I’m woken up by something hairy pressing against my face. Opening my eyes, I see a rat’s butt in front of me. Panicking, I push it off my face and sit up, only to see that I’m at the same place that I went to sleep, in the corner of the cabin.

  “What’s going on?” I mumble, still half asleep with strands of long blonde hair in front of my face. “Shouldn’t I have woken up…? Maybe this is just one of those dreams where you keep waking up a few times in a row before you wake up… Yeah, Samuel. Just close your eyes and go back to sleep…” I yawn.

  Closing my eyes, it takes less than two minutes before I feel something hairy push against my hand. Just ignore it, it’s not real. I can feel its wet nose sniffling on my hand. It’s just a drea–"OUCH!” I feel a stinging pain as the rat sinks its teeth into my finger. I then shake my hand around until I send the rat flying, taking a small chunk of my finger with it. Thankfully, it does not take long for my finger to heal, though I am NOT going back to sleep now. Clumsily, I try to stand up by pulling myself up on a tapestry hanging from the wall.

  “Man, these dresses were NOT made for mobility. I can't even stand up on my own without this banner here. At least it keeps me warm...” I put my hair behind my ears, they feel weirdly elongated. Looking for that damn rat, dagger in hand, I find a whole swarm of at least ten rats nibbling on the corpses of the villagers.

  “Damn. I probably should have closed that door,” I say looking at the small opening I had left when I burned myself, orange light flowing through it. “Well, it seems like it’s about to be night soon, maybe a few more hours left… That should be enough time to stab that rat.”

  Looking at the direction I threw it, it seems dead. “Hmm, maybe I threw that one harder than I thought.” Poking it with my dagger I don’t see any reaction, so I assume it’s dead. Unable to enter the other side of the room due to a ray of sunlight and me not wanting to close myself in with a bunch of rats, I wait in my corner for the time to pass.

  Maybe I’m in a coma… This is too long for a normal dream and I’ve never had a dream with so much waiting involved… Maybe the reason the sunlight burns so much is because it’s the light at the end of the tunnel. Not that I believe in that sort of stuff… Occam's Razor says that when in doubt, the simplest solution is most likely the best. So I’m probably in a lucid coma dream from when that asshole punched me… I wonder what they’re writing about this in the local news. ‘Child abuser left in coma after a valiant hero defended little girls.’ Something like that, probably… Damn… What a shitty way to be remembered…

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see some movement. It’s the rat I thought had died.

  Seems like it played dead after all, huh?

  I see it propping itself up, looking around wildly. Dagger in hand, I wait to see if it starts running at me for revenge, but it seems a lot less interested in me and a lot more in the other rats, charging at them while screeching.

  “Oh, shit what’s it doing now?” Intrigued, I watch the little fellow charging at his crew and chomping into one of their bodies. “Oh damn.” I hear the rat squealing in agony as the others start to pile on the rabid one attacking it. “Well you fucked up now, buddy.” The rats seem to rip into the rabid one until it stops moving.

  “Seems like they got you now, you finger-biting assh… Wait, is it… Regenerating?” Not unlike my finger, I can see the rat starting to reform its body from the inside out. I didn’t want to think about it too much, but this is freaky.

  So did it biting me, make it a vampire rat then? I guess there is only one way to find out.

  While it is still unable to move, I pick it up and throw it into the ray of sunshine, only to see it light in flames and turn into ash.

  “That… Looks painful,” I say as a new idea comes to mind that makes me smirk. “Wait. So if I feed them my blood and then suck them dry, I get a vampire rat army and a snack all in one…”

  To test my theory, I grab one rat by the tail, barely avoiding the ray of sunlight, and let myself get bit in the finger as I put it in my palm, ready to bite in its torso. “Maybe this one will taste like one of those juice packs I had as a kid,” I say right before biting into it.

  Remembering how great that wolf's blood tasted, I try to suck out all of the blood in one go, only to spit half of it out again as the rat goes limp in my hand.

  Ew, this is disgusting; it tastes nothing like that wolf blood. This is like drinking cold tea that you left standing overnight without any sugar in it. It's so bitter. Even though it tastes disgusting, I still want MORE.

