Outside the window, beyond the anaemic reflection of her skin, the rain fell steadily but softly, hitting the glass with a delicate crunching as of footsteps in virgin snow. Elise stared out into the distance, seeming to take no notice of the rain or of her own likeness in the glass, her large blue eyes illuminated by a dull yet brilliant fire, opalescent and iridescent with a myriad of dancing colours and lights. Through the silken haze of her tears her eyes gleamed like starlight, reflecting the moon's sensual glow and distorting the silver beams into an arc of pure beauty.
Senseless she seemed, but what still remained of her mind was furiously racing, seeking an explanation for what had happened here this evening. Her eternal hope had become her eternal reality, yet her brain seemed incapable of accepting the truth. Whichever way she thought about it, it still seemed impossible, and even though she knew it was, she also knew it could not be.
For he had come, at last, and scarcely in the guise she had expected him to adopt. She had known instantly who he was, what he was, but so different was he from her anticipated visitor that she had known fear at first. But fear could not last in such a presence, and she had surrendered to him, as she had always known she would, for this gift, for this vision. What was decaying was not her essential part, it was the foolish mortal part which denied her current self existence. It was nothing to fear, and certainly nothing to regret. This was life in the midst of death, and it tasted as bittersweet as mandragora, as perfumed as the rarest orchid.
What was to come she could not say, yet she knew it had been a sacrifice worth making, and although she might know moments of regret, they would be gone instantly, forgotten over the coming centuries of life, love, seduction and the hunger. Soon it would begin, when the last of her mortality left her, and then she would know nothing but the yearning, ceaseless desire for blood, which would sustain her for the eternity to come.
Rising slowly, she stepped closer to the window on light, unsteady feet and gazed up at the swollen moon. My only light from now on, my only sunshine. A tiny shiver rippled down her spine and her skin crawled, the tiny golden hairs of her arms erect and sensitive. She pressed her long hands against the glass and felt the cool resistance there with a sensual pleasure which shocked and surprised her. Every detail seemed magnified, and the slightest pressure of her skin upon another object sent a quivering pang of sensation through her entire body. She had anticipated a change, an increase in tactile ability, but nothing could have prepared her for the monstrous explosion of pleasure that she felt at such simple experiments. She longed to touch the skin of a lover in this new guise, to realise the keen dynamics of this new state to its utmost limits.
As she stood, her reflection in the glass blurred to an anonymous haze and for a second she was alarmed, before it occurred to her that she was quite literally disappearing from view. Her mortal self was dying, and her new self would not cast a reflection in the same way. It was not a matter of great concern, compared to the delicious gifts she would soon inherit.
That thought brought her mind around to something which she cursed herself for forgetting until now, and she parted her lips slowly and ran her tongue around the roof of her mouth, endeavouring to detect the changes there. With a little exploration she found the beginnings of something new: a rubbery protrusion just behind her incisors which seemed to be linked to a fleshy, tube-like structure which ran to the back of her mouth and into her throat. Reaching forwards, she felt around the incisors themselves, and realised that the transformation had already taken place. They were both longer and sharper than previously they had been, and at the base of each one, at the back, was a tiny circular hole about which the rubbery swelling had developed. The decision was now irreversible, the transformation had been completed.
As she moved away from the window, the tears in her eyes clouded to a viscous red and she blinked abruptly to rid herself of this unpleasant sensation. Her balance temporarily shaken, she reached for the chair to support her until her vision returned to normal. It seemed there was a physical reason, as well as an emotional one, why they did not cry: shedding such blood tears was a painful experience. She looked up at the window again, and this time there was barely a trace of her reflection. All that remained was the glimmering echo of her pale shoulder and, when she smiled, a flash of ivory where her mouth should have been.
"Goodbye, my girl," she whispered, raising one delicate hand to salute her dying reflection. "See you in hell."
And all about was Light, and I said "Let there be Darkness." And there was Darkness. Amen.
[22nd February 1995]
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