𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐩𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐦

Act I, Scene IV

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."
~ Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

__________

"Tell me, Miss Penn," Dr. Reed said. "How long have you been a vampire?"

Lucy's body went rigid. She recoiled, her lips pulling back from her teeth in a snarl. Her voice came out an angry hiss. "Do not use that word!"

Dr. Reed blinked at her, his expression unchanged. "It is what we are."

"No!"

Lucy had never before instigated a verbal dispute with a stranger, but the venom with which she now howled at Dr. Reed would have caused tremors in a lesser man.

"Vampires are mindless demons that take pleasure from murdering the living!" Lucy proclaimed, remembering with abhorrent clarity the night she had discovered their existence to be fact rather than fiction. "Vampires are the ancient abomination that took the life of my fiancé and left me as this...creature! Vampires are evil! I am not a vampire! I am Lucy! I may no longer be human, but I will burn in hell ere I surrender my humanity!"

Her body deflated, spent. Her breath came in jagged starts and stops, as though she had been submerged in water beyond the capacity of her lungs' air supply. She pressed her palms to her cheeks and glared at the papers scattered across the physician's desk. She refused to meet his eye.

Impassive, Dr. Reed continued to observe her. With slow, deliberate movements, he propped an elbow on the desktop and ran the side of his index finger back and forth across his bearded chin.

"My apologies, Miss Penn. It seems I have spoken out of turn."

His tone was earnest. Calming. Apt bedside manner once again.

"I tend to be too curious around my own kind," he avowed. "For my part, curiosity leads to bluntness. A fault I must learn to remedy. In truth, I have only been in a situation like this once, maybe twice, before. As you said, the vast majority of our species consists of a horde of growling madmen on the streets. No suitable company with which to have a conversation. In no way did I aim to imply that you are not still the person you once were. There is simply...more to you now."

Lucy's breathing had returned to its slow, methodical rhythm. Ashamed, she lifted her gaze to the doctor's face. "Forgive my outburst."

"Don't apologize." Dr. Reed waved a hand, granting her absolution. "You are sane, compassionate, and still vividly aware of your past self," he said. "It stands to reason that you would not want to be associated with those monstrosities, by title or anything else. But I implore you, consider this."

He stood and walked out from behind the desk. Crossing his arms loosely over his chest and perching on the desktop corner nearest Lucy, he continued, "Say there is a man. He has a sporadic cough and a slight fever. He still works, still tends to his family, just requires more rest than usual. Then, there is another man. He has full-blown leprosy, his skin covered in red boils and sores. He is near death, falling apart at the seams. The differences between these two men are drastic and overt, are they not?"

Lucy gave a solemn nod. "Night and day."

"Indeed," Dr. Reed remarked. He fixed her with a pointed stare. "But couldn't both men accurately be described as 'ill'?"

Lucy's eyes widened.

She felt as though the weight of a great stone slab had been lifted from her chest. She sighed an obstructed breath. Dr. Reed's analogy opened a door in her mind that she had not previously known existed.