Shinju Matsushita- Heart of Darkness D3F

I used to be a person. I used to love taco day at the orphanage, even though the tortillas were stale because they were from the food bank. I loved the spices in the meat, so unlike anything else we got to eat. Sometimes there was lettuce at the food bank and then the tacos were all fun and crunchy. It felt like something more than just bare-minimum food for bare-minimum kids.

I was a person once. It was so stupid of me to hide inside and shove the sun away. I thought I was so special, setting myself apart as something different. I wasn't increasing my mystique. I was just eroding my humanity. I never made friends. I always told myself the other kids hated me. I was never as smart as the others in Three. Looking back, I didn't remember them ever actively shutting me out. Some teased, sure, but others just looked at me like anyone else. If I'd tried, I probably would have had some friends. Or maybe the ones who would have been my friends were the ones I murdered.

There were still some human things about me. I didn't want to hurt people, like most humans didn't. I still looked like a person. Or at least I thought I did… When I looked in the mirror lately, all I saw was my clothes. Surely only humans had nostalgia, at least.

A sudden pang of thirst hit me so hard I clutched my stomach and swept my eyes around the room. I hated myself as soon as I did it. I'd been looking to see if there was someone I could bite. If I'd seen someone, I didn't know if I could have stopped. It might have been Gabriel, just tying to stay alive. I wondered what noises he would have made if I'd killed him.

There was no blood left in the hospital. I'd checked every room. There was only burn in hunger or quiet that pain by doing something that would burn me in Hell. I didn't see any out for myself. I could only be cured if Walcott and Gabriel died. Gabriel certainly deserved this more than I did, and at least Walcott wasn't a monster. I wasn't even hoping for life anymore. I was just hoping for peace.

Walcott Patel- Heart of Darkness D3F

Someone had been by here. There was a smudged fingerprint on the glass table in the oncology waiting room. Of course I had no idea whose it was just by looking at it. It might even have been from a Tribute who was long dead. If it was one of the living ones, I doubted it was Wangari. She was too highly trained to smudge glass and leave it like that. But who would be bent over far enough to lean against such a low table, and distracted enough not to notice the trail she'd left? A vampire who hadn't had blood in a few days.

She would be hungry when I found her. There was no blood left for her outside of me and Gabriel. I'd seen to that when I drained the blood bags I'd found into the sink. A hungry vampire was savage, but she was also desperate. It would be like shooting a rabid dog. Except it wouldn't be, not really. A rabid dog wasn't to blame for what it did.

I froze when I saw her. I didn't believe, for a moment, that it was real. I'd thought I'd seen her once before, but as I'd run forward, it had been my reflection in a window. I'd noted the irony of it. After the instant of suspicion, though, it was clear that this was the real deal. She was facing away from me. Reflections didn't show the back of your head.

Quietly, I reached for the stake in my pocket. It was going to be so cinematic after the sponsor gift I'd gotten. Instead of a stake I'd crudely whittled from a broom handle, I had an ash-wood stake with a carved vine snaking around it. The included mallet lay heavy in my other hand. I transferred them over to my pocket for a minute, my fingers wrapped around them awkwardly. Shinju would turn around any minute. When she saw I was ready for her, she might try to run. I wasn't going to give her that option.

Shinju Matsushita- Heart of Darkness D3F

The feeling came over me of being watched. It was hard to tell at first, since I always felt like I was being watched. It wasn't until it ramped up in intensity that I turned around. I saw Walcott perhaps twenty feet behind me, a knife in her hand. I was turning to run when the knife flashed once. Red bloomed across its blade and her forearm. The metallic smell hit me.

Drink her.

I leaned back as my legs moved forward, the jerking movement almost knocking me off my feet. It was red. It was warm. I knew exactly how it would taste.

Take it.

You need it.

Drink it warm and coppery-red.

I managed a step back. It made no progress, since Walcott was walking toward me. I was bent over with the force of the desire pulling me forward. There comes a point where the body controls the mind. If a woman who hasn't had water in two days sees a river, there is no choice. My mouth moved emptily as I tried to tell Walcott to get away. The words got stuck in my pointed teeth.

She would break like glass. Like those cakes where you cut into them and candy spills out all over the table.

Walcott's throat was pale in the blue hospital light. Her black hair slid across it in shining waves as she moved. It was so dark against her. It would be beautiful if it was streaked with red.

A blurred memory came to me of Lyte's face. I couldn't focus on it enough to really see him.

Please take it. Don't let us die.

I felt her blood in the air. I felt its particles rushing up my nose. I felt them in my open mouth. I hadn't made myself into this. It wasn't my fault. I wasn't to blame for what I did.

I shoved my arm inside my mouth. I'd already tried drinking my own blood. Of course it hadn't satisfied me. It had made the slightest difference, like a starving wpman finding a crumb, just to have something in my mouth, though. Just to feel that warm stickiness in my mouth and taste the vital sharp flavor. If I was biting myself, I wasn't biting someone else. I sank to my knees and pretended it was Walcott I was biting. If I made it real enough for myself, she might have time to run.

