I believe I have now found the correct place to post this, sorry for posting it in the wrong topic before...
Anyway, 'tis a short story I wrote, and it got a most pleasing grade when the teacher marked it.
See what you think:
Short Story
Part 1:
The night was perfect, the air cool, and the full moon loosely wrapped in a veil of mist. A silvery light caressed the buildings on either side of the woman as she walked. A light breeze stroked its way over the bare flesh of her face, and causing her to shiver slightly. Her pace quickened as she rounded a street corner, momentarily vanishing into the shadows, re-emerging into the pale moonlight.
The fine strands of hair on the back of her neck rose, and, for an instant, she could have sworn a second set of footsteps joined her own light footfalls. Whirling around, she scanned the street, eyes flickering as they scoured the shadows, and finding them empty and silent. Putting the footsteps down to lack of sleep and an excessive consumption of alcohol, she continued on her way, striding purposefully ahead. She continued for another hundred yards or so, and it was as she passed under a tree, an ancient, twisted being, that blocked all light from reaching the ground it covered, that she was again alerted to a second presence. She felt the back of her neck prickle in response to a light breath of warm air, and a sound altogether too similar to a whisper for instant dismissal reached her ears. With her heart beating so hard she could hear nothing else, she turned, hair flying. For a moment a human form seemed to hover in front of her eyes, but then it dissipated, like smoke.
Brushing a thick strand of dark hair from across her face, she turned away with her heart still pounding furiously in her chest and continued to walk, although her previously confident stride had become noticeably more hasty and she threw nervous glances around, the scent of fear shrouding her.
I stood close to her, inhaling the prickly fear, the deep shadows concealing me completely. She was young, but her figure showed that she had undoubtedly reached womanhood. She had dark hair that shone in the moonlight as it cascaded around her shoulders, rippling as she moved. She wore a shirt of deep red, and non-descript black jeans.
She passed me by without a glance, the fear that had previously poured out of her so deliciously now receding as she neared her destination. As she moved away I stretched, detached myself from the shadows and began to walk with her, timing my footsteps exactly to her own. For a minute I just listened the steady rhythm of her walking and my own, then slowly, deliberately, I began to separate my rhythm from hers. I saw her falter, and then deliberately ignore me. At first this bemused me, ‘til I realized that she was too scared to turn and face me, and close enough to home to risk it.
Treading silently now, I crossed the street and stood again in the shadows. Hearing the absence of my footfalls, she paused and leant on a lamppost, presumably to stop herself stumbling from the effects of the alcohol that was only now catching up with her. She pushed her hair back exposing her pale throat, and my breath caught with a small gasp.
Her eyes flicked towards the noise, towards me. Frightened and trembling, she stared at me, searching. Her heart was now beating so hard it seemed too powerful for her delicate body. I could almost smell the rich, warm, thick blood coursing through the fragile network of veins. The Blood. For a blissful instant I could almost taste it, almost feel it trickling down my throat.
With a truly titanic effort, I suppressed my exquisite craving. I could wait a while longer. Just a little while.
As the need temporarily subsided, I was able to observe her moving on, almost back to her safe, comfortable, warm home. I did not follow, choosing instead to wander in search of a suitable place for me to sleep through the day, safe from searching eyes.
Aimlessly I wandered through the streets, the dead hours of the morning slipping past me, the sky brightening, until finally an ominously bright glow filled the eastern skies.
A new urgency fuelling my steps, I hurried through the ever-lightening city, until finally I saw it. A church, ancient and out-of-place, overshadowed by the indescribably ugly creations of the modern world, stood just ahead. Two towering stone Angels stood guard over the entrance, their opened wings fanning out behind them, each carved feather perfect in every detail.
With the sun now so close to rising that I could almost feel the terrible heat, I hurried inside.
The floor of the church was covered in the grave-markers of the great and the good. Many of the graves were hundreds of years old, worn perfectly smooth by unimaginable numbers of feet. In a shadowed corner one such gravestone resided. The name was all but vanished, and even with my un-naturally sharp vision I could only make out half a name.
Deeming it suitably ancient, I set to lifting the great slab, no small feat, even for one such as myself. The grave was too old for any scent of decay to reach my nostrils, and only a few scattered bones remained, the rest having been gnawed to dust by enterprising rats.
I lowered myself gently into the soothing darkness, and, reaching over the edge, I pulled the stone back into place.
As it fell with a muffled thump, I glimpsed harsh sunlight searing through the open doors. My eternal hunger simmered just below the surface, but before it could cause problems Sleep crashed down on me, suppressing my craving until the morrow.
Part 2:
I rose early, the sun having only just fled. No stars were yet visible, but the sky was clear, and it was still dusk.
I stood for an eternity in the church, watching the stained glass windows as the golden light of evening faded, slowly replaced by the deepest blue of night.
The streets were still swarming with people when I walked out of the church. Hundreds of holidaymakers were laughing and joking, and staggering drunkenly through the young night. I could have taken any of them in the middle of the street with little danger of anyone noticing, so saturated with alcohol were these visitors.
With the stench of the drunk burning my senses, I had to force myself not to run as I removed myself from their presence.
Turning up the back alley I had first seen the girl in, I breathed calmly once more. Beautiful, perfect, unadulterated silence greeted me, and I savoured it.
Allowing the Silence to saturate every part of me, I reached out with my senses, trying to find the girl. At first there was nothing, but slowly I became aware of her. It was a distant pulse, but strong and healthy.
I snapped back into my body, and began to move silently through the deepening darkness. I picked up speed, moving fast enough that any watching would have seen only a brief blur, a flicker of their imagination.
I slowed to a standstill when her presence became almost overpowering. The Hunger flared inside me, wrenching my very soul apart with its ferocity and intensity. Instead of fighting, I bathed in it, letting it flood me, simplifying everything.
I needed blood, and she had it. She was walking towards me, blissfully unaware. Her footfalls reached my straining ears, accompanied by her breathing.
She rounded the corner, exquisite and alive. She seemed so beautiful then, so perfect, with her eyes shining brightly, and her hair shimmering.
I stepped out of the shadows, onto the street in front of her. Knowing that hesitation could mean failure, I strode purposefully towards her. I willed her to be calm, and she was, her face suddenly relaxed, and so beautiful. She reached for me, and I embraced her, feeling the soft curves of her body pressing against me. I brushed her hair away from her unblemished throat. I could see the faint flicker on her skin as blood flowed past, just below the surface. I looked up, into her eyes, so full of peace that it made me want to weep.
Bending my head to her throat, I gave her the final kiss of my kind. I knew she wouldn’t feel any pain, quite the opposite. In these last moments she would experience rapture such as she had never known.
With these thoughts to lift my guilt, I broke the skin. All thought fled my mind. An indescribable ecstasy gripped me, the thick, warm blood flooding down my throat and over my lips. She shuddered under me, and unfamiliar memories flooded my mind. I saw snatches of her life, her first memories, blurred with age, all the way to the moment I stepped from the shadows. She gave a small sigh as she died, and the force of her death slammed into me, forcing me to my knees.
I lifted my head, and everything seemed brighter, my fading strength regenerated through an act so inherently wrong, yet so brilliantly perfect that it hurts the mind to think of it. I laid her down gently on the cold street; her beauty preserved eternally in my mind, along with infinite others. She could have been a fallen angel, she was that perfect in her final sleep. The first light of morning had begun to shatter the night, and I left her, knowing I would have to move on again. I stepped back into the shadows, and faded away with the remainder of the night.
