From the height of the building she looked luscious. Through the sheets of rain that sliced through the humid fog, and through the peppered baubles of precipitation that shivered on the grimy window, she was an instant stick figure of succulent purity.

This vulnerability deemed itself to be more alluring than her flowing summer dresses, sleek black hair, knobbly knees—

But that wasn't important. For me, she was an era of time in my eternal existence, an era of time that centred around her; and nothing was right until I had taken her.

First of all, may I stress that I did not love her. Not in a way that an ordinary, pitiable human being loves its fellows. Not in any way at all. There was an attraction, yes, but I was not made to love. I was made to generate fear and panic, to play a minuscule role in my kind's fabrication of the scaled-down end of the world.

Second of all, you may ask, did I eventually receive my prize? One thing you should know about my kind, we are the impossible. Being the impossible, we can do the impossible; and getting hold of an ordinary human being took as much effort as plucking a mouse from its cage; it will run, and run, but it is easily cornered and captured. So yes, I did have the pleasure of gathering her fragile palpitating body against my torso and feasting on her, but there was much more to it than that.

Thirdly, in the end, I never got what I wanted.

She knew I was following her, and she had known for a while however it did not bother me.

The night was like any other dreary city night, the rain was pouring, and there was the screeching of tires on wet roads, the erratic sounds of car horns, and the rush of half the population hurrying to get home. It wasn't a pretty night, but I routinely followed her anyway. By then it had been the end of the fourth week after the first sighting, three after lock-down and nearly a month of unnecessary delay. Usually I would have her digesting in my bowels a few hours after sighting.

It was when she swerved into her lonely street, where I made my move. The slam of the car door, then the click of her heels up the pathway to her house signalled within me a bestial roar. I jumped out of the shadows and pounced upon her; predator on prey. I must have been heavy, I should have been heavy, but with my hands upon her shoulders, my legs pinning hers down, she starred up at me with round, brown eyes. A smile played on the edges of her Mango Tango lipstick and she moved her Queen of Hearts nailed hands up towards my waist. We were lying in a near embrace, me half kneeling, and she teasing me subtly with something beyond her beautiful physical features.

"The ground is wet you know."

Luscious lips moved slowly, eyes digging through mine.

I released my grasp, aware of the consequences yet surprised at my own compliance. I straightened up before she could register it, throwing her recumbent position in my towering shadow. She rose to her feet, gracefully, and smiled.

"Your shadow. You have the features of a vampire, and the shadow of a human. Why is that?"

A growl rose in the back of my throat, choked with the sudden realisation that this human was telling the truth. I clenched my fist but stayed calm. I had encountered victims like these before, none as unflinching, but certainly those that liked to ignore fact when it crushed their necks against its welcoming jaws. Experience had taught me to play along, until their lasts drops of courage leaked from their insides.

I watched her as she moved towards me, wrapping her arms around my neck, whispering in my ear.

"Is it really my blood that you want? Or is it something much, much more…"

I nearly collapsed, her hot breath against my skin breathed an icy fire I had never felt before. The sweet smell of her black hair blended subtly with the citrus tang of her freshly laundered suit, yet I barely registered this, consumed entirely by the attraction that lay in her flesh, tender, pale, delectable. She raised her head so my face was buried between the confines of her jaw and shoulder blade, her sugary tissue rubbing against my nose, brushing against my lips.

"Drink. Isn't that what you want? Isn't that why you've been following me for weeks now?"

My lips parted ever so slightly, afraid, afraid for the first time in my eternity of existence. I raised my hand behind her back and pressed her neck against my open jaws and she shuddered. I smelt sugar, I smelt honey, and I smelt her aromatic fear mingled with mine. I sunk my teeth into her soft flesh, preparing the wound that would allow me to suck the throbbing life out of her, as my teeth sunk in I felt them hook underneath her skin, the blood rushing out and mapping rivers across her neck and down her back.

Her scream of pain was drowned out by my roar of frustration as a tore my teeth out of her flesh pulling back the skin, baring her white, glimmering bone. She gasped, fear finally overtaking courage, and languidly turned her head to look at me.

"Drink."

I licked my lips, smothered with her tasteless blood and released her from my grip. She swayed, moaning, too weak to raise her arm to stop the flow of blood rushing from the side of her neck. She collapsed, as graceful as ever, knobbly knees buckling until she was a small shuddering heap.

I left her there, an empty shell, her life coursing red and hot through the cracks in the pavement.