AT DUSK I ARRIVED ON THE DUSTY BANK of what used to be a pond, of whom water had dried out for so long that deep-dark cracks were painted all over the chapped, brown soil. Those lines creeped beneath my feet and spreaded like a gigantic spider web, a magnified version of which only the highly poisonous ones, the predators living in the middle of an Arizona wetland, might be capable of producing so as to lure their prey into a sweetened nightmare. Those lines creeped towards the shadow of the leaf canopy, where they dodged the spiky roots and blended in under the lustful high grass.

They hid in utter silence, and for every second waltzing through, silence grew into something deafening. The scorching sunlights gliding along the rough branches, bouncing among the fresh leaves and landed on the blade of grass, where a few drops of dew stubbornly gripped on regardless the force of nature. Foliage folded like a maternal figure protecting the yet blooming flowers, layers upon layers, leaves upon leaves.

Movements of light reflected a spectrum of green tones, ranging from a nearly-pastel green to a navy one to - where sunlights could hardly reach - a downright inky black (the colour which I had always assumed as the downfall of all colours, therefore, should be treated with speciality).

For a moment, the performance of colours reminded me of the green land once lying at the end of my ragging village, just a thirty-minute walk from my old house. The Fooly-Forest, named by the kids once they found out it was not a real one, but more of a hill where adults had planted some tropical seeds having been bought from a crossing dealer some years ago.

The ceaseless attempt to utilise the newly discovered seedlings, unfortunately, had never concluded in actual success. Tiny dots of pinkish flowers withered and muddled into the background as soon as the first signs of winter emerged, and never did they yield any fruit before the last leaves turned to dust and the whole universe settled into their annual hibernation. For no particular reason, the dying green kept playing back in my mind once in a while, like a mental habit I had taken in somewhere between staying a child and growing into a young lady.

And the young lady it was for eternity.

Among the howling winds and the crackling sounds of life blooming in early spring, I caught the faintest smell of what seemed to be human. From just several miles away planted the city of Houston, one of the most desirable hunting grounds in Southern America. And for lords above, the humans there stank, immediately, of fresh blood drumbling in their veins, of fragrances they sprayed on their skin, of the food they had eaten for the night, and of the razor of death hanging upon their delicate necks. All of which were so strong that it nearly covered the sense of nature. It made me want to vomit, supposing that I was still capable of such things.

Yet at the same time, embarrassing as it seemed, the appalling combination of odours caught me off guard. They crawled into my nostrils, and it was just a matter of milliseconds before they made their way to my lungs, in spite of my attempt to stop breathing instantly.

And it burned.

Lifetime ago, the sense had been like that of being stung by a wasp before the poison diffused in the bloodstream and plunged into the centre of an unbeating heart; It had been like to be exposed on a blue flame without any shield or prevention, from head to toes the paralyzing sense brushed through, blinding any form of morality or consciousness was left from a mortal life. It drown me in gleams of white, and for countless times, I had woke up only to see a snapped human head in hands, my teeth painted in a velvet, sickening shade of red that managed to soothe the whining ache in my venomous mouth but not in my sinful soul.

The pain had been jolting itself into my life for year after year; days dripped like plain sand in an endless, enormous hourglass, blurring into my customarily volatile routines yet never really stopped wiggling. Until one day, it simply dawned on me that the agony had somehow faded into a tune, an everlasting song humming in my head that was one of the only assurances for my ever existence on Earth.

After all that time, the impulse of blood had loosen its control on my being, like a snake found its prisoner was still edible but had no longer been the favourite. Yet it would never set me free, as the selfish and noxious nature of such species could never stop it from haunting me even in my wildest dream. I kept the observation for myself, as pointing it out would only result in more influence of the devil.

However, never did I admit the tune was something pleasant, more of a bearable presence as it brought out the dryness of my throat and the roam of venom in my mouth, yet I was still able to retain myself from sinking into unconsciousness and surrendering to the wicked urge under my skin.

