Soulmate

A vampire's heart is a like a date, wrinkled, shrivelled, and suspended in a maze of dry, black veins and arteries.
When my heart started to beat for the first time in 1,600 years, the noise within me pulsated through my body, so deafening that the thrumming music and voices of the people within the club became a susurrus in comparison.

Maria’s fault. She looked at me with piercing blue eyes that delved into the empty space where my soul lay trapped and hidden, forbidden from consuming my body.

“Excuse me,” she said, as she passed with her friends. Two simple words and my heart flooded with burning emotion. A sudden flush rose in my cheeks, bringing with it a tingling sensation and a heady feeling of warmth.
With an instinct to flee, I headed outside and sought seclusion on the rooftop overlooking the entrance to the club. Clouds drifted across the night sky and an autumn wind buffeted me with a biting cold that did little to ease the newborn heat burning beneath my skin.

Did humans feel fire in their blood, chaos in their minds? Does the sensation of life not overwhelm them? No wonder they burn through existence so quickly.

The doors below opened and with a backdrop of pulsing lights, I saw her. Maria, wrapped up in a blood red winter coat. Behind her veil of humanity, I wondered at what form of creature she truly was. Her laughter luxuriated over all other sounds, otherworldly, magical.

I followed her, watched her.

For three nights when the human world slept around me, I basked in the moonlight. My nerves twitching at each palpitation of my racing heart. My thirst for blood diminished and a new hunger rolled through my stomach like a barrage of molten rock. My mouth became dry with a metallic taste, and the smell of rotting cow's flesh, cooking in the burger joint three blocks away, filled me the unfathomable desire to eat.

I had not spoken to Maria since that first meeting, fear of what another encounter would bring had ensured my distance. But, I could resist no more. A crack in the curtain allowed me a glimpse of her face. Her soft skin laid against the pink cotton of the pillow. The fullness of her lips parted in the whisper of some unspoken dream. I had to be near to her, to touch her.

The pounding of my feet matched the beating of my heart as I entered her apartment block and ascended the stairs. A dizziness threatened to overcome me when I reached her door. Still unaccustomed to the blood flowing within, the cold handle seared my hand. I set my jaw, unwilling to be deterred from my task, and entered Maria’s flat.
With a purpose, I moved towards Maria’s bedroom, then stood transfixed in the doorway. I listened to her breathing, marvelled at the gentle rise and fall of her chest that mirrored my own. I tried to remember the taste of blood, the titillating pleasure of my sharp teeth piercing flesh. But it was gone, a distant memory. How long had been since I’d fed?

Somewhere in the jumble of emotion engulfing me, I wanted Maria to wake up, to look at me with those magical blue eyes and give me a reason to live. I thought of the humans around me, thought of the daily grind that their lives consisted of. The never-ending worry of when it would all cease to be, and I wept. The salty tears falling from once dried ducts.

I moved to the bed and sat down. My weight sufficient to stir Maria, caused her to roll over exposing the throb of a vein in her neck.

Maria. My soulmate. The one destined to free me from an endless existence of blood thirst. She horrified me.
I would never be so wretched, have feelings, grow old… die.

I leaned over her still form, overrode my desire to wake her and start a life, elongated the remnants of my once glorious teeth, and stabbed through to the crimson elixir within. She shuddered as I devoured her life-force and extinguished my own, rejoicing in the shrivelled, wrinkled heart that returned.

:)

I hope you enjoyed this story. A further story can be found here: https://steemit.com/flash-fiction/@deluis/flash-fiction-packet-loss-human-gain