imaginary person.

There’s a letter on the desk. A girl no older than twenty-five stares at it, then opens it with trembling fingers. She scans it, and her eyes freeze and widen at something halfway down the document.

FUNDING APPROVED

The girl, Tessa, slams her hands down onto the table with excitement, before clearing her throat and turning eagerly to her computer. Her hands still shake.

“Enough of that,” Tessa says under her breath. Or she would, if she had breath. She presses something with her mouse, and leans forward, into a microphone. “My name is Tessa Lorn, and I.. am a vampire. But more importantly, I’m a scientist.” She speaks into the audio log, and glances back at the body laid out on a table behind her. It was pale, adorned in white cloth. Tessa’s reminded of what hangs in the balance.

Tessa hesitates. “My initial purpose of this experiment was for.. personal reasons. Yet as I became more aware of how to proceed, I slowly realized its full potential for research in the fields of sociology and psychology. To be able to manipulate the mind in such a drastic way…”

A pause.

“But I’m getting ahead of myself. I have created an environment completely isolated from the outside world, and have selected a human subject to immerse in it. My goal is to observe how she reacts to separation, after her mind has been fully wiped of all memory. The only external contact she will receive will be from myself, when I enter the facility to tend to her requirements. The subject will be offered anything needed to sustain her life force, as well as books, painting supplies, and other small forms of entertainment,” Tessa sits back in her chair, and sighs.

“The subject will also be bitten by myself once every day, in order to observe how she reacts to chronic pain and fatigue within the context of her environment. This is necessary to understand how humans adjust to their life situations, and the methods they use to cope. This part of the experiment is invaluable, and may lead to further developments in the study of human behavior,” Tessa closes her eyes, imagining the pale figure behind her. Imagines her warm and smooth beneath Tessa’s fingers. “I will now proceed to initiate the process of integration. Updates will be recorded soon.”

Esme doesn’t remember being born. She’s read about it, has heard stories of children and birth and pregnancy, but cannot for the life of her remember a time when she herself was small and needy. She’s spent days staring at the white walls of her room, in attempt to picture the vague image of herself as a child, but without any real reflective surfaces nearby, she comes up blank. Her slight yet long hands have always been slight and long, and her legs and arms have always been exactly the same length. It seems to her, that she’s never changed an inch in her life.

This thought makes Esme somewhat melancholic. She feels as if someone has stolen that experience from her, but she doesn’t know why. She knows that nothing she reads is real. Tessa has chided her more than once for believing in the silly fiction novels sitting on Esme’s shelf. Some part of her has always hoped that one of the characters from her books would break through the shiny door that separates Esme’s World from Tessa’s World, but she knows better than that. She knows that there’s nothing beyond her room.

Nothing.

Esme doesn’t like to think about the nothing. There is only Esme and Tessa. So where does Tessa go when she leaves? Esme has gone through this thought many many times. She can never think of an answer. She’s too afraid of it, too scared that if she thinks about the nothing too long, it will come out and devour her, and make her into nothing too. So instead of thinking about the nothing Esme reads and paints and hums herself music she’s never heard to sleep.

Life is good.

The shiny door slides open. Tessa walks in. Esme wants to cringe. Instead, she reveres the woman’s beauty, thinking for the thousandth time that this is what her silly fictional protagonists look like. In fact, Tessa is the only woman she’s ever imagined in her stories. She’s the only person that actually exists. In her mind, all of the men have no faces.

The initial revulsion Esme felt cedes, and she slips off of her bed to greet Tessa. She stumbles towards her, and nearly thrusts herself upon the woman. Tessa catches her.

“Esme, how are you feeling? You’re trembling more than usual.” Tessa says, taking concern up in her voice.

Esme looks up at her, pressed into her arms. “M’ not feeling well,” she mumbles, and Tessa guides her back over to her bed. They sit together, Esme slumped over with her head in Tessa’s lap. Tessa slowly pets Esme’s shaven head, murmuring words of comfort. Esme suddenly feels like crying. So she does.