My breath hitched while I struggled to prevent myself from fleeing to the nearby residential area for a stack of fresh blood. Such a miserable soldier was I to have dedicated my whole two weeks for a mission I had far since known would only result in total failure. Hardly would I consider myself as an adequate teacher or an eligible trainer, particularly in dealing with a half dozen of newborns whose eyes were still raw with bloodlust. So I took a step back, and was filled with the task to escort Maria the following minute, which led me to set foot in this typical Texan forest, with a heart yearning for food but a head still vigilant enough to wait for the arrival of my commander.

The boiling sun was half settled behind the trees when I decided to follow the cracked lines to their hiding spot beneath the shade. The warmth melted like butter on my marble-like skin, soft orange-ish lights reflected in shimmering scattered fragments, just like that of the precious kaleidoscope my brother had brought back from his journey to England in the summer of 1818.

The forest, this was a qualified one, remained in utter silence as I moved toward. There was no rustle of leaves, no squeaking of squirrels or chirping of birds. Underneath my feet, the ground smelled of rotten organic composure mixing with the haziness of frost. Things were apparently still under the impact of the previous winter, whose temperature dropped to such an extreme that, in my opinion, was enough to be the death of a number of impoverished families.

There, I made my way to the large branch above just by some movements of swinging and climbing, leaves were crushed in my right palm as I grabbed a twig and pulled myself up. It was a peculiar feeling hiding in the middle of greenery, clinging to a false hope that fresh scents of spring could abate the burning sensation growling in my chest.

The branch quivered under my weight, sending minute vibrations to the foliage above. In the flight of my head, a pool of petals swirled back and forth, its colour strikingly resembled that of the playbacks in my mind. Some landed on the crook of my dress and slid down my ankles before continuing their journey to reunite with earth. They were so soft, so fragile that I almost felt a shot of guilt eyeing their pinkish glow being muffled by dust.

So instead I closed my eyes. The colour behind my eyelids faded like dandelion seeds spreading on a wild meadow, where the winds were not quite ferocious, but managed to smash those petite white dots into powder anyway. It fluttered under the dim light of a cloudy morning, rose and fell with the streams of air, before it withered and vanished into nothing.

And when the last rays of sunlight retreated from the ground, I let myself be consumed by total darkness.

Maria arrived as soon as the first glimpse of the gibbous moon bursted through layers of grey clouds hanging worriedly across the horizon, her two new allies in tow. Between the leaves, she stood small, stunningly beautiful as the moonlight dripped off her wild, dark curls in pills of silvery dust, and it reflected from her eyes an unmistakable shade of ruby while her other features were hidden under her cape. The brunette smelled of the road she had rushed through, of the dirt and wind, of flowers and humid weather, and of the human blood I reckoned she had just inhaled merely an hour ago. It was perceptible that the victim was a young lady, whose age ranged from twenty to early thirty, since I could still hear her jasmine fragrance lingered in the atmosphere.

They landed on the very destination I had arrived at, right on the bank of the dried pond, their boots stained with mud and grime. The three female figures stood still, the ends of their cape were caught in the rising gust which managed to wash away the nauseous odours in a fraction of second, just for letting them reappear in a clearer and more distinctive manner.

I remained hidden in my newfound quarter, uninterested in revealing my existence. It was like the lack of blood in my parched veins had started creeping upon my head, drifting me into a sluggish state of mind which allowed me to adopt a few rebellious little acts against my second life's mother. I was indeed starving, and the urge for blood had reshaped into a fury that drizzled out in some form of passive-aggressiveness.

From afar, I heard a booming of thunder. Flashes of light sprawled across the grey canvas above my head in shapes of sinuous roots, painting my eyesight with its fascinatingly dazzling flare. Upon the trees, startled birds flapped their wings, some shot up and blended with the murky darkness of the sky. The tree I was sitting on churned with the sudden movement of nature, some green and pink pieces swifted their way to my tights, just for me to promptly shake them onto the ground. It took awhile for the surroundings to return to its usual serenity.

