The day my life ended and began anew.

For brevity’s sake my story starts on October 31st, the day of the hunter’s moon. The daytime hours had long since passed when I was walking my childhood friend home from school. The light of the full moon being reflected off her beautiful long blonde hair. That same light made her look like she had come straight from a fairytale with her clearly extremely well-cared for uniform. If there would be a manual for how to wear school uniforms, a picture of her would be the prime example many would fail to follow thanks to how perfect she makes it look.

“Thank you for helping me study Ria-chan, these exams are going to kill me.” dazzled by her appearance and still a bit dazed by the long study session I almost tripped over a loose rock on the sidewalk.

“Don’t worry about it Rora, you are definitely going to pass.” She smiled at me. That same smile that makes my heart flutter every time I see it, didn’t miss its effect now either. This girl is just too darn cute for words.

“I sure hope so, if only all courses would be like history I wouldn’t have any issues.”

“I still don’t know why that comes so easily to you, it’s one of the harder courses around!”

“Miss Edwards also calls it a miracle so I guess we shall never know.”

“Aurora! How one could get straight marks on History while failing so badly on English tests I will never comprehend!” Ria-chan’s impression was so on point it made the hairs on my arms stand up straight.

“Honestly Ria-chan, you should stop doing that, it scares the bejesus out off me .”

She laughed. “I’ll think about it.”

A few minutes of blissful togetherness passed before we reached the front gate of her house.

“See you tomorrow Rora?” Her hand placed on the gate, hesitating to open it or not. Her mood clearly soured as the moment of separation was almost there.

“Definitely. Want me to come and pick you up?”

That was clearly the right move as her amazing smile immediately came back to me. “I’ll wait for you here then.

“Alright. Good night Ria-chan.”

“Good night Rora” She embraced me before opening the gate and disappearing inside of her house with a cute little wave.

 

After she went indoors I just stood there a little while longer, taking in the sweet fragrance of the night before swinging my bag over my shoulder and heading home. It’s not that I hate daytime but night-time just holds a special place in my heart. Less people around which means less noise, darkness sprinkled with the lights of houses and the stars above, replacing the overabundance of light during the day. And the smell of the night, especially after it has been raining… Daytime just gets outcompeted in every single discipline. Before I turned into the street where I live, I visited the local snackbar for a late-night snack.

“A portion of bitterballen and a small serving of fries like usual?” The lady behind the counter welcomed me.

“Yes, please.” I smiled and put the money down on the counter, with a two euro tip.

“Thank you very much.” She gladly accepted my money and started preparing my meal. “Been out studying for your exams?”

“Yeah, school year has just started and they are already looming overhead.”

“We will be rooting for you.”

“Thanks.” I’m not a big fan of idle chit chat, but the people from the snackbar have always been nice to me so I really don’t mind it with them.

“Our eldest is going to apply for your school next year, so she’s busy studying up for the entrance exams right now.” The lady scooped my food out of the deep fryer and started wrapping it up.

“Oh, I still have some books laying around from when I was preparing for mine, I can come bring them over later this week if she’d want them.” If she wants to enter St. Katherine's, she’s going to need all the help she can get. The school didn’t get its label as an elite girls’ school by being easy to get into.

“Dear, that’d be very kind of you.” She handed me my food in a sturdy paper bag.

“Don’t worry about it.” I waved goodbye and left for home with the paper bag in hand, more than ready to snack on its delicious contents.

 

With my school bag still slung over my shoulder I turned the corner into Rue du Moulin, getting greeted by a gust of wind that made my skirt flutter uncomfortably. “Urgh, this school uniform is going to kill me in the winter… maybe I should ask Ria-chan where she gets those comfy-looking tights of hers.” I sighed. Only a short walk separated me from the corner of the street to number 24 where I lived at the time. Not a big house by any standard, especially not compared to the mansion where Ria-chan lives, but functional for a young adult and her cat. Once it housed two other people, but they aren’t around anymore.

“Shima, I’m home!” I called out to my cat when I turned the key to the front door, of course without answer. What do you expect? It’s a cat. Probably snoozing on a pile of my clothes, that cute furball.

“Excuse me, Fräulein.” A voice called out from behind me.

