Life, Death and Afterlife: The Tale of a Vampire

Tonight I'm not hungry. I shouldn't be surprised, I've had three huge tofu steaks for dinner. So I lock myself in the basement rather than go out and roam the streets. It's cold, it's small, it's not ideal, but there's not much point in spilling blood if I'm too full to enjoy the sensation, is there?

I lock the door that leads to the stairs that lead to my house, so that I don't go back on my promise. I groan. I can't see the moon, but I transform every time it rises. I hate it, but I change: every part of my body grows, especially my usually hidden fangs; my skin turns ghostly white and stretches; my hands and feet become catlike, with pads on the bottom and three long claws on each hand and foot; curved horns shoot out of my head and my hair falls out; a long tail and huge wings shoot out of my back; and my limbs change so that I can walk on all fours. Contrary to popular belief, vampires are not humans with long pointed canines who dress in black capes and burn in the sun. The sun just stops us from transforming into fully-fledged monsters in the day.

When my transformation is complete, my stomach rumbles and I have to remind myself that one, I've already eaten loads, and two, I have claws instead of fingers and I made this cage called a basement vampire-proof so I can't escape. That means I have to pass the time. I try to remember what made me lock myself in here. Oh yes, I made this place so that I can avoid eating my friends and drinking their blood. Or worse, turning them into something like me. Oh, that's how I can pass the time! I can think about my life! Well, my life, my death and my afterlife, my current stage of existence.

I remember when I was a young child. I grew up without brothers or sisters in the countryside. My friends were the birds and the animals who lived in the woods. Then my mother grew ill after getting pneumonia and we had to move to the city. She spent most of her time alive from that point onwards in hospital. I was ten when she died.

Instead of moving back to the country, my father decided he wanted to live near the city, but not in the middle of it all. My auntie lived here so here we are in the so-called Equestrian Suburb, named because of the huge equestrian centre and the dozens of people who own horses here. Well, by here we are, I mean here I am. He died in a horse-riding accident.

It was about six months after this that I died and became a vampire. I was nearly fifteen and living with my auntie and I was leaving a party that I hadn't really enjoyed. I had attended because it was being held by the local zoo to raise money to help endangered species. I was halfway home when I was attacked by an animal and it bit my left arm. For the next three days, I was ill. On the fourth day, I woke up and discovered that I had no pulse and did not need to breathe. I held my breath for ten minutes. That night, I transformed for the first time and experienced my first ever desire to hunt people and drink blood.

Unfortunately, I do have blood on my hands - if you can even call these things with talons hands. My auntie was first. It was in the early days of being this monster I am. I didn't care at the time; I was transformed and I wanted to drink human blood and eat human flesh. I felt really bad afterwards. Luckily, there was enough of her left to dump in a river so I could pretend that she had been kidnapped and brutally murdered by having her limbs ripped off. By someone else. The police never caught me.

I have just realised that I am pacing. I want to get out. What is remorse? Why did I feel sorry for killing my auntie? I'm not even human. Humans kill animals and other humans. They destroy animal habitats. They care more about oil, money and gold than bees, trees and clean water. I was human, but I respected nature. I respect nature even more now. I am vegan by day. Yes, I do eat the flesh and drink the blood of townspeople, but I don't eat meat, poultry, fish or any animal products. I do have animal skins in here, but all of my "human" clothes are made of cotten or recycled plastic.

Oh, I've just remembered the time I tortured Sunset Shimmer! Oh yes I must - for lack of a better expression - relive this. This was before the princess Twilight Sparkle came from another world and made her reformed. She was mean to me back then. I don't think she remembered it. She probably had no idea it was me. I was transformed, and hadn't locked the door to the basement. Instinct overruled sensible thoughts and I left the house. Someone was walking down the road and I spied my chance to get some fresh blood down my throat. I then recognised her and realised that I could make this more enjoyable by teaching the school bully who tried to traumatise me by day a lesson in how to be traumatised. I pushed her into a wall to knock her out, then dragged her into the basement by her short-sleeve T-Shirt and shorts and started to very slowly scratch her. Not bite. Scratch. I didn't want to inject the venom that would turn her into a thing like me. I worked down her arms, carving patterns in her skin. Once I had done her arms, I worked on her legs. Eventually, there was a fairly large pool of blood that I lapped. It was all I could do not to tear her apart. Eventually she woke up and I had to knock her out again. When I was finally human I had to clean up the rest of the blood and take her to hospital, saying that I had found her in the state that I had put her in. The doctors didn't ask any questions, but she seemed a little suspicious. She didn't stop trying to bully me. She probably wouldn't have continued if she knew who had thrown her into a wall and cut her arms and legs.

For someone who was once human, I am evil. I put up quite a façade when I am in public, pretending to be that shy, innocent girl I was before I was turned into a monster. I eat a piece of intestine from one of last week's victims; an old man who I had never met and who screamed a lot until I slit his throat with my claws. Granted, he was chewy, but he was the only person out for miles. I could see, I was on the roof.

I turn back into a "person," unlock the door to the basement and climb up the stairs. I go up to my bedroom and wake my reflection. Using my magic, I can make it step out of any floor-length mirror and it will pretend to be me if there's an event I have to attend at night. Then, when I am human, it returns to the mirror and I have all of its memories from that night. The reflection walks into the mirror and I touch the glass. I remember watching television and showering and going to bed and being woken up by myself and stepping into the mirror. See? It works so well. The only rule: don't let anyone catch both of you together. This will never happen, because I hide in the basement when my reflection is out.

I eat breakfast, get ready and leave. Sunset Shimmer is stood on my doorstep. She is wearing a short-sleeve T-Shirt and I can see the faintest of scars running in a long jagged line down her left arm.
"I remember that you tortured me."