Word count: 2148
Days of full moons were the worst. Bronwyn would spend an entire day fidgeting and trying to prevent herself from thinking of the only thing flooding her mind. It was nearly impossible to maintain composure when every nerve in her body was consumed by this primal need and charged with the determination to ravage.
Bronwyn mentally reclassified the feeling as a want, even though it was technically vital to her health. She wanted to ravage.
She decided to focus on her breathing, almost leaving the lesson of the period to be dealt with once she got home and could maintain more than a semblance of control. Her mind was becoming continuously clouded at school, especially considering that she was surrounded by at least a thousand young and healthy potential victims who were so warm and smelled especially exquisite today—
No. Put that in the back of your mind.
What was becoming of her in recent months, she had to ask herself. With every moon, the feeling grew exponentially stronger, and she feared the night it would take over. According to her uncle, the feeling would die out after she had her first taste, and it would only reach the magnitude it was currently at for her if she went years without nourishment – again. He insisted last year that she go ahead and do it for once just so that she feels better, but she refused.
Of course, she could stick it out, she stubbornly told him and herself. Right to the last second.
The teacher rambled on for some time before she finally suppressed the feeling just enough to tune in, and she continued to jot the notes that were written on the white board (although now her leg was bouncing up and down and she began writing in messy print instead of her typical neat script, revealing her restlessness for any observant individual to see). It wasn’t so bad, she told herself. Maybe today would even be better than last month—
“Mr. Raines, why are you late this morning?”
Great, another warm-blooded creature. Just send them all my way, why don’t you?
She eyed the student in question, Arion, warily as he calmly explained that his bus came late today and gave the number of the bus route that was announced five minutes prior on the PA system. Bronwyn found him to be a weird classmate of hers. Unlike the other humans, his blood didn’t just smell like — well, blood. It had a bit of an earthy tone to it rather than the mere metallic tone of iron. Or maybe she was just smelling him and not his blood; he was one of the students who maintained the school’s garden after classes, and her sense of smell had a tendency to confuse one thing for another when she was hungry (which now seemed to be all the time).
He took his seat – the one next to her. As the teacher continued lecturing, he leaned over, his obsidian eyes trained on Bronwyn, whispering, “Hey, if I don’t get to finish the notes, can I copy yours during lunch?”
She nodded, managing a small smile his way as he leaned back in his chair.
They weren’t particularly close – then again, Bronwyn wasn’t particularly close with anyone. To put it simply, her uncle viewed relationships outside of his community as the first step towards the discovery of the community. And that would be disastrous. No one could ever know, under any circumstances. He instilled that perspective into his niece as she was growing up. Though he did try to tell her to brood and be antisocial, she couldn’t help herself from talking to people and building connections. It was so simple to be nice and make friends, but so difficult to be alone. By the time she had reached high school, they came to a happy compromise: Instead of explicitly pushing everyone away, she could be a kind acquaintance to all. However, this was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up considering that her natural instincts had been starting to kick in as of late.
Which led her to this exact moment, where she was now (more carefully and legibly) scribbling the notes in her notebook with one hand and tapping her fingers on the desk with the other. She couldn’t help the desire to eat. It was literally only natural! The literature notes couldn’t keep her mind off of all the pulsing circulatory systems in the school; the lecture wouldn’t silence the beating hearts surrounding her.
She gently curled her left hand into a fist and tapped it on the desk quietly once. Admittedly, it was partially her fault. Knowing that it would be a full moon tonight, she could have chosen to go hunting yesterday evening and store some extra blood for today, but no, she was tired from the basketball game she played and had homework to do. Even considering that, she could have hunted any time in the last month. Procrastination was her enemy every moon.
~
Arion was going to have to learn one day to spend less of his morning time collecting potion ingredients and more of it actually walking to the bus stop. He was lucky (partially) that the bus actually came late, and when he had arrived at the stop with his pockets and arms full of flowers, leaves, and the eggshells of hatched birds, the other students at his stop were still there. They didn’t look at him oddly as they were already used to seeing him come with odd items. He even had more than enough time to put away the prospective ingredients before the bus arrived.
Though he tried, he wasn’t able to finish the notes in first period. Admittedly, he could have completed them if he really wanted to, but he was trying to keep his powers hidden. It wasn’t worth the risk. He borrowed Bronwyn’s notebook and finished the notes in Study Hall, but couldn’t give them back by the end of the day.
The rest of the school day seemed like a blur to him, as all days of the full moon did – when his powers were at a peak. He did less paying attention and more waiting for the classes to be over so that he could prune the plants in the school garden and walk home. On his walks home, he had recently started to while away the time it took to walk three and a half miles by looking for four-leaf clovers. He read in one of his father’s spellbooks that when mixed with Juno’s Tears and other herbs, they could make a concoction that could almost instantly heal wounds. He thought of his clumsy little sister and her skinned knees.
