Day 1

I hummed unsatisfied in a dark room, still thinking about my own jealousy. Just because Mary thought about Sofie´s future for a moment, I became incredibly angry, most importantly because she didn’t show much concern about my own future. But then again … what the fuck? I wanted to be in charge of my own future, Mary didn’t need to concern herself with it. I was an adult, and yet I had the emotions of a child from time to time. The stark difference between my calculative behaviour and my childish one got on my nerves quite badly. Sure, I could try to suppress any emotions that arose in me again, but sometimes I had fun acting like a fool and I really didn´t want to hide my emotions around Mary too much.

Disgruntled, I pushed the last shelf out of the hidden room until it was completely empty. The few iron rings on the wall didn’t surprise me as this place has been used as a prison in the past. In fact, I was rather happy they were there. A bit weirded out by my own actions, I dragged the iron chains I asked for a few days prior into the room, put all the books I wanted to read onto the wall I was going to use and grabbed the magical sword with my pair of white socks ... yes, white socks. Fashion wasn’t a thing in this world yet.

Next, I placed it in the middle of the room, the blade pointing downwards and hammered it into the ground. The tip was incredibly sharp and thus, it was quickly driven into the ground with the usage of a large hammer.

“My own Excalibur … too bad I cannot touch it.” It gave off a gentle blue light, perfect for reading. Next, well, there wasn’t much left. I secured a sturdy chain on one of the upper iron rings, then I connected four smaller, but equally long chains on four other rings that were tightly secured to the wall. I pulled on each chain with all I got and as none of them snapped out of their bracket, I opened the cuffs with a key. I sighed as I lifted the strongest chain up and snapped the last iron ring around my neck. Without the key, I wouldn’t be able to open it again, which was exactly what I needed. After sitting down and resting my back against the wall, I nodded and locked the other cuffs around my ankles and wrists. As I could still move relatively freely, I began to draw the places I could reach with a bit of chalk on the ground. The circular line extended nearly towards the sword in the middle, which was perfect in my opinion. After sitting against the wall again, I threw the key to the other side of the room and regretted it immediately.

“Damn, I remembered to bring calk with me, but completely forgot about the pillows.” It was incredibly uncomfortable. At least Mary would visit me sometime later. Hopefully. Well, on the flip side, the books were nice. I could learn much about magical artefacts for example. There were basically three tiers to rank them. SS for every artefact that was created by the gods and could change the world. Next was S for every item over 215 years old which meant they were equally created by the gods but couldn’t destroy the world for example. The glowing sword in front of me was probably one of these things.

And then there was trash tier.

These magical items were created by all the races on this planet and were … trash. Sure, a burning sword sounded nice in theory, until the handle became too hot. Okay, the trash tier was divided into A,B … trash stays trash, especially because they all needed mana to activate. Which sucked, because I didn’t have any.

I concentrated hard on the sword in front of me as I read something very interesting and concerning. All these magical artefacts had a magical signature extending out from their core. Mages could sense this signature and even pinpoint from which direction it comes and what magical artefact it was. They were all goddamn unique. And worst of all, the signature could extend to several kilometres depending on the rank of the weapon. This made everything much more complicated … even I wouldn’t be able to escape a bunch of furious mages who knew exactly where I was at any given time … and thus, I gave up on burning down the royal castle to retrieve the crown of thorns. Well, I had 43 other plans to use.

Day 2

“Mum, you’re a lifesaver!” I said as she handed me over a bunch of pillows, including my favourite one. My butt already hurt quite a bit by sitting down on the cold stone.

“Okay, and now you are telling me why this is necessary.” She pointed towards my chains which made me chuckle a bit. Never thought I was going to chain myself one day.

“Soo … I got this crazy alchemical recipe, most of the contents are fairly easy, but I need my blood after I didn’t drink blood for ten days. I know, that sucks, but at least I will be able to look into the sun afterwards!” I exclaimed happily. If I wanted to take part in society, I would need to be up during the day, no matter what.

“And the chains …” She still didn’t understand what I was getting at.

“The longest time I spent without drinking any blood was three days. And that was already enough for my tastes.” Well, there may have been the time when I was in the carriage for six days, but I had bottles of animal blood with me which were suspiciously empty after I woke up.

“You don’t think you can fight the thirst?”

“Nope. Well, there is a point where I won`t be able to move anymore, but before that … well, let us say nobody knows.” The chains clinked as I scratched my cheek.  

