I Found a Vampire

"Leonard?" Tasha lifted her face from the table, a few strands of black hair sticking in front of her eyes.

"My roommate, well, ex-roommate. He moved back in with his parents, so the room is empty until I can find someone else."

For the first time, I saw the tiniest hint of a smirk on Tasha's lips. "Did you ever think that your next roommate would show up in a body bag?"

I rolled my eyes. "I didn't find you in a body bag."

"Jeez, you won't even let me TRY to lighten the mood? C'mon man."

"It's just... I'm trying really hard not to freak out. As long as I only focus on finding solutions to the smaller problems, then I can't obsess over the big problems until they are much more reasonable."

Tasha tapped her fingers on the rim of her mug. "I feel that. I don't know how I'm not losing my mind over this. I've gone crazier over a lot less, so the fact I'm so calm is making me want to freak out, but I can't freak out, because I'm calm and-... ugh." She sighed. "I'm scared of how much this doesn't bother me."

"Well-" I began. "Maybe we'll both come to our senses overnight and lose our minds during breakfast."

"It's a date." Tasha smiled and raised her mostly-empty mug. For the first time tonight, I returned her grin and lifted my own full mug. The sound of the clink almost echoed around the room as I finally took my first sip. The chocolate drink was already cold.

"Well, I'll show you to your room. I'll also show you the washroom so you can clean up, and I can bring a set of clothes for you to change into. They're gonna be a little big on you, but it should be drier and less torn than what you've got now."

"Thanks, Nick."

"Again, focusing on the small problems before working on the big ones." Tasha followed suit as I stood. The one perk of renting a small house, the walk to the washroom was very short. I left Tasha at the door and strolled over to my own room. I made sure to whisper a silent thanks to my past self for having done the laundry the day prior, as it meant that I had clothes that were actually clean to give to Tasha. Unfortunately, that meant the only problem was trying to find clothes that had a chance to fit her. She was close to a foot shorter than myself, after all. It took a few moments of scrounging before I eventually settled on some boxers, black drawstring pajama pants, and a dark red, button-up flannel shirt.

"Uhhh, Nick? Can you come here for a second?" Tasha called from across the hall. As I stepped over with clothes in hand, the door was closed, and I could hear the shower running, immediately causing me to falter.

"Are you decent?"

"Yeah, just get in here."

Even with confirmation, I was careful opening the door. Tasha stood in front of the counter, staring at the mirror. Her torn clothes were discarded in a ragged pile on the floor, and she was wrapped in a white towel that wasn't too much lighter than her own skin tone. It covered her sufficiently enough, but the feeling of standing next to an almost-naked girl was very much present. I coughed and set the clothes down on the counter. "If this is about the faucet, the hot water side sticks a little bit-"

"No, I figured that out. Your mirror is... broken?"

I followed her gaze towards her reflection. At first I thought the glass was slightly foggy- the hot water was turned on, after all. However, that didn't explain why everything else in the reflection looked completely normal. Tasha's image was slightly out-of-focus, like a video playing at 480 pixels while the background was HD. Even as she lifted one arm and swung it over her head, the image never cleared. The wall behind her was revealed in perfect clarity as her position adjusted, but her and the towel wrapped around her torso were slightly blurry. It was almost strange to look back and forth between her and the reflection. I had tried on Leonard's glasses once, and the similarity was not lost on me. Tasha sidestepped closer to me and lowered her hand to place in front of my shoulder. The image in the reflection did the same, with her hand remaining the same fuzziness, Yet when she pulled her hand back, the reflection of my shoulder revealed to be as crisp as ever.

"What the..." I muttered.

"So you see it too!" Tasha chirped. "I thought I was hallucinating."

I frowned. "Okay, let's recap. You were dead, but you're alive, and your heart isn't beating. Now your reflection is oddly blurry."

"And I've also got blood that isn't mine on me."

"And you've- wait, what? It's not yours?" My gaze turned to the real Tasha, and instinctively to the streaks of faint crimson painting her neck, chest, and face. Tasha nodded.

"I don't know where it came from, but it can't be me. I'm not hurt at all."

"Are you sure? I mean-"

"Yes, I'm sure." Tasha cut me off. "With the blood on the clothes, I thought it was weird that I didn't feel hurt at all, but maybe it was just one of those times where you cut yourself but don't feel it. I looked, though. I am completely uninjured. If the blood did come from me, then it would have to be old enough that I completely healed."

