Tale of a Vampire

I stared blankly ahead, not really looking at the painting as I was supposed to. My class had gone to a museum and we were being lecture by a guide. To me, there was no point in this trip, but if it allowed me to miss school, I didn't care where we went.
"Vicky. Vicky. Victoria!" I snapped my head around to see Ms. Gala with her hands on her waist and looking rather annoyed.
"What?!" I half-growled.
"Pay attention. You're supposed to be taking notes." she replied, glaring at me. Holding up my notebook and pencil, I pretended to be paying attention as the guide droned on.
~*~
The tour finally ended and we went outside to eat lunch. Automatically, the cliques of the school grouped up and sat down on the crisp, green grass. I sat alone in the shade.
I really didn't see what was so great about tanning. All you did was get darker in color and heighten the risk of getting skin cancer. I guess that made me stand out quite a bit. All the kids at my school were obsessed with tanning. I'm not even kidding. Being the indoor person I was, I was extremely pale in the first place and not going out into the sun made me even paler.
Some people said that I was a vampire. They even had "proof." I was pale, had long black hair, liked the dark/night, and hated garlic. It didn't really help that I was the outsider in the school. Though this had mostly died away, I occasionally got people asking me if I was off to suck an innocent victim's blood as I was leaving the school.
You may ask, what made me an outsider in the first place? I was living with a foster family and dressed goth. I avoided talking to people and when I did talk, I snapped at them. Why? Because I was still upset about everything that had caused me to be with the foster family. Don't get me wrong, they were okay people, but I was too depressed. My mother and father divorced when I was 15 and my father got himself a life long sentence in jail when I was 16. My father was the one with the parental custody before he lost it when he went to jail.
So, I was sent off to live with a foster family. This being the 7th, I was even more angsty than I had started out as. All this together made me to outcast, the loner of the school. Not that I cared. I'd probably be here only a while longer.
Out of nowhere, the brilliant blue sky was covered with storm clouds and the sun was blocked out. Yet, there was no rain, no lightning, and no thunder. Black forms came down from the sky and grabbed students. Something happened, and when they threw the victim to the ground, their eyes were sightless and their body was stained with blood.
I was paralyzed, watching the graceful forms kill the students. As their hoods fell off, I realized that they weren't just killing, they were feeding. These were vampires.
Shaking my head and closing my eyes, I told myself, it's all a dream, vampires aren't real. But when I looked again, they were still there. No other students were alive now. Except for me.
My whole body trembled as I tried to move backwards. My muscles wouldn't cooperate and my breath came short. Suddenly, one of them was in front of me, his red, slitted eyes looking into mines.
"She's mine!" he snarled, bearing his teeth. I could see those sharp, deadly canines in his feral grin.
"Don't kill me. I don't want to die." I whimpered, shivering at the touch of his hands on my neck.
There was a flash of surprise in his eyes, but they quickly returned to being stoic and cold. He caressed my neck, lifting my head to one side. I quivered, believing this to be the end of my young life. Then, he bit into my neck.
I felt the sharp canines sinking into my soft, yielding flesh. I felt the blood gushing out from the wound as he eagerly licked it off. But then something was poured into my mouth. I swallowed instinctively and the bleeding stopped.
I cried out as fire rushed through my veins and pain shot through me. My muscles lengthened and grew stronger. My head tilted back, my mouth open, and my I could feel my canines growing longer and sharper.
Finally, everything stopped growing and the last thing I remember was a pair of strong arms lifting me up from the ground.
~*~
The next thing that I could remember after blacking out was opening my eyes to see those glowing red eyes looking at me.
I sat up and saw the vampire who had bit me sitting calmly beside me on a chair. My hands shook as I tried to find the bite marks on my neck.
"You're not going to find bite marks." came the silky voice of the boy next to me. "You healed long ago. And by the way, I did not dress you if you're worrying about that." I hadn't realized until then what I was wearing. There was a strapless black dress with criss-crossing black ribbons on top of blood red on the bodice. The edge was ragged and torn. Large black boots and fish net leggings finished off the outfit.
"Vampire, what is your name?" I asked, turning to the one who had bit me.
"My name is William, but call me Will. I wouldn't be calling me a vampire so accusingly though. Especially since you're one yourself now."
"You turned me into a vampire?!" I screeched, finally figuring out what all the transformations were for.
"Well duh. You said you didn't want to die, and us vampired have to honor that. So what we do is we bite them and feed them our blood. If they survive the transformation, they become one of us. If not, ah well. And you haven't told me your name yet."
"My name is Victoria. Most people call me Vicky but I like Victoria better."
"Nice to meet you, Victoria." he said as he offered a hand to me.
"Nice to meet you too, Will." I accepted the hand and he pulled me to my feet.
~*~
"Where are you taking me?" I asked as he pulled me along.
"To the elders. They have to see if you are worthy. If not, you will be destroyed."
"Fantastic!" I said sarcastically.
"It's not that hard to pass. You'll be fine." I didn't say anything. I only hoped he was right.
It was strange to think that I was a vampire. There actually wasn't much difference. Or at least, that's what it seemed like now.
Will opened a door in front of us and guided me in.
"You're on your own now. Good luck." And then he was gone. I gulped and looked around. There were elderly-looking vampires in a circle surrounding me. Somehow, it reminded me a bit of something from Harry Potter.
"This is the new one?" Whoever said that did not sound impressed.
"Now, now, just because she doesn't look like anything doesn't mean she's not a worthy vampire." I would have smiled gratefully at the owner of the voice if I could have found him. Although in a way, it was still an insult. I suppose it was only fair, for I was thin and rather small for my age.