“And you are really sure I don’t need to do anything to fix my mistake?” I nodded reluctantly. Bringing me my pillows was already enough in my opinion, especially because it was right to keep Sofie away from me. She had done nothing wrong … it was me who freaked out over nothing.

Day 3

“Success!” I threw my arms up in the air, much to the displeasure of Mary who was taking a nap right next to me. She woke up instantly as the chains moved beneath her and looked at me in wonder. I pointed towards the newspaper on my lap. “I finished the crossword puzzle and won a horse!”

“You do know there are several who submit their solution and only one of them wins?” I opened my mouth wide in surprise.

“What? How rude!” I really wanted another horse. I liked the one I used to ride to the army, but it couldn’t be wrong to try out new ones.

“Well, otherwise you would have to divide the horse …” She was right, and sharing wasn’t my strong point so far.

“… I could make lasagne out of it?” I pointed out.

“I see you wouldn’t care at all. Can I have a look, now that you woke me up?” She said and yawned shortly afterwards.

“Sorry…” I said and handed her the newspaper. She raised an eyebrow the moment she caught a glimpse of it.

“Of great importance … cardinal, the second son of the second king … Rupert. An old language in which seven can be written with two words … Latin. Okay, now I´m interested.” I smiled brightly and explained to her the last one.

“Septum septimus. Dunno what they thought back then.”

“And how do you know this stuff? I would already struggle with the first question.” I simply shrugged, pointed to the books I read and then pointed to the next question.

“This one was tricky though. What makes humans superior to the other races?”

“Intellect? No, doesn’t fit.”

“It has to start with n. Its either numbers, nagging or nothing … they all fit.”

“Weird …” I thought so as well. The creator of this riddle certainly couldn’t go through with something like ‘nothing’ as an answer. Still, the answer word was correct, at least I hoped it to be. My chances of a horse weren’t high, but it was at least something to look forward to.

Day 4

A boring day, in all honestly. I read a few books about magic but didn’t find anything helpful. Except that it was impossible to have no mana, at least for normal humans. Otherwise, I started to feel the effects of my thirst from time to time which gave me a much more difficult time at concentrating on my books and that my gaze went to Mary more often than not. Thus, she was banned from entering the circle I had drawn on the ground.

At least I found another way to waste my time. Or rather, I found it again. I started knitting socks for myself during the day and finished them during the night. They fit perfectly and although the wool I used wasn’t perfect, they were more comfortable than my usual socks. And they weren’t white.

Day 5

I took a good old nap. Shouldn’t have done it. Nothing weird happened during my nap, but I could forget to read books afterwards. I was freaking thirsty. My thoughts always wandered to blood, no matter what. I was dreaming of a bloodbath and as Mary entered the room, I shooed her out of the room again. She didn’t need to see me like this, or rather I didn’t want her to see how I slowly lost my sanity. And so, I started knitting a scarf with trembling hands as this was the only action I was still capable of, at least somewhat. I messed up after the second row.

Day 6

My vision started to turn red. Wherever I looked, I saw the prospect of blood, even when I stared at the ceiling. My thirst didn’t take full control of me as I was still able to hold back somewhat, but I was nearing my limits. At the worst time, during the night, Mary visited me again.

“Is there really nothing I can help you with?” She said while looking at me with pity.

“No, mum, please go.” I pressed out between my lips and bit on my tongue. At least the hateful taste of my own blood helped to stay somewhat sane.

“I´m not the kind of person to leave you are at your weakest.” I knew that. I even valued her for this characteristic as I didn’t have to worry about her, backstabbing me, but just her presence made this much worse for me. I already started to see her as a food source, and I really didn’t want to attack her. “How about we do something simple to keep you occupied? A word chain for example. I´ll start with bed.”

“Death.” I countered and closed my eyes to avoid looking at her throat.

“Heat.” She said nonchalantly.

“Thirst.” My thoughts were always drifting in one direction and the smell of her sweat certainly didn’t help to keep my cool.

“Thumb.”

“Blood.” I said.

“Day.” My thoughts started to slip away from my control and I already pulled on the right chain to free myself.

 “Food.” I bit on my own finger to get a grip of myself and held my twitching right hand as it healed.

“I don’t think this is helping at all.” I nodded in agony and could already predict I wouldn’t be able to stay sane for another day.

“You need to go, mum. This time, for real.”

“I´m sorry.” For what? Not being able to help me? I didn’t ask though as she already stood up and left the room with her head hanging low. At least I was left alone in my own misery again.

