Vampire Hunter’s Dilemma

3. Lena’s Nightmare

Lena’s past was a jagged mosaic of fleeting homes and fractured promises, the life of a foster child who’d learned early that love was a currency rarely spent on her. At twenty-three, she was a drifter in the city’s underbelly, scraping by on odd jobs—waitressing in smoky diners and selling charcoal sketches to tourists in the plaza for spare change. Her only constant was a tattered sketchbook, its pages filled with faces of people she’d never truly know, a silent rebellion against the transience of her existence. She had no family, no roots—only a stubborn spark of defiance that kept her moving forward, chasing a dream of belonging she could barely define.

Her life before the curse had been a quiet struggle, marked by the cold indifference of those around her, gthat shuffled her from one to the next like unwanted luggage. She’d grown up in a blur of overcrowded group homes and temporary placements, each one a fresh lesson in distrust. By sixteen, she’d learned to keep her head down, her heart guarded, and her expectations lower than the cracked linoleum floors of the system’s halfway houses. Art became her refuge. Stolen pencils and scavenged paper were her weapons and armor against the loneliness that gnawed at her like a dog with its favorite bone. She sketched the world as she wished it—warm, connected, alive, welcoming —while the real one offered only empty momentary glances of kindness from strangers or the occasional foster parent who tried but never stayed.

That cursed night shattered her fragile equilibrium, a brutal pivot from one kind of survival to another.

It was late, the city draped in a clammy October mist, and Lena was walking home from a double shift at the diner, her tips barely enough for a bus fare. Her sketchbook was tucked into her worn jacket, a faint comfort against the chill. She took the usual shortcut through the deserted industrial district, a maze of shuttered factories and flickering streetlights she’d navigated countless times. She was used to danger—foster care taught you to sense it in the air—but nothing prepared her for him.

He materialized from the shadows like a specter, her maker—a vampire whose elegance was a cruel mask for the predator within. They called him the Wraith, a legend among hunters, a centuries-old killer who’d left a trail of bloodless corpses in his wake unapologetically. The hunters had come close once, cornering him in a warehouse raid that ended in flames and failure, their best trackers dead or broken. He was untouchable, and Lena was just another prey in his endless hunt.

“Why me?” she’d choked out as he seized her, his grip like iron, his eyes burning with a hunger that wasn’t just for blood.

“Because you’re alone,” he purred, voice dripping with malice. “No one will miss you.”

His fangs sank into her throat, and the world dissolved into a crucible of pain, her veins screaming as his venom rewrote her existence atomic piece by piece.

She woke in a rotting attic, sprawled on splintered floorboards, the hunger of a starving feral beast clawing inside her chest. Her body was no longer her own—stronger, faster, but wrong, every sense sharpened to a torturous edge. The scent of blood from a nearby alley hit her like a sledgehammer, and his voice slithered into her mind, unbidden: “You’re mine now, child. Embrace it.”

That psychic tether, His invading presence, was a violation she couldn’t escape, his laughter taunting her pain and confusion. Her mind was a battlefield of panic and revulsion, the memory of her human self—her sketches, her quiet hopes—slipping like sand through her fingers as she desperately tried to grasp any sliver of humanity that remained within reach.

Her first 24 hours were unbelievable yet painfully undeniable as she felt every molecule in her body surrender to the mutation caused by the venom of her creator. She felt as if she were incased in a torrential flame that could not be extinguished as she transformed.

Her hearing became sharper as if her maker began slowly turning the volume of the world up around her to a deafening uproar of indiscernible noise. Not knowing what to do, Lena clapped her hands over her ears in an attempt to dampen the thunderous assault. The maker laughed at Lena’s childlike response to the maximization of life’s many voices as her body tuned into every sound frequency this realm offered.

Once she was deafened by the tsunami of bangs, hoots, hollers, scrapes, stomps, claps, slaps, laughs and cries assailing her defenseless ears, she felt a sharp monotonous stabbing pain begin in her eyes. Her hands left her still ringing and overwhelmed ears to cover her torturous eyes in vain attempts to ease the newfound discomfort and distress as its intensity increased.

She reached out for anything within arms reach to help block and cover the bright peircing light penetrating her closed eyelids. No matter what she tried to cover her eyes with, there was no dampening of the ever increasing brightness. As she writhed in pain, wishing for death to come and take her, as it lingered just beyond reach to taunt her in her torment. The maker’s voice in the background encouraged her to let the past go and surrender to the monstrosity that forged within her.

