A squeak. The floor drummed with the crashing of multitudes of objects and the crashing of something large.

I hid behind the space between the walls and the cabinet, my breath halted in the middle of my throat as I heard growling of inhuman origin. My heart pounded in my chest, trying to break out of my ribs, while my sweat dripped in the bucketfuls under my forehead. I gripped the knife I took from the cupboards hard that my knuckles turned white and my hand turned cold.

If I got out of this alive, I will be thanking my parents for buying the easy grip knives instead of the wooden made ones. It may have saved my hands from nerve induced frostbite, heh.

Loud thumps on the wood brought me out of my musings, and once more I was gripped in between the jaws of fear and death. The thumps grew louder and I seriously hoped that it didn't grow closer.

I waited in abated breath.

My heart was begging for more oxygen, but my body and mind knew that if I so make a sound, death will take me.

"Senpai~"

I whirled around.

Knife in hand.

To stab the monster.

Blood spouted. She grinned. What a menacing grin. The kind where you just know that the poor fool would die if he ever saw it.

That poor fool was me.

I was going to die.

"That hurt, Senpai~ it was almost as if you were trying to kill me," she said, liking blood off her fingers. "I know you love me, though. You'll give me your blood willingly, neh, Senpai~?"

She lunged at me.

Nails as sharp as building nails, clutched through my clothes and flesh. Strength stronger than steel, my breath lost to me, my consciousness losing me. Oxygen leaving me as my nerves burned with pain. My brain tried to register them all, but all it left me was a white haze of unbearable pain.

Slowly my I could feel my blood disappearing. A curdling scream, of pain brought through by the recirculation of my blood through my now increasingly empty veins and heart, funneling through the hole my neck.

Like a thousand fire ants biting me, I felt my fingers lose their tingle, and my body burning in scalding heat.

Like a hundred hands squeezing me, I felt my head popping.

World blackening.

Can't.

Sounds of lasers popping off the distance.

Mind clearing.

Eyes of haunted brown looking back at me, his face in a lopsided grin as he fired his gun, telling me that even if he saved me, I was going to die.

I was going to die.

I was going to die.

Die.

...

I lived.

Sunlight caressed my skin. Blood on my clothes gone, evaporating in the midsummer heat. I dreamed that I had died, yet seen that my clothes dyed in blood.

I was late for school.

Wiping off the blood on my lips, I took a gander at my unfortunate meal. His body mangled beyond belief, his face pale as he looked at the sunlight, wondering what he did wrong.

He probably didn't do anything wrong.

I was just hungry for a meal.

It has been days since the incident.

Not a word from the faculty as the school council president disappeared so suddenly. She was gone with the wind; no one could remember who she was, where she came from, or what she did. Her existence was burned, like her end.

The winds howled as I slowly walked to school.

I was late anyway, what use is running to school.

…

I tried practicing abstinence.

I would only drink blood once a week. Then I would kill off my victims so that they don't turn like me. My only mercy to the souls departed.

…

I was hungry.

A wound sizzled on my flesh.

Haunted brown eyes with a lopsided grin burned itself into my memory.

It was that person who killed Iroha. He was after me.

I barely escaped.

…

Each time I tried to feed, he'd appear.

I was hungry.

Abstinence was a bad decision.

I wanted food.

Animal blood makes me go crazy.

I was hungry.

I wanted food.

I could eat a hundred men.

…

Months passed feeding on rodents and cats. I was a mockery of myself. I was pale and my death accelerated. My wounds no longer heal and my schooling disrupted. I couldn't come back home as I got increasingly hungry around my family. I didn't want to kill them.

I wrote a note with my bony fingers one day, telling them that I'm leaving.

I could only hope that they stopped searching for me.

I wandered the streets of Chiba, searching for my next meal as a flier with my face on it hit me on my face.

Suddenly, sobbing.

I don't want to be like this anymore. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be the same once more. I wanted to get mad at Iroha for turning me into this, but I knew that she was merely hungry like me.

