"SON…." I hissed, my body already in motion, bursting through the hardware store’s back door and into the dim corridor beyond.

  "OF…." I growled, turning hard to the left. There, at the far end, Mina Miller was on the floor, back pressed against the ground as she struggled, trying to push herself away from one of the rotbloods. Its putrid, gnashing teeth hovering inches from her face, held back only by the shotgun she had shoved against its throat, her entire minute frame shaking with effort.

  "A…." I snarled, the sound of my voice drowned by the rush of blood in my ears as I surged toward them. Each step was a leap, a mad lunge, the distance between us closing fast. Behind the corner, more of the rotten bastards were closing in. A mass of groaning, spasming bodies shuffling toward the prone woman, an unholy tide of hunger. Mina was already struggling to hold one of them back, if the herd reached her before I did, she’d be torn limb from limb in seconds.

  “BITC-*Krump*” I roared, cuss inaudible over the sound of my work boot colliding with the undead thing’s skull and bursting it open like a watermelon.

  “You stupid idio…” I began only to immediately stop. There was no time to cuss her out. I’d charged in on impulse alone, reflex action. There was no time to cuss the girl out or regret my life choices.

  There was only time to fight.

  The first of the encroaching horde lunged for me, hands outstretched, mouth opened so wide its cheeks had torn to red ribbons, and I lashed out with the splitting ax. The difference between a proper weapon and the improvised, shit quality ones I’d been using up to this point, was night and day.

  Blood and rotten ichor burst as the sledge axe both cut and pulverised the top of its head in a shower of gore. It was almost effortless. Inertia, weight and my own strength tore the now headless corpse off its feet, bouncing it off the wall and into a broken heap.

  “To my right and hug the wall” I snarled, not even looking to check if she followed my order or not. I drew my weapon back and swung again.

  And again.

  And again.

  Chopping down in a mechanical rhythm, hard-wired into muscle memory by years worth of splitting wood as an “unskilleld labourer”. It was amateurish, lacking in any form of applied combat knowledge, downright barbaric.

  And beautifully effective.

  A fusillade of withering blows, each overhead cutting limbs, caving in chests and bursting parasite-filled skulls in a show of pure, unadulterated violence. The sledge axe, for all its weight and lack of class, was absolutely perfect for my body. With my strength exceeding that of a champion strongman and my stamina virtually limitless, I chained hit after hit, in flurries of a speed that should have only been doable with a light sabre or a machete.

  The ax head burst skulls, severed arms and carved into necks, sheer mass making almost every strike a killing blow. Those that didn’t outright kill, sent the rotbloods reeling, surrounded by ribbons of their own viscera, slamming them into walls or each other as I made myself into a bulwark between the chittering, snapping horde and the petite girl shivering right behind me.

  There was no time to think of a combat flow, to strike out with the pommel or maybe begin going for the knees and creating a natural hindrance for the horde, like in the movies. It was grim, gruesome butcher’s work, with no chance to think or strategize.

  Strike. One step forward. Draw my arms back. And strike again.

  Over and over, in a slow steady advance, pushing the tide back by sheer brutality and attrition.

  Another rotblood crumpled to the floor, axe lodged into its sternum. The force of my overhead had split it from the crown of its skull to the middle of the chest. I drew my arms back, ripping the sledge axe free in a spray of blood and bone splinters, ready for the next cannibal corpse. Nothing more came. Little over twenty zombies now painted the floor and walls in viscera.

  I’d killed them all.

  This wasn’t like before. I wasn’t some scavenger working with improvised weapons anymore. I was finally properly armed, and where hours ago every fight had been a struggle, despite all my myriad advantages as a fledgeling vampire, this was my first real taste of victory.

  A proper victory.

  Damn it felt good to finally have some real equipment.

  There was no time to savor the moment. The doors along the corridor were already shaking as the dead beyond hurled themselves against the iron, desperate to reach the source of the noise. The low, eerie chittering of their twisted voices echoed from the lower halls, growing louder with every passing second.

  The herd I’d butchered was nothing compared to the sea of corpses that was about to flood my way. And for all the taste of victory was still sweet on my tongue, I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I could take on the hundreds of rotbloods that littered the mall like a plague of cockroaches.

  I didn’t hesitate. I turned, grabbed Mina—the girl pale, wide-eyed, and trembling—scooping her across my shoulder like a miniature sack of potatoes. There was no time to talk to her, ask if she could walk, any of that nonsense. She was in shock and time for her “mental state” was a luxury we didn’t have.