  Reaching for another, I cast the dead rat aside and reach for the next, letting it bite me and then sinking my teeth in it in return. It still tastes as horrible as before, but I just CAN’T STOP. I repeat this process five more times before I give into the hunger, hunting them like a cat, pressing out their juices in my mouth and carrying on, forgetting to let them bite me first letting my arm burst into flame from time to time while reaching through the beam of sunlight, but I DON’T CARE ANYMORE. Only after the final rat has been drained do I look around, understanding what I had just done. “Damn it, Samuel, you got carried away again,” I say before calming down and feeling my teeth retreat again.

  “The sun is a lot weaker now. It should be night any minute,” I mumble as I look at the pile of rats. I can’t remember which ones I tried to turn and which ones I just ate, so I decide to take a basket that one of the women had with her and put all of them inside. I then put a veil over it and tie it so they don’t escape when they wake up.

  They will serve as my lab rats to find out how these powers work.

  I see the last rays of the sunshine through the door crack. Testing to see if it is still as potent, I hold my hand out to it, expecting it to burst into flame but it does not. It feels more like being out in the summer sun on a beach. It is very hot, but it does not burn me. Not wanting to waste the opportunity, I slowly and carefully walk out of the house to look for clues on where to go and what to do. “I should probably look inside the other two huts…”

  The first one I look at is a storage hut. Inside are a bunch of dried herbs, pickled vegetables, blankets, and wheels of cheese. Nothing that would be useful to me, but it seems like someone either lived here over the winter or this is some sort of community warehouse.

  Walking up to the other hut and opening the door, I look in from the outside. It seems like a hunting lodge with a straw bed, some trophies, and… “A Bow!” I say excitedly, “This will come in handy!” But when I try to enter to get it, my body freezes on the doorstep. I try to move further but I can’t. “What’s going on? I can’t move!” I try with all my might to keep walking forward but to no avail, it’s like my body is not reacting to my brain telling it to keep going. Instinctively, I try to take a step back fearing that I could be forever stuck in this place, but walking backward works fine.

  “What? I don’t understand…” I try poking through the door only to be stopped right before entering again. “Is there an invisible wall here or something?” I ponder as I crouch down to make a snowball. “Let’s test that,” I throw the snowball through the door and it doesn’t slow down at any point. “Wait. So there is nothing there, I just can’t ent–WAIT! Is this the thing where vampires can’t enter other people’s houses without being invited in? But why could I enter the other two?”

  It doesn’t make any sense. Or perhaps it does. Maybe the owners of the other houses died, making them magically vacant and this one’s owner is still alive… Maybe he fled when the cultists got killed. I want this bow though… Oh, I got an idea! Maybe if I jump a little bit further away, I can fly through the door without my body being able to stop it! Great thinking Samuel, you were always a smart guy. They might be able to strip me of my body, but they can’t take away my spirit! Triumphantly, I walk a bit further away from the door, charge, and stop the moment I try to jump, falling face forward into the snow.

  “Damn it! It didn't work… This must be some psychological thing. I really can’t enter on purpose, even if nothing is holding me back physically… Well as much as I hate to do this, I guess I have to leave the bow behind… But where should I go now?” I say looking around the clearing surrounded by forest.

  “Well, whatever I do, I need to find some way to not burn to ash out here when the sun comes out… It’s risky, but maybe if I just take some of the blankets in the supply shed and hide under them when the sun comes out, I’ll survive… I should probably test it out with the rats first though, before I go into danger myself. I’ll take the time I have till the next sunrise to scout the area and hopefully find some sort of civilization.”

  Walking through the snow, I start day dreaming a little.

  I need to get a mansion, where all of high society comes to me and starts feeding on unsuspecting villagers in my hidden dungeon. Oh, and it needs to be unnecessarily convoluted with locks that only open when you put three different Cerberus heads into a cavity on the door! And secret passages that lead you to portraits whose eyes you can remove from the inside to spy on your visitors. OH!!! Also a trap door in front of my desk, hidden under a rug that I can activate by turning the head of a statue!