She was hunted, like me, by that vampire hunter and couldn't get a decent meal. Thus, she was frenzied and desperate. I couldn't fault her for that.

I was hunted myself.

I'm getting frenzied and desperate. Animal blood made me crazy. I wonder how she lived like this.

She probably had been like this for way longer than I have.

Tears trailed down my face. The sunlight seemed to burn harder than ever. My own tears too salty for my skin as it burned to cry.

I was weak.

…

So long.

So long and so hungry.

I couldn't eat cats and rodents any more.

…

Autumn brought with it the falling of leaves.

My toes crunched the dried carcasses of trees as I walked through the park barefooted. The night was cool and the moonlight shining. I skipped over the flower beds and trampled the weeds.

No weeds were going to stop the beautiful flowers from growing.

I giggled.

…

Winter brought with it the dead.

It was solemn.

I prayed to a picture of Obi-wan Kenobi.

Deliver me from evil.

…

On one cold morning, I saw her.

My precious snow.

My meal.

It was night.

And the exorcist seemed to have stopped hunting me. I couldn't bear the hunger no longer.

She smiled at me, as if greeting an old friend.

I never had any friends.

I was alone.

"Hikigaya-kun, you're a husk of your former self."

She gave me a blood pack.

I drank it all.

…

Yukinoshita fed me every day. I couldn't help but feel like this was charity, but who am I kidding, I'm hungry anyway. It was nice of her to feed me. Though I think that somehow she's getting weaker by the day. Her skin was paler than when I've seen her.

Was she feeding me her own blood, I wonder.

This was something that the shoujo animes I watched wrote about. It was laughably unrealistic, as the victim never did lose any blood. It was as if they have a bone marrow on overdrive.

Yukinoshita was anemic because of me.

So one day, I hugged her.

"Thank you for saving me, Yukinoshita," I told her, my cheeks threatening to split under my smile, and my eyes lifting under it a trail of tears. "but I can't see you like this. I'm sorry."

I left her.

If I turned back, I could've seen her tears falling on the newly snow-splattered grouind.

I wanted to delude myself that this could go on forever, but I knew, deep inside my heart, that I was depending on her too much.

I couldn't save her.

So why would she save me?

…

So hungry.

Is that a person?

I lunged at the woman in black.

And a bullet shot through my head.

Blackening sky.

I smiled.

…

I lived.

And the woman did too.

The exorcist didn't howeer.

…

"Yukinoshita," I called over, smiling. She turned her head to me, her wooden spoon still on her lips as she tasted the soup she was cooking. The red dripped from her lips.

I sat down on the dinner table, waiting for the meal.

"It's Mrs. Hikigaya to you," she admonished, her sweet voice lilting in the air. "And no, the meal won't be ready yet."

It's been twelve years since we've been together, and I couldn't help but use her old last name as a way to remember the life we had before we were irrevocably changed. We were married, by the way.

"But I'm starving!"

"No buts," she held a spoon against my face. She smirked, "I was going to have you taste it, but you seem to want to have a divorce with me. There was no case where you would want to speak my maiden name, after all."

"I just wanted to reminisce on our past!"

"You could do that without using my maiden name, Hiki-forgetful-kun."

"Hah, your last name is Hikigaya too! You're also a Hiki-forgetful, too now."

"I thought we were having a divorce?"

Urk, I don't want you to leave me, Mrs. Hikigaya!

I stood up from my seat, ready to bow down the floor to beg for forgiveness.

She walked up to me and brought the spoon to my mouth.

"How does it taste?"

"Exactly like our first meals," I said, complementing her. A vampire's first meal was easily the most delicious meal they had after all, and Yukinoshita made every meal exactly like our first meal. It was a testament to her skill in the kitchen.

It was simply…delicious.

…

One-shot horror fic for you dudes. This is just a way for me to rev up my writing juices for my other fic, Spirit World Diaries. So without further anything, here it is.

I hope you enjoyed it.