  Breaking into a run, the sound of her shallow breaths and the distant gnashing of the dead ringing in my ears, I made a mad dash back to the hideout.

  As soon as I rounded the next corner, I nearly collided with Tina, limping through the corridor just a few feet from the hideout. She looked as though she'd barely made it, pale face locked in a pained grimace, pace unsteady.

  “MINA!!!” Tina screamed, voice cracking.

  "Hold on, sis, I’m co—AAAAAh!"

  Her words morphed into a sharp screech as I snatched her up, without missing a beat. She hadn’t even had time to register me or what was happening, before I threw her across my other shoulder, not slowing my pace for a second. My boots hammered against the concrete as I barreled down the hall and into their safe room, slamming the metal door shut behind us with a resounding thud.

  It took only a heartbeat for my eyes to adjust, taking in the dim, near-total darkness that enveloped the pharmacy. The place had been abandoned in haste, the front locked down tight with roll-down shutters, cutting it off from the mall proper.

  Dropping the twins with a grunt, unceremoniously splaying them both next a garbage bag that stank suspiciously of stale, fried chicken, my hand shot out for one of the heavy metal cabinets. With a snarl of effort, I hoisted it across the floor, slamming it against the metal door, ready for what was soon to follow.

  “Jon I…” Mina began and immediately clamped her mouth shut as I rounded on her.

  “Quiet” I hissed and the minute woman stumbled two steps back, face locked in a terrified grimace. There wasn’t the luxury to wonder about her reaction.

  Pushing my arms and chest to either side of the cabinet, securing the makeshift barricade as best I could, I braced myself against it, the clicking and chittering just outside rising into a tumult.

  The next ten minutes were spent in complete silence from our side as I held the cabinet, keeping the door as stable as granite against the herd of rotbloods that passed by, in a vicious mockery of tug of war. They groaned and chittered, slamming against walls, the door and one another in their blind, mindless stampede towards the last sound they’d heard.

  The sheer mass and number of the rotten bastards was such that they would have broken through by pure accident if I hadn’t kept it barricaded.

  It didn’t take long for the herd to lose interest. I could hear them shuffling away, some retreating down the corridors with dragging steps, others tumbling down the stairs in broken heaps, their groans echoing off the walls. A few bumped aimlessly into the stores their mindless charge had broken open, bodies colliding with shelves and crates, stumbling into like blind animals.

  And then, slowly but surely, quiet again.

  The flood had passed.

  I slowly pushed myself off the cabinet and rested my back against it, sliding down into a sitting position, head hanging limp against the cold metal, a sigh on my lips and face locked in an exasperated grimace, frustration bubbling just beneath the surface.

  “You two got a death wish or something?” I whispered, the words sharp but quiet, as I finally raised my head to meet their eyes. Tina was seated in a clumsy half-crouch, favoring her right leg, while Mina stood beside her, the shotgun held loosely in her hands but angled in my direction.

  Both of them were trembling and watching me with undisguised fear.

  My gaze flicked from their faces to the shotgun, and a snarl curled at the corners of my mouth. Really? After saving their asses Again?

  “You know you gotta reload that thing if you wanna shoot me, right?” I said, my voice low, each word laced with a clear threat. The edge was unmistakable, and I could almost taste the tension in the air. “You used both shells.”

  Mina’s eyes widened and looked at the gun she was holding, as if just realizing that she was pointing it at me. I half expected to see her fumble with opening and trying to load it. Not that I’d give her time to do so. To my surprise, she did quite the opposite, angling it down, both barrels facing the floor.

  “Oh…S-sorry J-Jon… didn’t mean to point it…. at you…it’s just your…y-your… ummm…”

  “Your eyes, dude!” Tina piped up, finishing her sister’s babbling.

  “They’re glowing… and freaky!”

  I raised an eyebrow and turned.

  “Ah” I said, catching my own reflection in the glass of a smaller cabinet. Despite it being shaded and see-through, I could see enough of my own reflection to realize that my eyes were glowing. Not like glow-in-the-dark, but the way a cat’s eyes shine, pupils reduced to fluorescent disks in the light of the Millers smartphones.

  “Yeah, they do that now!” I muttered, looking back at the two anxious women.

  “Relax, I already said that I’m not a threat to you. Proved it, haven’t I?”.

  Mina hesitated for a moment, her eyes distant, but finally gave a nod and sank down beside her sister, leaning against the cold wall. The sawed-off shotgun, once held with such a bloody grip, now lay discarded at her side, as if its weight had become too much to bear.

