Content Warnings:

The hard part about being on a diet is even your dreams become about food.

My fangs were deep inside my prey, and it was struggling, and I was sucking blood out of it no matter how hard it tried to escape, and then I fell back, finally sated.

It had been so long since I had been full.

I don't think I had ever had a dream about being full when I was still hungry.

...ah.

Despite all the pretty colors, this was not a dream, but a nightmare.

I screamed and shouted at the illusory world around me, trying to force myself awake, and found my girlfriend's body cool in my arms. I stopped myself from calling out her name, Lucy, but my screams and ripping at the cell I had lived in for the past five years finally brought down Her.

My Master.

She glanced over at the body in the cell. "What was this one... three months this time? You're getting better at it."

"Please bring her back, Master! I'll do anything, I'll kill anyone for you, please!" I knew not to speak her name to Master. That wouldn't help.

My Master looked over to me slowly. "Oh, yes. 'I will do anything you command, you say'... and yet you not only hesitate to kill someone, you disobey my orders."

"That was five years ago! I've learned my lesson!"

Master smiled coldly. "And I told you it'd be ten. But let's say you've learned your lesson... so you'd kill her without hesitation if I brought her back and told you to?"

I hesitated. Was this just a test of loyalty, would I actually get to keep-- no, I had hesitated. It was too late. My Master looked down at me in disdain as I grabbed onto her long black silk skirt. "Please Master!"

Master tugged her skirt away from my hands. "Has begging ever worked before?"

I lowered my head. "...no."

"If I brought her back, she'd just be a test, and you'd fail it. I'm being nice by not giving you a chance to fail again. Why can't you understand that? I'm so kind to you so many times, and yet you're..." Master shook her head, at a loss of words.

I hated her so much.

Master considered for a moment. "Do you want to hold my hand for three minutes?"

"...please...."

She held out her hand, and I took it, sobbing as I clung to it with both of mine. "And no more of your silly demands. If you can act with an ounce of decorum about your loss, I'll have her buried out back."

I thought that Lucy probably would've liked that. "...thank you, Master." I sniffled.

"Shh... I don't enjoy doing this to you either... but it's clear I didn't train you well enough the first time. Tomorrow I'm going to have a villager brought in, and you're going to kill and feed from them. And then if you're very good, maybe I'll give you another toy."

"...Yes, Master. As you order. But... I don't need another toy, Master."

"You say that now, but what about a year from now?" Master drew her hand away from mine, and I forced myself to let her go. "You said you didn't want Lucy either. You had the option of just killing her from the start... maybe you should do that with the next one... well, you will get hungry without someone to feed from, I suppose. Better to keep them alive, so you don't go mad from hunger, isn't it? Not tomorrow, though. Tomorrow is for obedience. Tomorrow is for remembering how much easier it is to kill someone you just met."

"Yes... thank you for the lesson, Master." I slumped against the bars of my cell. Disobeying Master's orders to kill just one time had led to me killing dozens more innocent people in this cell. Some I tried to keep alive. Some I didn't. It didn't really matter, you can't safely keep a vampire in the same cell as a human. Eventually, they'll slip up.

---

I was getting used to murdering. The old man hadn't even put up a fight. He looked me in the eyes, and sighed, resigned... the fear was there, but the hatred wasn't. He knew I had no more freedom than he did.

Once Master gave the order, I had killed. I had drank.

I didn't even learn his name.

---

How many days... no, probably weeks had passed, since Lucy died?

I could feel myself going mad as I stared up at the ceiling. How long had it been? Master came sometimes to prick her fingertip and give me a few drops of blood which I licked up eagerly... sometimes she'd even hold my hand or pet my head or open up the cell and beat the shit out of me. Honestly, any of it was better than this. I missed her. I missed her warmth, her smile, her cruel humor... I missed Lucy too, but unlike Lucy, Master would come back to visit me.

Maybe even tomorrow.

---

It wasn't tomorrow, or even the next day, but one day after many other ones just like it, just as I was slipping deeper and deeper into the familiar dullness of apathy and depression.

Master came in holding a struggling and cursing girl, opened the cell, and flung her in. "New toy for you, my little hunting dog." Her voice was so sweet as the cell door clanged shut, and she walked away and I watched her go.

"...New toy? Who the fuck is she? Who the fuck are you?" The woman, slammed me against the wall, and looked up into my eyes.

I looked away, trying not to look at her neck, which was like... literally right there. It would be so easy to just.... No. Look away. "I'm sorry. Can you back up a bit? I'll explain things as best I can, I promise."

She let go of me and stepped back. "Fine." Her voice was terse.

I took a deep breath. "So... you know vampires are a thing, right?"

"Yes. I do now, obviously." Her voice was practically a growl.

I nodded. "So... I could just kill you now if you wanted."

She glared at me. "What sort of sick fuck says that as their greeting?"

I held my hands up in surrender. "Sorry. I'm just being selfish. If you die now, I won't get attached, and I won't kill you by accident later. Nor will she make me kill you once we've grown close."

She shook her head vehemently. "We aren't going to grow close, monster."

I started crying. "I know I'm a monster... I'm sorry...."

"What sort of pathetic... fuck. Shut up, okay?" Even through the tears, I could tell from her posture she was uncomfortable with me crying openly. She kicked the bars she was leaning against a little, letting out a clang. "I'm Kat."