In the end, it was the taller blonde who broke the solid silence (her name, as I had later been informed, was Lucy).

"Gãrcia, don't you wellcome us?" she chirped.

Her voice pierced through the bleakness of air like a chiming bell, an angelic combination of loveliness and delicacy. It flowed like a symphony, the one often heard from a harp in churches every Sunday morning, promoting a sense of holiness radiating in the ears of the mortals.

"We have gone a long, long way just to meet you." 

Her sweetened sound echoed among the trunks and dissolved into the night. She was tall and lean, her shadow engraved on the ground like a banshee in its cloak.

I did not move.

Winds rose in a rustling sound before she pressed, "Hide and seek's not a choice here."

Not until Maria spoke up that some common sense finally snapped back to me. It was only a murmur, a ghostly shadow of her vigorous strength displayed in the form of a ringing melody, composed only by a couple of notes.

She whispered, "Come here,"

"Mi cariño."

Her words, in a blink of an eye, stretched my nerves. For a moment, I found my unfunctional heart clenched and the unpredicted worry immediately pulled me back from crossing the line between being sane and insane. For long I had acknowledged the nature of this incredibly thin line, so frail that just one second of self-indulgence would result in the broken of a sound mind. So that was it, Maria was growing impatient.

My worry was then amplified by her action; she stepped up, arms wide opened, as if she was embracing the air. Under the bleary moonlight, bite scars glowing like tiny medals hanged loose around her elegant neck, trailed along her collarbone and disappeared under her yellow corset. It caused a shrill to travel down my backbone, a sense of fright bloomed and spreaded like a tumultuous storm that struck to the very core of my tattered shell.

Before I realised it, my legs had gotten me flying through the ground with such fierceful force that could instantly send a human-being to heaven. My hair flustered behind my back, some red locks whipped my cheeks, blocking a part of my vision as I glided into the arms of Maria. Beneath my feet, leaves crumbled in muffled crackles, my footprints etched several inches deep and acted as nuclears for the soil cracked into webs around them; such distinctive cues of the traverse of a monster.

I wondered what ideas the hunters would have come up once they crossed those traces early in the morning. A bear, maybe, with deformed paws shaped similarly to the sole of human leather boots.

The hug of Maria, on the other hand, was cold, callous and brought about a familiarly threatening feeling that made my muscles tense in responsive as I buried my face in her chest. It collided with the upper half of the corsettte, where a once-beating heart lay perfectly still in the centre of her redundant circulation. Above my head, I heard her chuckle.

I blurted out, "Maria." the sound squirmed like it was from an animal caught in a hunter's trap with the knowledge of death awaiting. My feet started to waggle, crushing whatever they found under the shoe tips.

The space between Maria's extended arms was never too big for my petite figure, yet it did feel too small to not strangle the innocent girl within me whose existence I could barely recognise. In my mindeye, the girl's hair had burned like fire under the scorching sunlight, reaching an extent at which its shade began to unify with that of the liquid rumbling in her pulses. Following the drain of blood once she had been turned, the sun hovering upon her infant valley had submerged and shadows swallowed her colours bit by bit, like acid licking the surface of a metal bar, until what remained was just the flicker of a once shining spirit.

As Maria shuffled for a more comfortable posture, I felt her fingers brushed through my auburn locks, sending another shiver down my bones. It was frightening, the way her gestures towards her kids seemed so maternal yet every touch screamed the word 'cold-blooded', slinking like a phantom under one's skin and paving its own way to one's mind before putting the whole body under its horrific manipulation. It triggered a system of fight-or-flight out of nowhere and in no time, and the ones who commited to the itch of fighting, I had no intention to learn more about them.

"So tell me, my dear, did you eat?"

Well, maybe that was the point. I did not eat. Yet.

11/07/2021