This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/iifinch on 2024-09-10 16:01:00+00:00.

Previously

We tried not to let that ruin the night. We left to get food at Waffle House and attempted to regroup. Kathleen needed the most cheering up; I could tell the elf’s near assault got to her. Barri did most of the work. My mind was half in it. I felt as if we were being watched the whole time. Then Kathleen spoke, and it pulled me back in.

“I just really don’t want to die alone,” she said.

“Hey, whoa, where’s that coming from?”

“I don’t know, it’s just…” she paused over her words like she knew exactly what she meant but was too ashamed to say it. “When he grabbed me, I was like, ‘oh my gosh, this is what everyone is talking about on TikTok, like rejecting a man and he kills you,’ and I’m just like ‘I’m dead’. This is it, and no one is here to even care.”

“We’re here,” Barri added. Kathleen might as well have not heard it.

“I’m 23 years old and I’ve never been in a relationship,” Kathleen mourned. “No one wants me and no one cares.”

“We want you,” I said.

“Then where were you?” she asked. That shut me down. Neither I nor Barri replied.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a minute of silence. “You saved me, and I know you did, and you always look out for me. I’m just shook a bit and feeling lonely.”

“Come,” I said. “Let me fly you to my house. Let’s find out what this guy is and how to stop him tonight.”

I flew the girls to my home to search for books to determine exactly what this creature was and how to stop him. I placed both of them on the ground and hobbled inside. My leg would heal in a couple of hours, but for now, I had a limp.

My mix of confusion, fear, and insult at this attack turned into pure fury as I hobbled. Which made me even madder because I couldn’t even stomp properly with one leg. I wobbled.  We journeyed in silence, the echoes of our footsteps spoke for all of us. The girls’ steps were quiet and full of trepidation.

Finally, we arrived at the back of the cave where I made my home. Rows and rows of candles with dancing flames greeted us. 

The girls stopped walking.

“What?” I whipped around and barked at them, letting my frustration burst.

They were huddled together, almost holding hands.

“Please don’t yell,” Barri said, and she covered her ears.

“Sorry,” I said. That was the first time I remember raising my voice to either of them, and the feeling twisted my stomach into knots. I stepped toward them to hug Barri. Barri always craved physical affection but she took half a step back.

“Oh,” I said aloud, not wanting to make her feel awkward but because I couldn’t believe it.

“No, wait, sorry, you didn’t do anything. Well, you shouldn’t yell, it’s just–”

“You live here?” Kathleen interrupted.

Oh, what a sight they must have seen. I forget how differently we live from you. We are just a darker people in tolerance and fashion. Portraits of my ancestors - men and women - line the wall, all in traditional fashion. They sit crouched in black leather with our family’s blanket on them. Their fangs bared, their weapon of choice wet, and the head of the victim of choice on the floor. There were at least 100 pictures on the walls, and many had cow heads, rabbit heads, and chicken heads. We don’t eat only humans, but of course, the first pictures they saw were of my oldest ancestors, and of course, freshly cut human heads were on their portraits.

I hate that I could hear their hearts beating faster, the shuffle of their feet wanting to escape, and I saw the judgment in their eyes.

“Yes,” I said to Kathleen.

They traded glances with each other and came in. That put my heart at ease.

I brought them to my library and tried to show off as little of my place as possible. My heart was at ease, but my shame had not left.

Regardless, together the three of us went through every book in the library to find out what exactly was attacking us.

“Wait, is this true?” Kathleen mocked. “Kill a vampire, get a miracle?” She quoted the unholy book.

“How would I know?” I shrugged. “I don’t know, some people say we’re cursed or not part of God’s design or whatever.”

“That would explain your taste in music,” Kathleen smiled. “Drake over Kendrick is insane, especially considering–”

“It’s not true.”

“Whatever,” Kathleen closed the book and frowned. “That’s mean though. I’m sorry you had to read that; that can’t be nice to hear about yourself.”

I shrugged. That level of intimacy made me awkward. It was quite unpleasant to read honestly. Especially since I knew no other vampires, and some days I frankly didn’t like myself, so I thought, what if the books were right? What if we were cursed?

“Hey, did you hear me?” Kathleen rubbed my back with the gentleness a good friend shows. “I’m really glad we’re friends.”