  "Yeah," she said, her voice worn and rough. "Yeah, you've done that... and then some."

  She exhaled slowly, post adrenaline-high exhaustion catching up with her, chest rising and falling erratically, and I could almost hear the frantic rhythm of her heart, as if it were struggling to stay in sync with the rest of her. I wouldn’t have been surprised if it just gave out right there.

  Tina moved from her own crouch into a cross legged position, wrapping one arm protectively around her sister’s shoulders.

  “Jon? I… listen… I dunno how you survived, or why your eyes glow, or… managed to do the things you do. Now if you wanna tell us, cool, if you don’t, cool. But before that, I need to have a minute with my sis”

  Before I could even answer, her friendly, protective and sisterly resting arm, curled into a strangle hold and she started to choke Mina out.

  “Mina, honey, sweetie, I love you. But if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I’m gonna ground you until you’re forty!”

  “Ack, give—give!” Mina gasped, tapping frantically at her sister’s forearm. The struggle was half-hearted, a play for attention more than anything, but the look on the taller sister’s face made it clear: sibling roughhousing, yes, but there was no mistaking the underlying seriousness in Tina’s grip. It was strange to see her, usually so cheerful, so relentlessly carefree, turn into something close to a disciplinarian.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight, even as my eyes stayed locked on Mina, the little hamster in the trap.

  “So, I take it you didn’t approve of your munchkin sister’s little outing?” I said, my tone light but laced with a touch of amusement. “By the way, I think she’s about to faint.”

  “Nope. We were eating and this one suddenly grabbed the shotgun and said, and I quote : This isn’t right, I’ll be right back, stay here!. Then just up and left” Tina growled, letting her sister go, and shifted, lifting her right leg in a surprisingly flexible action for some sitting cross-legged. A thick layer of bandages swaddled it from the tips of her fingers to the underside of her knee.

  “I tried going after her, but sneaking with a bummed leg is not easy and I couldn’t keep up. When I heard her scream I tried to run after her, but… well, y’know how that went.”

  I furrowed my brows, reminded of how quickly the infection from a simple bite had spread through Bill, and actively trying not to think about the fact that not a few hours ago Mina had been willing to come “rescue” me. With a busted up leg, no less.

  “Did you get bit?”

  “Ah! No. When me, Mina, and… Tim…” she began, hesitating on Tim’s name, furious expression giving way to a glint of sorrow “... got separated by that herd, I took a bad fall on the way down the stairs, caught my ankle between two steps and pulled my Achilles tendon. Honestly, if it weren’t for my reflexes on the mat I could’ve dislocated my knee if I hadn’t twisted fast enough” she added with not a small huff of pride at the end.

  I nodded.

  “Bad wound?”

  “Nah, no worries. I’ve had this kind of hurt more than enough times during practice. As long as I keep weight off it for the next couple of hours, and keep a cold compress on it, it’s gonna be… decent. I mean, I won’t be one hundred, but I’ll function” she said dismissively.

  I gave her another curt nod and shifted my gaze to Mina, who was still massaging her shoulders.

  “Ooooooow…” the petite woman complained, rubbing the side of her neck.

  “So. You wanna fill me in on what all that was about?” I growled, taking the straps off my rucksack away and pushing it to the side.

  “‘Cause you’ve got a reputation of being smart. And that was the dumbest shit I’ve ever seen”.

  Mina raised her gaze to meet mine and sighed.

  “It wasn't right. You fought off the Goblin Dogs, ran with Tim on your back and without you, we wouldn't have reached the scaffolding before the dead got us. Even more, you tried to find Tim and…” her voice fell into a whisper.

  “Didn't even ask for anything. You just… got it done. Over and over again. We owed you. Big time. So… treating you with suspicion, assuming that you’re some sort of monster, it was wrong on so many levels. I'm sure you have your reasons why you're not telling us what happened, but you saved our rear ends more than once. So, when I heard you walk past our door, I sort of… just reacted….”.

  I fixed her with a long, steady stare, my gaze unblinking, before finally bringing my hand up to rub at the bridge of my nose, the frustration mounting.

  “Oh, for the love of— Are you out of your mind, woman?” I muttered under my breath, the words dripping with exasperation. “It wasn’t right, my ass. You had every damn reason—and then some—to be suspicious.”

  I motioned toward myself, a sharp gesture that drew her attention to the glowing intensity of my eyes. "I mean, look," I added, as if the answer should’ve been obvious.

  Mina nodded.

