AnnouncementCaution: Continuation of gross and suicidal thoughts(minor).They only made it about a block before Lucas' body fred with pain; he doubled over. With the shroud of night not yet arrived and no public buildings around, Agatha pulled Lucas into an alleyway, behind a dumpster. Upon which Lucas fell to his knees and began vomiting blood. Agatha crouched beside him comforting him.

  In between bursts of bloody vomit, Lucas felt spasms ripple across his skin and through his bone. Powerful vibrations that pushed and pulled his body his body apart. The smell of the acid burned his nose, mixing with the scent of the brick and metal it was now slowly melting through. Eventually, like before, the pain began to subside.

  "Are you good?" Agatha asked gently. She anxiously scanned Lucas before biting the inside of cheek slightly to break her thoughts.

  "I think so," Lucas whispered, wiping the remnants of blood from his mouth.

  With Agatha's support Lucas pulled himself off the ground, leaving the puddle of blood to dry in the setting sun. The rapid ascent left him lightheaded and unable to think straight. Hopefully nobody would see this for a long time, otherwise someone might thing a murder happened. There was certainly enough blood to look like it.

  As he leaned against Agatha, Lucas found himself staring at her for a moment. She appeared taller? He was sure she only came up just below his eyes, but now he was looking straight into her eyes without doing anything. He must be slouching, but he didn't feel like it.

  "Are you going to be ok if I let go for a second?" Agatha asked. Lucas nodded. Agatha slowly pulled her hands away from Lucas and he began to sway gently. Lucas tumbled against the side of the dumpster, catching himself just before he fell into the bile.

  Agatha fished around inside one of the coolers and pulled one of the bags out. Neither had a cup to conceal it in so hopefully the cover of the alley would be enough.

  "Drink this," She ripped a slit into the top of the bag just rge enough for the liquid to flow out of.

  Moving himself away from the pool Lucas slid back down onto the concrete and began sipping on the blood, which much to his surprise didn't taste like a citric nightmare. Instead it was very mild, more aromatic, a wonderful metallic smell mixed with spices. And possibly a hint of... chocote? The pounding in his head began to fade and he could almost hear his thoughts again.

  "Thank you," Lucas sighed. The rush of blood beginning to circute through his body.

  "That seemed like a lot, are you sure you're ok?"

  "I don't know. I don't think my body is responding very kindly to its new... quirks," Lucas drained the st few drops from the bag squeezing it up to the hole like a tube of yogurt.

  "Come on, we should get out of here before anyone spots us," Agatha said. Lucas hummed in agreement.

  Picking up their bags they went the long way back onto the main streets, winding through the alleyways. The further they were from the blood the better. It was strange, no matter how far they seemed to walk the acrid smell seemed to linger.

  The streets were busy, the weekend foot traffic beginning to popute the sidewalks. A short while ter they arrived back at Agatha's apartment and dropped their food onto her counter.

  "So what's the pn now?" Lucas asked feeling a little more chipper than earlier. The new blood and fresh air having done wonders for his mood.

  "A blood bar," Agatha said, Lucas frowned. "It's basically exactly what it sounds like; bar that serves blood. Only us creatures of the night can get in. However they don't open for a bit so we've got some time to burn and rex."

  "So what? We just have to hang out in this apartment?" Lucas waved around to the empty space.

  "If you'd like, we don't have to," Agatha said not noticing or choosing to ignore his attempt at a joke.

  "No, I definitely still need a minute after all that. I hope it stops soon," Lucas settled into one of the cushions on her couch.

  "So that's been happening a lot?" Agatha asked.

  "All week," Lucas said. "You really don't know what could be causing it?"

  "Well..." Agatha said.

  "Ok Agatha can you please just give me a straight answer. Why are you so vague all the time," Lucas said.

  "Sorry, it's a bad habit," Agatha trilled her fingers against her thigh. "Did you know we can shapeshift?"

  "I'm not following," Lucas said.

  "It's not a ubiquitous skill among vampires but the strain I was infected with and there by you were infected with have the trait," Agatha said. "Its a little different person to person, but I think whatever is happening to you is your own doing, subconsciously at least."

  "Why would I do that? I don't want to be in pain like this. This is miserable, I feel like my whole body is being ripped apart and slowly being pieced back together," Lucas said.

  "Like I said it's only a hunch I could be completely wrong; it's just this is all a little familiar," Agatha said quietly.

  "Familiar how?" Lucas said. He knew very little about Agatha and if he could leverage this into learning more about her, he was going to abuse it avariciously.

  "It's been a long time but I was unlucky, like you. I hated my body always had since I was a kid, my parents tried to help as best they could but time marched on and I just kept getting worse," Agatha said.