He arrived home without a hitch and left with a worn satchel. It was his father’s. He often used it when gathering ingredients for potions, and had even grown fond of the old bag.
By the time he was deep into the forest about ten minutes from his house, he heard a sharp, short howl – almost like a yip. He whipped around to survey his surroundings. Daylight was only just beginning to fade, so he could see a wolfish figure heading his way.
“Oh, shit,” he murmured.
For a few seconds, he was paralyzed as his mind raced with options. If he ran, the coyote would run after him and attack. If he stayed, the coyote would also probably attack. There was only one thing left to do.
He flicked the back of his middle finger against his thumb, like a match against a matchbox, and murmured, “Conflagro.” Instantly, a small orange flame was born in the palm of his hand, but he opened his hand more, and the flame – now blue – spread to cover his entire hand. It didn’t burn him; it wasn’t on his skin exactly so much as over it and surrounding it. He raised his hand cautiously, ready to defend himself or at the very least, scare the creature away.
The coyote drew closer, and soon he noticed the large quadrupedal figure behind it. The figure howled as well, but it was a long and drawn-out howl. A coyote and a wolf? What terrible luck. Clearly, he decided, the coyote wasn’t running at him but away from the wolf that snarled rather viciously in between howls. However, this wolf was immense. Perhaps it was simply the fact that he had never seen a wolf up close and personal before (though he prayed he never had the opportunity again), but he couldn’t help but feel that it was too big. It gained on the coyote, closing the distance between them – as well as the distance between itself and Arion. Only several feet before him, it pounced on the coyote.
The smaller creature pitifully cried out one last time as the wolf went straight for its neck. Horrified, Arion watched as the wolf pierced the throat of the coyote and sucked the blood. He wanted to run; he should have sprinted back home, but he couldn’t. He could only curl his hand into a fist and murmur the counter-spell for the flames surrounding it.
Just as spontaneously as the wolf started attacking the coyote, it stopped and backed off to lick its paws and the coyote’s neck clean. Arion looked on curiously as the wolf bowed its head over the coyote.
Then the wolf rounded on Arion, its nose and mouth still covered in blood. Its fur was dark, and its eyes were red but intelligent. In fact, it seemed to be studying him for a pregnant pause. After it apparently deemed that he would not be its next victim, it sat and turned its head towards the sunset. Suddenly, the nose shrunk and the forelegs grew into arms with hands and fingers; the ears shifted down and the tail retreated until it disappeared. The fur coat morphed into a black cloak. This continued on, and Arion examined the wolf gradually transform into a humanoid – and then something that very much resembled humans, but had to be anything but. After all, he was certain that humans don’t tend to transform into wolves.
She had wild, dark hair, bronze skin, and those intelligent red eyes. The color drained out of them gradually until the only shade in the irises was gray. Instead of shining joyously the way they did at school, her eyes pierced him intimidatingly. There was still blood surrounding her mouth. As she kneeled on the forest floor, she gasped, revealing enlarged canine teeth – fangs.
“Arion,” Bronwyn murmured, inspecting him yet again.
Her voice was different from the light, bubbly way she usually spoke. It was grave and deeper. Richer, smoother. Arion stayed still, for just like with the coyote, if he ran, she would charge after him. That much he was certain of.
Slowly, as if every movement she made was measured, she rose to her full height. “Don’t you know how dangerous it is to wander the woods by yourself in the evening?”
He put the pieces together immediately in his mind: His classmate had fangs, could transform and de-transform at sunset, specifically (he made a mental note of the fact that she had carefully looked back at the horizon), sucked the blood of the coyote, and had eyes that could change colors.
“You’re a vampire?” he asked breathlessly as she wiped the blood from her mouth and licked the side of her hand. She nodded, baring her fangs as they shrank – not quite enough to be human but enough that it would be barely noticeable except by someone who was looking very closely. Suddenly, Arion wished that he wasn’t that close. Panting, he admitted, “I can’t believe it.”
“Why?” Bronwyn smirked, her gray eyes now looking almost golden in the sunset’s light. “Because I’m not a pale, brooding loner?”
“No. I’m a mage. I study all kinds of magical creatures and occurrences. I should have seen it!”
“Speaking of which, I saw the fire you made. It was very cute.” Bronwyn shrugged before reaching up to tie back her kinky curls and pull the hood of her cloak over her head. She looked back at the sunset anxiously, and her dark skin shone in the aureate light. “And as for you not noticing, I’m good at keeping a low profile. That is the point when you’re surrounded by humans. Anyway, I have to get home. See you at school tomorrow. I know I shouldn’t be worried that you’ll tell anyone, but if you do, I’ll suck your blood until you’re a dry husk.” The young vampire turned on her heel but looked back at him over her shoulder with an infectious smile and continued again in the higher voice he was more used to, “Oh, and don’t forget to give me my notebook back during lunch tomorrow. Toodle-oo!”
Next chapter coming soon.
Scraps of Notebook Paper 