  A snowy breeze hits my face, stopping my daydreaming and bringing me back to reality. I walk through the snow and pick the direction opposite to the path that leads up to the stone table I woke up on. Continuing further into the forest, I break branches from trees to mark my way back in case I get lost. All in all, there is nothing out of the ordinary here. It's just a big forest with no monsters or zombies running around. Just a normal forest in the winter.

  I’ve always liked the cold and snow. My favorite seasons are winter and autumn. Winter, because the nights are long and it is nice and cold. I just love sitting inside, observing the snowflakes fall through my window. And Autumn, because it’s the rainy season and Halloween is my second favorite holiday after Christmas. If it wasn’t for this body and the circumstances surrounding it, I would enjoy this hike a lot.

  If I remember correctly from watching those survival shows, I should try to find a river and follow it downstream. People are always settling next to the water. Also, finding water and shelter is important… However, I doubt water is going to help me out. Let’s see, maybe once I’m out of this forest I’ll find something to help me.

  Walking straight for about three hours, I find a small hole on the side of a hill and the occasional rabbit that I’m too slow to catch. I thought I saw a deer in the distance one time, but I’m not sure.

  Huff, “Man, this body,” Wheeze, “is NOT made for endurance. I-I need to sit down for a moment.” I say as I rest on a snow-covered rock. “Why don’t I get any of the cool vampire powers? The regeneration is nice and all, but I can’t even enter houses. What's next, do I explode when I touch garlic or something? Also, these legs of mine are so small and weak. Shouldn’t I get cheat powers, like super strength and turning into a bat or something? Sigh I should probably start going back now before I get caught in the sun.” Exhausted, I march back the way I came, following the markers I made on the way.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  About halfway back, I hear movement in my rat basket. It seems like they’re fighting, “Sounds like the first one wasn’t a fluke after all.”

  After another 4 hours or so I make it back to the clearing, this time however, I’ll be waiting in the supply shed. After making myself a makeshift bed out of blankets, I fall asleep, despite the constant squealing of rats coming from my basket. I dream of hot chocolate and Christmas delights back at home with my two sisters and my dogs.

  I wake up after nightfall.

  “Still here huh… I guess at this point I shouldn’t expect anything else. I should probably test the blanket theory with the rats while the sun is still out.”

  Looking for the basket, I notice that the rats have gone silent. “Oh boy, that can’t be a good sign. I hope they didn’t escape,” I say, slowly peeling back the sheet I covered the basket with.

  Carefully peeking inside, I find out why they were so quiet… They had their mouths full. All of them were bitten by another vampire rat. They’re draining the blood of another rat while also being drained by a different rat at the same time–regenerating all the blood with the sustenance of another rat’s blood. But they will never be able to satiate their hunger this way, they’re trapped in a life-and-death scenario by instinct, unable to stop. As much as I dislike the thought, this is the same scenario I could find myself in if the hunger goes unchecked for too long. This blood lust is different from normal human hunger; it completely overwhelms your senses making you want to eat with every fiber of your being. But the more and more you eat, the hungrier you get. But that is not all, there is something else that’s driving that hunger that I can’t pin down yet. A feeling of completion, perhaps? I can’t tell, but maybe when I find out what it is, I can better control it and beat it. But for that, I need more blood. And to get blood, I need to find a town or a farm.

  I take three of my blankets and pull one of the vampire rats out of the chain, leading to the equilibrium of the rats coming to a halt, which causes another fight breaking out. Quickly, I tie the veil over the rat basket again, wrap the vampire rat in three blanket layers and push it out of the supply hut into the sun. I can see it struggling to get out of the blankets for a few minutes before it finds a way to gnaw itself out of them, run out, and incinerate in a ball of flame.

  “Hmm, it survived this long so I guess hiding under a few blankets is a safe method for when I can’t find shelter from the sun. I need to find a way to plug the holes though or else I’ll have a hole burnt through my body as well. Hopefully, if I take a piece of cloth and push it through that will be enough.” After waiting for another thirty minutes or so, the sun sets, letting me recover my blankets and keep following the path I had laid out for myself, this time knowing I won’t burn up in the sun.

  It takes me about two hours to get back to the farthest point away from camp I got yesterday by following the broken branches.

