Casey lays there on his back, unable to move. He is on the stone slab, held in by the leather restraints that wrap around his chest and abdomen tightly, along with his wrist and ankles. Pain holds Casey hostage, the searing sensation spreading everywhere. He feels the pain everywhere; even where the restraints don’t rub pains him deeply. Blood leaks from the stone’s corners, driving Casey insane with the constant dripping noise. Random questions float around his mind, bringing up the past he left behind in Dallas.
Why did I ever leave home? Why am I here? Who is responsible for this? When can I go home? Why am I in so much pain? Where is all that blood coming from? Am I losing it? Who’s looking for me? Is anybody worried about me? Please tell me someone cares enough to find me!
Casey soon passes out from blood loss, unable to cope with the many questions his mind has in store for him. In his dreams, he sees a woman, the woman of his dreams, the woman he wanted to find in real life somewhere. But what he doesn’t know is that she’s real, and is really in the room with him.
She looks down at him, and looks at the lacerations to his wrist and ankles. Those came when he first awoke in the chamber, when panic was the first uncontrollable instinct pushing him into mortal terror. He was yearning to be nearer to her, to escape the shadows around him by seeing the light in her.
She puts her hands against his deathly pale face and leans down to kiss him. He wants to kiss her back, but his mind tells him not to, like her saliva is as deathly as any poison that maybe in his veins. And that poison is in both her mouth and their hearts.
She realizes his resistance and pushes harder, determined to kiss him, determined to end his suffering by ending his life. Her poison would suck away his pain, make his senses numb, take away his misery. It had done the same to her; she was now immortal due to the unusual side-effect of the poison. She could do anything, be anything, and have anything she desired; except for him. But in her mind, she needed him to take the poison; she needed him to live so she herself could live. Although she never knew him, love was pulsating through her dead veins. Love is a tricky thing, and although you might not notice it immediately, you can find love in even complete strangers, which is where she found her love for Casey.
Casey knew he needed her, but she kept pushing harder, and instinct told him to refuse anything that may even attempt to take his life. Now, the thing his heart told him he needed most was his mind’s worst enemy. His heart kept thumping louder and louder, protesting against the tightness in his jaw. He wants to scream; he wants to get away from the stone dungeon and away from what he believes is only a nightmare.
She is getting frustrated. Does he REALLY think I’m trying to hurt him? How stupid can one human be? She thinks to herself, grinding her teeth as she pulls away from his mouth. She is beyond her usual point in frustration. She’s been starving herself enough to easily blow her temper and start frenzy like in Kansas. The title Bloody Kansas in the history books did her some justice in what she did and is. She looks at him and thinks about speaking, but quickly changes her mind. Only a tiny bite into what little flesh shows in his restraints should be enough.
Now Casey is scared. The woman might have stopped trying to kiss him, but something tells him she isn’t as she appears to be. Her beauty is too flawless, her passion too great, her walk too graceful. What was causing him to dream of such an unbelievable woman?
She is getting close to his neck, the biggest opening in Casey’s restraints. Her mouth is watering, unable to imagine if she would be able to stop after her teeth sunk into his neck. The jugular vein was very noticeable to her, and she could see the largest vein, along with a pulse that runs his oxygen deprived blood back to the heart and oxygen rich blood into the brain. Just one tiny bite and he would be with her forever.
Panic takes Casey’s heart by storm. His heart beats at hundreds of miles per minute, his usually soft brown eyes hard with the fear of dying, along with tears running down his face to drip off his chin. Casey’s mouth was clearly showing his pain, his teeth bared and constantly grinding. Cold sweat rolled down his face, hitting tiny scratches he didn’t know existed, matting the jungle of black hair that was once cut in a short military style. Casey was in so much pain; he just wanted to scream to show his discomfort. Maybe then she would leave him alone.