"No, when I found you, it was fresh."

Tasha took a shaky breath and wiped a few strands of hair from her eyes. "Great. Glad we summed all that up. Apparently I'm some kind of fucking vampire or something, you got wrapped up in all of this mess, and I may have killed somebody. What a wonderful weekend."

I fidgeted for a moment. "Actually, it's Thursday."

The towel-clad girl seemed unimpressed. "Really? That's what you took away from this? Not the fact I might be a vampire murderer looking for my next victim?"

"I mean, yeah, that's a lot to unpack, but let's look at what we know for certain. Let's take it bit by bit."

"How so?"

I sighed. "Okay, let's deal with the blood. Who's to say it isn't yours? Many impossible things have already happened, so maybe it IS yours, and you just have some kind of Wolverine healing."

Tasha cocked an eyebrow. "I thought he was the one with the claws."

"Wolverine has the healing and the- nevermind, not important. Anyway, just because you aren't injured now doesn't mean that the blood isn't yours. Even if we prove that it isn't yours, it may very well have just been from an animal, like a squirrel. It is highly unlikely that it is from an actual person."

Tasha remained silent while I continued.

"As for the 'vampire' bit, we don't even know if that's right. Literally the only thing we are going off of is your heart not beating, and your reflection being fuzzy. Obviously some paranormal stuff is happening, but if everything we know is from fiction, none of it might be true. It is fiction, after all. The best we can do is take reference from stuff and use that to try and piece together whatever is going on. If we are looking at the possibility of a vampire first, what are all the qualities of vampires?"

"You'll have to be more specific, there's like a thousand different iterations of them."

I nodded. "Alright, what are the basics that most portrayals of vampires have? There's sunlight, crucifixes, garlic, mirrors, drinking blood..."

"Turning into bats." Tasha offered. "Wooden stakes, coffins, being really fast and strong."

"Cool, so let's test some stuff and see what happens. Maybe we can confirm if you really are some kind of vampire."

Tasha looked away shyly. "Can I at least take my shower first?"

Almost two hours later, I was changed into fresh clothes, and once again sitting at the small dining table. This time, I had a pad of paper in front of me, scribbled with dozens of confirmed or denied theories. Tasha sat opposite of me, happily chowing down on a cup of Garlic and Herb Instant Noodles. I am not ashamed to admit that I had my own cup beside me.

"Alright, so let's go over what we've got so far. Crucifixes and crosses, whether drawn or an image of one, don't seem to have any effect. As for the real thing, that is undetermined. Pictures of you, just like your reflection, are fuzzy. You either cannot turn into a bat or do not know how, and you can enter a gas station convenience store without requiring permission. Your ability to enter a home or place of residence without permission is undetermined. You are unnaturally strong and fast- not to superhuman standards, but according to you, far more than you were before, and garlic in gas station ramen seems to have no adverse effect."

"It's actually pretty damn good."

"I won't argue with that. As far as our tests go, there really isn't a whole lot of evidence pointing towards you being a vampire. We can start going into the lesser details specific to certain versions, like mind control and stuff."

Tasha slurped a stray noodle and cocked her head. My oversized flannel shirt slid partially off her shoulder, but she either didn't notice or didn't care. "Well, mind control is absolutely a possibility. You said that you felt strangely compelled to go into the woods to find me, and despite everything, brought me here. Plus, there are still two big things we haven't tried yet. Sunlight and blood."

"Well, it is sunrise, but are you sure you want to try sunlight? Every single portrayal of vampires are killed by the sun."

"Not Twilight. In that, they just get all glittery and stuff. Plus, you just said that there is very little evidence of me actually being a vampire."

"Well... I-"

"Come on!" Tasha grinned, chugged down the rest of her noodles as if she was drinking a milkshake, stood, and began walking towards the curtain-covered sliding glass door off to the side. I stumbled out of my chair as Tasha, without a care in the world, pulled the beige fabric to the side and let the first morning rays of light flow into the room. She was standing off to the side, so she was out of the way, but the look on her face told me that probably wasn't going to last.