  “All right, I made it back. Where to now…?” I say as I look around for any sign of a road or river. “There is just nothing here, just trees, snow, my rats, and the occasional wild rabbit in the distance.” Sigh, “Don’t think about it too long Samuel. Just keep on going straight and you’re bound to find something.” I mumble to myself as I keep on walking for another two hours. Huff,

  “This sucks… I haven’t found ANYTHING yet! Maybe if I just call for help someone will come and hear me. Yeah, just keep going a little longer and scream for help.” I push myself despite my legs aching further through the night. “HELP! ANYONE? PLEASE! I’M ALL ALONE! I’M TIRED! I'm cold and...I’m scared…” Cold tears are flowing down my face as I say the last part, but I keep pushing on screaming for help until I can scream no more.

  Exhausted, dragging my feet through the snow I find a big rock to rest against. “I don’t know…” Huff, “how long it is until morning, but I have to stop here.”

  Exhaustion is weird in this body. I’m not short of breath, it's more that I breathe heavily because I feel like I’m supposed to. I’m not even sweaty or hot. My skin...It's just constantly cold.

  Either way, I should go to sleep.

  Putting one of the blankets with a hole on the ground, and three others on top of me, I close my eyes, hardly dreaming as I keep getting woken up from small parts of my body sticking out, starting to burn.

  I awake sometime during the night, from the noise of a wolf howling. As I stand up, I notice there is a wolf in the distance looking at me. “Must have stumbled into its territory... But as far as I know, wolves are shy and don’t go near humans so I should be fine.”

  After picking up my stuff again, I keep walking in a straight line, fighting against the wet, partially melted snow on the ground.

  It must have been a sunny day.

  I press on.

  After a few hours, I'm starting to feel a little parched. It's not quite the hunger I felt the first day, but it is starting to become unpleasant. Carrying on, I notice the wolf still following me from a distance, not getting closer, but following me around. After walking for about three more hours, I spot a huge hill.

  “Maybe if I get up there, I’ll be able to see a town or a river at least.” With a new goal in mind, I start to hike up the hill. It is very cumbersome. It's like nature itself is trying to stop me from reaching it with bushes, snow, and untraversable dirt walls and trees blocking the way. Eventually, I have to stop trying to walk a straight line and instead loop around obstacles, hoping I’m still marching the way I want to but it doesn’t take long for me to admit defeat for tonight and find a suitable place to sleep. I still have a long way to go to the top.

  Ready for bed, I take one last look at the sky. “Why do I even bother? Keep fighting and suffering, to what end? Maybe I should just wait for the sun and end it all… Maybe then I’ll find out if this is all real or not…”

  Depressed, I hide under the blankets again and go to sleep. I dream of being buried in the dark, unable to scream or to turn around.

  I get awoken by my stomach growling heavily. Looking around, I notice that it’s snowing again, making it even harder to traverse up the hill. “Another day, another hike,” I say sarcastically, and try moving up against strong winds throwing snow into my face. It is hard navigating where I’m going, I know that I have to go up, but I’m almost certain that I’ve lost the way a few times, I'm sure I've been walking in a circle after going snow blind. I’m also pretty sure that there is more than one wolf following me now, although I can’t be 100% certain since the hunger is starting to drive me insane.

  Losing all sense of time, I stop moving forward and lay down in the snow, contemplating whether this is the night that I sleep without a blanket. But the cold wind and snow are persuasive enough for me to put them on for the night. If I did dream, I do not remember.

  I wake up cold and very hungry. It feels like my stomach is trying to eat my insides. Looking up, I see that the storm has stopped. It is a cloudless night with a full moon. Examining the area, I notice that I barely made any progress up the hill. I can see the place that I started yesterday from where I’m standing. Out of frustration, I throw myself back on the ground, hitting my head on a tree. I feel the blood flowing down.

  “WHY DOES THE WORLD CONSPIRE AGAINST ME???” I scream into the night. “WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE ANY OF THIS?!?” I look around as if awaiting an answer, but nothing happens.