  “True. But you still did right by us both”.

  “Be that as it may, it’s no reason for you to go outside searching for me, putting yourself in danger and your sister into a panic. Cripes woman, you’re supposed to be smart.”

  “I told you, I just reacted. Didn’t think it through” Mina mumbled, refusing to meet my eyes.

  “Yeah, no shit. Well, what if I’m just some psychopath and you just let me into your safe house? Think about that, genius?” I muttered, letting the malicious side of me take over for a bit. Give them a little fright for all the hoops I'd had to jump through, no more.

  “Nah” Tina interrupted me, fishing two wings from the bag and nibbling into it.

  “If you wanted to do that, you would have done it the moment you found out where we were hiding. And the way you got up after being shot by Bill, and sprinting while carrying us both just now?… there's nothing we could have done if you wanted to hurt us”.

  “Yeah, well maybe I'm a sadist and savoring the hunt” I snickered, my tone making it clear it was only a joke.

  Tina shrugged and stretched her hand out, offering me the other fried wing.

  “Nothing wrong with a little S&M play” she said with a wink.

  “TINA!” Mina snapped, cheeks rosy.

  “Relax, relax, I'm kidding” she chuckled, still holding out the wing for me to take.

  “Here's my point. All that you've today, aren't the actions of a bad guy. You went out of your way to help others despite saying you were going to leave the group. Bad guys don't do that. They just leave”.

  Dammit, these two were so wholesome I could feel my hostility just fizzing away. I blinked in a deadpan and shook my head at the offered food.

  The tall woman put a hand to her cheek, mouth open in mock-horror.

  “Refusing fried chicken? I was wrong. Evil. Pure evil” she chuckled, resuming her nibbling on the food.

  I shook my head, trying to hide the smile that was forming. Girl liked her jokes. Turning my head back to Mina I pointed at the shotgun laying by her side.

  “Why’d you shoot, by the way? When I went through the corridors there were no rotbloods. Did they hear you or something? Come out from some other door?”.

  Mina opened her mouth and closed it back immediately, beet red.

  “Just… stuff…”

  I curled an eyebrow.

  “I… sort of made an… oopsie?” She added sheepishly, trying not to look at me or her sister.

  Tina just slowly turned her head towards her sister, half eaten wing forgotten in her hand.

  “An. Oopsie?”

  “So… I was trying to sneak as quietly as possible, and all went well the first two sections….but when I turned the last corridor, I walked by a door and one of the zombies smacked itself against it at the worst time”.

  “The door broke?” I asked marveling at how much bad luck one person could have.

  “Not exactly… it was on the other side… but I was already stressed out, the sound surprised me and I … sort of…. twitched….” she continued, face growing redder by the second.

  “Oh, honey, nooo” Tina cooed, trying and failing to hide her growing grin.

  “You didn't…” I half-spoke, half-chuckled as it began to dawn on me.

  “Okay listen… I was scared, I was stressed… my finger was on the trigger…. and when I got startled I… twitched…. and squeezed the trigger”.

  I had to bite down on the inside of my cheek, my jaw tight as I fought to hold back the laugh bubbling up in my chest. Tina, on the other hand, was shaking with poorly contained amusement, her hand pressed to her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle the chuckles that were already spilling out.

  And she was failing miserably.

  “That's… ach-hem… that's… that's impressive… not gonna lie” I stammered, a wheezing laugh slinking out with each word.

  “You… sort of….” I began, weighing the pros and cons of making the joke forming in my mind.

  “You busted too early…” Tina guffawed, burying her head in between her knees, finishing the joke.

  “... don't worry, sis…. happens to everyone” she managed to stammer out and both of us fell into a silent fit of through-the-nose laughter.

  “You two are pricks” Mina mumbled, stop-light red and puffy checked. But there was no hiding the barely repressed smile twisting her lips up.

  Minutes later I exhaled a deep sigh, feeling myself relax. It was good to laugh. Felt like a lifetime ago since I'd done it.

  “Either of you got the time?”

  Mina nodded, checking her phone.

  “4:07 AM”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Right, any chance you know at around what hour the sun rises this time of year?”

  Mina nodded again, pushing those wide-rimmed glasses up her nose and assuming that slightly smug and sure tone of voice she had whenever she got to flex her knowledge acumen.

  “Zenith around this time is between 7.10 -7.17 depending on factors”.

  I gave her a nod of thanks and considered it.

