but it was no use - she could never keep any of it down.
Nadja remembered the first time that she had finally given in. She couldn't bear the pain of starvation any longer, and her neighbor was a lonely old man whose wife had died and whose children had long since sailed from the island. Nadja had crept in through an open window in the dead of night and found him sleeping. First, there was the feeling of her teeth sinking into the flesh of his neck, then the hot rush of blood filling her mouth and dripping down her chin as she drank greedily, the sound of the old man choking as he thrashed under her grip, and finally, silence.
She wrapped shaking arms around herself and sank weeping to the stone floor of her neighbor's home, horrified at what she had done. Nadja was covered in blood, and the grisly meal sat uneasily in her gut as shame and relief swept over her in equal measure.
But it wasn't enough.
She needed more.
Nadja's small, desolate village had no shortage of easy marks - widows, beggars, and orphans with no one to miss them - but no matter how many victims she gorged herself on, Nadja always started to feel sick long before she could feel satisfied. The ache afterwards was almost worse than the hunger, waves of pain that kept her from any meaningful rest.
But what right did she have to complain?
How could she have expected anything from this dark new existence?
She'd been made a monster; taking a life should not be painless for her, even if it was a sacrifice she saw no alternative to making. Perhaps it was a sign that she should feel guiltier, but all feelings were overridden by that persistent, gnawing hunger. Nadja found that most nights after feeding she was left lying with her cold skin pressed against the even colder floors of her victims homes, alone and in pain and somehow still hungry.
She quickly learned to ration out her victims, see how long she could go between feeds. Just like it had always been, food was not a luxury she could afford each day. It didn't take long for her thoughts to turn dark. Nadja watched her family by night - the warm Greek sun now burned her once-tan skin - and found herself horrified when she wondered, absently, what it might be like to sink her teeth into her sister's throat. The only thing that truly held her back was the fear it would be just as sour as the rest of her victims.
But even with careful rationing, there was only so long Nadja could go on hunting in her tiny hometown before hunger made her careless. Rumors spread, and the easy hospitality of locals that had been a reliable source of food was quickly cut off. She had taken to stalking her prey on the furthest outskirts of the village, but the fear building up on the island left the few victims she had found even more bitter and sickening than before.
Forced out into the open in a village already missing a quarter of its residents, it was only a matter of time before Nadja was discovered. She had fled the growing mob, ignoring the pang of sadness that struck when she noticed her sister and her husband leading it. She was weak from hunger, but her new inhuman strength and speed were still more than enough to outrun them.
On the island's only port, Nadja was able to charm her way onto a merchant vessel bound for the mainland. The men there were muscular, tanned, and boisterous. They joked with each other and sang sea shanties as they went about their work. Nadja was shocked when several of them offered to forgo their evening meal so that she might have something to eat - not at all worried about going hungry. Growing up, Nadja had been taught to eat whatever and whenever she could, never knowing where her next meal was coming from, and such kindness was utterly foreign to her.
The sailors were more than happy to help her - after all, she was a young woman, small, vulnerable, and seemingly in need of protection. They paid dearly for their mistake later, when Nadja lured one of the sailors over to the edge of the ship with a coy smile before draining him dry. She kicked his body into the sea, watching as the tiny blur of her old home vanished in the distance.
Nadja's journey to the mainland was long, but this was not without its advantages. The ship made port frequently to trade, which meant that the crew was always changing. With different sailors joining and leaving the crew every few days, it was very easy for men to… go missing. None of the sailors ever connected the dots, and for the first time in her life, Nadja understood what it was like to be well-fed.
For the first time since her unholy transformation, she felt satisfied.
A/N: This fanfic is a collaboration between myself and Ellienerd14, but since she's only on AO3 she's given me her permission to crosspost here. Will be posting the second chapter tomorrow, and then will be updating regularly on Fridays.
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