“German? You must be far from home.” I turned around, seeing a man in his mid twenties standing before me, if I had to guess only a centimeter or two bigger than me. Adorning  a tailored suit that looked like it belonged in a movie about the Great Depression. “Wow, aaaaand it looks like you are in the wrong neighbourhood too.”

The man laughed, “Haha, nein Fräulein, I was just looking for a late-night snack.”

“Well, there’s a snackbar just over there, you ain’t getting mine.” I shoved my paper bag of snacks and goodness down the hallway to keep it safe from the hungry German.

“That will not be necessary.” The man smiled eerily, his eyes glowing a bright red.

“What the…”

He started to approach me and since it was clear he had no good intentions I made myself ready to fight, or I would’ve if my body wasn’t completely frozen in place. Panic spread to my face as the man was close enough to touch. “Don’t worry, it will be over quickly.”

The last thing I remembered before passing out was a painful sting in my neck. 

 

“Ow, my head.” I woke up on my bed, my head throbbing like I had a severe migraine. “What kind of strange dream was that…” I sat myself upright, rubbing my temples to try to make the headache go away, or at least alleviate it.

“I can guarantee you that was not a dream.” A man’s voice rang out from the opposite side of my room.

The voice startled me, almost making me jump backwards against the wall next to my bed. In the corner of my room my attacker from my dream was cozily sitting in my armchair, reading one of my yuri manga. “What the fuck are you doing in my house! What did you do to me?! And I swear to all the Gods, if you even put your hands on my cat you are going to wish you were never born!” I quickly grabbed the baseball bat that was leaning against the wall next to my bed, and assumed a defensive position, ready to bash the head in of my assailant if he even slightly moved.

“Do calm yourself Fräulein, I assure you your cat is quite well.” He calmly put the manga on the little table beside the chair.

“Calm myself? Calm myself my ass!”

The man sighed, “Look, normally you’d have no memory of this at all, but something went wrong yesterday night, so here we are, I’m afraid.”

“After you assaulted me?”

“It’s not what you think - I merely helped myself to your blood. Although I suppose it might’ve looked like that a little.”

“My what!?” I replayed his sentence in my head over and over, did he really just say what I think he said?

“That is what I wanted to discuss with you.”

“I am so confused right now.”

“Have you ever heard of Vampirs?”

I squinted my eyes, not really getting why he suddenly wanted to discuss fantasy creatures. “Vampires? Who hasn’t?”

He lifted his arms matter-of-factly. “Well…”

“Wait…” My mind started to connect the dots. “You are saying that you are a vampire?”

The man nodded. “Genau.”

I scoffed at his answer with a smirk on my face. “Do you really want me to believe that you are some kind of fantasy figure? You probably just want to get out of a prison sentence and a pretty harsh beating. Man, you really need better excuses.”

“You don’t believe me.” He sighed and stood up from the chair he had still been calmly sitting in this whole time. “Well, I guess I can’t blame you. It does sound pretty absurd.”

“And the thing that went wrong last night, let me guess, you turned me into a vampire.” I laughed at the sentence that came out of my mouth, not even caring anymore that he had stood up at all. What the hell is this guy on?

To my surprise though, ‘Mr. Vampire’ simply nodded. “Yes, that is indeed the case.”

“You are incredibly delusional.” I shook my head and lowered the bat, but kept it in my hand, just in case. “I’m not even sure if I should call the police or a psych ward.”

“I’d say you could look at my teeth and see the size of my canines is very large, aber, you’d probably say they are fake.”

“Good guess, Mr. Vampyr.” I said in a mocking tone, pointing my baseball bat towards the East. “There’s a carnival store just around the corner.”

“So instead, Fräulein, you can see for yourself in the mirror.” He pointed at the mirror next to my wardrobe with a lot of gesticulation.

I sighed. “Well, if that’s going to get you out of my home then I guess I’ll oblige.” I walked towards my wardrobe, eyes still firmly on him before I was able to turn around and look in the mirror. “What. The. Actual. Fuck.” It took only one look to confirm it. Framed by my somewhat messy long brown hair were two shining red eyes and when my mouth dropped in utter bewilderment it exposed my vampiric canine teeth to my view too. “Are you kidding meeeeee…?”