Unsystematic (1)

1. New eyes

She opened her eyes into a bluish darkness, with a soft, silky sensation covering her skin from head to toe. Nice, she thought, moving her head slightly, so that the refreshing softness would spread through all her face. It was like a thin fabric of some kind, and she moved her hand against it. Oh, right, she thought, remembering the sensation of being followed, the figure that appeared out of nowhere, growling, seizing her, opening her mouth against her neck…

Her hand pushed on the fabric, grasping it and dragging it over her head. The cold light of the neon tubes greeted her and made her close her eyes for a moment. So… this must be the morgue. She grinned and jumped down from the metal bed, not bothering to look down at herself - she already knew that she was naked. It was funny; one minute she was all terrified, struggling to free herself from the strongest fingers, and the next, she had those strong fingers. And she just knew it, which made her grin harder.

The door of the room opened and a man came in, wearing a bright green shirt and pants. He closed the door absentmindedly and paced towards another body. Suddenly, the man looked up, sensing her presence, and locked his surprised eyes with her eager ones. She walked up to him, all the while smiling, and raised a finger to his chin, closing his mouth.

“You know, Doctor, I won’t be needing that autopsy anymore,” she said, laying a hand over her own stomach. “I know exactly what’s wrong.”

“W-w-w…”

“Aw, look at you. You’re stuttering, you poor thing,” she brought her hands to his shoulders, almost hugging him. “Don’t worry; I know how to make it better. You’re going to love the silence.”

She tightened her grip on the man, clenching his arms to his sides to immobilize him. Her brand new instinct was teaching her what to do and how to do it; she was her instinct, and it was very, very hungry. Her instinct even had a face of its own, and it appeared with the excitement, with the smell of blood. She slid the tip of her tongue over her engorged fangs, half-closed her eyes and then dove into the man’s neck, the pointed weapons digging deeply into his skin.

Barely half an hour later, she was already exploring the town with her new eyes - or rather, with her new vision. Sunnydale late at night looked like a completely different place. Devoid of sunlight and its warmth, its kind inhabitants and the colorful variety of college students were almost invisible. Most of them, it seemed, were locked up safely in their cozy rooms and homes, but the very few careless ones that couldn’t be bothered by Sunnydale’s alarmingly high mortality rate shone through the darkness like fireflies.

Other creatures crossed her eye as well, of course, sometimes only during half a second, then disappearing - creatures like herself, who had surpassed the level of humanity. Where could she be, the one which had transformed her? She was curious about her. Why transform her, why not drink every drop of her blood? What had made the vampire decide?

She recalled what she had seen of the vampire’s appearance: two curtains of crimson hair framing a beautiful, white-skinned face. And that smile… an obscene, playful smile and lips as red as blood. Back then, she’d been terrified but now that she was no longer the helpless little girl, she was beginning to feel an interest towards the thing that had attacked her. And what an attractive thing it was. Starting with the fact that she had annihilated the vestal inside her so that her real craving could surface freely, she had many things to thank the vampire for.

I’m eager to thank you. She licked her lips and observed Sunnydale’s main street from the roof of one of the buildings: buzzing with activity during the daytime, and now silent as a grave. Funny. What do vampires eat around here? She knew the rules by heart; after all, not very long ago she’d been just another sheep in the herd. The main one was: never come out at night. There were others, of course, like obeying the curfew; or the one that counseled to never wear bright colors, taken right from the statistics: the majority of people that had died were wearing something colorful.

Her first act as a vampire, apart from killing the man in the morgue, had been stealing some new clothes, so that she could be the color of shadows. She’d actually found her old clothes in the morgue, the ones she’d been wearing when she’d been attacked, but she couldn’t even look at them now. If I wanted to cover myself, I’d wear a poncho, she thought, caressing her newly acquired leather pants.

“But who’d want to cover this body?” she asked out loud, stretching the anxious muscles of her arms.

Suddenly, she saw some movement down on the street. It looked like a man, and he was running. Smiling, and not really caring if she was stealing someone’s prey, she jumped down from the building and landed on her feet, just before the man, which was only a kid.

“Hi,” she said, grabbing him by the arm and enjoying his startled face. “I was wondering if you could help me… Could you tell me where does this friggin’ town hide all the girls?”

“Leave me alone!” the kid cried, snarling at her, his voice distorted. When he looked up at her, his face had changed.

“Aw, you’re a vampire,” she said half-heartedly, but without releasing him, proud of the fact that she was the stronger one of the two.

“I said leave me alone! Let go of me! Who are you? Don’t you know what’s going on?”

“No, I don’t. I was made just a while ago.”

“Tonight? That’s one sick sire… Who made you?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps you could help me,” she smiled dangerously and yanked the vampire’s arm, pinning him to the wall. “She had shoulder-length red hair and very white skin. Do you know her?”

“That must be Willow; one of the Master’s favorites.”

Willow. The name echoed inside her head. Funny she’d only felt that sensation while reading the words to a spell; long ago, with her mother… But this was someone’s name. Funny.

“Who’s the Master?” she asked, “and what happens tonight?”

The vampire made a face of disgust. He didn’t want to explain.

“Tell me, where is Willow? And you better make it twenty words or less, or I’ll pull your repulsive head off,” she said, always politely.

“She’s with the rest, in the factory,” he said, hurriedly. “But the Slayer’s there, fighting all of them.”

“And you ran away like a weasel,” she brought a hand to his hair and pulled, exposing his neck. “What’s your name, little weasel?”

“Jim,” he said, through clenched fangs.

“You know, Jim, now you’re going to be a good boy and you’re going to tell me the exact location of this factory. And when you finish telling me, there’s another question I need some help with,” she felt her face change, and saw her terrifying reflection on the vampire’s shifty eyes. “What does vampire blood taste like?”