Transition

I shudder; my heart thudding in my chest, a roaring in my ears.  It’s a curious sensation, having one’s blood sucked away.  Not drained, like a cut or trauma, but more a vacuuming.  A slurping, suckling sound as the vampire nuzzled into my throat.
She’s holding me tight, so very tight as her skin turns from cold to hot as my blood fills her greedy little body.
Adrenaline makes my heart beat faster – every thumping pumping beat gushing out of my neck and she can’t swallow quick enough.  A river of red floods passed her mouth and down her chin, soaking both our shirts.  There’s a grimy mirror on the wall behind her and I can see my bloody reflection just standing there – she of course is invisible in the mirror, just the outline of her body echoed in the way I hold my arms.
She’s a tiny little thing, this vampire, shorter than me by a head and with a trim little figure and tiny budding breasts that press hard up against me.
When she entered the room, her skin was so translucently pale that she gleamed a horrid fish-belly white.  But now, as my blood pumps through her, she’s turning pink; the icy-blue veins under her skin slowly disappearing.
She pulls me tighter, her bony grip digging into my back and I arch towards her, whimpering.  She boasted once, how she’d shattered a man’s spine doing this.
I wonder distantly if she’ll do that to me too, and if she’ll even mean to do it. 
She’s rubbing up and down against my body now.  Perhaps she can taste the adrenaline coursing through my veins.  Merging with her ecstatic little moans are the gruesome sucking noises as she guzzles at my throat.
Blood loss is affecting my vision, dimming it, and making it hard to focus.  My mind begins to play tricks and I suddenly suspect this is all a game to her, that she will not turn me at all.  I try to cry out, to push her away.  This was not our bargain.
But I’m far too weak to make any real noise.  Surely she must be finished by now – I’m that much bigger than her and she can’t drink all of me.
I’m right.  With a satisfied, smirking groan she lets me go and steps away.  I sink to the floor, face slumping into the thin carpet.  I can still feel blood spurting from my neck and I want to reach up and staunch the flow, only I can’t even roll onto my side or back and lift my face from the filthy hostel floor.
She is watching me, crouching beside me.  She cocks her head and looks down at me, looks down at the sticky now oozing blood.
This is normal, she remarks.  Your heart is scarcely beating at all and each contraction pumps less and less blood around your body.
Death, she says, is imminent.
A moan escapes me, coupled with the bubbling sound of my open throat.  Has the room always been this dark?

Death, I agree in my mind, is imminent.  But I am too weak to care.  One more breath.  Perhaps another or is that too much to ask my exhausted body?
And then life, hot sticky lustful life, trickles through my cracked lips.  The vampire has torn a gash in her wrist and pressed it against my mouth.
The taste of her explodes through my brain and a blood-red craze hits me.  With a sudden burst of energy, I sit up and snatch her to me, clinging to her wrist with both of my hands.  I clutch at her, suck at her, drown in her.
She strokes my hair and whispers to me, but I can’t make out the words.  I can’t hear anything over the roaring and rushing in my ears.  She snarls and twists from my grip.  A backhander swings across my face, sending me tumbling away from her.
I rock back on haunches, stunned with confusion.
That’s enough, she hisses.  She stands up, brushing dust from her blood soaked clothes, but the ludicrous gesture is wasted on me.
“What is it?”  I ask, my voice husky and gurgling.
You’ll get used to it, she shruggs.  The Demonic Rhapsody, that’s what they call it, when you can hear every rush of blood, every beat of your own heart, every gasp from those you encounter.
Her lips curl up into a sneer and she walks towards the door.  Her skin is a beautiful soft pink now, the awful redness of her lips abated by her newfound colour.  As she opens the door, she turns back one last time, a triumphant light in her soulless eyes.
Enjoy, she coos nastily.  We all go through it.

I sit.  The room is oddly loud – there is the sound of me breathing, of my heart beating.  There is the sound of my stomach contracting, of blood in my ears.  There is the sound of my every movement.
My teeth ache.  A dull, sickening ache like every tooth doesn’t quite fit, like my mouth is suddenly too small.
I run a finger across them.  They’re dirty and furry from blood.  The knowledge makes my stomach clench and I vomit up black blood, thick and half congealed.
I knee on the floor, retching until I shiver with cold and exhaustion.  The chills force me towards the bed.  I don’t have enough energy to climb inside; instead I pull at the duvet hoping it will slide off the bed.  When it does, I wrap myself in it, cocooned against the cold and fall asleep still shivering.
I awaken, feeling dizzy and sick.  The room stinks of blood and vomit, and I need to piss.
My muscles ache and my stomach is still clenching, but there’s nothing left inside to retch up.
I stumble towards the light switch.  The room, seemingly dim when we arrived, now blares with naked bulb light.  I slap my hand down on the switch and breath a sigh of relief as the room turns dark.  I rest my head against the wall and close my eyes.  If only the room wasn’t so noisy. 
With difficulty I make my way back to the nest of bedding on the floor and pass out.
I come to, cold and hungry.  My stomach is a knot of pain, but I need to feed.  It was one of the first things she told me.  Drink.  Whatever you feel like, and it’ll be bad trust me, drink regardless.  It’s the only thing that’ll ease the pain.
She’d laughed as she said that, and nipped the back of my hand, lapping the blood.
I’m doing you a favour, doing it this way, she confided.  In the old days, when they used to find the body in the sleeping stage, all cold and bloody and unmoving, they’d leap to conclusions.
She’d laughed again and pushed me into the hostel room.  No one will disturb you here, she said.  And when you’re ready, when you’re transformed, there’s the whole of London to play in.

I find I'm smiling.