  “Don’t overthink Samuel. This is all a dream. Hahaha, Yes, that’s it. You’ll wake up soon from this nightmare. I mean, what if this is all just a simulation, or a test? Maybe I’m just a brain in a jar somewhere waiting for some crazy scientist to present me in his curriculum. Is anything here even real… Am I real… No! Stop it, Samuel. Keep yourself together man! Cogito ergo sum! I think, therefore I am. And it doesn’t matter whether I’m real or my mind is artificial. All I know for certain is that I think, and therefore I am! And I will keep going forward and survive! For I am Samuel! I’m fourteen! I eat too much, and I like games and anime. And the need to drink blood or sit down while peeing will not change that! Although, now that I think about it… I didn’t feel the urge to use the toilet once, so hey that’s an improvement, right? Also, despite walking for this long and not changing my clothes, I didn’t even sweat a bit, and I have no body odor whatsoever, so that’s cool. Yes, you just need to think positively from now on and everything will be fine!”

  I am determined to at least make it up the hill. I keep walking, solely due to my determination to at least reach the top, fighting the hunger and exhaustion along the way. Thankfully, the closer I get to the top, the thinner the forest becomes, making it easier and faster for me to traverse it. But the closer I get to the peak, the more wolves I see following me and howling at the moon. After what feels like an eternity, I manage to reach the top and look around. There is nothing but trees in the direction I came from. The same goes for the way in front and to the right of me.

  Almost losing hope, I look to the left only to find… “A farm? A farm! There is a farm over there! I’m saved I’m–” I scream as my vision goes blurry and I fall over. My stomach growling louder than ever before. Wait no, not just my stomach, there is something else. I look over in the direction that I heard the growl to see a pack of wolves approaching. “This is it huh? After all this, this is how I die, haha. Starved and weak on the brink of death?” I close my eyes as the wolf approaches me, “I guess a Human has no chance against a pack of wolves…”

  Feeling a warm breath on my neck I look up at it and smile. “Good thing I’m not Human,” I say as I jump up, mustering my last strength and biting into the wolf's neck. I can hear it squeal as it bites me in the neck. For any normal fourteen-year-old girl this would have been lethal… but I am not normal. I suck out the wolf's blood until it lets go of its grasp on my neck; the bones that were broken, reforming and becoming overgrown with muscle and skin once more. This feeling is EXHILARATING.

  “COME AT ME BITCHES. MEET YOUR MAKER!”

  After the first wolf goes down, four more charge at me. Now fully recovered and back to full strength, I rip open the rat basket, pick up the five remaining ones eating each other, and throw them at the wolves. I can hear squealing as the rats land on their faces and bite into them, finally getting that meal they so very wanted for these last few days. Gnawing through their skulls into their brain, they fall, looking like a fat tick that got done feeding. With the wolves barely holding onto their lives, I pounce on them, sucking the rest of their lifeblood out of them as they go out with a whimper. I can feel my body heating, my heart racing. Knowing when to give up, the alpha with the other three wolves starts to retreat but, “I can’t let good blood go to waste right!?”

  Overtaken by excitement, I run towards them faster than I’ve ever run in my life. No, faster than any human has ever run before. I… I… “I FEEL SO ALIVE! HAHAHAHAHA! Come here doggies, Sammy's come to play!”

  Ah, so that’s what it was. The thing that makes me want to eat. It’s not hunger, it's feeling alive.

  One by one I start jumping on them, ripping out their jugulars and drinking their blood until I get to the alpha of the group.

  Slowly licking the blood off my fingers, I look at him wide-eyed, donning a smile. Knowing he has nowhere to flee, he charges at me, but I evade him and break one of his legs. He lies on the ground in pain, waiting for his final moments. As I walk up to him, he takes a bite into my arm, ripping a huge chunk of me, not that it matters.

  I climb on his back, lift him by the hair of his head, and make him look at the corpses of his pack.

  “You almost had me, you know? If you just waited a bit longer until I had starved, but no. You wanted your meat fresh, didn’t you? And THIS is what it led to.”

  I’ve heard before that it is a disputed fact whether animals feel love and mourn. But here in this moment, I knew how much he loved his pack, and how much he mourned their passing. As I drained him of life, he desperately held on until going limp in my arms. It is only then that I understand what survival of the fittest truly means…