Something pounds in my head, a steady, demanding rhythm that doesn’t match the beat coming from the club. It takes me a moment to realize that it's my blood-starved heart, and I want to weep. I hate this life. I hate what has been done to me. Blood. It's a need, a drug, an addiction. I give in only when I must, take only what I need. I struggle to be human, refusing to become the murderer that lurks within.

My body aches with a fever that's far too high. Every step between the alley and the club drives burning needles through me.

Dead but not dead, my senses more sensitive than anything I had ever imagined or thought possible-if I thought about it at all. When I was turned, the world crashed in on me like a tidal wave; hearing, sight, taste, smell all becoming so much more than I was used to, overwhelming me with their intensity. The world pressing in all at once, all the time. Learning to filter it took months, maybe years. I can't remember any more.

I reach the door as four young men come out. For a fleeting second hope flares, then dies as the scent of the death within them reaches me. Their auras still have life within in them-deep, vibrant color not yet leached away by their condition. They are very new to the night life, turned perhaps a month or two ago. The heat radiating through them gives me some small hope. If they were able to feed here, then I should be able to as well.

"Human" was published in the January 2008 issue of Worlds of Wonder