I covered up my eyes so maybe she couldn't see them and my presence wouldn't be as bad for her. "I'm not allowed to have a name. I'm just a dog."

"That's stupid, even dogs have name." Kat played with a strand of her hair, staring off into space, and after a couple seconds, she nodded decisively. "You're Spot, now."

"That's a terrible name! It's so unoriginal it's painful." My voice lowered. "And also... if Master ever hears you call me that, she'll make me kill you, probably."

Kat sat down on my bed.... her bed now, I guess? I could survive sleeping on cold hard stone for any number of nights. "So, Spot... tell me more."

"Um... well, I'll do whatever you ask while you're still... while you're still here. There's a few things you can do to make me less of a threat... well, temporarily, I'll regenerate. You can break my fangs, or my legs, or my arms, blind me..." I trembled a little. It hurt each time.

"Yeah, not doing that." Kat's attitude was totally blase as she crossed one leg over the other.

"...what?" I looked up at her quizically. "But... I'll kill you. I won't mean to, but... I'll kill you. Lucy would always break parts of me so I couldn't hurt her... or... that's what we told ourselves...." I started to tear up as I remembered Lucy... she thought I loved her enough I wouldn't hurt her... and I did love her, but....

Kat shrugged easily. "Yeah, well, sucks to suck, I guess."

I stared up at her, aghast.

Kat blinked, then started to giggle. "Oh wow... that's so bad... sorry, this has been a tense week...." She covered her face with her hands, still giggling.

I couldn't help but giggle a little too. I wanted her to like me so bad, I was mirroring her on instinct.

Wow. I was pathetic.

I bit my lip. "Well, other than that, the only real control technique is gesturing with something you strongly believe in, but we don't exactly have any crosses in here, for... obvious reasons."

"Yeah okay." Kat pulled off her black leather jacket, and rolled up her sleeve, and... some guy was on her forearm?

I raised an eyebrow and looked up at her. "...is that your boyfriend?"

She smirked. "Boyfriend... unlikely. No, stupid. It's Captain Ludd."

I stared. "...who?"

Kat gestured with her free hand, as if presenting her forearm with the guy on it. "Head of the luddites? They used to smash up some machines good?"

I tilted my head a bit to one side, than the other. "...why?"

"I mean, why not? Kinda a waste to teach you my political ideology when we're both going to rot in the cell here, yeah?" Kat wiggled her forearm at me. "So will this do?"

"Well, you have to present it... like a cross. Like a symbol of something that is powerfully meaningful to you, some smashy dude on your forearm isn't going to--" I didn't manage to finish my sentence, because she thrust her forearm towards me, and I flung myself backwards, hitting the stone wall hard and sinking into a sitting position as I stared up at her with wide eyes.

"...Who are you?"

"Kat," responded Kat patiently. "So I'm in charge around here now, yeah?"

"...yeah. Well, nominally."

Kat raised an eyebrow and thrust her forearm at me as her eyes shined with overpowering belief and I found myself grinding into the wall harder. "Why does this work?"

I grimaced, and she stopped. I leaned back against the wall as I tried to get my bearings. "Well... it functions off belief. Same as inviting vampires in."

"Okay." Kat thought about this for a long moment, then smiled. "This bed is my home. Off limits for you."

I rolled my eyes. "That's not just going to work... you can't just make stuff up."

Kat stared down at me and raised an eyebrow. "Why not? It functions off belief. All beliefs are kinda made up in the first place."

I sighed, stood up, and walked over to sit down on the bed, just to show her, and... I couldn't. "...Huh."

Kat smiled. "Right? How did no one figure this out before?"

"I don't think most people can just... arbitrarily believe with their whole heart. Probably?"

Kat shrugged. "Sucks to suck, I guess." She started to smile again. "Sorry, I kinda always say that."

I was smiling too. "You're fine."

"And that's how I'm going to use you to kill your Master," Kat announced casually.

"You... what? I can't... you can't... that's not even... that's not a thing." I shook my head. Did she not get how the world worked?

"Why not? You're strong enough to break those iron bars, yeah? But you believe you can't get out." Kat flopped back on her bed-- inarguably hers, now.

"It's not that... Master hasn't invited me out of the cell."

"Nah." Kat gestured lazily with a sweep of her hand. "How can you say she owns this? Dozens of people live in this place, including you... kinda arbitrary that she's the only one who owns it, isn't it? I live here too now."

"I... ownership is... there's a proper... track of agreements?" That wasn't the right word, I was pretty sure. I tried to gesture how ownership wasn't just a single person believing something, but rather societal... something? There were documents involved! It was some pretty vague gesturing, it was not an easy set of actions to mime.

Kat smiled. "I married your Master, and divorced her, and I own half of her stuff, and that includes this. And you."

I stared up at her. That was quite the foresight on her part. But... it did seem kinda farfetched, despite her confidence. "...really?"

Kat shrugged. "I got officiated online a while back, and decided I just married and divorced her right now. It's all arbitrary, you know. Property, marriage, whatever... it's just words people say. There's no inherent meaning beyond what we give it. And my belief is clearly way stronger than yours, so I can hack the dumb vampire thing."

I started giggling. "You have a point." She owned me, somehow, apparently, and I hadn't felt this free and stupid in... how long ago? Before Master took me in, at the very least. "We're gonna fucking die, you know."

Kat considered this for a long moment, then smiled lazily and shook her head.

"Nah."