  "I don't hate my body," Lucas interjected.

  "Right..." Agatha looked at him sympathetically. "When I was turned into a vampire all those thoughts about myself, all the dreams began to actualize. But God did it hurt; even worse I had no one to expin what was happening," Agatha said.

  "So what, I'm turning into my dream self?" Lucas scoffed.

  "Something like that," Agatha said. "Whatever that might be."

  Lucas thought for a moment. He cycled through his thoughts to look for an image of himself he liked. The possible source that he was using as a reference. The images he could think of made him uncomfortable, more muscur, taller, fuller facial hair. That's what men should look like but each one of them prodded at a deeper insecurity; why didn't he want those?

  A single thought began to permeate his mind, slipping through carefully constructed walls and fortifications built over years of ignorance. Lucas decided he didn't want to dwell on it any longer, it was painful. He changed the subject.

  "So books," Lucas said remembering Agatha had said she was a Librarian.

  "Books?" Agatha furled her eyebrows.

  "You're a librarian right? How'd that happen, do you read a lot?" Lucas said.

  "I do. I've always loved reading it was an incredible escape; fun fact I actually have signed first edition copies of The Lord of The Rings," Agatha said proudly. "Took a while to track Tolkien down but I did."

  "You're a collector?" Lucas asked.

  "Of course I am. You get to be over a hundred years old and you tend to find a niche. Life gets a bit boring and well, things just sort of start accumuting," Agatha said. "I've got all sorts of fun and rare finds. Really, books are the only thing that I keep with me whenever I move. They keep me grounded, sane, tell me I'm still me after all these years."

  "You ever written you're own novel? Being so old surely you've at least thought about it," Lucas asked.

  "Actually I have," Agatha went a little red. "It's really embarrassing. It was back in the eighties, I got really into crypto-marine biology, so I wrote a very very shitty adventure novel about these two guys who go in search of the Kraken."

  "That doesn't sound that shitty, maybe a bit generic but I could see it working," Lucas said. "Do you still have it?"

  "God I hope not, I think I burned it when I moved to Utah," Agatha rolled her head back and forth gently.

  "That's a shame, I'd have loved to read it," Lucas said.

  "I assure you you would not," Agatha said. "A child could've written better."

  "What was it called?" Lucas poked.

  "The Terrifying Trek Towards The Tentacle Trenches," Agatha covered her face with her palms.

  "My God, that is one wordy title. That much alliteration should be illegal," Lucas ughed.

  The conversation continued quite pleasantly until Agatha spotted the clock and realized they were good to head to the bar. It was in a rather strange location. They stepped off the Redline, waiting for the train to depart, so nobody would see them. The station was currently dead, so they had no concerns there.

  Agatha jumped down from the ptform onto the tracks, careful to avoid the powered rail.

  "Come on, it's perfectly safe," Agatha said waving Lucas down to join her.

  After a moments hesitation Lucas descended down next to her. He nearly tripped but Agatha managed to catch him just in time.

  "It's just a short way back up the track. The next train won't be down here for a while so we'll be fine," Agatha pcated Lucas' concerns.

  There was hardly any light. Not that it seemed to matter to Lucas as his eyes quickly adjusted and it was almost like he was walking with a fshlight. They walked along the edge of the track at times Agatha made a little game of walking on only the track like a beam. After a few minutes Agatha stopped in front of a wall.

  "Here we are," Agatha said.

  "That's a wall, there's nothing there," Lucas pointed at the wall.

  "Exactly, it's how we keep people out," Agatha traced her fingers across the brick, searching for something. A small hole just rge enough to fit a finger through. She slid her thumb in and there was a series of clicks a moment ter. Agatha swung the wall out revealing a hallway behind.

  "Ta-da! After you," She gestured into down the hallway.

  A light began to shine down from the tracks. Agatha perked up and quickly threw Lucas in and pulled the door shut just in time for the sound of the train barreling past them to occur.

  "That's what you get for being a show off," Lucas poked her in the shoulder. Agatha just rolled her eyes.

  The hallway was dimly lit, which Lucas' eyes didn't like too much after just having been in the dark tunnel. The lights were yellow and bathed the hallway in a grungy dirty look. The hallway terminated at a set of stairs that led further into the depths of the city. If Lucas' mental map was correct they would almost be underneath the river.

  At st another door blocked their way. It was adorned with blood writing, "Drowned Sin". The name seemed to prove Lucas correct. Although it also caused a small ugh from him.

  "Why such an edgy name?" Lucas joked.

  "Stop thinking about it so much, and let's go have fun," Agatha opened the door and shoved Lucas inside once again.