“Same!” Barri said as she read a book and then waved it in the air. “I found something about him!”

We gathered around, and she summarized the passage.

“It looks like he’s a Lusting Elf. The Lusting Elf is an abomination half-elf, half-demon. It doesn’t understand any concept other than greed. The Lusting Elf sees his life purpose is to have everything his mind desires. He’d rather die than not have his lust satisfied. He or his friends will approach a target three times to get what he wants, and if he is denied all three times, he’s gone.”

“Okay, great, so we just have to prepare for him three more times, and then we’re set,” I said, still anxious about the situation. “Let’s go home.”

I dropped Kathleen off last and offered to sleep on her couch to help watch over her. I still felt that creeping feeling that someone was watching us. I did leave her side, though, because I smelled the blood of something non-human. I wish I hadn’t; this is what happened.

At perhaps 2 am, while I flew down the streets chasing what I believed could be the man in the plaid suit based on the smell of his blood, something entered Kathleen’s house.

This something cracked Kathleen’s bedroom door open. The heart-stopping groan of the door roused her from her dream. She had enough time to let out half a gasp before she shut her mouth.

Something entered her room and slammed the door. It didn’t bother with silence.

“Are you cold?” the thing whispered. Its voice was deep, adult, and male. Its outline barely visible in the room. The only light the blinds allowed was a small thread from the streetlamps outside.

“Huh, what? What?” Kathleen whispered.

“Are you cold? You have a weighted blanket, so you’re either cold or lonely?”

“Are you, um, the guy from the bar?”

“Him? Oh no, not me,” it seemed confused at the question. “He sent me though.”

“Please leave.”

“Oh, well, can’t do that. You should have asked me to tell you what I want. I could have done that.”

“What do you want?” she said and reached for her phone in the darkness.

“Please don’t do that! Please don’t move!” the thing ordered and took three scratching steps forward, directly toward her bed.

“Sorry!”

It didn’t reply. It only breathed, loud breaths through its mouth, she assumed. Unsure of what the silence meant, Kathleen wiggled her feet beneath the bed.

CRASH

Her lamp exploded in a scream. By force or by magic, she heard the clatter and the resulting drizzling of shrapnel on her floor. Kathleen screamed.

“I said don’t move!” the thing in the dark shouted.

“I’m sorry,” Kathleen sobbed, open and raw. She was terrified, and there was nothing she needed to hold back.

“You have so many blankets on. Are you lonely or are you cold?”

“I’m lonely.”

“What do you want other than for me to go away?”

“Someone to hold me and tell me this isn’t happening.” Her words morphed into pitiful, childish blabber. The thing did not comment on that. It walked closer and closer still, until it bumped into the front of her bed.

Thump.

The bed said, and Kathleen did not respond. She could not respond.

“Do you want to ask me what I want again?” the thing whispered.

Kathleen flinched in an attempt to nod her head and then remembered he demanded stillness.

“What do you want?”

The thing in the dark thumped twice against the bed frame,

Thud.

Thud.

Then it climbed into the bed. With the gentleness and absence of an Arizona breeze, it pulled back the covers to reveal her toes. The thing in the dark grabbed Kathleen’s toe, its hands small, baby-like, perhaps the hands of a one-year-old. Kathleen loved children.

“Before I begin,” the thing said. “I must ask you, do you still deny the advances of my friend? He is why I am here, to get you to accept him. Will you accept him as your master?”

“No, but we can–” she cried.

“Then enough,” he said. “You won’t be lonely much longer. I am a cousin to the Changeling. I am sort of a cuckoo. I will place my body inside of you from my head to the soles of my feet, and I will nest there. You will never give birth to anything that lives, and the babies who die (if you selfishly choose to have them) shall be denied heaven and hell; their souls shall journey to be slaves for all eternity in the other world.”

And then the strange creature parted her legs.

And that is where I come in, having smelled the blood of another inhuman. I flew back and crashed through Kathleen’s window. I grabbed the thing by its neck and beat its head against the floor.

CRACK

CRACK

CRACK

I eagerly lapped up the blood, relishing my revenge and the opportunity to feast on something great. But the texture, the flavor, the way it oozed - this …

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fdlgfl/i_am_a_vampire_i_met_something_more_frightening/