Michael was as good as his word. He returned through the window a few hours later.
"Ho ho ho!" he said cheerily. I raised my eyebrow but did not comment. "What does Santa have in his sac for the good little girl? Why it's full of blood! She must have been very, very good this year!" I noticed he had one of those plastic bags that blood donor clinics used. It was indeed full of blood. Lovely, I thought with disgusted sarcasm.
"What do you expect me to do with that?" I asked skeptically, although I feared I knew the answer all too well. He was mad.
"Why," he said; mock coyly, "You drink it, little girl."
"I drink it. Just like that?" There was no way I was going to drink blood. It was disgusting and unsanitary.
"Of course. I would cook it for you, but then the blood would be ruined. Heat would denature the proteins and then it would do you no good. I could try to find you a straw though, if you want."
"That's disgusting. It's a biohazard," I pointed out dryly.
"A biohazard?" he asked and then sighed, as if I were a bother. "Just wait here." He walked out my bedroom towards the rest of my apartment. I could hear something bang and then he returned with a glass in hand. It was clearly full of sloshing blood. My stomach turned.
"I am not drinking that." Not to mention putting it in a glass did not magically transform it from a biohazardous fluid into something palatable.
"Come on now, it's festive and cheery," he said, sloshing the glass around a little bit so the liquid inside nearly splashed up over the rim. Apparently he thought it would make it more appealing. He was wrong.
"No."
"It's Christmas colored," he said in a cajoling voice like he was talking to a toddler.
"I'm not drinking that," I reiterated.
"Okay. Die then," he said coldly. His face looked suddenly looked indifferent. It scared me.
I swallowed past the sudden restriction in my throat. "You're seriously saying that I'll die if I don't drink that?"
"Well, I could get you a person to drink straight from if you'd prefer," he suggested, watching my reaction.
"Of course not," I snapped. That idea was even more unappealing than the first.
He frowned, as if the cat was growing weary of the game. "You have but two choices. You can either drink the blood from this glass to survive or you can continue to be stubborn and die. It's your choice."
I absolutely did not want to drink the disgusting red liquid, nor did I wish to die. What I wanted was answers. "Fine," I said. "I'll drink it. Once you answer my questions."
He sighed, "I would have answered you in any event. We had something of a deal as you'll recall. You don't need to hold your health hostage." The words were pretty rich coming from the person who had caused my poor health in the first place. He handed me the glass. It smelled awful, it smelled metallic. I took the glass, but kept it far from my face.
"You'll have to forgive me if I don't know what to believe when it comes to you," I said coolly. He grinned at my observation, looking completely unrepentant.
"Very well, ask away."
"What were you doing that night?"
"I was turning you into someone like myself. I believe I already explained that."
I frowned. "I meant before that. Were you out looking for a victim?"
"No, I noticed you in passing as you left the library and decided to do it. It was totally spur of the moment, little girl," he said. I was not sure what angered me more, the fact he altered my entire life on a moment's whim, or that he kept calling me "little girl".
"Will you stop calling me that?" I snapped, filled with annoyance.
"No, little girl. You should finish your glass while I'm answering or you might pass out and miss my answers, little girl. I'm not answering anything else until you're drinking, little girl." He looked like he meant the part about me drinking. It also appeared he was planning to call me whatever annoyed me the most. I sighed.
I really did not want to drink that vile red liquid. I could think of a multitude of reasons why I did not want to without difficulty. The entire idea offended me. It was appalling. It was technically cannibalism. It was probably illegal, or would be if any lawmakers had thought someone might be vile enough to actually try it.
Then Paul's voice rang through my head. "You're going to die." I did not want to die. I wanted to live. It was clear this Michael had done something that changed me in some way. I ignored my nausea and took a drink. I wondered what masochistic part of me kept shoving the most unpleasant parts of the past into the forefront of my mind.
It tasted sharp and metallic and felt disgusting in my mouth. I did not enjoy it, I was at least able to keep it down, but somewhere under all my disgust it was as if I was satisfying some hunger I was not aware I had. Like breathing, it was something one only truly appreciated when there was a lack of oxygen.
"Very good," Michael said, looking satisfied. I resisted the urge to throw the remaining contents of the glass at his smug expression. I did not only because I wanted him to continue answering me, not because I felt grateful or afraid, I told myself. Instead I took a drink and I asked my next question. "So what am I now, really?"
"A god, as I told you before. You've ascended from human to a greater, immortal being." It was said without a trace of irony.
I sighed. He seemed sincere in his belief. There was no point in pursuing it. I changed the subject instead. "So, why'd you pick me?
"A whim," he repeated. I scowled at the idea he had risked my life on a whim.
"Like, you would have done this to someone else if they had been coming out of the library at that exact same time?"
He smiled and looked striking, though I tried not to notice. "No, not just anyone. You looked particularly..." He paused, as if searching for a word. He continued, "Interesting. It's been quite a long time since anyone looked interesting to me."
I took another drink of blood. "Then why did you come back?"
"To see if you survived."
"Then why did you leave?" I shot at him. It was not really that I had been feeling abandoned I told myself, but rather that I wanted to argue him into a corner.
"Because I didn't know if you would," he answered with simple apathy.
I was becoming frustrated with him. I glared, and stood up. I drained the glass and took it to the kitchen to rinse it out. No one would be coming to my apartment, but in the very unlikely case someone did, I did not want a glass with dried blood lying around.
A part of me hoped he would be gone when I returned. Another, admittedly stupider part of me hoped he would still be there. I told myself it was because I was bored and curious. I assured myself that it had nothing to do with me feeling lonely on this family holiday, or even worse being intrigued with him in spite of everything that he had done to me. I was not that pathetic. I was independent and driven. I just wanted the facts and then I wanted him gone.
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