Day 7

I took a nap again during the day, quite grumpy and incredibly thirsty. I expected my state to change once again, but not this. I felt the intense urge to suck blood I just couldn’t control anymore. I wasn’t thinking straight anymore as there was only a single thing on my mind: Blood. Human blood.

From time to time, I daydreamed about sinking my teeth into a human, drinking their sweet delicious blood until they collapsed on the ground. I dreamt about setting up a tub of blood and submerge myself in it. These were the better moments though.

I was probably at my lowest when I realized I could fulfil my dreams if I just walked out of this door. And that’s where my intelligence left me again. I stood up, my right hand twitching uncontrollably as if it wanted to grab onto something, and stormed towards the door mindlessly. My chains rattled above the floor until my neck was suddenly yanked backwards. Completely crazy, I threw myself against this invisible barrier over and over again, until I was bleeding heavily from my throat. I didn’t bleed out as the wound healed quite fast, but it still fastened my dive into insanity, accompanied by never-ending giggling.

Day 8

I regained a bit of my intelligence. No … not really. As I woke up from my nap during the day, I was barely able to recognize what I was actually doing. The whole time I pulled on my chains and screamed wildly. I didn’t even stop as the edges of the cuffs bore themselves into my wrists. The wound didn’t heal as I kept on pulling in my frenzy. I just wanted to get out of here. No, I needed to get out badly. Everything screamed at me to murder as many humans as possible and to paint the whole world red.

Well, I dreamt big, but I just kept on painting this room red with my own blood.

Too bad that I was also incredibly thirsty. It was revolting to even think about drinking my own blood, even in my crazy state. Unwilling, but still driven forward, I went on my knees in front of the puddle of blood … and started licking it up from the ground.

Yeah … not too proud of that. I still continued on though … blood was blood at that point.

Day 9

The animal that I became was apparently capable of learning. And oh boy did I learn … for example, if I clawed at my belly enough, there was blood coming out of it. I also used my teeth to bite into my arm, but I rather saw the blood myself. And so, I ripped open my belly time and time again, only to lick up the resulting mess. I even ate part of my own liver in curiosity, although I spat it out afterwards. The animal that was me wasn’t capable of cooking yet …

In any case, all the self-destructive behaviour certainly didn’t help. My vision became hazy at the end of the day, either from the time I bashed my forehead against the wall to find out what would happen, or because I was running out of steam.

Day 10

Have you ever wondered what the lowest point for a vampire is? This day was certainly a contender for this trophy. I somehow managed to push the iron of my right cuff in between the bones of my wrist. I was bleeding constantly from it, although it certainly lessened considerably. Only drops of blood left the wound and I licked up each and every one of them. I was barely able to see anymore in the distance, but holding my wrist in front of me solved this problem as it enabled me to see what I was licking.

As there was no more blood running out of my veins and I couldn’t feel my arm anymore, my giggling which surfaced whenever my mouth wasn’t occupied with something else also stopped. My head fell to the side, along with my whole body. I was completely done for, had no more energy except to stick out my tongue and taste the horrible, but thrilling taste of my own dried blood from the ground.

Day 11

So short of dying. A few hours at best before I left Solaris, Mary entered the room, wincing as she smelled the damp air. I couldn’t see her at all, but I did hear how she stopped at the line I drew.

“Lucinda?” I heard her, but I neither had the energy nor the intelligence to answer.

“Honey?” She tried a second time, as futile as the first one. There was simply no way of talking with me.

She stepped forward once more, possibly over the line I drew earlier and approached me slowly and carefully. She tipped at my hand with her foot, but expect a little movement due to her, my hand did absolutely nothing.

“I`m so sorry.” She said in advance as she knelt down beside me. It was a damp feeling, but I still felt it as a dagger pierced into my arm, only to be stuck in there for quite some time.

“No … why …” No blood was running out of my arm and with it, her whole plan of retrieving my blood fell into pieces. At least, the plan she had in the beginning.

“I´m sorry … i´m sorry …” She repeated the same words over and over again as she retrieved a bucket from the other room and placed it near me. She struggled as she pulled my upper body onto the bucket, even though I should have been pretty light at this point. My eyelids fluttered a bit as my view changed and the ground appeared in front of my eyes again.

