by Kellie Webster

Created on: November 13, 2008

Once the stench from the abandoned rubbish bothered me. It was a place I had to walk past on my way home from work every day. I noticed him there, he appeared when the moon was full and the sky was bright. He offered me a better life, better than the waste of space existence that I currently breathed in. It wasn't for everybody, he told me time and time again. But he was charming and I felt a strong urge to take his word for it, and join him. After all he could've disposed of me before now if he'd wanted to.

So one day I invited him to come home with me. He said it would take a few days, he asked me to trust him. I had no choice, my landlord was about to kick me out. I hadn't had a boyfriend since last year, and I kind of liked the attention he bestowed. My family lived in another country, had for years. I was alone, if not with him. And what he promised was eternal companionship.
I knew what I had done as soon as the door closed. He'd watched over me for three days, he'd restrained me. He'd restrained himself. He'd kept me alive, or wasn't I considered alive anymore? Now he was turning me loose. We'd meet again, I was sure. But until I'd proven I could survive and do so undetected, I was a risk to them all.

Walking down the front steps a surge of confidence struck me. My senses were sharp, so sharp the sound of a car two blocks away screeching to a stop startled me. I could smell something sweet, a new smell I'd never known before. No one was around; this wasn't the sort of neighbour that got a lot of foot traffic. The scent grew stronger as I approached the corner. Such a sweet smell, suddenly my stomach lurched and my throat was overcome with a burning sensation. I felt my eyes narrow but at the same time sharpen. I wanted to hunt, I had to eat.

"Resist, you must resist," the voice came into my head. It was his voice warning me.

Two days ago I lay amongst the garbage at the dump. I was begging for death, racked with pain and in agony. I was broken, shattered, nothing mattered. I rocked back and forth on the hard stone floor, hugging my knees to my chest. I prayed for death to take me. I pleaded for him to finish me off. My own screams were unrecognisable to my ears. I gasped, moaned and sobbed. I was weak and pathetic. So helpless and unworthy better off dead, he stayed and he protected me, from myself.

I was broken down only to be re-built stronger. I heard their warnings without listening. Nothing could have prepared me for the sheer hell I'd lived through. This was the pain he'd tried to save me from. Now I understood the reluctance in his eyes, the regret in his voice when I insisted. Forever together was the only thing on my mind and in my heart. Forever was all I had now.

Kids played on the sidewalk, their parents ignorant to the danger I had become to them. I looked at them, smelt their youth. I was hungry, for the first time in 3 days, I needed to eat. Famished I needed to eat right now. I stepped off the curb towards where they played blissfully unaware their lives were about to end.

"This way," he growled, appearing from nowhere. "Innocent children are never on the menu. If you want forever you have to start listening to instruction."

"I do want forever," I hissed into his ear as he led me away from the city dump towards the darker, seedier side of town.

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