The New Immortal

I came back from my study abroad program in Romania just a few days ago. I had the most fun in my life when I was there, excluding that one peculiar night when I was bitten by Dracula himself. It was a cool night and the lack of a heating system in the two-star hotel didn’t help very much. Rain was buffeting the window panes, streaming down to the ledge of the old, wooden frame. That type of weather had never really bothered me before, so I just flicked off the lights and tucked the covers over my head. The next moment, he was bowing over me, my neck in his blood-stained jaws.

I couldn’t get myself to scream, enabling him to continue on with his feast. My eyes rolled back into my head as I prayed for someone to save me just as Alex barged in with a plate of leftover garlic bread from dinner. He flipped up the light switch and exclaimed, “Hey, Raven! Look at what I snagged from the kitchen!”

When he saw the vampire grasping my blood-drained body, he shrieked, dropping the plate of garlic bread to the floor. The vampire halted his feast and hissed at the stench of the permeating garlic. In less than a second, the beast was gone and I was clutching my neck in shock. I had always imagined that a vampire’s bite would bring excruciating pain, but oddly enough, I felt nothing. All that was left was the imprint of two little holes on my neck.

Alex was scared to death, but I made him promise not to tell anyone. I could only imagine what people would do if we told them I was going to become a vampire. They’d probably laugh; thinking that being in Romania had probably gotten to my head. Nobody believes in vampires. I never did… until now.

It’s been a week or so since I’ve been bitten. Nothing drastic has happened until tonight. I lean over the toilet in my childhood bathroom and retch into the white basin. Flushing the toilet, I reach for a paper towel and wipe the puke off my face. I’ve been vomiting practically every fifteen minutes for the past three hours, and the time increments have been decreasing.

I sit and wait for the next ten minutes to pass by, rubbing my arms and curling up into a ball on the tiled floor. I try to occupy my mind with the possible benefits of being a vampire. Maybe I’ll have super speed. And maybe I’ll even be able to transform into a bat or some cool animal like that. Usually vampires are very talented at persuasion, too. That’s going to be a good tool when I want to ask a guy out, or when I want to convince one of my professors to give me a better grade on a paper. Being a vampire won’t be all that bad… other than the being-condemned-for-life part.

With one minute left to go of waiting, my dad knocks on the door. “Are you going to be in there much longer? There are other people in the house that need to go to the bathroom, too,” he says curtly.

Just as I open my mouth to reply, my stomach contracts and I hurl into the toilet yet again. My dad groans and walks away, not willing to listen to my explanation. I hear him trudge down the hall into the kitchen and mumble to my mom, “She’s throwing up in there – probably drunk or something, knowing college kids nowadays.” Mom giggles, but doesn’t reply.

I curl up into my ball once more and shiver, hoping I’ll eventually fall asleep. It feels as though I’m puking everything out of my body and there’s nothing left to throw up. Even my blood feels like it’s being drained from my skin. I retch constantly for a few more hours and finally pass out from hurling so much.



I wake up in the same fetal position as I had passed out in last night. I feel rejuvenated, but as though the life has been sucked out of my body and death has filled its place. It’s like I’ve chugged an entire bottle of mountain dew and the caffeine is surging through my body in place of the blood that used to flow there.

I jump up and look in the mirror. I gasp, only seeing the towel rack hanging against the light blue wall behind me. I have no reflection. So it must be true, I must really be a vampire. The corners of my lips rise into a smirk.

The next moment, I appear in the kitchen with stunning speed. My mom jumps as she pours a glob of pancake mix onto a hot pan, spilling some of it on the ground. “Oh! Raven! You surprised me!” she exclaims. I snicker as she grabs a napkin to wipe up the pancake mix. “Do you want some pancakes?” I shake my head as my dad lumbers into the room and plops down at the kitchen table with a newspaper covering his face.

“You feeling okay, Raven? You were in that bathroom for quite a while last night,” my dad comments tersely. I nod my head. Not like he even sees it, but I do it anyways.

My mom looks over and practically cringes at the sight of me. “Goodness gracious, Raven! You look so pale! Are you sick or something?” She strides over to me and is about to touch my forehead with her warm hand as I suddenly obtain a strong urge for her blood. I seize her wrist and clench it with my fangs, soothing my throat with her juice. Once I drain her, I throw her like a ragdoll onto the wooden floor. I just murdered my mother. A sneer crosses my face and I exchange stares with my dad, who’s motionless and shaking. Maybe I’ll save him for lunch.