She was close now; a matter of centimeters separated her from Casey’s neck. Her mouth was spread open, her lips pulled back away from her teeth to make the bite perfect. She thought once more about talking to him, but once again decided not to. Why worry the poor man? He’s already about to lose it, so this should save him, she thought to herself in silence. She lowered herself to where the flat part of her teeth touched his throat and kissed right over where she was going to bite.
Casey felt the woman’s cold lips on his neck. He realized he hadn’t lost consciousness; her lips were too cold and her mouth to soft to be in his imagination. He released his scream, his pain making his scream more powerful, more noticeable than most. He noticed that her lips left his neck, and that she was looking down at him. He coughed up blood and then shouted towards her, “Who are you, you vile, sick woman! Why won’t you just leave me here to die in peace!”
She stops what she’s doing to listen to him. Now she must respond to him. She must give her beloved an answer. “Casey, I am Beatrice. I can’t let you die here, though,” she responds to him half-heartedly.
“Why can you not leave me alone!” He screams, agony tearing through his body and overwhelming his nervous system with so much pain.
Beatrice kisses him on his throat. “I might not know you, but I do know that I love you. You and I were meant to be. And we’ll be together for eternity.” And with that said, she sinks her teeth into his jugular vein and unleashes her poison into his body.
A scream of pure agony comes from Casey, his veins burning as a pain unlike any courses even deeper into him. Pain fills Casey, his mind filled with the feeling of being torn apart by every individual cell, and then burnt into a crisp. His prior injuries made the pain even more intense, and he felt every injury he had known about and even the injuries he didn’t know about. All he knew was pain, yet the pain would soon fade into nothingness, as would his mortal life.
Beatrice watched her soon-to-be lover in his stage of pain. She would need to take him to her home in Alaska, where she stayed for the plentiful hunting and dark cold winters. She could stay in her little log cabin and teach her new husband how to behave around people, especially with his new found cravings.
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Casey soon awoke with his head light and his stomach growling fiercely. He was so drained of energy, and felt a strange craving he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He felt like he had been drinking, and rubbed his eyes. Then he remembered the slab and the restraints. Casey jumped, looking down to see himself free from his former tormentors that were the restraints. He was dressed in a soft gray sweater and dark-wash jeans, which he didn’t put himself into. He then felt the familiar sensation of fear and panic course back through his veins as the memories came back to him. His memories came in a single blur, centered around one woman; the angel of death herself, a woman named Beatrice. And Casey knew that she didn’t have much time left.
Beatrice soon came in, checking in on Casey like she had on a regular basis for a whole week. Finding him awake surprised her, but made her smile at the same time. She waltzed inside the room and looked at her newly created mate. She came up to Casey and tried to hug him.
Casey saw her coming, and he knew what he had become. What she truly was is no longer a secret to him. He knew how to kill her and took his chance. As Beatrice wrapped her arms around him, he acted like he would hug her back. Then, before she could get away, he broke off a piece of wood from the antique table in the room and stabbed her through the heart, piercing through skin and burning a huge hole into her skin. She screamed out in pain, the same pain she had put him through in her torture chamber, the pain that had tormented him for so long that he could now make her feel.
Before she died and turned to ashes at his feet, she screamed about how much she had loved him, but behind her eyes, she saw her past lovers, and she also saw the actual love of her life. She whispered, “Please take me back up there with you, Gregory. I always loved you, and please don’t think anything different once I’m up there. I’m sorry.” And then, Beatrice turned to ashes right in Casey’s arms.
Casey looked away, unable to bear his sin. He felt like dying, but knew that he wouldn’t be able to die. He knew that Beatrice had bitten him and turned him into a vampire. There would never be a normal death for him anymore. And with that thought, he laid down in the bedroom that was once a part of Beatrice’s home. He lay onto the bed and fell asleep, imagining the eternity ahead of him. But he would always remember his sin, and he will always attempt to be in control of his new cravings. He would never be the same, but he will always remember what he left behind. He will remember forever and always.