"Ugh…" I felt a surging pain in my head. My eyes drifted open, and I was standing in a dark room, an all-too-familiar place.

Looking around, there was no one at the moment, and I let out a big sigh, holding my head in my hands. It seems like I have fallen asleep, so I guess I have some time to just recollect my thoughts.

"How am I even supposed to get around this?" I said to myself and sat down, summoning a chair. Things were looking a lot worse than I thought they would be. I would not be lying to say I severely overlooked and underestimated my situation. While I was well aware that I was going to be turning into a vampire and was trying to come to terms with it, I guess due to the recent events, I couldn't think too much about it. Even then, I doubt thinking would do me much good.

"Someone seems troubled," I heard Ethan's voice in front of me as he materialized into existence. I don't remember calling him myself, so why is he here? "Don't look at me like that; it was your subconscious that wanted to talk to someone."

"Help me…" I muttered, looking up at Ethan. I could feel my heart welling up thinking back on tonight's incident. My body shuddered at the thought yet again and clenched my fists. "How am I supposed to face Ai after what I did?" I looked at my hands, still trembling.

No matter how much I try, I cannot get the look of torn flesh out of my head. I could not let go of the feeling of ecstasy I was feeling then, and just remembering it makes my stomach churn. I covered my mouth and started coughing loudly, wanting to throw up, but nothing would come out. This is my mindscape after all.

"This is worse than I expected," Ethan said and stood up, walking over to me. My eyes followed him until he stood behind me and grabbed my shoulders. I looked back at him, and he had a mischievous smile on his face as he picked me up like that and started violently shaking me.

"H-Hey, w-what are you doing!" I somehow shouted with my voice getting interrupted by the sudden movement of my body.

"Shaking the worries, hahaha," he said and continued. No matter how much I wriggled around or protested, there was no way for me to get out of his clutches. After what felt like an eternity, he finally let me, and I looked back at him, trying to make sure there was only one of him.

"Ughhhh…" I held my head as it started hurting and lay down on the floor. I felt like it was spinning along with my vision, and I looked back at Ethan, looking down at me with a smug look on his face. "What was that for?!" I complained, and he let out a laugh.

"I think what you meant to say to me was thank you," he said and sat up, somehow rubbing my temple. "Was that able to bring you back to the present?"

"I…guess?" I said, noticing that the awful feeling from before was gone for the moment. "This isn't a permanent solution, though, you do understand that, right?" Brought

toyouby*.

"Of course, but I had to get you in the mood of being able to listen to me," he said, still looking down at me. I am honestly not in the mood for getting up, so I just sat there as we continued talking. "This is only the start of it, kid, I hope you do understand that."

I nodded in reply and looked down. He is not wrong; I just turned, so this was only the initial symptoms of my condition. I don't know what other awful surprises it has for me. If anything, I am sure about the fact that things will be going way tougher than I originally expected them to be. Plus, I did not account for the fact that the blood I would need would be that of a vampire and not human. Maybe because of that, I may show new symptoms and changes in my behaviour that are normally not seen in vampires, and something tells me it's not the good kind of changes.

"Have you ever come across something like me in your entire lifespan?" I looked up, asking Ethan, and he shook his head. I chuckled to myself. "Thought so."

"It was quite the surprise when I realized you won't be needing any human blood as a staple part of your diet. Even I don't understand what brought on such changes in you, since I expected my blood to just fully turn you into a vampire. At least in a less conventional but more organic way," he said, letting out a sigh.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"What the original plan was to introduce changes in your body that would make it more resilient and ready to accept the power that comes with inheriting my blood and then convert you into a vampire without having to put you on the brink of death," he explained.

"Wait, that is possible? I thought humans could only turn into vampires when they are about to die and are fed vampire blood," I said. If there is another way of converting them that just opens a different set of questions, as I kept staring at Ethan as he contemplated sharing this information with me.