  Even were I to leave right this moment, I would have to spend half an hour sneaking and fighting my way through the mall, then one more hour, bare minimum, to find myself shelter during the daylight. Which would leave me with an hour and a half to hunt for Aether Stones. Not nearly enough to make a difference.

  Dammit. This night was shot. No point in going out now. Sunrise was too close for comfort. With a sigh I took off my hunting jack and folded it neatly across the rucksack.

  “Well, that would settle it then. Guess I'm stuck here until tomorrow night”.

  Mina and Tina exchanged looks and the smaller of the Miller sisters shifted uncomfortably.

  “Isn't it better to go out during daylight though? Less monsters to worry about, better visibility, so on…”

  I rolled my eyes at her leading question, asked with all the subtlety of a typhoon. The two women had said they’d accepted my refusal to tell them how I had survived and done the things I did, but Mina Miller had the inquisitive nature of a genius befitting the caliber. If she couldn't get a straight answer out of me, she would want to ask enough questions to form an educated guess.

  Well, never the matter, not like I was planning to head back to the larger group anymore, so if I told them the risk would be minimal. They’d already realised I wasn’t a “normal” human anyways.

  Plus, the two women seemed like a good sort. It’d probably do me some good to talk about it.

  Instead of an answer, I opened my mouth and popped my fangs out, tapping a finger against them.

  “Me and the sun, we don't get along too well” I mumbled, words warped by the excessively long lower and upper canines.

  With another pop, I retracted them.

  The two sisters stared at me in stunned silence, the air between us thick with quiet, and for long, drawn-out seconds, neither of them moved, as if caught in a trance. To their credit, neither made a move toward the shotgun—its cold weight still resting against the floor.

  Whether it was because they knew they'd never have time to load it, or if fear had rooted them in place, I couldn’t say. And frankly, I didn’t care. They weren’t panicking, that was all that mattered.

  “Holy…” Mina began.

  “...crap” Tina finished.

  “Yep, certified vampire. With all the bells and whistles attached to it. I'm never going to age, very hard to kill, can never get a suntan again and my diet is… liquid-based” I snickered, keeping a close eye on their reactions.

  Although I could smell fear and reticence from them, neither of them drew back or recoiled from me. Quite contrary, both drew closer as if trying to inspect me.

  Mina, small, petite, too inquisitive for her own damn good Mina, spoke first.

  “Were you like this before…?”

  I shook my head and chuckled.

  “Nah, nah, I was normal. Just some guy on the bottom rung of society. No, this happened after the… what would you even call it, apocalypse?”.

  “Good a name as any” Tina shrugged and, without taking her eyes off me, asked some more.

  “You mind sharing with us what happened”.

  Over the next half hour I regaled the two young women with the play-by-play of how I'd become a vampire. Getting trapped in the bathroom, scaling the wall to the nurse's office, rescuing the petite woman only to almost get killed by her. I didn't dwell too much on how I'd torn the vampiress's throat out, didn't want to make the two women think I had some proclivities for “throat-ripping” even before I'd become a vampire.

  By the end, the Miller sisters were just sat there, eyes saucer sized, Tina's half-eaten chicken wing, forgotten on the floor.

  “Wow” Tina began, shaking her head.

  “Talk about no good deed going unpunished, eh?”

  “Right?” I chuckled.

  “Try to save some lady, turns out she's an immortal creature of the night who wants to suck me dry. Women, they all want one thing and it's disgusting”.

  It wasn’t a great joke—barely more than a meme, really—but Tina chuckled anyway, her laughter cutting through the tension like a knife. The overly serious atmosphere that had hung over us dissipated in an instant.

  Apparently, Tina and I shared the same sense of humor. Internet-based.

  Mina, though, didn’t join in. She kept inching closer, gaze locked onto my face with intensity, in that same calculating, analyzing expression she’d worn back in the amphitheater. The girl was thinking.

  “Can you pop your fangs out at will”?

  Like flexing a muscle, I parted my lips, letting my fangs slide free once more. The movement was deliberate, a reminder of what I was, of the thin line I walked between human and something else entirely.

  Mina twitched, her eyes briefly flicking to my fangs, but instead of recoiling, the little woman leaned forward, fingers reaching out with a curiosity I hadn’t expected.

  "Wow, it's big," she mumbled, her voice low but undeniably intrigued.

  “That's what she sa…” Tina began.

  “Shush you!” Mina immediately hushed her, not even bothering to look her sister’s way. She was in the “zone”, fully engrossed in her research.

  “Elongated, thumb-sized, lower and upper canines, like those of a hunting cat or a mandril” she murmured and tapped a finger against them.

