It all started when I ate my prom date. Eww, and not in the creepy blow-job way you are thinking either. I never even saw his junk, I swear it! I’ve never seen anyone’s junk up close and personal. But that is neither here nor there because the fact of the matter is, I am a monster. Weeks before I had noticed some changes in my body. I was always hungry, and the typical vegetarian diet that my parents had raised me on just wasn’t cutting it anymore. I felt horribly guilty when I snuck out and headed to the nearest barbeque joint on endless ribs night. I cleared seven plates and didn’t even gain a pound. How on earth could those succulent morsels be bad? Only it didn’t stop there. I got a hankering for prime rib, and I wanted the bloody barely done pieces that caused my bestie Rachel to want to hurl in her side salad and green beans. I figured it was just a phase. Surely there came a time in a woman’s life when she needed a little meat, right? It was nothing to be worried about; I tried to assure myself. But when my mouth started watering at the meat section of the market, I knew that something was off. I approached my mom, telling her of the strange things that had been happening. I expected her to pat me on the head and tell me that I would be fine. But instead, she got a terrified look on her flared and edged away from me. I couldn’t understand it. My parents adopted me as a baby, and I was their pride and joy. There were ribbons and pictures of my accomplishments littered around our house. Mom and dad had been fairly lenient as parents, they only had one major rule, and that was our diet. We were strict vegetarians. And I, Anna Browning, and broken the cardinal rule. I cried great heaping tears and promised that it would never happen again. Soon my mother relented and moved to hold me in her arms again. She promised that she loved me and made me swear that I would only eat fruits and vegetables from then on. I truly meant to keep that promise no matter how delicious a burger or hotdog smelled. I was firm in my promise. I even withstood the bite of steak that my prom date Jimmy Allen had tempted me with. If only things could have ended there, maybe he would still be with us. Rachel and I had retired to the girl’s bathroom to apply more lipstick and lament about our aching feet. Prom was going well, she with her longtime boyfriend Robby and me with my hopefully soon to be boyfriend, Jimmy. We had walked out of the bathroom and made it back into the school gymnasium that had been decorated in a space theme. When Jimmy tripped and fell, he hit his head, and scraped his cheek. A fat droplet of blood appeared at the gash, and my eyes were riveted to it. With slow deliberation, I tried to convince myself that going over to him and helping was what a good date would do. Jimmy was embarrassed, but he accepted my help, and I walked with him out into the hall. I should have stopped when we passed the boys bathroom but instead, I shoved him into an empty classroom and locked the door behind me. “Everything okay, Anna?” he asked as he brushed his hand against the cut on his cheek. “Perfect,” I answered abruptly and started making me move closer to him. “You have a rather strange look on your flared,” Jimmy continued, “It’s just a little blood. I will be fine. I’m not used to these slippery shoes.” He motioned down to the shiny dress shoes he had rented to go along with his tux. The heady smell of his blood had wrapped itself inside of my brain, and I was helpless to the draw as I crept closer and closer to him. “Maybe you should sit down,” my voice was husky as I pulled out a chair and indicated that he should sit. Jimmy shrugged and sat down, “You know if I didn’t know better, one would think that you had something in mind bringing me into an empty classroom away from everyone.” Poor sot, he thought he was getting lucky. My teeth ached, and I reached up to feel my incisors had grown into sharp points. In a move that was supernaturally fast, I was on him my teeth sinking into his neck. Blood coated my lips and tongue; it was the best things I had ever tasted. I felt my body come alive, a throbbing between my legs as I drank from Jimmy. He moaned in pleasure, and I saw his hand move to his pants as he cupped his raging hard-on through his tuxedo pants. A part of me was horrified that I was one, sucking his boy’s blood, and two that he looked like he was getting off on it. I don’t know when he started to go limp, only that one moment he was holding his dick and the next he was slumped overlooking gray and rather—dead. I turned and caught my reflection in the window. The white evening gown that I had worn to the prom was covered in blood. And my rosy red lipstick was smeared as droplets of blood clung to my bottom lip. What had I done? Horror and shame washed over, and me and I ran. I went along the abandoned hallway and kept running until I saw an emergency exit. I slammed through the door praying that an alarm wouldn’t sound, and I kept running. I was had more energy than I knew what to do with and soon the landscape beside me began to blur as I ran faster and faster. Fur began to erupt from every surface on my skin. My nails elongated and my clothing ripped, barely hanging on. Still running on two legs, I had no idea what kind of monster I had turned into. I suppose that even when you are a blood sucking, former vegetarian/prom date eater, that you still need to watch where you are going. I was clotheslined by what felt like a brick wall. I landed hard on my ass and noticed then that I had been crying. Great hulking sobs shook my body as I looked up to see two young men in their early twenties. They were by far the most handsome boys I had ever seen. But I was too distraught to even think about flirting. I had killed someone, granted it had been an accident. But still, I can’t see a judge ruling in my favor. Can you accidentally suck someone dry? I heard them talking into a cell phone and tried to understand the words. “…found the rouge, yeah just a fledgling. We will bring her in.” “What does that mean?” I asked them but they there were ignoring me. “Could they save him?” the one with dark shaggy hair asked. Were they talking about Jimmy? “Good, how many pints? Did they wipe his memory?” It sounded like something out of a movie. You can’t just wipe someone’s memory—can you? “Look, my name is Anna Browning; my parents are going to be worried about me!” The taller one looked at me. There was something in his eyes that had my stomach in knots. “What were you thinking?” he shook his head angrily, “That was quite a mess for us to clean up, we barely found you in time.” “Who are you?” I asked. The next thing I knew they shot my arm with a syringe of something and everything went blissfully dark.