"Tasha, maybe you should be careful, just in case-"

Tasha flicked an arm out for a split second, like a cat batting at a threat. To my relief, she didn't immediately burst into flames when the light touched her skin. Tasha did so again, more slowly this time, with no result. On the third try, Tasha simply held her hand in the light rays and cocked her head.

"Well, it isn't killing me, but it does feel weird."

"How so?"

Tasha stepped out from behind the curtain, standing fully in the morning sunlight. I could see her face twinge slightly, but it didn't seem to be from pain. At least, that's what I hoped as she gently scratched at the back of her hands.

"It's tingly."

"Does it hurt?"

"No, it's just itchy. Like when you sit on your hand and get pins and needles."

"Hmm." I sighed and turned my attention back to the paper in front of me. I quickly scribbled sun not lethal, but uncomfortable into a blank line. "I guess that just leaves drinking my blood then."

Tasha stepped out of the sun, rubbing her neck, and sat down in the chair beside me. "Are you sure about this?"

"No, but let's do it anyway. May as well cross off whatever possibilities we can."

"How were you thinking of doing this? Did you want to use a knife and make a small cut on your palm or something?"

"Well, we may as well check to see if you have the classic vampire fangs, first. If you do, that might make things a little easier. Open your mouth."

"Don't judge me if my breath stinks, I just brushed my teeth for the first time in five months." Tasha chuckled and opened her jaw. It felt odd, like a reverse dentist visit, to be looking into someone else's mouth. However, I didn't have to look for long. There, just to the side of her incisors, were her canine teeth. It didn't take more than basic knowledge to see that hers were much sharper and more pronounced than mine, at least. They certainly weren't fangs like portrayed in most vampire content, and didn't extend beyond the other teeth any further than a normal canine tooth, but they were shaped to a very, very sharp point indeed.

"I'll be damned."

"Huh?" Tasha's tongue reached forwards and licked around to feel at the sharp teeth, and I watched as the points almost sunk down below the level of the other teeth beside it, as if the entire tooth was hiding.

"Woah." Tasha and I both said in unison. I continued.

"Your canines are really sharp, and are actively moving away from your tongue."

Tasha moved her tongue out of the way, and just as quickly, I saw the needle-like bone shift back into the proper position. "It's like they aren't letting you cut yourself on them. Weird."

As soon as I said that, I saw all four of the sharpened teeth jut out a centimeter each, extending beyond the teeth beside them in an image that was extremely reminiscent of the portrayal of vampire fangs. I immediately recoiled and yelped in surprise. Tasha also leaned back at my sudden movement, closing her mouth.

"Wait, what happened?"

"Your teeth just grew into full-on fangs."

"Okay, so that worked then. Interesting."

I shook my head to regain my composure. "What worked?"

Tasha grinned. "You said that my fangs were moving away from my tongue to not hurt me. Well, that meant that they were retractable. If that was the case, then maybe they were already partially retracted in order to appear like normal teeth. I just tried thinking about extending my teeth to see if that would do anything."

"I can confirm, it absolutely worked."

Tasha opened her mouth slightly, and I could see that the teeth had once again returned to their normal size. Not quite as quickly as before, I saw the four canines extend into the fangs and stay that way. Meanwhile, Tasha tentatively reached her tongue forward and felt around the base of the teeth. Either she was willing them to stay in place, or there wasn't a risk to her stabbing her tongue, because they remained extended and stationary as she explored and giggled. "That is so weird."

I stood from my seat and walked over to the sink to begin washing my hands as Tasha explored her new teeth. I made sure to lather with generous amounts of soap, all the way up to my elbows, and spent plenty of time rinsing it all off. After sufficiently drying off, I sat back down at the table. Tasha almost jumped back, obviously having been focused entirely on playing with her funky fangs and not paying attention to me. I simply held out my arm, underside up.

Tasha stammered.

"Uhhh..."

"The easiest way to see if you are actually a vampire is to see if those things work. Go ahead."

"Are you sure?" Tasha looked sceptical.

"Well, I don't want to risk you tearing a chunk out of my neck, so just a simple bite on my arm will do. That should get me to bleed a bit, and then you can drink it and see if anything happens."

"I still don't know how I'm not bothered by any of this, but you? How is this not freaking you out?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe you do have weird mind powers, and the force that made me find you in the woods is keeping me calm. Or maybe I've been too focused on figuring out the little details to let the realization set in that you might be an actual fucking vampire. Either way, I know I'm going to start freaking out eventually, so I may as well try to do as much as I can while I have a level head." I motioned with my arm again, held out in front of her. Tasha simply stared at it.

