Page 110 of We Were Eternal Once

I do.

We walk through the gardens at night. You coax me from my bed, and for a year we spend the evenings together. You tell me stories of faraway lands. You ask about the temple, about my life. I have so little to say next to you.

I fall in love with you.

You show me what you are one night. You’ve warned me, in ways that are like the stories of the gods and goddesses around me. Ageless, immortal, cannot die except by the sun.

You tell me of your strengths and weaknesses, of what it means to be like you. You ask if I’d like to join you.

“What if I say no?”

“Then you will forget I ever existed, psiche mou. You will live in this temple until you outgrow it, or it outgrows you. And you will age and die, your voice and beauty will fade.”

“If I say yes?”

“You will live forever, by my side, as my lover and companion. Do you know what that means?”

I answer you with a kiss. The kiss grows until we fumble with our clothes, pressing our naked bodies to each other. You bite into my wrist and drink my blood and I soar. The ecstasy of the bite sends me over the edge, my body answering to you like a prayer.

“Yes,” I tell you.

“Tomorrow,” you promise.

Tomorrow comes, and you lay me on the altar. You drink me until I am almost dead, then you give me your blood. We feast on each other, our blood joining, our bodies one.

And then someone screams.

One of the other mice, out of bed when he shouldn’t have been. I did not see his face, only the blood thrumming in his veins. Hunger like I’d never felt before tugged at me.

I leapt upon him, my small body throwing him to the ground with the force of my new strength. I bite into his neck, but I didn’t have the teeth yet. I wasn’t fully made. I gnaw and gnaw while he screams and tries to fend me off.

At last, the sweet rush of blood, and I drink until he stops moving.

More screams—the rest of the mice.

I chase them through the temple, one by one, too ravenous to think or feel. These are not my friends, they are meals. They are the answer to my hunger.

My hunger quiets eventually, once they are all dead. Once all their bodies lay strewn across the floor, unmoving.

You watch, your red eyes tracing me as I stare over them, understanding dawning too late.

“Did I…?” I say, choking on the blood in my mouth.

“Yes,” you say.

“But…they were my friends.” Tears fell down my face, leaving tracks in the blood that coats it. Now that I’d stopped I realized I was covered in it, my body one sticky mess of it.

Blood on the altar.

Screams in the air.

“I can’t. I can’t do this. I can’t become this! This is monstrous!”

“It is not always like this. The first feed is the biggest. The more you eat, the stronger you are. You will be so strong, psiche mou. You will be unlike any other.”

“I don’t want to! I can’t! If this is what I’ve become, I’d rather die!” My body shakes, my mind reeling.

“Look at me.” My head snaps to you.