Emotions have never been something that Esme has true control over. Whatever she feels, she feels. She’s never been taught to contain it, to be strong, to hide them like her book characters do. She doesn’t know how Tessa holds such apathy regarding most of her feelings. Its one of the many things Esme doesn’t know about Tessa. Like why Tessa doesn’t breathe the way she can, or why she can walk through the nothing and Esme can’t, and why Tessa is aloud to have hair and she can’t.

Esme darts her eyes up to Tessa’s face. She’s staring down with understanding, and Esme breathes a sigh of relief. Once, Tessa had grown upset at Esme for being sick. Esme hadn’t been able to comprehend why, and why it was the greatest reaction she’d ever seen from the woman. Now, she was simply glad to be comforted. It had been many night periods since she was last shown true affection. Esme soaks it in.

The moment ends too soon. Tessa moves her hand away, and Esme pulls up from her lap. Tessa looks her in the eyes. “Esme, you know that I have to do this. I don’t want to hurt you, but it’s a necessary part of the procedure. Do you understand?”

And Esme does understand. She knows that Tessa wouldn’t cause her pain unless she absolutely had to. She knows that Tessa is only “carrying out protocol”, or so she’s read. But deep inside her, that reclusive part of her that ponders the nothing, is screaming. “Get away!” it shrieks. It wants her to run. To defend herself, to lash out, to do anything to prevent what happens next. Esme quiets that part of her. Tessa doesn’t want to hurt her. She has to, but she doesn’t want to. Esme repeats this in her mind, over and over as Tessa draws nearer, Tessa’s mouth opening to reveal needle-sharp fangs, fangs that hover over Esme’s neck, that pierce her skin and puncture holes that spill her blood and- and Tessa drinks from Esme, lapping up the liquid with her soft tongue and Esme shivers, hot and cold coursing through her body and no, she doesn’t cry, not now, because she’s used to it. Every single day, Tessa feeds on Esme and she wants to say that she hates it but hate is only a term she’s read from a book. She doesn’t know what it means.

As quick as it came, the moment ends. Tessa pulls back, red staining her lips, and she smiles, but Esme’s eyes are hollow. She can feel it. They always are, after the feed. Esme’s throat is throbbing.

“There, there,” Tessa says, thick around her fangs. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

Tessa is exhausted. She hunches over her laptop, typing in hours of research from the past day. Well, technically, past night. She has Esme on a nocturnal cycle, as she doesn’t know the difference. But Tessa does. Tessa feels the drag in her bones, the physical wear of staying up into morning hours. It goes against her very being, but she needs to finish her work. Scientist first, vampire second, she chides herself. She says that rather frequently, these days. She knows that one day, the emotional toll will catch up to her.

“Or maybe,” she mutters, “it already has.” She slumps back into her chair, hands over her eyes. She’s so utterly tired, tired of the screen in front of her, tired of being all alone except for Esme, tired of this whole damned experiment-

“I don’t mean that,” Tessa says hastily, as if someone can hear her. She sighs. She’s so lonely. It’s not like she can actually have a conversation with Esme. She’s sheltered, she’s the equivalent of a child in a grown woman’s body. But she’s so much smarter than that. Tessa feels she doesn’t give the girl enough credit. If only she knew a little bit more, she could figure it all out…

But that won’t happen. Tessa’s careful, like her mother warned her to be. It’s the last bit of advice she was ever given, before she found herself strung in an alleyway with blood-soaked clothes and a headache that would temper the devil. Tessa pities the girl she used to be, so naive and anything but careful… she was bound to fall headfirst into trouble.

Tessa shakes her head, pulling herself out of her reverie. With a sigh, she presses the record button on her monitor.

