Drugged

Amidst my dreams I met a man
Whose eyes like fire blazed.
So full yet drained, his soul now damned
As his bloodlust leaked its rage.1

Lost…
Addiction has finally led me to this abysmal point. Time, family, friends; all are relatives lost to me from years of my neglect and abuse.
Would I put my need to satisfy this insane craving before my loved ones? Never!
Well… like to believe that anyway. Denial tends to cushion the daggers of my conscience’s reprimands.2

My thumb’s sore.3

With the absence of a screwdriver I managed to remove my car’s number plate, but not before inflicting a few cuts and bruises on my hands. Not that I care all that much about the scars, it’s the lingering pain that reminds me of that which I am about to do, once again.
All I need to do now is wait. I’m at the pick up venue in my pathetically disguised but still red beetle, convinced that the person who decided that patience was an existent virtue had never, in fact, had to wait for anything his or her entire life.4

It’s getting colder at night.
I guess I should have worn a warmer jacket, but then, they probably would have added that to the price of keeping my sanity as well.5

Tonight didn’t go too well, depending how you looked at it that is. If you saw the most exquisite man to have ever caressed your eyes with his looks, come up and hand a small box of hi-lighter pens through my window, unlock my door, drag me onto the pavement and then proceed in harassing me -most lightly put- for a ridiculously large amount of money I now apparently owed to them, you’d be more inclined to think that I had gotten off fairly easy, considering I am still alive.
On the other hand, walking alone through the most people cluttered neighbourhood in the city, with nothing left to my name except the clothes on my back and the small box of hi-lighters, both of which I fought for, believe you me, would tend to disagree.6

My legs are aching, I’ve been walking for hours and all I want is to be away from the dark, away from this lack of light that taunts me with the moment of transformation. Disaster likes to play at the most inopportune times… I should know, I’ve joined in its game over and over again.7

I sit down on top of an electricity box feeling light-headed. Suddenly a familiar itch begins to spread through my blood. Could this night get any worse? My blood has begun its slow process of evaporating through the tiny pores in my skin. Twenty minutes and the cravings would start, by thirty my body would begin to take on a deathly paleness, and one hour, to the exact second, would see me with no colour in my form, save for two red translucent rubies with black pools leading further and further away from life and closer and closer to the insanity that would shortly possess me.
Fumbling with my box of hi-lighters I select one and unscrew the lid. Empty? No questions asked, no time to ask any, I ripped open the next. Nothing! Damn him! It can’t be! Pen after pen was opened, and in each one I found no trace of the phial I’d become so familiar with. This was not something to play around with, and he knew it…8

”Hey Darrien. Where’ve you been?” I asked casually as he came over to the couch where I lay. With a strangely icy look in his eyes he replied, “Remember that dream you had a few days ago that you told me about? The one where you had felt as though there wasn’t a drop of blood left in your body, but when you opened your eyes you saw your reflection as a little girl with blood dripping like tears from her eyes, and you haven’t been able to figure out why? Well… I think I know the answer to that…
Darrien, what are you…? What’s wrong with your eyes? Darrien! Don’t… don’t come any closer! No! Please… no!9

It was only 5 years ago when I first went to my supplier, who at the time was nothing more than an acne covered, sad excuse for a chemist, to try and find a cure or any kind of solution, anything would do. He agreed on helping me as an experiment, no strings attached except for my life, which would be experimented on. Two months after doing a series of tests on me he sat me down to hear his diagnosis and solution. The always required, bad news was that my problem wasn’t remaining in its simple form. In a matter of months my transformation would reach the point of complete insanity, blood being the only thing that would halt the process in mild cases, would not be enough to stop me should I allow my body to complete the curse. The good news was that in giving myself a daily supply of blood, I could prevent it from getting to that point. It was all set. He would supply me with phials of blood stolen from donation supplies, and I would be his right hand woman.
Three years later he’d become one of the biggest gang lords in the country, and I had been demoted to just another customer.10

He knew it…
This can’t be happening. If I don’t get a phial of blood soon, there’d be no turning back, my conscience would persecute me for the rest of my life, if I ever transformed back to my normal self again that is.
I need blood and fast! But how could I find some when there aren’t any hospitals for miles? Racing through my options my mind suddenly came to a halt.
A young man, still in his early teens by the look of his hairless face and boyish features, stumbled and collapsed by my feet, his body obviously numbed by the drug he’d given in to taking at the house party or club he’d just come from..11

No! It never has and never will be an option, I swore that I would sooner burn in hell with this curse than kill a human being for it! I am not one of them! 12

“One, or hundreds?” This thought appearing over and over again in my mind. There must be another way, I silently beg as the last few droplets of blood on my arms begin to evaporate one by one.13

Feeling the eyes of the damned burning holes through me whilst their owner’s triumphant grins linger in the dark, I slowly lean over the boy’s limp body. “Forgive me” I whisper, closing my eyes to immerge myself in darkness.
No thoughts, just the feeling of death running through my veins as I steal the last droplets of blood out of his. I saw my reflection out of my mind’s eye, nothing left of the life honouring innocence I had possessed before. Just two pools of translucent rubies, with black holes that lead to a scarred portion of my sanity. This is the punishment for a vampire.
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