Pregnancy Cravings (Ze)

"We're close," Evelyn announced.

I quickly limped through the fauna as thorns and branches tore at my exposed flesh.

"Ouch," I exclaimed.

I broke out into a hop as I began to smell blood. I sniffed the air for a better sense of smell. Odd. It smelled funny. I don't think I've ever smelled something like it before. For one thing though, I could tell immediately it was something irradiated. Mutated. Mutant.

"This is going to make me sick, isn't it?" I thought.

Like a vegan eating meat for the first time, this was going to probably destroy my stomach. Most definitely it was going to destroy my pH levels and have extreme side effects. This isn't the first time this has happened. However, I did hope that the last time was, in fact, the last time.

"Two minute until contact from second party. Hurry," said Evelyn.

I attempted to hop faster until I tripped over something. My head connected with the warm soil leaving my head aching and my ears ringing. Leg searing in pain.

"What the-" I said.

I looked at what I had tripped over. I sack of flesh covered in a mucus-like membrane lay on the floor desecrated and surrounded by a strange blue, glowing substance. It was definitely mutated blood. It was slightly steaming. My eyes widened. I turn my body and crawl towards it. This looks familiar. I've seen this before. I sniff the blood to get a better sense of what it was.

"Oh," I said, "Just to make sure."

I take my left index finger and drag it in the blood. Sticking it in my mouth, I examine the flavor and immediately know what it is.

"This is a placenta," I stated.

Something close was pregnant and is giving birth or already has. Following the blood, I notice that it trailed past a couple of bushes not too far ahead. Without warning, a sharp cry could be heard coming from past them. I climb back to my feet and limp past the bushes. The cry grew louder and louder as I pushed passed the green. I stop dead in my tracks as I stumble upon my prey.

Standing several meters before me was a strange animal. It largely resembled a deer. Key word "resembled". It had four legs and looked like one" however, that's where the similarities stopped. The "deer" that was presented before me has two head. Its eyes glowing an eerie yet enchanting purple. Its antlers were thin and abnormally large, conjoining at certain junctions and entwining at others. Its antlers also glowed a brilliant bright neon blue. The glow started at the tip of its antlers and stopped around the middle of both of its craniums. I stopped and admired its haunting beauty as the smell of an overpowering sense struck over me.

Blood. The scent of blood consumed the innards of my nostrils, enveloping my senses. My stomach growled a fierce low roar and my fangs formed over my canines. My nails hardened and sharpened into talons. My blood. My blood was rushing. Swimming. Racing. My injured leg was going numb. Both from blood loss and from my adrenaline naturally coursing through my veins.

It had a sweet aroma to it. Like light molasses. I could feel my eyes dilating as my body began to focus more on the scent. Evelyn's voice could be heard in the distance of my mind as my mouth salivated in the dark. My vampiric nature in its purest form out in the middle of the night in this mutated world of nature. I couldn't hear her. My mind was too focused on the meal that was currently before me.

"Control," I thought.

I was out of it. I was losing self-control. It had been six years since I tasted actual blood and my hunger for it was made worse by my injured condition. I tried to zone back in.

"Pregnant," I thought, "Where is the baby?"

I followed the glowing blood trail of neon leading down the creature's leg. It had most definitely given birth. Its hind legs shaking as large pools of the creature's blood leaked below from ass end and onto the already soaked flora below. The grass seemed to absorb its nutrients as the grass seemed to grow taller and glow a strange neon blue.

Half a meter away laying in neon wetness was a newborn calf. The baby. Small. Frail. Full of life. Unlike the mother, the calf, strange enough, didn't have two heads. Its ears, however, were abnormally large for its head. Almost double the size of it. The top of its head glowed a much brighter blue than its mother, almost a blinding white. Its eyes were the color of the mother's horn. An entrancing brilliant blue.

I watched the calf struggle to stand on all fours before successfully doing so. I glared at the cild as it began prancing around in newfound glee as it was introduced into the strange new world it was now welcomed into. Glee. Happiness. Curiosity. Confusion. These are the thoughts that probably quelled its beautiful, tiny, little, adorable mind as its eye tried to absorb what it could with what it had.

I watched as its mother bowed one of its heads at the head of the child as the other surveyed the environment around looking for any possible threats. Apex predators. Anything that poses a threat..... it looks at me. I look at it. A pause. A silence. An extended second of time occurs. Slowed. The other head looks towards me. Entwining its alters. Tilting its head while the other glares.

The calf looked at its mother in confusion. Not even aware of my presents as my stomach growls and bellows. My teeth grinding. My muscles tightened. My vision blurring out all other noise except the pulsing heartbeat of the mother and child and the blood pumping beneath their steaming hot skin. I couldn't make complex thoughts anymore. My body had lost too much blood. I was beginning to simplify from the hunger that consumed my belly and scraped at my mind.

The mother moved one leg in front of the child. I moved slightly out of the darkness. The calf barked at its mother in frustration and for a moment both of the mother's head looked at its baby. For half a second, its focus was not on me and on its child. For a nano-fraction of an iota spec of time within the universe, I wasn't the main concern. The calf was. A mistake. Its last mistake.