  It was a strangely beautiful, very modern building. Cutting through the pce were numerous walls of gss holding back murky water, movement, fish, in the water kept catching his eye. The lights reflected like diamonds off the gss. It wasn't the gothic hell-scape that Lucas figured it would be.

  For having only been open for a short time it was already shockingly packed. Swathes of people were mingling and drinking. The whole room smelled thickly of blood and something else he couldn't quite pce.

  Lucas also noticed a sign hung above a door on the opposite side of the space, "The Red Room". Before he could say anything Agatha pulled him over to the bar. The bartender had an unusual appearance. He seemed young, maybe twenties or early thirties. This was contrasted with his long grey hair, which hung just below his shoulders.

  "What can I get you two? We have an incredible special today, a set of twelve year old twins died this afternoon and we managed to procure their bodies," The barkeep leaned on the bar. "It's not often we get the delicacy of children. If you'd like I can put your names in for the raffle?"

  Lucas went pale, which was impressive given he was nearly perpetually pale thanks to the vampirism. He gave a disgusted look at the bartender and looked cautiously over to Agatha who didn't seem bothered.

  "No thanks, he's new to all this don't think he's ready for that," Agatha said casually.

  "Suit yourself," they shrugged. "If you change your mind you have until midnight. In the meantime what's your type?"

  "O-negative," Agatha said. Then both her and the bartender looked back over to him.

  "Uh, same please," Lucas panicked, still stuck on the fact that possibly, somewhere there were two children ying in a freezer.

  "Very well," The bartender reached over behind him and opened a valve which drained blood into two gsses. "Here you are, enjoy."

  "How can you be so casual?" Lucas asked Agatha.

  "You just get desensitized to the whole thing after a while unfortunately," Agatha said. "We need human blood, and sometimes that comes from a child. It's like mb or veal. I try not to have any myself, but food is food," Agatha swirled the blood around in her cup.

  Lucas hadn't thought of it like that before. He loved mb, he tried several times to make mb curry in the past, with mixed results. Lamb is a child. Did that sheep deserve to have its life cut short only to be burned and forgotten about, left to rot in his fridge. No, but it happened anyway because that's just how things are.

  Lucas took a slow sip from the gss. His eyes grew bnk.

  "So what's back there?" Lucas pointed towards the door he spotted earlier.

  "Oh... you probably don't want to go back there," Agatha said, tracing Lucas' eye-line to see where he was looking.

  "Why's that? Can't be any grosser than all this," Lucas pointed to patches of dried blood that caked the floor and tables like dried alcohol. Agatha grimaced.

  "Some people prefer a more traditional way of eating. As to not disturb others they keep that to private rooms," Agatha put her gss down on the bar and pushed it away from her slightly. "Even I don't like to think about it, and I'm sure you really don't want to."

  "They're not still alive are they?" Lucas said, a haunted look on his face.

  "No... thankfully," Agatha looked around the bar, groups of vampires were swarming around each other dancing and and drinking, among other things. She looked back over at Lucas, who was shaking, the blood barely staying within it's confines.

  "I think this was a mistake, lets go," Agatha got up from her seat, leaving her gss mostly full.

  Lucas stared at his gss for a moment, he couldn't help but think about who it belonged to. How did it end up down here, in the depths of Chicago buried beneath the river. Were they already dead? Was it donated?

  Was it a child?

  He nodded wordlessly and left the gss unfinished. Since having gotten there even more people had entered to join in the consumption of the mbs. The two pushed their way through the growing crowd of vampires and made their way back to the tunnel.

  Agatha pulled Lucas into a hug as they walked down the tracks back to the ptform. Lucas was silent the whole trip back. Agatha was definitely saying something; he could see her mouth moving and he could almost make out the noises that accompany it but his focus was elsewhere.

  "Are you going to be good?" Agatha asked gently, her voice eventually bleeding through his walls.

  "I don't know," Lucas mumbled.

  Agatha was unlocking her apartment. As much as Lucas just wanted to curl into a ball in his own bed he needed to get food. His food, just more blood, more mb. His stomach churned as he stared at the cooler, still cold to the touch. Why should he live while so many die just to feed him.

  "I don't know if I should be alone," Lucas said. He found himself sitting, leaning against the counter that split the kitchen from the living room.

  "Ok," Agatha sat down beside him.

  He tensed as she wrapped her arm around him, but eventually rexed and pced his head on her shoulder. How was he supposed to adjust to this? The emotions in his head grew louder and louder until they grew so powerful they merged together into an amorphous psionic wave of torment. Lucas' body ached and cried out for rest and reluctantly he obliged, drifting into the night.

  Pasta-Gal