My First Dawn

My first feed didn’t go well. If it was an exam, I failed it. Mister watched from afar while I scrambled to fix the mess I’d gotten myself into. With the flesh of my roommate’s neck stuffed into my pocket and his blood all over my shirt, I made my escape. When emergency services arrived to extinguish the fire ravaging our apartment building, I couldn’t be found in the mob of residents on the street.

I was running with limitless stamina toward the river, where I scrubbed my shirt and threw the chunk of flesh into the water. The blood stained my clothes, so my shirt and jacket found a new home at the bottom of the river.

Jared is dead, his body charred to a crisp in our apartment. Chances are, the authorities will know it was foul play. Nobody accidentally drenches themselves in flammable liquid and lights themselves on fire.

I am screwed. I won’t be able to lie my way through a witness statement. Speaking of witness statements, the other residents may have seen the blood on my shirt.

At four in the morning, after hours of wandering around the streets aimlessly, Mister finally appears to me. His pallid skin glows in the moonlight, his sunken eyes burn holes into me, and his displeasure is palpable. With a twirl of his hand, he gestures for me to follow him. I don’t have a choice, though, as his Persuasion pushes his blood around in my veins and forces me to comply.

I imagine it is what a heart attack feels like, where my chest cramps in pain and it feels like all the blood vessels in my body are popping.

I accompany him back to his hideout - our hideout, since he turned me. One warehouse among many becomes as inconspicuous as a tree in a forest. The windows are blackened, and inside the small office room is Mister’s coffin. It is plain, not like the decorated ones presented at a funeral. I suspect he built it himself. He must be a decent craftsman, though; not a single ray of light could infiltrate the cracks.

Mister hums to himself while locking the steel door behind us. “Indeed. Building one’s own coffin is a rite of passage. Fail, and one may die. Only those worthy of this existence remain.”

I have to be deemed worthy? I assumed this was my life now. I thought I escaped from the social politics and bullshit of humanity, but apparently it carries on in the undead, too.

“Do you deserve to live for an eternity if you can’t protect yourself? The answer is no. I did not give you eternal existence. I gave you the opportunity for it. You need to earn it, young Anthony.”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes, but Mister can sense my intentions without action. His lips thin into an unimpressed grey line.

“I made a mess tonight,” I groan, sitting on the desk.

“You certainly did. Soon, authorities will search for you. They may make public announcements for reports of your whereabouts, and you can never set foot in public again for a very long time.”

For a moment, I feel like I can hear a kind of satisfaction coming from the man-thing in front of me. I narrow my eyes.

“Hmph. Guess lighting that fire was a shit idea, then. I should have chopped up Jared and spread his body pieces elsewhere and taken my time cleaning the apartment. Would have been easier to handle a missing person rather than a murder case.”

Mister nods in agreement. “That would have been an ideal course of action for you.”

“You knew, didn’t you?” I accuse him, too angry to care that he can snap me in half. “You told me to burn the body. You knew this would end up a mess!”

His cheeks pull into a sly smile. “Yes, but it is better that you are restricted from involving yourself in the human public, now, until you learn control. You are a quick learner; you have already identified what you should have done instead. This is good.”

“Wha - why didn’t you just say Young Anthony, don’t go out in public until you learn control,” I say in a mocking deep voice. “Instead, you’ve just made a huge problem.”

“Correction; you made a problem. Do you recall me telling you last week that you needed to feed, and the week before that? You tried to squash your urges, but your thirst got the better of you and you killed a human. You did not listen to me before. I am sure you would not have listened to me if I told you not to go out in public. Now, you have no choice.”

“Then why didn’t you just use your Persuasion to force me not to?!” I shout.

“Because by letting tonight play out like this, you now have limitations forced upon you, and you have learned a valuable lesson in murder management and the consequences of not listening to me,” he responds matter-of-factly, unfazed by my emotion.

It annoys me he is right. I guess when you have been alive since the dawn of time, you gain some wisdom along the way, even if it is inconvenient for me how he uses it.

A few moments pass before I notice Mister is doing that thing again, that thing where he sits still as a statue, staring at a wall. It is creepy, really. Not pretending to breathe anymore, his chest doesn’t rise and fall like it does with the living.

I hop off the table and unlock the office door. The cold metal barely even registers with me. Even shirtless, I don’t feel the chill anymore.

“It is nearly sunrise,” Mister’s smooth voice says.

“I’ll only be a moment.”

The bang of the door closing ricochets throughout the large warehouse, but nobody else is around to hear it. The stairs are still in decent condition and hold my weight as I climb up to the upper platform to the blackened windows. Yeah, I may have spent most of my human life in a dark room playing video games, but at least that was by choice. This dark box feels like a prison. Peering over my shoulder occasionally, I scratch at the black paint on the windowpane until I have a coin-sized hole to peer through.

The sky is awash with mauve as the approaching sun lightens the night sky. Sparkles of the sun on the surrounding building windows make my eye itch. I haven’t seen the sun’s light in three weeks, and already it feels like the dim light is burning away my retina. I blink, but my eyelid is like sandpaper across my eyeball.

A heavy and threatening presence burdens me and I feel something akin to fear as the shadow of Mister appears beside me. I can barely move as I wait for him to either berate me or kill me.

Sharp fingernails pierce the skin of my throat as Mister wraps his bony fingers around my neck, holding my head in place.

“Do you wish to meet the sun? Are you ridden with guilt after killing that boy tonight?”

“No,” I respond as calmly as I can. “I don’t feel any regret.”

“Very good. Do you miss your family?”

“No. I only see them a couple times a year. I might miss them in a couple years.”

“Hm. Then why, young Anthony, are you disobeying my orders? I told you weeks ago never to look at the sun, but you have not heeded my warning. If you wish to see the sun, this will be the last time you see it. As soon as it peaks over the horizon, your eyes will be burned from their sockets. We do not heal the damage from the sun.”

I am terrified, but my body doesn’t respond with common signs of fear. My heart is beatless, and breathing is merely habitual.

“Please, let me go.”

Mister’s grip doesn’t relent. The sky lightens and my eye by the clear patch of window burns.

“I will listen to you next time, I promise.”

His hand squeezes tighter, and I feel a hairline fracture in my neck. The burst of pain is only temporary.

“Let me go! Hold me here and you will have a useless fledgling with one eye. Think I am useless now? Just wait until I have half the vision of other vampires.”

The vice-like hold releases and I drop to my knees, curling into the darkness of my palms until the burning sensation subsides. I blink, but the feeling of sandpaper on my eye remains. I peer up at Mister and he stands tall above me, the limited dispersed light reflecting in his eyes; the eye-shine of a predator about to attack its prey.

Words fail me. Miserably, I follow behind him to the office room. He gestures to his coffin expectantly, beady eyes drilling holes into my back as I climb in.