Twi-Bite: A Vampire Story

Canterlot High- Cafeteria

"You think you're turning into a vampire?" Sunset asked Twilight.

"After everything that's happened, it's the most logical conclusion that I can come to. That, or this some bizarre virus I've contracted," Twilight replied.

The girls were all looking at each other with varying looks of interest and concern. If it was indeed the case that Twilight was turning into a vampire, something had to be done.

""Do you have a plan for seeing if you are becoming a vampire?" Applejack asked.

"I think I'll head over to the hospital's hematology department to have my blood tested. If anything, my blood should reveal anything abnormal," Twilight replied.

"That's a good idea. The hospital should have the resources necessary to help you," Rarity said.

Pinkie slammed her fist on the table, startling the girls. Pinkie looked to Twilight with a determined look on her face.

"If you're becoming a vampire, who's the vampire who turned you?" Pinkie asked.

Everyone looked to Twilight curious about who was the one that infected her. Twilight put a hand to her forehead in concentration.

"I think this happened last night. I was walking home from Sweet Apple Acres, I noticed a large swarm of bats flying near the woods, and then... nothing. I don't remember anything else. All I know is that I woke up in my house with these symptoms," Twilight replied.

"Twilight, if you're turning into a vampire, are you going to drink blood?" Rainbow asked.

Twilight had been dreading being asked that question. She had already asked herself that very question, but she couldn't say anything for certain.

"That... may very well be a possibility. I don't know if I have to drink human blood or if I can drink animal blood. But I guess I'm going to find out at some point," Twilight replied.

Sunset and Applejack put their hands on Twilight's shoulders.

"Twilight, vampire or not, we'll be here for you," Applejack said.

"If you need anything, even blood, we'll be there to help you," Sunset said assuredly.

"Thanks, girls. I needed to hear that," Twilight said.

Twilight got up and walked over to the water fountain on the far side of the cafeteria. The fire in her throat was starting to act up again and she needed to quench her growing thirst. She clicked the handle on the fountain and started sucking up water as if she had spent three whole days in the Sahara without any water to drink. Each cooling gulp of water was instant relief for her burning esophagus. Just like this morning, she gulped and gulped until she felt her stomach start to fill and even swell.

She finished drinking by the time the bell rang for her to go to her next classes. Twilight had to go to the hospital tonight.

Canterlot General Hospital- Late Afternoon

Twilight waited until the sun was just low enough in the sky for it not to burn her skin. She fed Spike and made sure he was cozy and sleeping in her room. She walked into the main lobby of the thankfully mostly empty building and up to the desk.

Nurse Redheart, a good friend of Twilight's, was at the desk. She looked at the changed Twilight with a look of concern.

"Twilight, are you okay?" the nurse asked.

"I would like to admit myself here, specifically to your Hematology Department," Twilight replied calmly.

Twilight then explained everything that had occurred. Once she was finished, Nurse Redheart quickly escorted her to a room. Once Twilight was comfortable in her room, Redheart left and returned with a phlebotomy kit used for extracting blood.

Redheart extracted a decent sample of Twilight's blood. Once that was done and Redheart removed the needle, she noticed that the wound closed up in a matter of seconds. Both of them looked into each other's eyes in concern.

"I'll take this to the lab and run some tests. Just lie back and relax," Redheart said.

Once Nurse Redheart left the room, she speed-walked down the hallway and bumped into one of the senior doctors she worked with. One look at the man's name tag confirmed the doctor's identity.

Doctor Silverwood. An older doctor at forty-two years of age and a notable genius when it came to varying fields of medical science, he is a celebrated doctor that has even one awards for his discoveries and revolutionary treatments. A tall and muscular man with black hair graying at the temples, a chiseled face, pale skin, and bright green eyes, he was quite a handsome man for his age. He rubbed his head and looked at the young nurse.

"Oh! Hello, dear nurse. Where are you off to in such a hurry?" he asked with a deep yet calm voice.

"I have some blood work I need to take a look at. I'm so sorry, doctor, but I'm kind of in a hurry," Redheart said before hurrying off.

Doctor Silverwood walked down the hallway with his usual gait. When he walked past the room that Nurse Redheart ran out of, he peeked in to see a relaxed Twilight laying down on the bed. That was odd for Silverwood. Usually he was alerted to any new patients arriving so that he could attend to them. He knocked on the door to alert Twilight to his presence.

"Evening, miss. Are you a recent arrival?" he asked.

"Yeah. I haven't been feeling well lately," Twilight said simply.

Once Silverwood looked at Twilight's eyes and paling skin, his left eyebrow twitched upward slightly. With a friendly smile, the doctor gave Twilight a small bow.

"Well, I hope you have a good night, Miss Sparkle. I have other patients I must check on," Silverwood said.

And with that, the good doctor took his leave. Once gone, the doctor made his way to his office.