"Well, I can tell you one thing right now. Normally I get pretty squeamish at this kind of stuff. I hate needles and blood and stuff. Just the thought of biting you would make me sick, but instead I kinda want to. Is that weird?"

"Probably, but it's all for science, right? Just take a gentle bite and let's see what happens."

Tasha nodded and opened her mouth while taking my arm in her hands like she was holding a cheeseburger. She hesitated for several moments before I could literally see her steal her resolve. She squared her shoulders, narrowed her eyes, and the fangs fully extended as she leaned forward and slowly sunk them into the flesh of my arm.

What was I expecting? Well, I had gotten shots and bee stings before, so I was expecting to feel a slight pinch as her teeth broke the skin. Of course, that wasn't going to happen. Her teeth, although sharp, were much, much thicker than a hypodermic needle. They should have hurt a lot more as they left open wounds that bled into Tasha's mouth. But somehow, I felt nothing. There was the warmth of her breath, the moisture of her mouth, and the pressure as she gently held on, but as for the presence of teeth inside of my arm, nothing. If I didn't know better, I would have assumed that Tasha had retracted her fangs. I knew she didn't, since she visibly shuddered and closed her eyes. In fact, I stared and watched as her throat pulsed with the motion of her swallowing. Goosebumps rose along her neck, and her fingers clenched tighter around my arm, holding me like a vice.

"Uhh, Tasha?"

When she opened her eyes, it was strange. They were laxed and unfocused, just like when I first found her dead in the woods. For the first time tonight, though, there was a reflection of light. Of life. Flecks of green in the ocean blue of her eyes. No longer were they the eyes of a walking corpse. They were the eyes of a person experiencing bliss. That gave me all the confirmation I needed in that split second before her vision focused again, and she abruptly unclenched from my arm and pulled her face back. She continued to shudder slightly, but shook her head as if to regain clarity.

"Oooohh-kay. That was... incredible."

I looked down towards my arm, expecting to see four gaping wounds spurting blood. Instead, I had to focus hard to even see any indication of what happened. Bringing my arm close to my face, the marks left by her fangs were even more difficult to see than those left behind from a needle. There wasn't even any blood. I looked back up towards Tasha, who's skin had visibly regained some colour. She seemed to have noticed, and was transfixed by her hands that were now much closer to her original, though still-pale shade. I reached forward and grabbed her hand, bringing her attention back to myself. The first thing I noticed was that her skin was noticeably warmer.

"What was it like?"

Tasha seemed flustered, her cheeks red with colour and eyes almost glazed over. "It was- ooh how do I explain this? I expected it to be like hunger, because that's how vampires are portrayed. I thought it would be like finally drinking water after a long, hot day."

"Makes sense."

"But it wasn't. It was honestly more like the opposite. It was like I had a headache that I was so used to, I didn't even realize it was there. Then the moment I tasted you, it was gone. Relief from pain and exhaustion I couldn't feel. Silence. A buildup of pressure finally released all at once. I feel alive."

"You look alive. You've got some colour back, and your skin is warm now."

Chasing an errant thought as it flew across my mind, I gently moved my fingers and pressed on her wrist, underneath her thumb. I wasn't sure if I really expected to feel anything, but nevertheless, the faint pulse of a heartbeat registered across my fingertips. Tasha must have seen my expression, as she quickly brought her other hand to her chest and let out a shocked sigh.

"My heart is beating again!"

"Hold on, stand in the sun again. I wanna see something."

Tasha was too elated to argue, and quickly stood. She swivelled around me and planted herself directly in the morning rays, giggling like a child in a candy store and bouncing on the balls of her feet. "It doesn't tingle anymore! It feels nice, actually."

"Interesting." I turned back towards the table and looked down at the paper. "Do you still have fangs?"

Tasha held for a moment, obviously feeling with her tongue. "When I want to, yeah."

"Okay, then I guess that leaves one possibility. Assuming that what we know of vampires in fiction is based on reality, which loosely seems to be the case, then I'm thinking maybe vampires don't feed on blood to satiate hunger. Maybe they drink blood to combat side effects."