“Day… 200 something. I don’t care. I’m about to drop dead for a second time. The subject is… displaying interesting behavior. She’s started to become reluctant, not yet refusing, but showing signs of revulsion to the treatment. Earlier today, she began crying as I approached her. Whereas in the first 150 days, she displayed resignation, symptoms of fear and confusion are sprouting. This new development leads me to the conclusion that over time, as the subject gains a sense of self through recreation, she begins to value herself and seeks to guard herself from recognized threats. This proves intriguing, as the initial hypothesis states that the subject will stay resigned and content throughout it’s life. In contrast, she grows uneasy, and has decided that she does not want, if not deserve, the pain inflicted upon her… Anyways, that’s my… thoughts, I guess.” Tessa shuts off the recording, and lets her head rest on the desk. Slowly, she drifts into a dreamless sleep.

Esme wakes, screaming. The nightmare wracks her body, and she sits up, breathing heavily. Drawing her knees up to her chest, she wraps her arms around them and presses her face between them. She waits.

It was the nothing. She dreamed of the shiny door, dull in the darkness of Night, and it opened, slowly. But Tessa did not step in to greet her. There was no Tessa. Only the nothing. It poured inside the room, enveloping her white walls and pushing towards her until it engulfed her head and she couldn’t breath and she was suffocating in the nothing, the nothing choking her, clutching at her throat and biting down-

And Esme begins to cry, for the second time that day. But this time, there is no Tessa to comfort her, to stroke her shaven head, to soothe her like the mothers she’d only read about. It’s just Esme and the nothing, Esme waiting for the nothing to burst through her dull shiny door and consume her. She screwed her eyes up and waited, until the Light above became dawn, and she was safe from the darkness. Safe from the nothing.

Hours passed. But to Esme, the time was indefinite. With no way to measure it aside from the Light, she could only guess how long she stayed curled up in a ball on her bed. Finally, past dawn and into the soft light before midday, Tessa pushes her way out of the nothing, the shiny door swinging shut behind her. She carries Tessa’s daily morning meal, consisting of a thick, sweet beverage, and a cookie. Esme loves the cookie. The beverage is okay.

After setting the tray down onto Esme’s shiny table, Tessa takes in Esme’s appearance, and frowns. “Esme, are you alright? You look sickly,” she frets, striding over to the bed. Esme burrows her head into the covers, and relaxes as she feels Tessa’s hand brush against her shaven head. But then she remembers the nothing, and she tenses. Tessa freezes. Carefully, she speaks. “Esme? What’s wrong? You can talk to me, okay? It’s Tessa, you can trust Tessa.” She’s slow and deliberate, as if she’s speaking to a cornered animal.

Esme turns her head. “The nothing,” she croaks, “it ate me. It ate everything.”

Tessa pauses. “The nothing? What do you mean by that, sweetheart?” it’s an innocent question, but its enough to cause a hitch in Esme’s breath.

Did Tessa.. not know about the nothing? If so, then where does she go if not the nothing?

Esme hesitates. “The nothing. Outside the shiny door. There’s nothing, and it scares me. I had. Bad dreams. You weren’t there…” Esme’s voice is fracturing, and she trails off as tears begin to well in her lids again. “I’m scared, Tessa,”

Tessa croons, a sound deep in her throat, and lies herself down beside Esme. She stares into the girl’s pale, watery eyes, and thumbs the side of her cheek. Esme lowers her lashes at the touch, cool against her skin. Like hate, love is only a term she’s read from a book. She doesn’t know how it feels, or even understands it, but she likes to think, that if she did love, she would love Tessa. And maybe Tessa, the protagonist of all her silly fiction novels, the only other person in existence, the woman who cares for Esme every day and night period, would love her back.

Tessa has two journals. Well, two separate types of journals. She’s already gone through a dozen of them for purely scientific purposes, but one of them, her most treasured, is reserved as a personal diary.

An entry a day. That’s her oath, a small challenge among the many she faces. Writing has always come easy to her. She supposes its a blessing, considering the copious amounts of it she has to do in her research. So maybe it is a relief when she is given the opportunity to write not out of obligation, but for recreation.

Tessa presses her pen to the paper of her leather-bound journal. She pauses, taking a moment to reread the beginning of her entry.

