"The Vampire" by Raechel Marie Windham Phillips

Some things in life are taken horribly for granted.  In some ways they are minor cases where a small trinket is there one day but gone the next.  Other ways are the extreme opposite.

Some things in life are twisted to appear flowery and perfect, or they are lost in meaning and their teachings are thrown to the wind.  An example of this is wishes.  Some claim that they are never granted, that they are for the weak willed and are for people who leech to self-pity, strive on it.

            If you are anything like me then you believe that wishes do come true, only in a form so grotesquely warped that no one can recognize them as their original wishes.  If you believe, then the following account is just another version of the truth.  If you do not then continue forward with an open mind and let me make you a believer…

On the sidewalk of her slowly diminishing neighborhood, Christina looked up at the bugs flying around the flickering street lamp above her head. She was lying in a pool of blood as she took one last shuttering breath. As she did, her mind flashed back to, not when she was a child, or the most important times in her life like people always say when they have near death experiences, but of minutes ago. In the half a second it took for her to take her last breath, she saw the most moving part of her past happen as if all eternity waited for them. Moments before she was cursed to give up her life, moments before she met him...

Christina sighed as the setting sun marked the few moments she had left before her drunken father and psychopathic sister would soon be calling her into the house. It was only a matter of minutes until her freedom would be stripped from her. Trying to brush off the feeling of uncertainty, she kneeled down on her knees and gently picked up a butterfly, stretching its wing for the long awaited flight of the night. The yellow critter was no bigger than her thumb, but still it transfixed her. Maybe it was the freedom the small butterfly had that she could never dare wish for. Or maybe it was its complete ignorance to the dangers of the outside world. Whatever it was, it caused a tear to slip from her eyes.

She wiped it away quickly, and then placed the creature on a leaf of a beat up Dogwood that stood on the corner of the darkened street, all alone. Deserted, it looked pathetic. As if the tree knew it was alone forever, its leaves were already browning in the middle of spring.

            She felt much like the Dogwood, abandoned to find her own way in the darkness when she needed sunlight and care.  How she would give her soul to have just one moment of happiness.  Everything around her was about money or drugs in her world.  She went to school and feared to walk down her hall without getting in a fight that could land her in the hospital.  She despised that she could not walk around her house at night alone without some form of protection.  She glanced up at a small slither of star that flew across the sky and her breath caught in her throat.

            “If only wishes did come true.  I’d wish for this life to end.  I want a new one so badly… Anything is better than this.” She sighed sadly and looked back to the tree where the butterfly still sat, almost as if it was daring her to fly away with it.  She wished that she could. She wished so hard that her soul screamed it.

The cool air wrapped around her bare ankles and she kneeled down to grab her camera. She zoomed in the lens so the butterfly would be in the center of the photo, and the rest of the depressing dreary world, would fade into the background in a blue and brown haze. The shutter snapped as she took the picture and then adjusted it again. As the shutter clicked a second time, the streetlamp overhead flickered on weakly. She sighed and was about to put her camera in her bag when her eyes fell upon a shadow in the distance. Although more than a hundred yards away, his blonde hair seemed to glow in the darkness. Her breath was caught in her throat when the wind gently tugged at his overcoat. She could not help staring; she could not look away. She had not the will power to look away. Even closing her eyes would be a difficult task. Slowly, as if she were afraid that the man could actually see what she was doing across the distance that separated them, she pulled the camera to her eyes and gazed into the lens. Looking through the camera, she stared at the stranger’s face.

It took her a second to realize he was staring right back at her.

Had it not been for the strap attached to the camera, which hung around her neck, the camera would have shattered to pieces on the ground at her feet. If only it had.

She lifted the camera once more, figuring that it was just a trick of the poor light overhead; she took another glace at the stranger. Yet again he was starting right back at her. She snapped a photo, not knowing why at the time. The camera seemed to reject the man’s image and made a loud whirring sound. She hit it against her palm gently to try to remedy the situation with no luck. The shutter appeared to be jammed. She looked into it to see if she could see what was wrong. When she looked up from it seconds later; the man was right in her face.

She gasped and stumbled away.  Her foot slipped on the edge of the sidewalk and she began to topple towards the ground but before she even was aware of the fact that she was falling, he had her by the arm. His grip so fierce that it turned her fingers a horrifying shade of blue. She pulled away from him, or tried at least but to no affect.  It was as if she were standing in concrete.  She tried to cry out but he roughly forced her chin up, causing her too look dead into his eyes. Those pale gray eyes; the cat eyes, they burned into her soul. How could she ever look away?

Whispers filled the air around her, sounds of words that she couldn’t remember the meaning to.  One word pushed through the barrier: Sleep.  She closed her eyes weakly, suddenly exhausted, feeling as if she was floating.

The next thing she was aware of was a sharp pain in her neck. Although agonizing, she felt no fear. She was at peace for some reason. In the arms of this stranger, she felt at a peace. She heard the camera crash to the ground, and felt her legs go limp. She could feel his could arms supporting her weight. The next thing she was aware of was something running down the back of her throat. She rejected it. Her body rejected it. It tried to cough it up, but only gagged. She could taste her own salty blood running down the back of her throat. She attempted to open her eyes, but was unable to even take a breath.

She opened her eyes a few moments later. The bugs were gathering around the streetlamp above her head. She took a deep breath and looked to her side. She could see the house, so close, she thought, so very close. She struggled to get up, but fell back to the wet asphalt below her. She could smell the blood everywhere.

Lying on the sidewalk of her slowly diminishing neighborhood, she looked up at the bugs flying around the flickering street lamp above her head. In a pool of blood she took one last shuttering breath. A face loomed in her vision, a laughing cruel face. The blood ran down the vampire’s lips as his cruel laugh ran through the air.  The remnants of the camera laid on the ground beside her, shattered much like her view on life.

            People always say be careful what you wish for but I am not going to say that to you.  I pray that you know now that you understand the importance of this lesson and will not make the same mistake.  Be grateful for what you have for the reaper does not choose; the reaper only obeys.