1
The university buildings were dark spires surrounding me, not a single light on in their windows as I raced towards the library. I fumbled in my pocket, searching for my ID card, panting and cursing as rain slipped in my eyes and blurred my vision.
Dread was a searing sensation in my gut. It felt like it was eating up my stomach lining and burning my throat as my shoes splashed in puddles. To call this situation bad would be an understatement. I was defenseless with no weapons or backup. The vampire was right behind me. I could hear him laughing at my attempt at escaping.
The moon was a slivered crescent in a cloud-polluted sky. The light post glared as I went under it, blinding me from my surroundings for a moment. The bugs and bullfrogs howled, croaked, and screamed. A cacophony of brutal nature, uncaring about me running as fast as I could across campus. Instead, they curved their efforts toward eating one another.
The soft, steady patter of rain couldn’t be heard over my sharp inhales and pounding heart. The drizzle soaked the walkway, darkening the color of the stone.
I sprung up the library stairs, gripping the slick handrail, and nearly dropped my ID.
“Fuck,” I hissed, turning to look behind me as I grabbed onto the door handle. Lines of lights shone on empty walkways. I looked around in confusion, swallowing thickly in between deep inhales.
Nobody was out there.
Where did he go? The maniac didn’t just give up. He wouldn’t. I pressed my card to the reader and the door clicked open. Quickly, I went inside. No one was behind the desk and I couldn’t see another soul around. I buried myself between tall wooden shelves filled with thick books. The scent of paper and leather surrounded me.
Finally, I sunk to the floor, my fingers brushing the coarse library carpet as bookshelves pressed into my shoulder blades. I caught my breath, thinking I might have actually gotten away–that the bastard chasing me had turned tail and ran.
Then I heard him from the row behind me—one slow step at a time. The lights above me began flickering and I bent over my knees, hyperventilating.This wasn’t happening, I told myself. It was just a dream. The same fucking dream I had every night this week. Ithadto be a dream because I kept waking up perfectly fine.
Fear was culminating inside of me, bubbling and clawing—filling me up with acid. It flared until the only thing left to call it was terror. It shouldn’t be this scary but there was no controlling the perfectly human reaction to facing a monster.
My body cried for movement, begging to shiver as adrenaline poured into me. I strained to control it with every ounce of strength I had. It felt vital to stay still so the creature might think I wasn’t here. A stupid and ridiculous idea but I had to hold on to some hope even if there was never any getting away.
He always got me.
From the corner of my eye, a dark figure came around the bookshelf. I could barely breathe. I ground my teeth and moved, leaping to my feet and running. My breath was messy and loud. I was losing control of myself, forgetting all my training. Then again, what training would help me right now? Hand to hand was a guaranteed death sentence. The only thing that could save me would be getting away. The safe room was close, but could I reach it without him getting me?
My heart thumped dramatically, straining in my chest. The bookshelves were endless and the lights kept flickering. There was no one but him and me.
I turned into another row of books and he was there already, waiting for me. His face looked like a mask—gnarled and waxy. The skin was too pale and thin, blue veins under his eyes and marbled through his cheeks. He was hideous, a caricature from a B horror movie with a prominent brow ridge reminiscent of a caveman.
He was the same height as me but with dark hair and dark clothes. I stood there in utter shock as his fingers played with the edges of my blonde hair for a moment, mocking me.
My eyes squeezed shut as tightly as possible. I didn’t want to look at him. His eyes haunted me.Just a dream, I tried to assure myself.
I heard his deep exhale as he leaned in. He sounded relieved as if he lived for just these moments and the time in between them was spent only in anticipation.
A single cold finger trailed delicately down the side of my neck, almost tenderly. I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth and bit down on it.
“Stay quiet,” he murmured threateningly around a mouth decorated with fangs. I knew what he was about to do. It was the same every night. This ghoul came to poison me. I felt a sharp pinch at my neck and my mind scattered away. It tore into a million paper pieces as I was pushed against the bookshelf and looked up at the arched ceilings above me.
“It’s not a dream,” I mumbled through the fog. Dreams didn’t hurt and my neck was killing me. I sucked in a breath and twisted his clothes in my hands. A button-up and burgundy smoking jacket. Who was this? What was happening? What was real?
“Fuck!” I barked, kicking and thrashing—trying to escape. My attempts were useless. “Tate!” I yelled even though I sounded pathetic, calling out for my partner who wasn’t here but invoking his name made me feel less alone.
“Look,” the vampire rasped, his voice like sandpaper on my skin. “Look,” he repeated, his voice digging deeper into my head. I sucked in a breath and opened my eyes, my eyes tracing the intricate molding above me.
His fingers wrapped around my jaw and he turned me to look at him. I winced from the pain in my neck. My eyes rounded as I took in his—bright and unnatural, sucking me in until everything else faded.
“It’s a dream.” The words dripped from his mouth like syrup.
“It’s a dream,” I repeated quietly, my voice apathetic.
He hunched over me again, greedily latching on. His hand firmly pressed on my collarbone, his mouth drenched red at my throat, fangs glistening macabrely with my blood. He sucked the life from me and by doing so, he was poisoning me. I could feel it in my veins, burning.
I didn’t move. It felt like I was trapped in catatonia and that only some foreign cocktail of drugs could lift me from it.
