Butterfly Rising

Chapter Five

"When Ameri... died... things were fine for several months. Maybe half a year?" Ingrid starts, brushing her scraggly hair out of her eyes. The previous shine from her red hair is gone, leaving it looking dry and damaged. "We did as always and drank from the bags then hunted when our supply was low. Never kill, find animals as well."

Ingrid steps past us to lean against the stairs towards the main level of the house. She rubs her face next. Each move she makes is noticeably fidgety, like she's paranoid about something.

"Then about month eight or seven, things became weird. We noticed our supply running out at a faster rate when we'd check. I mean... distributing the bags has never been an issue before. We can last on one for several days if we have to. But it was odd, so we began keeping count. Then we noticed this... sour taste, as if the blood had started to spoil which just doesn't happen. The fridge was working just fine, no issues to detect so it couldn't be that the blood was heating.

Anyways, we ended up finding out who was taking extra blood. Following the rules we always have, we expelled him from the coven. We also assumed that he was the reason the blood wasn't being properly refrigerated, like maybe he tried to put some old bags back after we became suspicious. I don't know."

If possible, Ingrid's complexion worsens in the one minute she's been talking. She begins to appear so pale that I'd almost say she's a light gray. It makes the bags under her eyes more prominent as well as making her whale body appear as if she'll waste away as we speak. When she takes a deep breath, I can't help but prepare myself for what she's about to say.

Ingrid groans loudly. "The issues started again. Someone else began to take more bags. We found her and expelled her. But even then, another person would pop up so we locked u and only about five of us had a key. Despite that, the blood still began to taste sour. A good chuck of us decided to lay off the bags for a while, so we began to exclusively hunt animals. That's when we noticed a change in anyone who was still eating from the bags. They grew aggressive... like they were hopped up on drugs or something. And they kept wanting more and more, like they were never satisfied."

"Is there something in the blood? Is it possible you guys have been hunting junkies?" Alexei asks, raising an eyebrow. I can see on her face that she's unimpressed by the idea of her former comrades possibly 'doing drugs.'

"No, we know the difference between clean blood and contaminated blood. We've always stalked our prey days before going in, we continued that even if two of our leaders were gone." Ingrid gives her a pointed look. "This was something else."

"Fine, continue then."

"Thanks," Ingrid says sarcastically, rolling her eyes. She leans forward, pressing her hands to her thighs and leveling out her breathing once again. "Well, we did eventually decide to get the blood looked at. We sent it into a lab and... it was weird, so we decided to get a second opinion of sorts. We tested a different back and the same thing happened. But nobody knew what it was that was in the blood, it was just weird.

That's why we cut off the supply. Whatever was in the blood was causing everyone to go batshit crazy. Only they didn't recover. Instead, they decided to hunt until each one of those people became a vampire. Slowly, slowly more and more newborns started popping up."

Ingrid pauses for a moment. Since she's stopped for the time being, this gives us all a moment to think about what she's just told us. Maybe a mysterious new drug is being passed around? But that doesn't make any sense. What are the chances that every single person they've chosen to get blood from has taken this drug? There's no way. So what could it be? There's a chance that there's a new illness going around. Maybe one that doesn't appear bad, but can affect the vampires as it has. Though I'm not a scientist or a doctor so I don't know.