It’s been nearly 230 days since I first began my experiment. It would be a falsehood to say that I’ve felt no misgivings or emotional detriment. The subject— Esme— looks up to me as if I am her mother. This has brought confusion into our relationship, and I am no longer sure that stepping out of objectivity was a good idea. She turns to me for comfort and affection, and I fear that this dependency will only lead to harm for both of us. As much as I attempt to refrain, I cannot help but feel guilt for the measures I place upon her. This project has as much of a personal stake as it does a scientific stake. Though I have tried to ignore my own feelings, I return to the fact that this project is rooted in a thought cruel and inhumane in nature. I am a scientist, but I am also a vampire.  The scientist in me considers the knowledge that could be gained, but the vampire in me holds darker impressions. I just want-

What did she want? Tessa doesn’t know. She knows that deep inside, the humanity within her is wrought with shame for her vampiric instinct, and that if not for the scientific excuse, the guilt would overwhelm her.

“It’s not an excuse,” Tessa says aloud, an argumentative edge to her voice. “This is as much for science as it is for myself.”

But Tessa doesn’t feel that wholeheartedly. The research learned is an added benefit, its not-

“Be quiet,” She commands her brain, flashing her eyes in irritation. She wishes that her mind wasn’t so truthful, didn’t harbor such a tendency to overthink and turn against her. She just wants silence for once, wants the raging waves of doubt and fear to stop clashing for once and just shut up.

Tessa looks back at her journal, and scrawls the end to her sentence.

I just want peace.

Esme’s only real impression of colors come from her painting set. There’s plenty of white and grey in her room, but green? Yellow? Blue? Tessa had to teach her the names of each paint, and had she not done that, Esme would have gone her whole life without knowing purple existed. Or at least, she imagines it would be like that. Instead, she can recognize the pink in Tessa’s cheeks, the blue tint of Esme’s veins, the stark red of blood against pale skin…

Esme doesn’t have much in terms of subject matter, but the colors are enough. The colors, and her dreams, which sometimes feature strange, unfamiliar faces and objects. When she wakes, she doesn’t remember them, but when she reads, sometimes, sometimes, she connects the imagery and understands. She understands, and so she paints it.

Most of the time, she paints Tessa. She’s drawn and painted her so many times that the outline of her face is muscle memory. She’s just so beautiful, and palpable. Esme feels but a ghost of the other woman, so faint in the presence of her strong protagonist.

Tessa is the only person Esme has ever painted. She’s the only other person in existence.

That’s why Esme is so surprised to have painted a face that looks anything but like Tessa. She’d fallen onto the drawing with bare instinct, barely taking her eyes away until completion, afraid that it might disappear from her mind if she did.

Now, she stares at it with puzzlement. Esme doesn’t know where the idea came from. A gift, a voice inside her croons, a gift from the nothing.

What does that mean, she cries back, but the voice doesn’t respond.

Esme thinks of Tessa and has the sudden urge to hide the painting. If it really did come from the nothing, then she wanted to send it back. She considers splashing paint over it, but hesitates: she doesn’t want to ruin it. In fact, she likes it as much as it frightens her.

Tessa opens the shiny door.

Esme jumps, and turns around to face her. Tessa closes the door slowly, staring at the painting. “What’ve you done there, love?”

Esme wants to respond, but she’s hanging on the last word of her sentence. Love? Does she mean that? She wants to ask. But Tessa’s resolute glare at the painting dries any words in her throat. She looks back nervously.

“Its’a painting, Tessa.” She mumbles, her eyes to the floor. She waits, waits for her apathetic anger, or for Tessa to raise her voice, or do something to express her disapproval. She just doesn’t know how Tessa will react.

“It’s very good,” Tessa finally says, unexpectedly. She’s taken on a kind yet hesitant tone, and Esme raises her eyes.

“Y-you like it?” Esme stutters. She doesn’t seem to know what to make out of Tessa’s sudden shift of composure. She had an odd, yet not unpleasant look on her face.

“I do. Could I have it?” Tessa smiles, and relief washes over Esme. Esme nods vigorously, stepping away from the easel. Tessa steps forward, lifting the illustration and carrying it with careful fingers. Tessa takes most of Esme’s paintings. On the white walls of her room, there is a single frame, and Esme is aloud only one image to fit in it. Currently, a portrait of Tessa hangs there. Her eyes are slitted, face turned halfway towards the viewer. Blood drips from her perfect lips.

