Elias barely felt the sting when the stranger’s teeth sank into his shoulder. It had been a messy, drunken Grindr meet-up, a haze of sweat and whiskey kisses, the heat of another man’s body pressing him down against the motel’s scratchy sheets. He had expected a bruise, maybe, a little soreness. Instead, three nights later, he was curled on his bathroom floor, feverish and weak, muscles spasming like live wires under his skin.
He should have gone to a hospital. But hospitals asked questions, and Elias didn’t want to answer them. Instead, he lay shivering, staring at the fluorescent bulb above him as its flickering glare sent jagged pain through his skull.
By the time the sickness lifted, his skin was different. Tighter. Sharper. The exhaustion that had weighed him down since childhood—gone, like he had shed it in his sweat-soaked sheets. He stood, blinking at himself in the mirror. His cheekbones, once soft, were cut from glass. His pupils swallowed his irises, nothing but black pits in the dim light. He ran his tongue over his teeth, flinching at a new, sharp point pressing against his bottom lip.
It wasn’t possible. He wasn’t insane.
But then he smelled it.
He hadn’t realized how many layers of scent there were before, how blood had its own intricate notes: the salty tang of sweat, the underlying coppery sweetness, the way it changed with fear. He could hear it, too—the rush of it, like waves against the shore, inside every person who walked past him. Hunger, low and insistent, curled in his gut.
He didn’t want to be a monster. But hunger doesn’t care about morality. And Elias was starving.
The first time was an accident. He told himself that, at least. Some guy in a club bathroom, both of them drunk and sloppy, his pulse pounding against Elias’s lips when he pressed his mouth to the hollow of his throat. One quick scrape of his teeth, and it was like tasting color, like sinking into something ancient and primal. The guy gasped, went boneless in his arms, and Elias forced himself away, back pressed against the stall door as the world spiraled in red-tinted euphoria.
After that, it wasn’t an accident.
He learned the rules—how much to take without killing, how to cover his tracks, how to blend in. He stopped eating, real food turning to ash in his mouth. He avoided the sun, each morning leaving his skin raw and blistered, his eyes too sensitive to the light.
Then came the dreams.
A city drowned in shadows. The copper taste of blood heavy in his mouth. A voice whispering to him, soft as silk, telling him to give in, let go, become what he was meant to be.
He started waking up in places he didn’t remember going to, his mouth stained red, his limbs heavy with satisfaction. He kept telling himself he was still Elias. That he had control.
Then he woke up in a stranger’s bed, the sheets soaked in blood. And the man beside him wasn’t moving.
He ran.
The hunger gnawed at him, worse than ever, clawing up from his stomach like fire. He pressed a shaking hand to his mouth, his teeth aching, his pulse racing. He had never meant to kill.
But maybe the man who had bitten him never meant to, either.
The realization hit him like a gut punch. He wasn’t the first. He wouldn’t be the last.
The hunger was stronger than he was. It had always been stronger.
And it was too late to stop it now.
Elias found himself drifting through the city’s underbelly, moving through alleys and backstreets where the shadows stretched longest. He stayed away from the places he used to go—bars, coffee shops, the bookstore he loved. Those belonged to someone else, someone who no longer existed. Now, he lurked where the forgotten and the desperate congregated, places where people disappeared without notice, without a sound.
The first time he picked a target, he made himself believe it was mercy. The man had already been dying, hunched over in a subway station, shivering under layers of tattered fabric, his breath reeking of cheap gin. Elias knelt beside him, murmuring soft reassurances, and when he bit down, the man's final exhale was peaceful. The warmth that spread through Elias was more than just physical—it was relief, deep and numbing, quieting the gnawing need in his gut.
For the first time in weeks, he could think clearly. He could breathe.
The high didn’t last long.
By the next night, the hunger returned, sharper and more demanding. His body was changing faster now—his nails grew into razor points before dulling again, his vision flickering between perfect clarity and a surreal, predatory haze. He stopped casting a reflection. And worst of all, his memories of being human were fading, slipping away with every meal.
He still told himself he was being careful, that he only took what he needed, that he was still Elias. But deep down, he knew better.
Something else was waking up inside him. And soon, it wouldn’t need his permission anymore.
©Genevieve Mazer, 2025