Without even realizing it, the hunger within me completely took over. I had gone into what is called a "Lunar Frenzy". I blinked once and I was already 3/4 of the way towards the deer. Its eyes a scolding purple as they beamed with surprise into mine. The pain in my body gone. My vision a sea of noise and pulsations. I blinked twice and the taste of sweet flesh flooded my mouth as blood flooded my tongue and dribbled down the side of my mouth. I blink three times, as the baby began to scream a scream that I couldn't quit form. A scream of a newborn not used to its own body. A scream of paralyzed horror... I blinked a fourth time. My right hand impaled into the torso of the baby. It kicked and screamed a scream that if I had heard it at any other juncture I would have cried. I blinked five times, and I could taste the taste of blood as my right hand ejected from its ribcage; expelling neon white viscera.

I blink six times, I found myself back at the mother's body tearing through one of her necks like a slicer through thin paper. Sweet, yet not too sweet. Intoxicating. Syrupy in nature. Thicker than most. Thirsty. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I drink. I feast. I consume. I devour. I injest..... I stop.

Noise. My senses pick up.... a noise. Blood heightening my senses I pick up.... a noise. Adrenaline pumping. Breathe. Slow down. Concentrate. Become complex. Not simple. Fuck. Sex. Horny..... Wait. No. Not act. I cursed. Blood? No. No more. Unclean I am. Breathe in. Breathe out.

I take in a deep breath. The sounds around me had been blurred out. Now blurring back in. Enhanced. Temporarily. Haven't had blood in years. Starved of natural nutrients. However, not natural. Don't care.

My simplified mind. Was beginning to form more complex thoughts. The more complex, the more the reality of my situation began to sink in. a pseudo-post nut clarity if you will. I looked down upon myself. I was covered in glowing blue. My wounds beginning to heal as flesh and skin began to stitch itself back together.

The smell of iron and strangely freshly washed linen flooded the air. The smell of syrup was gone. The taste of the blood that I had been sloshing around in my mouth was beginning to bitter. The taste of salt and sweetness still present. Just not as much.

"ZE!" a voice shouted in my mind.

I stand up instantly in a defensive stance.

"Sheeshta," I whispered.

The world began to close in. The high was going away.

"Earth to, Ze," shouted the voice, "Can you hear me?"

Recognition. Familiarity.

"Evelyn?" I asked.

"Jesus Christ," She exhaled, "Are you ok? How are your wounds? Are you alright? Valck, your vitals are the chart."

I take a moment to absorb my surrounds. I look at the mess I made and instantly made a face of pure disgust. I streak of cold flushes down my spine as I stare at the remains of the two creatures I left in my wake.

The mother is the one my eyes touch first. A complete and utter mess. Both of her thick necks had been broken and twisted at impossible, unnatural angles. The skin around one of its neck been skinned and torn open savagely. Chunks of flesh with dots and splashes of neon blood had been littered all over the surrounding fauna like paint to a canvas. The mother had been torn in half. Its intestines trailing off to a close by tree. They wrapped around one of the branches and hung there were the ass half of the mother was still connected. One of the hind legs snapped, bent, and dangling.

I looked toward the calf and my heart dropped. It had been ruggedly ripped open from throat to belly. It lay sideways still kicking softly on the ground as its bright white blood slowly pooled out onto the forest floor. I watched as a tear slowly formed in its eye. Its eyes looking directly at its mother.

"Christ," Evelyn said softly.

Sometimes... sometimes you forget. After going so long from drinking actual blood, you forget the attraction to a vampire's basic instinct. You get weaker. You get slower. You get sloppier. You almost feel human... however that's not the case. That was never the case. That will never be the case. Deep down.... those primal urges will always be there. Deep down.... they will never leave. Deep down... I....

I look back down at the baby. The tear long since dropped. Its blood still steaming, yet its life already perished.

"Sorry little guy," I said, "That's all ya get..."

I performed a deep sigh and walked over to the mother.

" How long until they arrive?" I asked.

"30 seconds," she said.

I plunged my hand into the still steaming hot corpse of the mother and grabbed one of her ribs. With ease, I break it off and pull out what I needed. I reached in and pulled out another. And another. And another.

"These will have to do," I whispered.

I threw two the rib bones into the bushes to my left. I kept one in my hand and placed the other in between the lining of my tattered clothes.

The bushes behind me began to move quietly. Not quiet enough though. The blood that I consumed had re-heightened my senses to default. I was a full vampire again. My ears picking up everything. They were awfully loud. I could smell the heat running of their weapons. I could feel the breath forming from their orifices. Someone was wearing an outrageous amount of cologne... someone wasn't wearing enough.

Blood. I could FEEL the blood coursing through the veins of their neck. Slowly. Cold. The exposed skin of some of their cheeks grazing against the warm wind. Their skin was frigid. Vampires.

I was about to make my move as one of them steps out slowly into my field of vision. Holding up his hand in the form of a fist he stopped.

"Hold up y'all," he said.

His voice. Cold. Sarcastic. Rough like sandpaper. Annoying. Accent. Familiar. Kind of reminded me of mine from when I was younger. Old English.

"Well I'll be damned," he snickered, "Isn't this a bloody mess, boys?"

Some laughed. Some didn't. All weapons trained on me.

"Yes," I said, "A bloody mess, indeed."