"Let the tests begin." Yet another mysterious voice. These voices were so hard to track.
"What is your name?"
"Victoria."
"You asked not to be killed?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because I didn't want to die." There was a pause.
"Bring in the box." A box was pushed into the room. Nothing particularly extraordinary, just a metal box.
"Tell us, is the person inside alive, dead, or a vampire?" Suddenly, I could see. I could see, or rather, sense, the heat emitted from inside the box. I smirked.
"One alive, one sleeping, one dead, and two vampires." The alive one was moving around and was emitting a lot of heat. The sleeping one was emitting less heat but still had some heat. The dead one still had a little heat and could be mistaken for sleeping but he wasn't breathing and his heart had already stopped. The vampires emitted no heat but stood out because there was heat in the air of the box.
"Can you tell us if the dead one was drained of blood?" I wasn't sure just by looking but when I took a deep breath in, I could smell the scent of blood. Ignoring the scents of the alive and sleeping one, I focused on the scent of the dead one. There was the scent of stale blood, which meant that he had bled at one point. But from what I could see, he was still slightly warm with blood so he had only been partially drained.
"Partially drained of blood." I answered. I didn't exactly know how I knew all this, but somehow, I did.
"Lift up the box with one hand." I walked to the box and thought about it for a while. There were 5 people inside. As far as I knew, I wasn't that strong. But I had to try.
I grabbed an edge of the box and lifted. Gasping, I marveled at how easy it seemed to lift it. It was like holding a feather. Gently, I put the box down again.
"Last test. Run from one side of the room to the other." I walked to the closest wall and ran straight across the circular room.
"0.05 seconds." Was it really that fast? It hadn't seemed that fast.
"You have passed the test of sixth sense, scent, strength, and speed. We congratulate you." They clapped politely and Will came to take me away.
~*~
"Now I have to explain the rules. We live in secret. You cannot return to your family. You cannot feed by yourself. You cannot tell humans that you are a vampire." Will waited for my reaction.
"That's not a problem." And it wasn't. Having no school life, there was no one to miss. My family pretty much didn't exist. There was no one to tell. As far as feeding went, I didn't know how to feed so I would have to travel in a group.
"Good. Crosses and holy symbols to not harm us, including holy water. Garlic is just a bother because of our heightened sense of smell. We don't turn to ashes in the sun, we just look unusually pale. Though if you stay out long enough, you can get a sunburn. We cannot shape shift. Mirrors show our reflections."
"What is true then?"
"As you know, we are very quick and strong. We also can heal immediately and fly."
"Okay. Now what?"
"You have been assigned a room, which is next door to mines. I will help you for however long you require my assistance." He was as good as he said. He told me how often we feed (it disgusted me at first, but human food no longer satisfied me) and introduced me to other vampires. He showed me that practically all legends on vampires were false except for a few. he taught me how to fly and avoid airplanes. He was my companion for 50 years.
~*~
Still looking the 17 year old girl (although, now I looked more powerful and dangerous since I had inhuman abilities and red, slitted eyes) I had been half a century ago, I flew beside Will, who had been 18 when he had been turned. He was at least a century older than me, but he was my best friend. Actually, he was more my boyfriend now, but I usually called him my best friend.
We were off to feed on a group of late night party-ers. They most likely drunk and didn't taste as sweet as the ones who were sober, but still food.
I had just started on my 5th one when a state went through my shoulder. Dropping my victim, I wrenched out of the stake and turned to see a vampire hunter. They were rare these days but still dangerous.
"Damn. I missed the heart." I called to the others and we circled the hunter. He held up a silver cross, waving it around at any vampire who moved.
It wasn't the cross we were afraid of, it was the silver. Silver left burns that lasted for years. I still remember my first run-in with silver. Left a nasty ring-shaped burn on my arm.
When the hunter's back was finally facing me, I lunged and his head was cleanly cut off with my trusty dagger.
The others smiled at me and quickly finished off the rest of the party-ers. I licked the blood off of the dagger and then sheathed it. It had been a pretty good feeding.
Will came up behind me and hugged me.
"Great job, Victoria." he whispered into my ear. I turned to kiss him, loving the last of his lips. He let go of me and then we walked to join the others. But he didn't make it all the way. A silver stake was impaled through his chest and he looked at me lovingly, eyes full of pain, before he turned into ashes.
"That's right, go to Hell, where you belong!" shouted the hunter who had shot Will down. I gritted my teeth. Now was not the time to mourn, it was the time to kill. There would be time to mourn later.
He began to fire silver stakes from an automatic crossbow at me as I ran towards him. They all missed. Or rather, I avoided them all.
I ripped off his head with my hand, not caring for a clean cut this time. I threw the head away from me in disgust.
He fell, but not before he had wrapped his silver whip around my arm. Hissing, I removed the weapon and turned to face the others. They had gathered Will's ashes into a pouch and handed them to me. Silently thanking them, I slipped the pouch into a boot.
Only now did I allow myself to cry. It began to rain, almost as if the sky was crying with me.
We flew back home and mourned the passing of Will. I locked myself into his room for two years, just crying.
When I came out, I vowed that I would never again feel compassion for a human again. I would kill without mercy. So be on your guard. You might just be my next victim.

AN: This is a short story based off of a dream I had the other day. A lot of it wasn't in the dream, but this is partially what occurred in the dream. I was Victoria in the dream, though I made the name after the dream.