It’s the face that Tessa gives her after she feeds. Suddenly, Esme remembers why Tessa had come into her room. She begins to feel sick.

But Tessa is already turning, heading back into the nothing, and Esme prays she forgets to come back. And then stops. It’s not a prayer, but it is a hope. And then she stops the hope too. In all of her novels, characters survive their circumstances through hope. But Esme has no need for hope to survive. She has everything she needs. To hope would be to imply that there was something wrong with her life.

And Tessa is walking back inside, back inside Esme’s white room. The shiny door swings shut and Esme feels sick again as Tessa approaches her, holding out a hand to steady her. She didn’t realize she was shaking. Tessa takes her up in her arms, so so gently, and guides her to the bed. Then she lowers her face to Esme’s neck.

Tessa scrutinizes the painting. She wasn’t lying when she’d praised Esme. It really was her best work. But it shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t exist. In the past, Esme had only ever painted in abstract or portraits of Tessa. Never someone else. She’s been hiding things from me.

And Tessa… can’t blame her. If she were in her position, she would keep secrets too. Tessa realizes she’s been asking Esme the wrong questions. Her daily inquiries into Esme’s life have been too basic. She hadn’t even considered how Esme felt about her own existence until she’d broken down a few days prior. She needs to reprioritize her research.

But that isn’t the only thing bothering Tessa. Tessa’s hidden feelings of guilt had been bubbling up to the surface, so that even when she looks at Esme, her misgivings come back to her. There’s a war going on inside Tessa’s mind, and she’s not sure who’s winning.

She doesn’t even know who she supports.

All she knows is that something has to change. She cannot continue with the same routine.

Tessa leans back in her chair, abandoning her inspection of the painting. She thinks, petulantly, for a fraction of a moment, of leaving the facility and never coming back. She indulges in the freedom of the idea for just a second, before becoming horrified at her own suggestion.

“I would never do that,” she admonishes herself. “I care too much about this project and Esme to even consider it,” she continues, feeling the need to prove herself to the air around her. The molecules don’t say anything back.

Tessa realizes what she’s admitted. She said that she cares about Esme. And she does, but it only increases the contrition she feels. The admittance is a confession, and as much as she hates it, she thinks she’s damned.

Perched on her bed, Esme listens as Tessa goes down her list of questions. It’s a new list, she realizes.

“Now,” Tessa begins, “You’ve mentioned the nothing before. How exactly does that make you feel?”

Esme rocks back and forth, hands on her thighs. “Scared,” she says, averting her eyes.

“Why’s that?” Tessa says, trying to catch her gaze again. Esme lets her.

Esme has always had difficulty expressing herself. She’s always felt too nervous, too flighty, too fidgety in the face of Tessa’s cool composure. Most of the time, she can barely get out a few sentences (often disjointed) before feeling heat rise to her face. She doesn’t understand it, but she knows she doesn’t like the feeling. So she stays quiet, letting her actions speak for her, and letting Tessa make her own assumptions.

“I don’t- I don’t know what it is. Why it is. The nothing, I mean. It- it doesn’t make sense to me, and I am afraid of it,” Esme manages to get out. “I don’t know where you go when you go into the nothing, and I am scared that the nothing will come out when you are gone, and take me.”

Tessa scribbles something down onto her paper. Not for the first time, Esme wonders where that goes and what she does with it.

“Esme,” Tessa says, leaning forward in her chair. “You don’t have to be afraid of the nothing. It can’t hurt you. This room keeps you safe. Do you trust me?”

Esme nods, the tension in her chest slowly unwinding. She trusts Tessa. Tessa will protect her.

But she wasn’t there for you, when you needed her, the voice whispers to her. Esme screws her eyes up, and Tessa frowns at her.

“What’s bothering you, love?” Tessa says. “Is it the nothing?”

