The Hunger

The hunger wakes me at midnight.

Not stomach-hunger. Not thirst. Something deeper. Something that starts in my bones and radiates outward until my whole body is screaming for something I can't name.

I sit up in bed, sheets tangled around my legs, and press my hand to my chest. My skin is burning. My teeth ache. My vision pulses red at the edges.

"What the hell," I whisper. My voice sounds wrong. Rougher. Like I've been screaming.

I stumble to the bathroom, flick on the light, and freeze.

The woman in the mirror isn't me.

She has my face, my dark hair, my gray eyes, my too-wide mouth. But something is wrong. Her pupils have swallowed the gray whole. Her skin is chalk. And when she opens her mouth to gasp, two sharp fangs sit where her canines should be.

I touch my teeth. Feel the points.

"No." The word comes out slurred around the new shape of my mouth. "No, no, no..."

The hunger surges. I double over the sink, gripping porcelain hard enough to crack it. I can hear my neighbor's television through the wall. I can hear his heartbeat. And the smell...

Blood.

His blood. Pumping through his veins. Warm and red and alive and I need it, I need it, I need...

I run.

Out of my apartment, down the stairs, into the street. It's January and I'm barefoot in a t-shirt and shorts but I don't feel cold. I feel nothing but the hunger.

The city is quiet at this hour. A few cars. A homeless man on the corner. His heartbeat calls to me like a beacon.

I turn down an alley instead. Put my back against brick and slide down until I'm sitting in garbage and trying to breathe.

"I'm not a monster," I say out loud. "I'm not. I'm Cleo Stone. I'm twenty-five years old. I pour lattes at Grounds. I'm finishing my degree. I'm not..."

Footsteps. Someone walking past the alley.

My head snaps up. A man. Young, maybe thirty. Headphones in. Oblivious.

The hunger makes the decision for me.

I'm across the alley before I register moving. My palm seals his mouth. His spine hits brick. Above my fingers, his face twists with terror.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "I'm so sorry."

Then I bite.

The blood hits my tongue and the world goes white.

Not pain. Pleasure. Relief so intense it's almost orgasmic. The hunger that was eating me alive finally, finally stops screaming.

I drink. He struggles at first, then goes limp in my arms, and some distant part of me knows I should stop but I can't, I can't, this is the only thing that's felt right since I woke up,

His heart stutters.

I wrench myself away.

He slides down the wall, eyes closed, breathing shallow. Alive. Barely. Two puncture wounds on his neck already closing, healing faster than wounds should heal.

I stumble backward until brick stops me. My mouth tastes like copper. My chin is wet. I touch it and my fingers come away red.

"Oh god." My whole body trembles. "Oh god, oh god..."

The man groans. Stirs. He blinks awake.

I should run. I should call 911. I should do something other than stand here covered in evidence of what I've become.

But I can't move. Because I can hear it now, his heartbeat. From ten feet away. Strong and steady and no longer calling to me because the hunger is finally quiet.

He sits up. Touches his neck. Frowns at the blood on his fingers.

"What..." He looks at me. Really looks. And something in his face shifts from confusion to fear. "What... are you?"

I don't have an answer.

I run.

I make it three blocks before I collapse.

The hunger is gone but something else has replaced it. Horror. Disgust. The absolute certainty that I've become something inhuman.

I crouch in the shadow of a dumpster and press my hands to my face. The blood is drying on my chin. I can still taste him.

"I'm not a monster," I whisper. But the words feel hollow now.

My phone buzzes. I pull it from my pocket with shaking hands.

A text from a number I don't recognize: Happy 25th birthday, Cleo. Time to wake up.

I stare at it. Today is my birthday. I'd forgotten.

Another text: Your parents left something for you. Check under your mattress.

I don't recognize the number. I don't understand how they know my name or my birthday or where I live. But I'm already moving, already running back to my apartment, because whoever sent this knows something.

And right now, I'll take any explanation over none. The number. I screenshot it, save it. Whoever this is, they know things no stranger should know. That makes them either an ally or the most dangerous kind of enemy.

The envelope is exactly where they said it would be.

Old. Yellowed. My name written on the front in handwriting I don't recognize.

I sit on my ruined bed, sheets shredded, mattress gouged by my fingernails during whatever nightmare took me, and open it.

A letter. A photograph. And a locket I've never seen before.

The photograph shows a woman holding a baby. She has my face. My dark hair. My features. But I've never seen her in my life.

The letter is short:

Cleo,

If you're reading this, we failed. We tried to protect you. Tried to give you a normal life. But the blood always tells.

Your father was a vampire. Your mother, me, was a hunter. You are both and neither. You are what they call dhampir.

On your twenty-fifth birthday, the vampire blood will wake. You'll feel hunger. You'll change. You'll need to feed.

Find someone who can teach you. Trust no one who claims to be family, the Stones want you dead. Trust no vampire who knows your name, the old families want revenge.

We loved you. We died protecting you. Please don't let it be for nothing.

Survive.

I read it three times. Then I read it again.

Vampire. Hunter. Dhampir.

The words should feel ridiculous. Like something from a bad movie. But I can still taste blood on my tongue, still feel the fangs pressing against my lips, still hear my neighbor's heartbeat through the wall.

Not ridiculous. Real.

I look at the photograph again. The woman who might be my mother. The baby who is definitely me.

Then I look at the locket. Silver chain, oval pendant. I click it open.

Inside is a tiny photo of two people. The woman from the larger picture, and a man. Dark hair. Pale skin. Eyes that seem to glow even in the photograph.

My parents. My real parents.

And according to this letter, they're dead.

I close the locket. Put it around my neck. Feel the weight of it against my chest.

The hunger stirs again. Faint, but there. A reminder of what I am now.

I need to call my parents, my adoptive parents, apparently. Need to demand answers. Need to understand how my entire life has been a lie.

But first, I need to wash the blood off my face.

I stand. Walk to the bathroom. Look at myself in the mirror again.

The fangs have retracted. My eyes are gray again instead of black. I almost look normal.

Almost.

"Survive," I tell my reflection. "That's all you have to do. Just survive."

The woman in the mirror doesn't look convinced.

Neither am I.