Mary hesitated for a long time. I felt the dagger on my back the whole time, but she never pushed downwards. The tip just rested on my skin for a few minutes until I didn’t feel it anymore. She didn’t say anything shortly before the crucial moment and rather rammed the dagger through my heart in utter silence and resignation.

Gently, if that was even possible, she pulled the dagger out after confirming I bled into the bucket and let the rest of the blood, still on the dagger, flow into a little glass flask. Next, she lifted my upper body up again and placed me against the wall. I instantly fell over sideways and hit the ground. She yelped in shock, but still proceeded to retrieve a bottle of animal blood.

She sat me upright again and pressed the lid against my lips. Blood flowed into my mouth, but the animal I had become let it low out of it again powerlessly. All of it went down my chin, in between my breasts or around them and was either soaked up by my panties or met the ground shortly afterwards.

“You need to drink.” She was frantic and didn’t know what to do as I refused to gulp down this disgusting blood. I developed a taste for my own blood out of pure insanity, but this was revolting in a whole other way. Her bag clanked loudly as she pulled it into the circle and placed another bottle on my lips with the same result. My eyelids were fluttering once more as I was this close to dying.

Mary was crying, even though she knew I could be resurrected without any problems. And then she did what I forbid her from doing. She probably forgot it in the situation as she didn’t know of the danger I posed to her and she just saw the weak, half-naked girl with a pierced through chest in front of her. I wasn’t myself. I was this thing, this animal without any reason. Exposing her neck right in front of me and poking it slightly with her dagger was thus nearly the worst she could do.

She fuelled my thirst, drove it to heights I never experienced before. If I could, I would sink my teeth in her neck right then, but luckily for her, I couldn’t. I didn’t need to though, because she placed her palm on the back of my head and simply pushed my mouth towards her wound.

At first, I couldn’t do anything at all. I could only taste this heavenly liquid that drugged me to new heights. It was all I, the animal, wished for.

I let it flow down my throat, feeling the taste explosion in my mouth and already felt a bit revitalized. I started sucking on her wound, drawing even more blood from her, until I opened my mouth and sank my sharp canine into her nape. It was the best feeling I ever had, the best drug I took and the best food at the same time, all while she yelped in pain.

I pressed my chest to hers, wrapped my left arm around her and secured her neck in place with my other. Only then did Mary realize the danger she was in. She struggled, but my teeth were already deep in her flesh, my hands gripped her tightly and she was being sucked dry.

I was engrossed in this feeling of pleasure the whole time, didn’t realize how much I pained her until she opened her mouth.

“Honey, you need to let go of me.” She said incredibly calmly, even though I didn’t react at all to her voice, she continued with unwavering faith in me. “Please, Lucinda, open your eyes and look into mine.”

For some reason, it was incredibly tempting to follow her plead. Something was itching me to do as she wanted and so, I opened my mouth once more and let go of her nape that healed swiftly afterwards. I never let go of her fully, but I still looked into her eyes like she wished me to.

“I am your mother.” She stated. I understood her perfectly fine and even comprehended the meaning of these words, but they simply didn’t matter to me. She was still full of delicious blood and I was incredibly thirsty. “I´ll take care of you, above all else. Do you know that?”

I nodded once more but still couldn’t follow her. If she was going to take care of me, then I should be allowed to drink her blood. But something else entirely happened as well. A warm feeling of unknown origin spread around my belly and I started to like it instinctively.

“There is a lot more of this tasty blood outside this door, but only I can open your chains.” I nodded happily, hoping she would free me. “But for that, I need you to do me a favour, can you do that?” She said in a soothing voice. Once more, I nodded and let go of her head. Not once did I think she was going to betray me. After all, I instinctively knew she was telling me the truth.

She stood up, smiled in my direction and retrieved her backpack. “You need to drink these.” She said firmly and handed me a bottle after opening it. I smelled the blood in it as I grabbed the bottle and directly shook my head. “These and all the others I am giving you. If you drank enough of these, I will free you, okay?” Unwillingly, I nodded slowly. I trusted her, at least more than my own ability to break free of this prison. I placed the bottle on my lips as she slowly walked backwards, out of the circle. Even as she stepped over it, I didn’t react and rather continued to drink the disgusting blood.

After I discarded the bottle, she rolled the next one over to me, visibly relieved to be in safety. I drank that one as well. And the next one. Even as she went to get new blood, I waited patiently and didn’t try to throw myself against my chains.

Despite all odds, she tamed the violent animal I turned into and slowly brought me back out of insanity. A marvellous activity, at least in my honest opinion.