Esme shakes her head. “No, it’s just- my mind. It’s telling me things. Lies. I don’t like it.” and you called me “love” again.

At this, Tessa writes a rather lengthy sentence into her notes. Esme considers snatching it up for herself. Do it, the voice hisses, you deserve to know.

Esme ignores the thought, squashing down her initial idea. Tessa looks up at her.

“What do these thoughts tell you?” she asks. Esme hesitates. “Esme, you can tell me anything. I would never hurt you,” But you do.

“Anything?” Esme says, her voice somewhat distant. “Tessa,” she pauses. “Do you love me?”

Tessa freezes. She’s been caught off guard. When she answers, her voice is confused, strangled. “I- I don’t know.” The sense of honesty feels unintentional, but Esme isn’t sure. She’s never understood why Tessa acts the way she does.

Tessa, who doesn’t breathe, takes a breath to steady herself. “Esme, love… isn’t something that can be explained. You can never know what love is. Maybe it’s a feeling. Maybe it’s an action. It’s all very subjective.” she says, uncertain. “My question is: do you think that I love you?”

Esme shuffles her feet. She says, in a quiet voice, “I’d like to think that you do,”

And that was all that needed to be said.

There’s a letter on Tessa’s desk. Nightcrawler Institute of Science, it reads. Tessa opens it with trembling fingers. She scans over it, paper shaking slightly.

We’re sorry… no longer able to support your project… cancelling funding… we appreciate your contribution to science…our deepest condolences.

Tessa rests her head on her hands, elbows pressed to the table. She sighs out an unnecessary breath. She supposes she should have expected this.

The Nightcrawler Institute of Science was the only facility she could think of that would support a project as risky and controversial as her’s. But they received so many requests a year from supernatural scientists worldwide that it was unlikely for them to float her for more than twelve months, even if her research did prove invaluable. From her understanding, she’s lucky she lasted this long.

But without the funding, she would have to end her research, and then she would have no excuse to continue her “experiment”. The guilt was swallowing her, eating her alive as she considered what would happen to Esme after all of this. She could hardly continue to support both of them, and it wouldn’t make any sense to.

Tessa’s head spins. She doesn’t know what to do. Hesitantly, she turn to her computer and presses record.

“Day… 251. I’ve just received a letter from the institute. They’ve decided to stop funding my research. I am, for lack of a better word, devastated by this news. The potential research of human behavior is just waiting… had they given me more time… I’m on the verge of a breakthrough with understanding human identity. The subject is developing a conscience, a nuanced perspective that she did not display in the beginning of this experiment. This is, strictly speaking, a scientific loss. And… no one’s going to hear this anyway, so I might as well say it. I don’t regret this project. Even if my research impacts absolutely no one, I’ve had the privilege to observe Esme’s development, and for purely personal reasons, I’ve taken both joy and shame in it. This has never just been about science. I’ve indulged in selfish behavior, imbued aspects of myself into the project that really had no place in it, and yet, I would do it over again. Because I love Esme. And so so selfishly, I want to keep her. But she deserves better than that. She deserves-” and Tessa breaks off.

For the first time in three years, she begins to cry.

Esme’s still lying in bed when the shiny door opens. For a moment, she’s terrified that the nothing is going to burst through, consuming everything in sight. But instead, Tessa walks in. Esme lets go of the breath she’d been holding.

Tessa’s movements are tentative. She slowly lets the shiny door fall back into place, and stands in front of Esme’s bed.

“You’re early,” Esme murmurs, a question in her voice. She sits up, blearily shaking the sleep out of her eyes. Tessa nods in response.

“I know,” she says quietly, taking a seat on Esme’s bed. She reaches out a hand to stroke Esme’s shaven head. Esme leans into the touch.

“I had to see you,” she whispers, pulling Esme closer. She presses a kiss to her forehead. Esme stiffens, and then relaxes. Tessa’s never been so close before, never so intimate. She can feel Tessa’s breath stir on her neck. It’s a warm, pleasant feeling, unlike the feeling leading up to a bite.