Hours and hours of this hellacious torture drew scream after scream from her lips as she lay there helpless to the transformation ran its course. As sudden as it all started, without warning, the pain just stopped. The blinding light shining in her eyes disappeared like a flick of a switch. Her screams of pain transitioned into cries of relief echoing in the silence that now incased her.

She didn’t move a single muscle fearing movement might start the unbearable cycle of anguish all over again. Lena just laid there, on the floor where she was dumped unceremoniously. She breathed slow as she rallied the courage to gain her bearings and analyze her situation. She ran through a checklist in her mind.

“No more pain. Check.”

She listened intently for any familiar sounds. She didn’t hear anything at first and worried the onslaught of noise she had experienced caused her to loose her hearing. She listened harder. Ah! Footsteps. They sounded far, outside of the building possibly?

She sniffed the air. She smelled dust, mold…sniff…rotting wood…sniff…numerous smells of different foods cooking on stoves and in ovens…sniff…sniff…and wait…sniff…what is that? She took in a deep long breath to find this new smell she’d never smelled before. Slowly she could feel something tingle starting in her toes. She ignored it. She had to find out what that smell belonged, that delicious and alluring smell. As her newfound senses tracked this new smell, Lena didn’t notice the tingle growing, starting to consume her body.

Focusing on the delicious scent unfamiliar to her, Lena was unaware of the feralness slowly gaining control of her. She realized something was wrong when the tingling sensation reached her nose, the part of her body she was focused on. She began to dismay as the tingle reached her eyes and she lost her sight. Trepidation engulfed her as a thought produced in her mind as if someone else had put it there: “Blood! Must feed. Hungry.”

“Yes, that’s it. Surrender to the hunger. Allow it to lead you, teach you,” the maker instructed.

Lena knew then that she must fight to keep control of her body and not give into this ancient wildness trying to use her as a physical suit to anchor itself to this world. If she gave up control she would slowly disappear and this life would no longer belong to her. She would not allow that to happen.

“Fighting is futile. You are just delaying the inevitable. Don’t torture yourself.” He watched her with mild amusement. This is the longest he had ever seen someone fight the venom. He was surprised as she didn’t appear that strong, physically.

“You are wrong,” Lena screamed as she forced the tingle back down regaining her sight. Her body started stumbling around aimlessly as she fought the tingle for control. Her body reached the exit door, each movement harder to complete than the last. She had to escape! But where would she go?

The hunger she felt as her body stumbled clumsily down the street had her headed in the direction where the blood smelled the strongest. She was fighting this presence internally with every ounce of determination she had in her.

“I will not be the monster you want me to be! You can NOT have me!”

The hunger lead her to the open market as she continued to duel for control. The market was filled with people and she could sense the pulse of each one of them.

“Famished! Must feed now!” The stranger inhabiting her wailed uncontrollably as it continued to grapple for control in order to devour any person they could get in proximity of Lena’s body.

“No! I am not a monster. I will NOT eat a person!” Lena sneered as she doubled her effort when she gained ground and victoriously regained control from this primordial invader.

That’s the moment she sensed him. He was barely noticeable, blending into the background of the crowd as they bustled about. Unexplainable fear filled her instantly, her small victory no longer a moment of celebration.

Did he just try to speak to her? She panicked as she saw him start to push away from the lamppost to head in her direction.

Damn! She scanned the area for a safe heading away from this hunter. This very handsome hunter.

Just them, she spotted the gaggle of drunks, unsteadily making their way down the street in anticipation of another drink. The group meandered their way between Lena and the hunter, blocking their view of each other and temporarily interrupted the trance their held gazes had over each other.

Lena took advantage of the golden opportunity and fled melting seamlessly into the city’s shadows, abandoning the diner, her sketchbook, the scraps of her old life. She was a ghost now, dodging hunters’ blades and her sire’s relentless whispers, which urged her to surrender to the bloodlust. “You can’t fight forever,” he’d mock, his voice a poison seeping into her solitude. Yet she clung to her humanity with desperate ferocity, sketching in stolen moments with bloodied fingers, hunting rats and strays to dull the hunger’s edge, refusing to let it fully claim her. Each night was a war—her foster-child resilience pitted against the curse’s seductive pull, hope a fragile ember daring her to believe she could break free. Could she sever his hold? Reclaim her soul? Or was she doomed to be the Wraith’s eternal pawn, forever alone in a world that had proven to never want her?

Her breathing evened as she fell asleep as dawn creeped upon the warehouse that would see no other soul than the broken one resting within.