  “Sound is wrong. Probably much denser than normal teeth. And all your other teeth present sharpened points, including the incisors, masticators and the back molars”.

  By this point the little woman had gone so far in her research-mode she was outright rummaging her fingers through my mouth, pulling my lips to check my gums, my tongue, everything.

  “Echcuse hyou” I huffed and Mina suddenly flushed, realizing what she was doing.

  “Ah!” she quickly drew back, hands up in a placating gesture.

  “Sorry Jon, got carried away”.

  I worried at my mouth, chewing at nothing for a little bit, trying to get the taste of her hands out of it.

  “Next time, I'm gonna snap it shut and take a couple of fingers. I'm not a damn circus tiger” I said, half serious, half joking.

  “Noted. But the point is, from the anatomy of your mouth and what you've told us, vampirism seems a lot more… mechanically correct than what we have in folklore and movies”.

  “Mechanically correct?” I asked, quirking an eyebrow.

  “Anatomical. Logical. Look, you said you can turn your hand into a claw, right? Can you do that for me”?

  “You sure? It's not a pretty sight”.

  Mina nodded, eyes gleaming with an excitement that seemed to grow by the second. With a nonchalant shrug, I turned my focus inward, feeling the blood churn in my gut. It didn’t take much. A small push, and a portion of it erupted, surging up through my chest, spiraling down my arm, until it settled in my hand.

  The transformation was swift—skin thickened, fingers lengthened, and nails blackened, curling into thick, jagged talons. Within a heartbeat, my hand was once again a grotesque, misshapen claw, swollen and unnatural, far too large for my frame.

  Tina let out a low “Woah,” voice laced with a mix of awe and caution. But Mina, rather than flinching, didn’t hesitate, and reached for it, her fingers running carefully over the skin of my backhand, as if she were examining a new creature, pure fascination lacing every touch.

  “Here, see? This is what I mean by mechanically correct. It makes sense at a fundamentally anatomical level. Your skin is denser, leathery in order to keep from lacerating or shredding when you use your claw. The Abductor and Lumbrical manus muscles are swollen and over-developed for greater grip strength, and…”

  She began squeezing my fingers one at a time.

  “Yes, right there, the distal, middle and proximal phalanx bones are almost twice the size they should be, same goes for your metacarpals, and the entire carpus region of your hand is pretty much welded into one solid mass”.

  She tapped the palm of my hand like bapping a flat boulder.

  “See? No give. Perfect for lashing out with your claw.”

  Without even waiting for me to answer or, rather, ask what the hell she was talking about, Mina started pinching the space between my talon and tip of my finger.

  “Wow! It makes so much sense when you think about it. This talon, it isn’t even a nail, it’s a solid bone protrusion fused directly with your distal phalanx…”

  “Mina?”

  The woman half-heartedly tore her eyes off my hand and looked at me through those wide-rimmed round glasses of hers.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m going to need all that translated to English, please” I deadpanned, while Tina piped up with a “Seconded”, mouth half full with water.

  “Oh, right, sorry… again… I got…”

  “Excited?” I finished with a smirk and Mina gave a small chuckle, pulling the glasses off her button nose and beginning to wipe the lenses.

  “The long and short is this. Humans, we’ve evolved from and into omnivores. Meaning carnivores, herbivores, hunters, gatherers, scavengers, we have traits for everything. Opposable thumbs, straightened spines, large lungs, teeth that are a combination of both sharp, planar and flat.

  But say, what if evolution had taken a different turn, and humans had evolved with more prominent traits of hunting predators like hunting cats and canids, rather than scavenger and omnivore traits? Well in that case…”

  She wrapped her tiny hand around my wrist, or at least made the attempt, her small, slender fingers struggling to close fully around my thick, muscled forearm. I let her pull on it, raising my hand, guiding it into a palm-up position, my fingers curled slightly, the talons on full display, gleaming dark and vicious in the dim light.

  “... Anatomically, this is exactly what it’d be like. Or at least, it stands to reason that this would be the best option. The claw of a predator in such a way that it does not detract from the dexterity that a sapien hand offers. Get it?”

  I nodded slowly, starting to make sense of it.

  “So, basically, these more physical traits of vampirism can be categorized as a human that’s evolved on another path, right?”

  Mina replaced her glasses and nodded with a little too much enthusiasm.

