Prelude

I woke with a start, feeling chilled to the bone. I had no idea how much time had passed since I had been attacked. But I knew, from the moment my eyes opened, that I was different, somehow – stronger; tougher.

I wasn’t breathing.

Chapter 1

I woke slowly, groggily. I didn’t know how long I’d been asleep. There must have been a power outage, because as I looked at the clock across the room, I saw it flashing at 1:34 am.

I sat up and grabbed my watch from my nightstand, turning on my bedside lamp while I did so. My watch said it was 3:27 am. So the power outage had happened about two hours earlier. I wondered why, when it was perfectly calm outside now.

I got out of bed and headed towards the tiny kitchen in my apartment, turning on lights as I did. I poured myself a glass of tap water, taking care to swallow each mouthful delicately, tasting the chemicals.

I spat it out into the sink. I remembered that I hated tap water.

I sighed and grabbed a bottle of distilled water from the fridge, opening it and taking a long draught. “Hello, sweet nectar of life,” I murmured, taking another long drink. I’d been trying to go green, but who was I kidding? I needed distilled water.

I strode from my kitchen into the living room and plopped down onto my couch, reaching for the television remote, which I always kept on the side table beside the right arm of the couch. But this time, it wasn’t there. Where could it have gone? I lived alone.

I got up from the couch and looked around, trying to locate the missing remote control. I spent a good twenty minutes searching the living room from top to bottom, before I gave up and decided to read a book.

But when I went into my bedroom to get one, I found all my favourite books missing. What was going on? Did I have a poltergeist in my house, or was I sleep-hiding all my things? Neither of those answers made more sense than the one that chilled my spine: that someone else had been in my apartment, and had stolen my things. They very well might have been in there still.

With careful steps, I went around the house and turned off all the lights. Then I went into my bedroom closet to grab the old baseball bat I kept, just in case – but the bat wasn’t there.

“Dammit!” I muttered loudly.

I reached farther into the closet to get it – the closet happened to be very large, and very messy. But instead of my fingers closing around the handle of the bat, it closed around something of a similar circumference, but ice-cold.

I withdrew my hand rapidly, my heart stuttering in place for a moment before continuing its terrified beating.

“Hel-hello?” I murmured, grabbing an umbrella hanging in the closet, and tentatively reaching it into the closet, I poked the thing I’d grabbed.

I heard a sharp snap, and when I pulled the umbrella back, the curved handle was gone. In its place was a stubby little piece of plastic.

I dropped the umbrella in a second and screamed, running out of my room like a girl guide who’d just seen Santa without his beard. I ran into the living room and hid in the large, empty wardrobe that I’d gotten as a kid when I was obsessed with The Chronicles of Narnia books.

But, unlike the characters in those books, I knew for a fact that it would be better to lock myself in the wardrobe, and so I did. I tried to quiet my breathing as I listened for the telltale sound of an intruder in my home, but I heard nothing.

I waited for what felt like forever, until the half bottle of water I’d had reminded me that my stomach was empty, because right then, I had to pee like a racehorse. I crossed my legs like a child, wishing that I hadn’t gone for a drink of water, and instead had just gone to the police.

Leaning against the back of wardrobe, I groaned inwardly, wishing that a toilet would magically appear like on those commercials for adult diapers. I sighed and tried not to think of waterfalls, flushing toilets, and taking a shower because I now felt like I might wet myself.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, I decided to risk going to the washroom and relieving myself. I’d rather NOT have to pee, and get attacked, then get attacked and wet myself.

Carefully, I opened the wardrobe door, peering out into the darkened living room. Nothing moved. With rapid movements, I dashed across my apartment, sprinting to the bathroom and hoping against hell that the intruder wasn’t in there – because if he thought he was going to watch me pee, he was in for a surprised.

Fortunately, I was not interrupted, and was able to relieve myself. I sighed in relief. I washed my hands out of habit, and dried them on the hand towel. Then I sat on the edge of the tub, wondering whether or not I ought to just hole myself up in the bathroom instead of risk heading for the wardrobe. I’d be far more likely to end up alive in the bathroom, than in that pile of splinters that the wardrobe could end up like. Besides, wardrobes could fall over; bathrooms couldn’t... at least, not unless they were blown up.

That thought terrified me, and I felt my heart go into overdrive as I realized I might have a suicide bomber in my house!

But then my logical side took over, and told me I was a retard for thinking that. What would a suicide bomber be doing in my apartment?

And then my panicky side took over again and told my logical side where to shove it because a suicide bomber might be planting bombs all over my apartment building, because what if he didn’t just want to kill me, but everyone in the building?!

I went back and forth like that, arguing with myself for a long time. The analogue clock on the wall showed that an hour and a half had passed since I’d first woken. In about an hour, it would be light outside. But that didn’t make a difference; I’d still be trapped in my bathroom, with no food or water... well, I could always have tap water...

But my mind immediately dismissed that. I couldn’t stand tap water. I’d be more likely to drink toilet water than tap... well, maybe not, but I wasn’t going to just sit around and drink tap water for the rest of my life.

But right then, the knob on the door rattled.

AN: Okay, so I've started ANOTHER vampire story. I know, I know; I didn't finish the last one. But this one is entirely out of my own head, with no other influence than the fact that I was on my laptop a couple nights ago and noticed these odd marks on my arm, that appeared to be almost perfectly identical, parallel, and altogether creepy. They were obviously mosquito bites I had scratched to death, but they inspired me to write this. So nyah. ;-P

Anyways, R&R, please! CC is welcome, flames are not.