JULIANA MANOVA
VAMPIRES AT DAWN
I wake up. Still dark outside. It wasn’t not the alarm clock that woke me up. It was some voice inside me whispering: "DANGER... DANGER..." I look around the room apprehensively, the blood in my veins running icy cold. Perhaps some maniac has sneaked into the house and my instinct shook me up. But everything seems to be all right. The street lamp outside my window is off and I can’t see very well, but also I don’t feel any presence. I look at the clock. Twenty past five. Damn! I could have slept another hour, at least. Now I have to leave my bed in the dark. That stupid feeling of sneaking danger!
The darkness begins to dissolve. The sun will soon rise above the horizon. My cat, Clara, jumps onto the bed and snuggles beside me, purring. How sweet she is! But, instead of leaving me alone, the terrible premonition strengthens its grip. I look around and the horror benumbs my body. Clara feels my nervousness and lifts her head. I look into her bottomless green eyes and it’s as if I am drowning into them. But these eyes are definitely not a pleasant, or comfortable place to be. This is the abyss of horror, blind horror, of panic, of deadly fright. Suddenly I realize: I woke up because I was horrified of my cat. If the sun was shining, if the situation was different, I would have laughed the whole idea off. But I am here, now, and the dread’s icy fingers are reaching for my heart. I want to hug my kitty, but some voice whispers to me, warning: if I do, Clara would jump up to my face and scratch my eyes out. I’d see nothing but complete darkness, I’d only feel the sharp claws tearing at the skin of my face. Then the pain would move down, towards my breasts, my stomach. She would tear me apart as she would a mouse. She would bite and scratch, bite and scratch, she wouldn’t stop before she makes of me a pile of dead meat pieces. The dread overtakes my consciousness and I look, my eyes wide open, to see whether the cat is getting ready for her jump.
If somebody entered the room at that moment they would wonder why I am staring like this at the nice little kitty with the emerald green eyes, purring softly beside my legs. I wouldn’t be able to explain. We were friends only yesterday, Clara and I, and this morning I feel about her as if she is my mortal enemy. Perhaps she is.
The day breaks outside. The first sun rays already pierce the sky above the horizon. A shiny sunspot falls on Clara’s face. Green flames play in her eyes. They turn from green to yellow, to blood-red. "Vampire," that’s my first thought. The cat moves closer. Her now red eyes sparkle, bloodthirsty. I dare not move or breathe. Clara simply snuggles, pressed to my body, ready to fall asleep in the hollow between my shoulder and my head. In that moment I forget what I was thinking up until then. Something bothered me and woke me up - just that, all else is nothing, a figment of my imagination. Clara embraces my neck with her soft paw, I close my eyes and try to sleep.
It feels like an syringe needle in my neck. The pain though isn’t so bad, so perhaps I am imagining once more? No. Not this time. I feel something penetrates my skin, my flesh, sucks my blood. I slowly open my eyes. The cat has bitten into my neck. Her blood-red eyes are friendly, watching me. I feel my blood flowing into her. I feel sleepy. So she is a vampire, after all, I am thinking. And it’s not so bad, to be bitten by one. It even feels pleasant. Something odd is happening to me. I’m no longer "I". Now I am a part of Clara. Now I know. Now I can remember.
Oh, thank you, Clara! You gave me eternal life. Only few, elect people can live after death. The rest of them simply disappear as if they never existed, like an extinguished flame of a candle. There are many tales and stories about vampires, because people have no idea what they really are. It’s very simple, indeed: a vampire is the savior of the few selected to live forever. And some people assume that it is bats that suck out the blood of the saved, because the marks a bat leaves are very similar to ours. I realized, too, how I went over into the cat’s body. Blood is the soul of a human being. When you lose blood, you feel sick, because you actually lose a part of your soul. The blood regenerates, but only to a limit. If, as in my case, somebody sucks up most of the blood of a friend, they become a single being.
There are few remaining vampires nowadays. Now I am one of them. Indeed, I have the feeling that Clara has saved many people and now we are a single "I", all of us.
Well, now I should be on my way to find new friends worthy of eternal life. And... who knows, maybe you are one of them?
© 2001 Juliana Manova, author
© 2001 Vessela Lutskanova Publishing House
All Rights Reserved!
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