  “You can reduce it in that way, sure. But that’s only scratching the surface. Calling it a simple evolution is reductive, to say the least. What you described so far as your healing factor, your insane stamina, the way you draw sustenance from blood, everything points to biological immortality. It’s insane, I mean, we can barely guess what’s happened to you at a cellular level…”

  “Cool your jets there sweetie” Tina interrupted her sister, finishing her drink and getting up to stretch. The way she was able to balance perfectly on one foot was impressive to behold.

  “For now, we can just chalk this up to Magic, unless we manage to make it home and you put that lab of yours to good use”.

  My head immediately snapped back to Mina.

  “A secret lab? What are you, a cartoon character?”

  The petite Miller sister swung her arms out at her sister in a juvenile fit that made me want to burst into a laugh.

  “It’s not a secret lab, dammit. I just have a few pieces of medical equipment in a corner of my room that I train with…”

  “Four different types of microscopes, a blood centrifuge and a whole library worth of medical and science journals” Tina continued hopping away as her sister tried, and failed, to topple her.

  I watched the show for a little while chuckling at the sibling spat.

  “Either way...” Mina started again, her breath coming in sharp gasps as she gave up on trying to catch her sister, who had been too busy flipping and tumbling away from her grasp like a wild acrobat.

  “... if you actually wanted to find out more, it would need a lot more complex equipment and people way smarter than me to figure that out”.

  I gave a curt nod.

  “Fair enough. I’m not a fan of anyone else knowing about this, though. Last thing I’d want is to find myself strapped to a table and vivisected by men in black, know what I mean? From what I've gathered, I'm monumentally hard to kill and borderline immortal. So that'd be a long and painful eternity”.

  Both Miller sisters nodded at that.

  “Yeah, if there’s even a government left, this situation of yours should probably be kept on the down low”.

  Mina sat back in front of me, hand on her chin, brow furrowed in concentration.

  “High-speed regeneration, forced evolution, immortality? Most if not all of what you've told us is congruent with folklore descriptor of vampires. And it's not even that far-fetched. Biological immortality could be explained in theoreticals. I mean, we have some examples in real life of quasi-immortal creatures. The immortal jellyfish, the Hydrozoa hydra, glass sponges, planaria, so it’s not that far-fetched. What about weaknesses? Do you exhibit the same kinds of weaknesses that the traditional vampire has?”

  I answered immediately with the truth.

  “Doesn't seem like it. I can enter homes uninvited, can cross running water, all of that. Dunno about silver and wooden stakes, but I've tanked spears without a problem.”

  Without skipping a beat, I added the lie. If a lifetime in the ghetto had taught me anything, it was that if you're going to lie about something, flow into it from truth. Makes it easier to cover up your tells.

  "Only problem is the Sun. I don't burst into flames or nothing, but it gives me a rash something awful. Itches like crazy. And it's too bright for my eyes. I can function in it, but it's not comfortable".

  This particular question was not something I was prepared to be honest about. The girls may be wholesome as all get-out and, for better or worse, there didn't seem to be any malintent in Mina's curiosity about my vulnerabilities. Only academic curiosity. But I'd lived my entire life in an environment where you didn't air out your "soft-spots", and it'd take a lot more than a couple pretty faces to make me drop those particular walls.

  There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell I was going to reveal to them that the Sun was basically a "shut-down" button for me.

  Mina nodded then shook her head slowly, zoned out in her world of introspection.

  “So you don't burn, but it irritates your skin. Maybe it’s the light spectrum itself, a combination, but…sorry Jon, I dunno, I can’t even speculate on it, there’s too many variables that just don’t make sense.”

  She let her hand fall from her chin and eyed me apologetically.

  “Without specialized equipment to run some tests, honestly, I can’t even begin to theorize.”

  I gave her a small nod, glad that she wasn't dwelling on it. Wasn't enough to make me drop my guard, but I appreciated that she seemed genuinely interested in theory-crafting ways to "help".

  “Or maybe…” Tina began, her hurt leg crossed over a knee, balancing herself into one-legged squats in a corner of the room like it was nothing.

  “... it’s mmmmmmagic” she finished, arms spread and fingers wiggling, mimicking a show of whimsy and wonder.

  “Riiiight…. anyway” Mina deadpanned, shaking her head and rubbing around her eyes, yawning wide.

  “That’s about all I can guesstimate right now. Mostly just assumptions”.

  “Well, it’s more than I came with. So thanks for the theories.” I answered, giving the little lady my best approximation of a grateful smile.

  Mina smiled back.

  “You’re more than welcome, Dracula”

  I guffawed.

