The Unquenchable Thirst of Evelyn Z.

Wake up, Evelyn. I’d had the dream again. This time it was more vivid than the last. I sigh and slam the pillow into my resting head. Wake up. We have to leave. Owen’s voice. Sometimes it takes me a minute to discern sounds in the morning. Especially when I’ve had the dream. I know what’s coming, and I don’t want to face it. Another full day of training. I know I’m ready to go out in the field, and I’m impatient for the real world. But I have to fulfill the requirements. I’m a good student, and my time is coming soon. Patience, though, is not my strong suit.

I sit up, and immediately hit my head on the bunk above me. “Ow!” Owen looks like he’s swallowing a chuckle. My cheeks redden. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

“Better hurry up, it’s nearly sunrise,” Owen says as he leaves the room.

I quickly throw my uniform on and splash some water on my face. I rarely have a tardy day, and this isn’t going to be one of them. I step out to the hall and join in the line of other trainees, and we walk towards the lecture hall. I look around me at everyone else, and remember how it first felt to get here. Everyone around me was selected out of a highly competitive group. I know they all worked hard to be chosen, and none of them would ever have thoughts of leaving. But I have always felt like this training is more important to me than anyone else. Maybe everybody thinks that, but I just feel like if something happened to this Academy, I would be the last to leave. I am so committed to it, almost obsessed, and every day my pride for this institution grows stronger.

We find our seats in the lecture hall, and I look up at the screen. My dream is there, right in front of all of us. My greatest obsession, my life’s worst fear. I try to banish the dream from my mind and focus on the coursework. Today we’re learning about the anatomy of our enemy. Similar to our own human structures, but with some significant discrepancies. I circle and highlight, annotate and review, and can’t help but keep thinking how much overlap there is between us and them. It doesn’t matter, however, how much the Hunters look like us. They destroy our world as part of their routine, and we work hard to rebuild it. I shouldn’t say “we,” as I personally have a different task. I am assigned to fight them. Or, one day I will be. For now, I train and study, with hopes that one day I will make it through the requirements. 

During lunch, my mind shifts again to the dream. Every repetition of it is more intense. I wonder if there’s anything I could do to stop it. But I can’t ask anyone, that’s out of the question. Is the dream a premonition? Is it a manifestation of my fear? Maybe my obsession with them is a bad thing. Or maybe it’s what drives me to success, and what will make me the best in my field. One day I will face the Hunters, and I will destroy them. Destroy them for killing my family, destroy them for uprooting my village, and destroy them with all the knowledge and training I have acquired. 

“Thinking about something?” 

I’m brought back to reality by Owen. He must have noticed the murderous intent in my eyes. He looks slightly frightened of me.

“Oh, um,” I say, “just mentally preparing for this afternoon. You know, the Simulator.”

He looks slightly taken aback. “You didn’t hear? Oh, that’s right, you slept in.”

I glare at him. “Hey, I made it to the lecture with plenty of time to spare. What did I miss?”

“They posted the list this morning. We’re going outside, little sister.”

“What? But I’m- I’m not ready!”

“Tell that to the Superiors. They certainly think we are. Look, it’s not going to be a big deal, we’re just going to check the traps.”

I walk away from the lunch table, in a trance. Fighting the hunters is all I’ve ever wanted, but now that the chance is here, I feel like I need more time to prepare. I don’t care if it’s a small assignment, I’m still going to be in the presence of my enemy.

A few hours later, and we’re boarding a ship. I’m surrounded by Superiors, advanced students, and a few other teenagers like me. I remind myself that I am different, I’m more advanced than the other trainees my age. That’s why I was chosen, after all. Reminding myself of that, the fact that I was chosen above all others, reassures me. 

The ship lands, and the trap comes into view, hidden carefully in a forest. I’m used to their structure and layout, I’ve learned all about them in the textbooks, and seen the factories in which they were made. But nothing could prepare me for the stench. Raw flesh peels out of the trap, and blood drips down the side. My hands grow cold. We arrange in a silent formation around the trap, and suddenly I see a flash of black fabric. A Hunter is in there- wait, no, several of them!

The next few minutes are a blur. A Superior opens the trap and grabs a Hunter, but there’s blood and trees, and us and them, and all I can see are flashes. Something pulls me into the deeper recesses of the forest, and I scream, but no one can hear me. It’s chaos, and I feel cold hands against my wrists. I feel pain, and fear for a second that I have been hurt. But it’s a deep, inner pain, and I feel an electric shooting through my insides. 

As quickly as it began, it is over. A Superior finds me in the forest, and places the Hunter in chains. “Are you alright, Evelyn? Are you injured?” 

“No, sir,” I say, as I check my body for scrapes. I am silent on the way home, and I walk back to my quarters with my head down. I’m ashamed that I was unable to defend myself, to use my skills.

I lay in bed, unable to rest. The pain lingers like the dream, and it’s only now that I notice an incision on my neck. I feel a thirst. An unquenchable, raging thirst for one thing, and one thing only. It’s an unstoppable craving for human blood. I am a vampire. I am one of them. This is my worst nightmare.