"Looks like I have work to do," Silverwood said.

Later That Night- Hospital

Nurse Redheart was in the hospital's hematology lab looking at a drop of Twilight's blood through a microscope. She tried to discover anything abnormal in Twilight's blood that may be causing her symptoms. So far, all she saw were what one would normally see in blood: red blood cells, white blood cells, and even platelets. However, she eventually found an abnormality.

What she saw was something she had never seen before. A collection of tiny agents that looked similar to a virus. She watched as one of these agents approached a normal cell and attach itself to it. The foreign viral cell was rapidly hijacking the uninfected cell's inner machinery and changing it into something else entirely.

"What is this?" Nurse Redheart asked herself.

A buzz from Redheart's pager brought her attention away from Twilight's blood work. According to the small device, her current patient's friends were at the front desk.

"Maybe spending time with her friends will take Twilight's mind off things," Redheart said.

She made her way out of the lab and towards the front desk.

...

Twilight's friends were all waiting at the desk to see Twilight. After waiting a few minutes, Nurse Redheart appeared and greeted them with a smile.

"Hello, girls. I take it you're here to see Twilight?" she asked.

"Yeah. How is she?" Sunset asked.

"Well... Follow me," she said.

As they walked towards Twilight's room, Nurse Redheart tried to fill them in on the small amount of headway she had with this testing.

"I've never seen anything like this. Whatever is infecting Twilight, it's acting similar to a virus, yet it itself isn't a virus. At least, not by any textbook's definition," Redheart said. "It's like a new microbial lifeform is hijacking her cells and changing them into copies of itself".

"Did Twilight explain to you what she thinks is happening?" Fluttershy asked.

"Yeah. If I hadn't seen her physical symptoms and look at her blood, I probably wouldn't have believed it," she replied.

Eventually, the girls arrived at Twilight's room.

"Twilight? You're friends are here to-," Nurse Redheart was about to say.

Twilight wasn't there. She was nowhere to be seen. She wasn't lying in the bed.

"Twilight? Where are you?!" Redheart asked worriedly.

The girls checked the room for any of where she could've gone. They checked the bathroom, but she wasn't in there. Nurse Redheart left to go to the nearest nurse's station to initiate a Code Gray, the code they use for when a patient is lost.

Once that was done, Redheart returned to the rest of the Rainbooms.

"Alright. I may need your help finding Twilight. We don't have many hands right now, so I need you to find her," Redheart said.

"Alright. We need to split into groups of two, just in case Twilight's feeling thirsty," Sunset said.

The girls split up to search different parts of the hospital for their friend. They just hope they're not too late.

...

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie were running through the cold storage units of the hospital looking for Twilight. These storage units were filled with donated blood for those that need it. They were looking into each unit to see if Twilight went down there for food.

"You think Twilight came down here?" Pinkie asked.

"She had to have come down here. If she's an undead blood-sucker, these blood storage rooms should be an all-you-can-eat buffet to her," Rainbow said.

"Wait, Rainbow! Even if we do find her and she's a vampire now, what do we do? We don't have any weapons or anything to defend ourselves from vampires," Pinkie said.

"I... don't know. Maybe we'll be able to reason with her. Maybe," Rainbow said.

A sound of growling coming from the last blood storage unit caught their attention. They both looked to the open door with wide eyes. Both girls slowly walked to the open door and peered inside.

Thankfully, the room was lit. Twilight was indeed in the room with a bag of blood held up to her mouth. She was slurping them down like a glutton. A few other blood bags lay at Twilight's feet empty with bite marks bitten through them. Twilight was wearing a standard hospital gown. Her hair hung haphazardly and disheveled. She was making loud gulping and growling sounds as she drank. Pinkie took a step forward.

"Twilight? Are you okay?" Pinkie asked.

Twilight dropped her now-emptied blood bag and turned to face them. Her eyes appeared to have enlarged pupils with red irises just barely visible around her eyes. Her skin had paled to the point of making her appear dead. Her teeth were positively red with blood. Black veins were visible underneath her pallid skin. Her fingertips were slightly stained with fresh blood. Her stomach was greatly distended from the amount of blood she drank. She started to walk towards them with her hands held out in a grabbing motion.

"Twilight! It's us! Rainbow and Pinkie Pie!" Rainbow called.

Twilight's only response was to growl and hiss at them. She crouched her legs in a lunging position. But before she could attack them, a small dart dug itself into Twilight's left thigh. The dart sent Twilight writhing to the ground in pain. There seemed to be steam rising from the wound the dart had created. Rainbow and Pinkie looked behind them.

It was a doctor with a kind of blowgun in his hand. The name on his nametag was "Silverwood". He stood looking at Twilight with a steely look in his face.

"Help me take our 'special patient' back to her room," he ordered.