This is creative writing prompt #9. Taken from Writer’s Digest, “The Variant of Vampires”: “Think of an alternative vampire that survives on something other than blood. Write a story or scene based on this character.” I had fun with this one! Even though I feel more like myself now, I haven’t put as much time into writing as I’d like. One of my goals for this year is to write every day, whether it be journaling, blogging, or story-writing. I’m trying to write stronger descriptions for first-person narratives, so these exercises are helpful.
If I don’t get sustenance soon, I’m going to die. It’s been over a week since I’ve been able to feed, and the aching gnaws of an empty, acidic stomach make me feel as if my body is eating me from the inside out. Each gargle spurts a bout of acid up my esophagus that forces a heave, but I ran out of any tangible vomit days ago. Even my piss burns with the sting of dehydration.
I rise out of my cot, its sway filling me with nausea and causing me to misstep. I thrust out my arms in a last-ditch effort to catch myself, but the starvation affects every aspect of my physical capabilities. My feeble limbs collapse under the pressure of an already debilitated body, and my face cracks with the impact. Searing pain shoots into my skull, but I’m too out of it, too tired, to tell what’s broken.
After a couple of shaky breaths, I manage to roll up into a sit, grasp the end table next to my bed, and slowly pull myself up. Everything in me strains under the effort. Shaky legs take me slowly to the kitchen, where I stare into the empty pantry for what feels like the first, tenth, and hundredth time all at once.
I just need a bite. A single bite will keep me going for a few more days, and then I’ll have enough time to figure something else out, or at least say goodbye.
This is the reason we vhampires have always been leading climate advocators. Regular hominids don’t know of our existence, so it’s up to us to keep ourselves alive. But what we need is intertwined with something they need too, so we never really foresaw a time that our required resource would well and truly disappear. Leave it to humans to fuck up everything that was perfect before they got here.
I can feel my blinks getting slower, heavy with loss and fatigue. My breaths feel shaky at best, hindered by the unending palpitations fueled from the unfairness of it all.
I can’t keep the shudders at bay when I think of all we’ve lost. “Save the bees!” they said, “We’ll die without our best pollinators!” We couldn’t have anticipated that they’d stop caring, overrun by the ever-expanding businesses surrounding fossil fuel industries. “Save the bees!” turned into “Replace the bees!” as the insect’s numbers fell lower and lower. Eventually the increasing climate disparities killed every Queen, their large body sizes and preference for warmer temperatures making them more susceptible to extreme cold temperature stress. Their loss left their hives to die in misdirection and chaos.
Yeah, they replaced the bees. But their new evolutionary monstrosities never could replicate the production of true honey. My species has been on the slow but steady trajectory of death for the last year, having feasibly consumed every last bit of true honey on this planet.
Vhampires will die with the bees. At least they will not have to die alone.
Exhausted from the fall and subsequent blood loss, I amble slowly to my golden honeycombed couch–what was once a happy testament to a lifestyle, now a bittersweet reminder of the impending undoing of my species. I allow my body to collapse into a heap onto the soft cushions, wincing as the breath is knocked from my lungs. Staring at the ceiling, I softly sing myself an archaic lullaby of the hive, letting the sweet melody carry me into oblivion.
A Penny For Your Books 
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