Walcott Patel- No Way Down D3F

It was nightmarish to watch. Shinju's eyes fell on my hand and they bloomed red like blood dropped in water. She strained with all her might to get at me, but the silver I'd smeared on myself was forcing her back. If she'd just run she might have been able to escape me, but her demon hunger wouldn't let her. She stayed almost in the same spot as I advanced on her, pulling back one step and then staggering forward as her hunger forced her closer to the burning silver in her desperation to eat. If she'd been a dog I would have felt sorry for her. She deserved everything she was feeling. I wanted her to know every bit of how it felt for every one of the ones she killed.

As I neared Shinju, she finally snapped. She needed something- anything- to put into her panting, glistening mouth. She shoved her own arm in and started eating herself. She must have lost her mind entirely, since she fell to her knees and started to gnaw on herself. She paid so little attention to me I wondered if she didn't think it was me she was eating. I walked up beside her, careful in case all of this was a ruse. She shuddered as I approached, no doubt feeling the pain of the silver. As I stood over her, she mumbled something so quietly I thought at first it was just a little hunger noise.

"Get away."

The words slowly resolved themselves as I raised the stake over her. After all these murders, when her time came, she begged for mercy. She should have talked to a priest. She wouldn't find mercy from me. Mercy wouldn't fix my brother.

My hand ached with the strength of my grip as I held the stake to Shinju's back. It wasn't the best angle, but I'd practiced every one of them. Standing, lying, sitting, crouched on the floor, I'd staked her a thousand times.

The heavy mallet sent the stake pounding through Shinju like a nail through balsa wood. I had no doubt in the spot I'd chosen. Her heart was under that stake, moving in a profane mimicry of beating. She made a muffled noise of pain, blood flowing faster from her arm as she bit down. She fell to her side, her arm falling free of her mouth. Blood dribbled from the teeth marks punched into the skin. Flecks of blood peppered the floor in front of her mouth as she panted for breath. Her hand shot out to grab at my ankle. I jumped back, but I hadn't even needed to. She snatched her arm back with her bloody hand and shoved it back into her mouth. My lip curled at the beastly spasms. There was no life to leak out of her. There was only unholy animation. With every second it spilled out of her, she was still trying to feed.

Shinju Matsushita- Heart of Darkness D3F

I remembered, then, what I'd read so long ago. There was a stake through my heart. I could feel the wood holding me in place and sucking the life from me. I wondered that it didn't hurt. It was like the body wasn't mine. I was something inside, aware it was damaged and waiting to be able to escape.

Of course Dracula was the first vampire novel I read. It honestly hadn't been my favorite. It had focused so much on the boring human characters. Dracula got barely fifty pages of screentime. I'd always skimmed the ending, of course. I didn't want to read about the part where the vampire died. It all flowed back to me, though, as I felt myself breaking loose of my body. The metaphysics of Dracula had been vague, but there had been a few specifics. A vampire, it was written, was a human soul trapped in an infested body. Buried under every vampire was the human who never would have done what the vampire did. It was the greatest horror of a vampire that to see one was to see a human soul unable to move on until its cursed body was peeled away from it.

I was peeling free. Already I didn't feel the lust for her blood. I looked up at the blood on her arm and felt only the hope that she would heal well. I moved my tongue forward in my mouth and smiled as I felt my blunt teeth. It was almost over. I'd passed the danger. I hadn't hurt her. It was so sad to me that she didn't even know the blessings she had. I hoped for the rest of her life she treasured her humanity.

It was clear in my mind now. No hunger reddening my thoughts and no voices clamoring over me. My death was so human. A bubbly feeling of lightness came over me as my connection to my body faded. The final chapter of Dracula had been so short- only a single page. I remembered the very last line. It said that as Dracula died, he smiled.

3rd place: Shinju Matsushita- staked by Walcott

The stars aligned for this storyline. Just about any other arena wouldn't have had the opportunity for Shinju to actually turn into a vampire. It just so happened there was also a vampire hunter in the arena, so this just wrote itself. It doesn't get much cooler than this so I'm pretty happy. While Shinju is welcome in future stories, it's super satisfying to have such a clean full circle moment. First Shinju wasn't a vampire but acted like one, and then she was a vampire but acted human. Though Walcott refused to notice it, Shinju gave a superhuman effort to keep from hurting her. Had she wanted to, she easily would have- she's far stronger than she shows. Oh, the juicy Nietzchean moment. Which is the hunter and which is the monster? But I digress. Shinju has gone from one of the nastiest murderous tributes to a beloved hero and we've all loved seeing it.

Lore note for those who haven't read every story: Shinju didn't attack Walcott's brother, but her brother saw Shinju kill someone and was labeled as crazy and institutionalized.