“Why?” Esme murmurs, curving into Tessa’s body. She feels fragile, the way she imagines a child would, had she ever been one. One look at Tessa’s despondent features makes Esme think she feels a similar way.

Tessa drops her eyes. “I- I have so much to tell you… to show you. God, you know nothing-” she breaks off, and makes a broken sound in her throat. “This is my fault. I- I’m so sorry Esme.”

Esme looks up to her, startled and frightened. Tessa’s crying. Tessa never cries. Never. She didn’t even know it was possible. Tessa crying was like Tessa breathing. It just didn’t happen.

And yet here she is. Is it really a surprise, after how much she’s hurt you? And Esme doesn’t listen to the voice, she wraps her hesitant arms around Tessa, and listens as she sobs, as she shatters every sense of composure she’s ever built. It breaks her heart.

Abruptly, she stops crying. She sits up straight, extricates Esme’s arms from her body, and pulls herself off of the bed. She pulls Esme with her.

“Its time,” she says, emotionless. She’s still holding Esme’s hand, leading her over the cold tile, towards the shiny door.

“Esme,” she begins, looking nervously to the side. Esme isn’t used to Tessa’s sudden anxiety, doesn’t know what to make of it. “Esme, I want you to know that I’m sorry for doing this to you. You deserve to know the truth… but you’re going to hate me for this. And that’s okay.”

My first indication that there was a problem with my 200-year long marriage occurred when my wife neglected to give me a good night kiss.

For two centuries, upon every eve, I would receive a peck from my lovely wife, Annalove, shortly before retiring to our coffins. A small matter to a mortal, perhaps, as their minds are sluggish and forgetful, yet to a vampire, who’s mind is a prowess in memory, the instance could be considered treason. Rigid following of traditions is considered a facet of vampire culture. Without structure, the typical vampiric household may descend into chaos, as we are very peculiar creatures. For Annalove to stray from such a tradition, she may as well have cast our relationship into hell. But as I am merciful and trusting, I offered her the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps she had found herself dizzied by a glass of intoxicated blood, and simply could not stay within conscious realm long enough to indulge in customs.

If that were the case, I would have forgiven her immediately, with barely a stray thought of shame for my mistrust. Immortals tend not to dwell on feelings of regret. However, this sudden conundrum which appeared before me did, unexpectedly and resignedly, offer symptoms of ruefulness. The naïveté side of my mind, the small yet relentlessly mortal side, wishes I had never bothered to investigate. That I would remain in a metaphorical shadow, blinded by the utter beauty of my wife. But the hardened, obtrusive and possessive part of my mind, my immortal part, demanded that I seek answers and bring forth catch. To my own dismay, I obliged my immortality’s misgivings.

My wife, who’s concentration and care rivaled my own, had grown distracted. During waking hours of day (we had adjusted into diurnal patterns), I found her gaze listless, her mind elsewhere. Upon my initiating of conversation, she would give small start before relaxing into a smile. Her responses were far away, telling her lack of focus. She grew distant. I grew frustrated. This was not the Annalove I married. She did not again forget to kiss me goodnight, yet her.. elsewhereness showed in other places. Simple things. Misplacement of belongings. Wrong ingredients poured into potions. Her not remembering to feed our thralls, resulting in sickness and fever among them. It was bestowed upon myself to nurse them back to health. As the weeks went by, so did my faith. I had taken to subtle mourning, the slow withdrawal of my wife leaving me a feeling of illness. I could not take it. Finally, after a whole moon had passed, I decided to follow her. Until then, we had formed a pact of trust, obedience, and a respect that we were privy of our own doings. In my despair, I fractured it.

My discovery shattered my heart. I was consumed with despondency, and suddenly I was experiencing my transformation all over again. The raw agony of becoming death among the living, yet forced to walk the bare earth with unholy bones. It burned, and burned. I was the same husk from two centuries ago.

Annalove had taken a mortal lover. She had become weary of our tradition, our immortal domesticity, and searched the outside world for a solution to her boredom. To her gain and my deepest misfortune, she found catch.