Preface

Morning seeped through the hospital window earlier than was usual today, as it was almost summer. The songs of birds played through the only window in the sole room on the third floor of the hospital. The hospital itself was a big gray building, overlooked by many of the businessmen and women who walked by it everyday. Due to its bleakness, many considered it to be a broken down warehouse. Little did they know that what took place inside would change all of their lives forever.

 

There were no visible doors to this building, only windows. Windows that only a starving child could craw through. Perhaps that was why no further investigations were done on the place; or maybe it was because the businessmen and women of the city of Devadas were too absorbed in their own affairs to notice the rarity that this building happened to be. Or maybe it was because they were scared of what would happen to them if they cast an inquiring eye over the mysterious edifice.

The one room on the third floor was as dark as a beetle's back. Inside it was a small cave of a room, the cieling curved and the walls muddy and lumpy, with one small window in the far left corner of the room. The walls and floors smelled like a forest with bugs crawling all around. There was no light except the dewy sunrise creeping into the driest corners of the room. There was a neglected feel to it, that proved it wasn't good for anything.

 

The room was nearly empty, and deadly quiet. There were no possessions or furniture, nothing alive nor dead in the room except for a thin, dark haired girl curled in a ball on the dirt floor, occasionally jerking her wrist or foot in sleep. She must have been having a nightmare.

 

She was wrapped in a plain, white dress, that was yellowing on its three quartered sleeves and the lace edge of its skirt. The girl tried to take care of it, which she did somewhat successfully; there were no rips or tears in it, no stains or smudges, except the yellowing, which only proved how long she'd been wearing it. She was given a new dress every few years. Usually whenever she outgrew the old one, and only if the guards realized it. They wouldn't realize for a while. She'd probably have this dress until the day she died.

 

She was young, and clearly been starved. There were bruises all over her body, and cut marks. She began to stir, yawning in the humidity.

 

The sunlight usually woke this flesh and bones girl. And while it's true that she was awake, she was pretending to still be veiled in a constant, dreamless sleep. She kept her crusted, oriental eyes clamped together, incredibly long black eyelashes scrunched with the exertion. She knew what was coming. She knew the fate that awaited her later this day. A fate that would alter her life in mere seconds, change everything she knew about the world. And it would only swoop down on her more quickly and more ruthlessly if she opened her eyes.

 

It was as if a vulture was circling above her, ready to dive and take her life away from her with a vicious tear of young flesh. She could see it, blocked somewhat by the high noon sun, but coming ever closer. It would reach her today.

 

After trying to slip back into sleep twice, Ayuri Natsukawa decided she couldn't put off what was sure to come to her in a few hours' time, no matter how much she feinted fatigue, and sat up, her small shoulders hunched and her legs crossed. Ayuri's hair fell around her face, lank and lifeless, her head hanging between her bruised shoulders.

 

Bang! The tall oak door opened opposite her and a pale man wearing a white face mask, his visible blue eyes expressionless, entered carrying a slice of bread and a cube of cheese in a latex gloved hand.

 

He threw them on the floor, where they bounced soundlessly and rolled in the dirt next to Ayuri, who lunged at her breakfast as the man backed out of the room, slowly, as though afraid to take his eyes off the pathetic girl.

Like she would suddenly snap, and lash out at him. She suppressed a hiss as he shut the door on her. Locking her in again.

 

Ayuri's Keeper didn't talk very much. He usually handled the whipping. Ayuri hated the whip; long, black and beginning to fray, it usually woke her up every morning with a sharp slap on the back, where a permanent dent was forming under her shoulder blades. It wasn't used to wake her up this morning because today happened to be a very important day.

 

The doctors, though they routinely poked her with needles that would run tests on her, seemed sympathetic. Maybe that was just because they understood Ayuri's condition more fully than her Keeper, having studied it and run multiple tests on her to deduce what was wrong and try to come up with a cure.

 

She was sick of the tests. Tired of being locked in a dark room for twenty four hours a day. Sick of never having been outside. Tired of being beaten for no given reason other than that her disease needed to be disciplined and contained, and a whip, fire and knives was the only way to do this. For sixteen long, lifeless years she'd lived in the prison. Although she didn't know it was a prison. In her mind, this was a hospital.

 

Ayuri had grown to hate the word hospital. To her, it wasn't a place to be healed. It was a place to wait, and a place to waste away while the doctors treated her like garbage and constantly failed in their work to cure her. Trapped, locked in these walls, Ayuri was a parasite, unable to be around others, because she would contamine them. She felt dirty, and dangerous. She was tired of the three floors, six doctors and one Keeper that her life consisted of. And of course, the occassional clean and well taken care of political leader who reminded her how much use she would be to the rest of society once her transformation was complete, once she was cured.

 

The doctors did not like to speak of her illness, and even Ayuri didn't fully understand what the problem was. She'd been here since she was born, and she knew that her doctors would free her once she was cured. She would be allowed back into the city of Devadas, as long she as she agreed to help them defend it, which she had agreed to do. And she knew that there was only one cure.

 

One cure, to make her more like her doctors, Keeper, the political leaders and all the people she watched on the street below from the window in her room, where she spent hours gazing out, standing on tip toe and breathing in the fresh air. One cure, that could only be completed on her sixteenth birthday. One cure remained. To become a vampire.

Reviews

[snopadelic]

This caught my attention beacuase I didn't realise it was going to be a vampire story until I read the last line. I love vampire storys. I like the opening, its a creepy hospital, very nicely described and then we go inside and every dying and decayed and foreshadowing whats the come. I think one of your strongest points is your descriptions since they really pull you in and create a picturre in the mind.
Good description of the little girl and i paticulary like the guard having a white mask on. Its very mysterious and its building up a atmosphere. The other description i liked is calling your character a parasite its very intersting word use here.
You introduce tests and i got something along the lines of the saw movies into my head so its keeps you reading to find out more.
The end part is genius i like the idea of your phrasing as humanity being a diesease and since it was a suprise it had more impact on me.
This has me interested beacuse i like reading new takes on vampires stories and this qualifies as one. Excellent start

[Coyote Poetry]

I like the beginning of your story. The characters were interesting. The conversation was very good. You left me with a open line to lead me to the next chapter. I like this story. I will read on.
Coyote