Deep in the darkness of the earth ancient nightmare opened its eyes for the first time in thousands of years. It clawed its way to the surface. It shook the dirt from its disproportionately long, bony limbs. Its body and mind had degenerated in its long hibernation. It had lost the vast majority of its bulk and was the size of a human child. Its mind had completely degenerated, it acted purely on instinct; it remembered nothing of its past, not even its own name.

The wind changed direction and the horror caught a scent and began moving toward it at an unnatural pace. The creature reached a mid-sized two story house at the edge of a small town. The creature climbed up the side of the house and entered a bedroom through a window that had been carelessly left open in the unusually warm autumn night.

It went to the room’s occupant and sunk its long ivory fangs into her neck, the preferred point to feed from, and drank deeply. As it drank its body grew, reaching adult human size, its senses sharpened, and it remembered. He, because he remembered he was indeed male, remembered his name and his purpose.

Suddenly he smelled another asleep in the room, she smelled so similar to the first it was not hard to imagine that he had missed her. He moved to bite her and administer the mild sedative contained in his fangs, that would leave his prey in a light sleep long enough to prevent her from fleeing or raising an alarm. He bit down and drank. Only to stagger back and spit out the foul blood, as he did so he knocked over a stack of cylindrical objects. Aware that he had made a commotion and fearing discovery from the house’s other occupants, he fled.

Sunrise was approaching and as he searched for shelter he reflected on what just happened. He decided to count the event as positive rather than negative as he knew many of the others of his race would think of it. He may have lost a meal but instead he already had two servants ready to do his bidding in just a single day’s time. He pondered on the foul taste of the second’s blood, he decided it was simply an oddity and she would make a servant just as fine as the first. He happened upon a cave, and after killing the caves grizzly occupants he settled down for a rest deciding he would need to obtain something to wear before he called his new servants the next night.

Jordan woke up and stretched. Opening her eyes and spotted the open window.

“Aww dang it Amber you left the window open last night,” she complained to her twin.

“That explains why I feel like crap,” Amber responded.

Jordan and Amber were fraternal twins, Amber was blonde and the more outgoing, while Jordan was artistic and a brunette, Amber was a social butterfly and Jordan was somewhat of a recluse, they even had different blood types. Even still they were best friends.

“The cat knocked over some of your red paint cans,” said Amber nodding with her head at a dark red stain on the carpet by some knocked over paint cans missing their lids.

“Can’t you control your dumb cat, that stuff is expensive and it won’t ever come out of the carpet.”

“Since when is he just my cat?”

“Since he started knocking over my paint cans.”

“You know you love him just as much as I do.”

“You’re just running a fever, guess you can’t go to school today.”

“Oh no, today is the Blood drive and the world needs your O+.”

“I hoped you had forgotten,” mumbled Jordan.

“Isn’t a good cause enough for you to come over your fear of needles?”

“H*ll no, come on lets get ready for school.”

The day was uneventful for Jordan up until the dreaded blood drive. But instead of the bone chilling fear she usually felt when entering a room full of blood and needles, she felt just a strange and hollow hunger when lucking at the bags of blood. It was a strange longing, more than a want, a need. She couldn’t explain it. Finally she tore her eyes away when the nurse called her name. As her blood was being taken she looked at her sister sitting on a nearby gurney holding an untouched glass of orange juice, staring at the blood in such a way Jordan knew her sister felt the same hunger.

When she was done she took her orange juice over to where her sister was.

“Jordan,” she said; no response.

“Jordan!” she said, louder this time.

“Oh, what? Sorry zoned out there for a sec.”

“I think you might need to go home.”

“Yeah, sure, I think you’re right.”

“Come on, I’ll drive you.”

That night Katie slept uneasily, she dreamt that she heard a voice calling her to come out side. She obeyed the voice without question getting out of bed she saw that Amber was already at the window and before she could react, Amber leapt. In an instant Jordan followed, rolling as she hit the ground she wasn’t even fazed she took off after Amber, running at what had to be world record speeds.

They arrived in a clearing in the woods. In it was a tall man with greyish skin, a shaved head and pointed ears. He was standing over the unconscious body of a high school boy, maybe somebody she knew from class, she couldn’t be sure.

“Welcome my children,” the man said. Somehow the words sounded strange to her ears, but she didn’t know why.

“Now drink,” he said and she realized that as he said the words they also sounded in her mind. At the same time she realized the man’s mouth was was dyed crimson with blood and the teenager at the ground’s neck had been ripped open.

Then she watched in horror as Amber, her sister drank the blood from the boy’s neck. She felt bile rise to her throat. Suddenly Amber stopped drinking and stepped back.

“Your turn my child, I do not play favorites,” the voice said in side her head but the man’s mouth did not move.

Suddenly Jordan felt compelled to drink and she found that she could not resist the temptation. As she drank she could feel herself getting stronger and soon she could stop drinking.

“Done already?” the man asked.

Wide eyed and nearly paralyzed with fear Jordan began to back away.

“Do you reject your new nature? Trying to cling to your last pitiful shreds of humanity?”

Jordan ran fast and far and as she ran she heard the voice.

“You will need to feed again,” it said, “And when you do I will find you and find out what makes you able to resist. Then finally, I will destroy you.”

Then Jordan could remember nothing.

Jordan woke up in a small hovel beneath a bride near her house where she and Amber would play when they were kids. Why she had been sleeping there she couldn’t remember, all she could remember was the strange and vivid dream she had had. She crawled out from under the bridge and into the open, the sun was too bright and it was hot, in fact it burned. She hastily went back into the shade she locked down at herself and saw she was covered in blood. Suddenly she came to the horrible realization that it wasn’t a dream, last night had really happened. She had drunk human blood. The thought was revolting and she emptied her stomach contents into the river.

Worse she knew that the man last night must have been a vampire and that made both her and Amber vampires. Suddenly she had a terrible thought, where was Amber?