"It is somewhat possible with blood transfusion," he explained, and my eyes widened. "Humans are taken, and vampire blood is slowly injected into their bloodstreams in small amounts over a period of time. This often needs to be done with extreme care, and the success rate is also very low with this method. While at the brink of death, the body is quite desperate to heal itself, so it will actively accept any and all help to keep itself working. When done to a healthy and normally functioning body, its immune system will start fighting back against the foreign blood, treating it like a pathogen. The issue occurs because the immune system is almost never strong enough to kill off the vampire blood, and the cells start rapidly replicating themselves, trying to take over the host's body through sheer number."

"Sounds more like cancer," I said jokingly, but Ethan nodded his head.

"Precisely, it is more akin to that, and that is what kills most of the subjects. Some humans are lucky enough for their immune system to be good enough to fight off the vampire blood cells, who went on to live normal, healthy lives with no complications. Then there were those who accepted the blood, letting it cause changes in their systems and turn them into a vampire. From the time I found out about this and looked into the procedure, the mortality rate was ninety-seven percent."

"Wha- " I was left speechless. Looking at myself, I just realized how bad things would have turned out if my body hadn't properly adapted to Ethan's blood. "So…what was the probability of this going completely south and killing me?"

"You don't need to know that."

"Excuse me??!!!"

"Listen, the point is you had a lot higher probability due to your genes to accept my blood with no complications, so you were my best bet, and as you can see, you turned out completely normal," he said, shrugging his shoulders.

"I still turned into a half, though," I complained, but I am honestly glad that was the case because I don't want to have the off chance of having my skin burn under the sun, even though it was Ethan's blood that I had in my veins.

"You did almost die, so you can't blame me for it," he said nonchalantly.

"Sigh, I guess you are right," I muttered and decided to see it as a form of good luck. Things turned out to be the way that they did.

I looked at Ethan, realizing how we had completely gone off topic from my initial worry and were not talking about the probabilities of me actually dying in the process of converting. At least that kept me occupied enough to have me calm down.

"Now, as for your other worry," he said, coming back to the point. "It is something you have to just accept. I would love to give you an elaborate plan on how to tackle this, but there is honestly no way to go about it except to just go along with what you are given and adapt. It will be tough, and there are a lot of variables in this, but do not forget I didn't just choose any random person to inherit my blood."

"A lot of things would have been fixed if I hadn't inherited it," I complained, but Ethan just ignored it. Well, not much I can do about it. I am sixteen years too late to change anything.

"What you went through with your partner before is something that is bound to happen before," Ethan said, increasing my worries. "It is in your nature since you are a brand, you vampire. You lust and blood lust for her, and other things will increase even more than what you have currently. It will take time to subside, but that is fully dependent on how well you decide to handle it."

"And how am I supposed to do that?" I said, throwing my hands in the air, feeling defeated. That isn't quite a concrete and reassuring plan, you know.

"Your little partner also had to go through this since a very young age, and not to forget on her own," he said, bringing up the topic of Ai. "People who are born vampires have this in their early adolescence, and the effects of it may vary. She had no one at her side when this happened to her."

Ai had to go through this too, and all on her own? I couldn't even imagine how hard that was for her, but as if using her as a motivating factor for me, Ethan was able to put some resolve in my heart. I clenched my fist and gritted my teeth. I promised myself I will protect Ai with everything I have. No matter what it takes, and this was just the beginning of it.

I steeled my heart and took a deep breath, looking back at Ethan. I looked down as white light started to slowly fill up the room and pull me down. It looks like I didn't get a lot of sleep.

My eyes slowly drift open, and I find myself being pressed against two ultra soft objects, and a familiar sweet smell enters my nose. I instinctively held her close and took a deep breath, getting my fill of her scent. Looking up, my mood dropped as I could see marks on her neck. Marks of a hand choking it. My hand.

After everything I resolved myself with, I broke for a second, looking at it, and moved to gently caress her neck. She grumbled at my touch, grabbed my hand, and nuzzled into it. This action was enough to just make me melt as I pulled myself up, resting her against my chest. I looked at the curtains, and it still looked like it was dark outside, so I decided to close my eyes yet again, giving them some rest. I felt Ai move in my arms, trying to dig her face in my palm.

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