How Not to Vampire - Season 1

11. Life, Death and Everything In Between

Pro-Tip for Humans #100: you spend your entire life not dying.

blood

            pain

                      touch

                                   drifting

                     is that a voice?

i hate my life.

There are voices in the fog, arguing, yelling even, and I know one of them, knew one of them, but that seems so long ago, another lifetime that happened to someone else, someone who isn't so goddamn cold. Someone who isn't me.

blood

             pain

                         touch

                                        drifting

                          did someone speak?

            what is life?

This time different voices. Someone punches me in the chest, and I want to tell them not to do that, that is a chest that belongs to me, but it occurs to me that I have no voice. The dead have no mouths, and that's what I'm supposed to be. Dead. Then the thought occurs that if I'm dead, why does it hurt so much? Or is that the memory of pain? And on the subject of pain, is it supposed to hurt this much? My veins burn liquid fire, my muscles screaming, and I want to scream or laugh or cry but this is a memory. Or is this even happening?

This had better not be a dream sequence. I hate dream sequences.

blood

              pain

                          touch

                                          drifting

                         is that a voice?

             i hate my life.

The taste of blood fills my mouth. It is not like when you bite your lip or your tongue, and there is that bitter taste of copper like when you lick the contact points on a 9-volt battery. If you grew up with a healthy fear of electricity and don't know what I mean, you're missing out. This taste is sharper, fuller, more alive if that makes any sense at all. It is more like someone has filled my mouth with blood until it is pouring out of my mouth. The taste is everywhere, it encompasses my entire being—

—and goddam

                                    it

                                               is

                                                        good.

blood

"—not gonna be here when he wakes up," someone says. I struggle to attach a face, a name, a person to the someone. Louise. She doesn't sound like her normal self. It's like she's freaking the fuck out. "They're going to be coming for me."

I can't open my eyes. She is just one of the voices in the fog. There is another one, a woman, further away. She has the kind of voice that sounds like she's always doing something else more important, and this clearly isn't it.