2 | The Devil Within

Boston, Massachusetts August 1976

Scott

WAKING up with hangovers sucked, I couldn't remember the nights before most of the time. But last night, it came back in haunting flashes. Shit that I couldn't even believe existed.

Seana, her eyes bleeding black, her face covered in blood, my blood. The memory of it was revolting, but something in me changed. I felt different as I took my first sharp intake of breath that morning.

I shot up immediately, taking in my surroundings, we were in a hotel, a decent one, nonetheless. The dark curtains were drawn, letting no light pass through, I turned to my right, and saw Seana gazing at me, she had her head propped up on her arm. She lay across the bed beside me, looking at me with a smug expression.

"How do you feel?" she purred.

I stared blankly ahead at a loss for words. My throat had this dry ache to it like I was getting dehydrated. I started rubbing my throat without thinking.

"You feel the thirst, don't you?" Seana chuckled. "I've waited three months to do this, silently waiting for the perfect time to turn you. Now here we are!"

"Three months? You sat around for three months watching me get wasted and drunk repeatedly, waiting only to tear your—" I paused, looking for the correct term. "Fangs. Into my neck?!"

"Not quite," Seana murmured. She kept staring at her nails; they were long and sharp.

"You're demented!" I shouted.

Seana's eyes darted back to me, her eyes turning completely black, a feral snarl escaping her throat. In a blur of motion, she jumped and pinned me down on the ground, her hand around my throat, squeezing it tightly.

"Demented? Three months ago, I saw a man in a hospital bed, alone, completely covered in bandages and bruises, dying." she snarled, gripping my throat even tighter. I gasped for air, clawing at her death grip to no avail.

"What?" I managed to choke out, she let go of my throat.

"I saved your life," Seana admitted. "You were alone with no close living relatives except that distant grandfather of yours; I took care of him not long after your accident." Seana sighed as she rose from the floor. "Now about that thirst, I have something to cure that."

Before I knew it, I was up off the ground snarling, she glanced at me with an annoyed expression. That psychotic bitch killed my grandfather, how fucked up was she in the head?

"You should've left me to die," I hissed.

"Or, what? Because you think you can kill me right now?" she replied. She cracked her knuckles and stood up, facing me, she was at least half a head shorter than me. "The old man was dying anyway; consider it a mercy killing."

"Go to hell!" I spat, infuriated.

"I saved you, and now I gave you a new life. You just need to learn to experience it!" she exclaimed.

"Experience life? You kill people, how is that living?!" I retorted.

"Were you living when you were drinking yourself to death?" Seana fired back.

Suddenly, I heard movement from the bathroom, the door was closed, but something, or someone, was beating against it. I heard the sound of muffled cries, Seana rolled her eyes.

"What the hell did you do now!" I shouted, running to the bathroom door.

The doorknob came off the door, all I did was turn the knob. My eyebrows shot up in surprise, the door opened with a creak, to reveal a tied-up Alexander. He had tape over his mouth; whatever he was screaming was muffled.

I dropped the doorknob and tried to help him, but he scooted away from me.

Seana came over and stood next to me, I glared at her, "As I was saying, I had a cure to your dry throat," she smirked, Alexander was against the wall, I am surprised he hasn't pissed himself yet.

"No," I hissed, bending down beside him. "Let him go!"

"I will after you complete your transition," she said, smiling like a complete maniac.

"How do you sleep at night?" I remarked. I began untying Alexander's wrists, his blue eyes looked fearful.

"It's quite easy, especially when I don't feel guilt, remorse, or anything," she stated, her tone completely emotionless.

I felt a hand grab my shoulder, flinging me into the wall. I grunted as I knocked into it, knocking the air right out of me. Seana then gripped Alexander, hauling him up onto his feet. She ripped off the tape that covered his mouth.

"Bitch!" he spat in her face. In the bathroom mirror, I saw her fangs extend, her eyes now bottomless black pits.

"Don't!" I yelled as she sunk her fangs into his neck.

His blood began pouring out as she bit into him roughly. Alexander squirmed in her grip, crying out. I stood back in shock, horrified by what I was witnessing. Alexander's head slumped to the side as Seana retracted her fangs from his neck, she let him fall into a heap on the floor. Blood covered his neck and shirt; Seana's teeth and lips were smeared with it.

"Feed," she commanded and grabbed me, her nails digging into my arm.

She pushed me to where Alexander lay, I couldn't keep my eyes away from the blood, my body aching for it. My mind was trying to resist it with every bit of strength I had left, but it was slipping.

I started shaking my head.

"He is going to die anyway, even if you don't finish it," she whispered into my ear, like the devil she was.

I turned towards her blood-smeared face. Without even thinking, my tongue began licking the edge of her blood-smeared lips, her fingers found their way into my short dark wavy hair. She pulled my hair as she kissed me roughly.

The blood I ingested, slid down my throat slowly, awakening something inside me I could not explain. A hunger. I felt a sharp pain in my gums, making me pull away from Seana, she let go of me, smiling with satisfaction.

I groaned, scooting away till my back was against the wall, I gripped the sides of my head, squeezing my eyes shut. Sounds I couldn't hear before began ringing in my ears. Cars driving by, heartbeats, especially a faint one I heard across from me. My eyes opened; I felt my teeth extend into two sharp canines. In a split second, I was leaning over Alexander, driven by complete instinct, I bent down onto the floor, sinking my teeth through his already torn flesh.

Everything became sharp. My senses heightened beyond imagination, but something else struck deep in me. The moment I heard Alexander's heart take its final beat, something inside me died.

I ripped my fangs from his neck. "Oh my God," I whispered my breaths becoming short and quick. I just killed someone, my only friend in this shitty world.

I was the monster; this is what she wanted.

'But you killed him, you wanted to,' my conscious repeated in my head.

I stood up and ran out of the bathroom, I had to get out of there. I unlocked the door in a flash and swung it open. Sunlight quickly flooded the room; my skin suddenly began burning. I hollered in agony from the searing pain, till someone threw me out of the way of the door. I heard it immediately slam shut. I gaped as my singed skin slowly healed before my eyes.

"Are you insane! Don't try that again, or I will just let you burn to death," Seana hissed as she sat on the floor beside me.

"How did you not burn when you closed the door?" I asked, sitting up.

Seana held up her hand, a gold band with a fire opal stone, with two sapphires beside it, was on her pointer finger. "This, and I will procure one for you soon," she murmured.

I felt my body begin to shake. My eyes darted to the bathroom, knowing someone I called my friend, was dead, because of me.

"Hey, look at me," Seana whispered, she put her hand on the back of my neck. "There is a way to not feel any of this pain."

I gazed into her gray eyes, so many secrets were behind those eyes, many lives she may have lived, but also the horror she has inflicted upon many, that I could not deny.

She quickly switched our positions from sitting to me on the floor on my back. She climbed on top of me, straddling me. She slowly left faint kisses up my bare chest, reaching behind my earlobe. My mind was going in a million directions, spiraling into nowhere.

I wanted to scream out, hit something, throw myself into the sunlight, and let myself die, I deserved it. But this darkness building in me was slowly taking hold of my mind, turning each thing I did, and making me not give a damn about it.

"That void that you feel inside you," Seana murmured against my neck. "Let it in. It will take that pain. You won't have to feel any more of this."

I completely went still, letting my emotions get taken by this evil inside me. It was slow at first, the pain becoming a dull ache as the seconds raced by. My depression was gone first; then the burning hatred I felt for this demon on top of me. There was nothing left.

Except for a monster that had taken residence within me.

For the first time in my existence, I felt nothing. It was freeing. A smirk began to form at the edge of my lips.