  “The two of you are awfully calm about all this. Almost like the end of the world as we know it, or having a vampire roomie doesn’t bother you at all”.

  Mina shrugged nonchalantly.

  “Eh, we’ve been over this. If you wanted to kill us, we’d already be dead”.

  Tina added just as nonchalantly, still balancing into another squat.

  “Plus, you're a good guy”.

  “Not that good” I muttered and got myself up from my seat, stretching my arms out, limbering up.

  “What about family?” I asked, a little louder, and immediately regretted it, as their faces fell, showing the worry hiding beneath the facade.

  “Shit… sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

  Mina quickly shook her head.

  “No, no, you didn’t do anything wrong. It’s normal to worry, but I’m sure they’re fine. Dad’s an army Sergeant and mom’s a Bio-engineer at EnTECh. With his brawn and her smarts they’re both fine.

  I’m sure they are.….. they gotta be”.

  Tina limped next to her sister and sat back down, wrapping a protective arm around her minute frame.

  “Of course they are, sweetie. Once we figure out a way to get past the mist wall, we’ll find them,” she added with a thumbs-up. But I could hear the slight, almost imperceptible trepidation of her heart as she’d said it.

  Tina was clearly putting up a front. Hiding behind jokes and optimism to mask her own fears. I’d seen things like this enough times before to recognise them.

  The tall woman turned her gaze back to me and I shifted my train of thought.

  “How about you, tough-guy. Mom and pop waiting for you outside the mist wall? Maybe even some girlfriend, eh?” she began, wagging her eyebrows suggestively.

  “Nope. Orphan. Dad either left or got lifted before I was born, mom abandoned me in the maternity ward right after she shat me out.” I deadpanned with a shrug, voice level and matter-of-fact. I’d answered questions like that one enough times to be as passive and uncaring in my tone as possible. And why wouldn’t I be?

  My parents hadn’t given enough of a crap to keep me so why should I care a lick-o-spit about them. They were as much strangers to me as I was to them.

  And yet, no matter how bland, how impassively or how distant I said them, it always resulted in that damned look. Bloody hell, how I hated that look. Pity. And that was the look the Miller sisters were giving me. Honestly, I preferred scorn or disinterest rather than pity.

  “Jon, I’m sorry, I…” Tina started but I cut her off, waving a hand dismissively.

  “None of that. We weren’t in the same class and we never spoke until now. No reason you’d know. Anyway, I prefer my position over yours. The only one I have to worry about is myself.”

  “Oh yes, obviously, only looking out for numero uno right?” Mina piped in, clearly as eager to change the subject as I was.

  “That’s right, simpler that way…” I started only to immediately stop as soon as I noticed her wry smirk.

  “Smart-ass”

  “Why thank you, yes I am. Smart enough to notice that for such a selfish bastard, you sure did come to my rescue in a hurry,” Mina giggled, a big smile on her face.

  “She is smart. It’s annoying a lot of the time,” Tina added, rolling her shoulders.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle.

  “Yeah sure, think what you want. Anyway, smarty-pants, what’s your plan?”

  Mina tilted her head, eyeing me quizzically.

  “Huh?”

  “Well, you can’t really expect me to believe that someone of your caliber is just willing to stay here and eat fried chicken for the next couple of days. I’m sure you’ve probably analyzed the whole situation and come up with some grand point-by-point plan on how to make use of this mall”.

  “Damn Dracula, good read. Yeap, she’s been talking my ear off with her ideas” Tina piped up, a big smirk plastered on her face.

  Mina quickly joined in.

  “Oh? You wanna know? But weren’t you gonna leave?” she added, a mischievous little smile beginning to form.

  “I plan to. But I can’t go anywhere until day passes and it becomes night again. So, safe to say, I got over a dozen or more hours to burn. So I’m curious. But…”

  I started, quickly putting up a hand to cut off an already inhaling Mina.

  “...I’m gonna hear you out. If you get any bright ideas about asking for my help, then know that from this point on, I’m gonna be asking for something in return. No more freebies”.

  I’d expected the mood to sour, the air to tense. But it didn’t. Instead, both Miller sisters nodded.

  “Fair is fair. And if you’re willing to offer your services, we can talk about what you want in exchange. Though I think I have something that might just wet your appetite” Mina said, a slightly smug look on her face, as she retrieved a large sheet of paper from the counter, and unfolded it in front of me.

  An A2-sized poster, featuring every fire exit, room and potion of the mall on every floor. And absolutely covered in annotations undoubtedly made by Mina Miller’s hand.