Sirius —

It had gotten late, and with my conversation with Grace, the details she shared with me left me to ponder with my thoughts for a long time. I couldn’t believe what she told me—the details of what she’d done and the identity of Delilah’s Father. I understand why she kept it a secret, why she was nervous to say anything at all. Honestly, I am more shocked about how much she could afford to confide in me than what she couldn’t.  

“Grace, don’t you think you should tell him? He should know.”

“Please, you c-can’t confront him. If, if you do—”

“But what if telling him leads me to some clue in finding Delilah?”

With those words, Grace resigned from the conversation. Taking a seat to hold her head in her hands.

“I won’t be long. I swear to be back before the sun draws. Don’t let anyone in.”

Not that I get many visitors to begin with.

As I closed the door, I felt my hand tremble. These shakes, I tell you, could be so troublesome. To come and go as they pleased felt insulting as if suggesting my own body was not mine to control.

“Breathe, you got this. Focus. Focus. Come on…”

That’s what I usually tell myself when these shakes occur. It sometimes works, but most times, it doesn’t, leaving me to stand there fighting against the storm that will hopefully and eventually pass.

The tremors finally subsided, leaving me with that familiar post-shake emptiness. I turned toward the freight elevator—and then it happened. A chime. Sharp. Unexpected. The kind of sound that sets your teeth on edge in a city that whispers its secrets through metal and shadow.

I’d ridden this elevator a thousand times. It had never made that sound before. Never.

The car stopped on my floor—uninvited, unexpected. The grate before the doors parted by itself, no human hand guiding its movement. A scent slipped through the cracks, tantalizing and metallic. The kind of smell that makes a vampire’s pulse quicken, that speaks of something darker than the usual night’s business.

Slowly, the metal doors opened. And then the red began to flow.

“Blood?”

The vast torrent flushed down the hall. A part of me wanted to have taste, but another part of me screamed no. Quickly, I opened my door and closed it shut to hear the wave crash against it with a heavy whoosh and thump. 

It came down with such considerable force that it shook me to hear it on the other side of an 8-inch solid steel wall.

“Grace!”

When I turned, she was gone from the seat in which I left her in. 

My attention quickly snapped back to my heels as I noticed the Red River seeping through the crevices of the floorboards.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

I didn’t know how or where it was coming from, but it didn’t take long before it reached the heights of my ankles, then my knees, and soon my waist. My flat quickly became an indoor pool. Before I knew it, I was up to my shoulders in the dark crimson flood. 

This is not good. 

My instincts ran rampant, and the shakes suddenly came back. I felt my skin crawl, my breathing staggering. A hunger like never before came over me, leaving me wanting to have a taste—even just a drop—but again, every part of my body screamed at me in retaliation.

Barely holding on, my face squished against the beams of my ceiling. Very little air was left just before it swept me under and away. 

Dreams. I don’t have many of those. Not as of late. But this? This was different. Not a dream, not a nightmare—something else entirely. The kind of scenario you’d see in a third-rate detective film where reality bends like cheap celluloid.

My eyes opened, heart racing. Except this time, something was fundamentally wrong. My heart was beating.

“That really can’t be good.”

Had it been a nightmare this whole time? Me, a vampire? 

As I looked at my hands and my nails, they were cut and trimmed, just as usual, but they felt different. They felt less sturdy and more flimsy, as if they could chip from the most trivial of things. 

The more I stared, the more I wondered if I had really been dreaming all along.

Pushing myself out of my room, I headed to the kitchen first to find a knife. One prick to my finger, and I bled. This time was different. For starters, I didn’t wake up. Harm is an excellent stimulant to jolt yourself up and out of your dreams, yet here was I. Not only that, my finger tingled. The sensation of stinging and pain was so subtle yet so infinitely complex that it left a wave of hysteria washed over me. 

“It’s not healing… Hah, ha…hah-ha.”

The moment of euphoria quickly faded as I noticed that there was no reflection on the knife’s surface. No eyes, no ears, no fucking smiling.

With a slam, I plunged the knife into the cutting board, my blood hot, my anger at its boiling point.

“Enough fucking games. You’re here, aren’t you? Toying with me. Show yourself!”

My provocation didn’t reach anyone in particular but myself. 

“You look so down?”

Flipping around, I came to see another person seated at the table. It was me. Not me, me, but me. The one I knew all too well—the one with crimson eyes, sharp ears, and fangs. 

“What sort of game are you playing?” I drew the knife, my voice as sharp as the blade.

“Siri, you poor thing. Wanting to be human but can’t even look yourself in the eye.”

“Shut up. I’m no child playing pretend.”

“Aren’t you? A frightened little girl dodging her own reflection like it’s a subpoena.”

“Excuse me?” I snapped. “Rich coming from something hiding behind my face! Show yourself!”

Without a second thought, I slung the knife, only for myself to catch it. Furious to shut her up, I grabbed another, only for myself to twirl the one in her hand really dramatically before bringing it to its neck.

“You want me dead, is that?” Myself asked.

It plunged the knife deep, running perfectly horizontally. The wound healed before the line she drew stopped, and the knife tip withdrew.

“Why do you look so eager to kill yourself?”

“You’re not me! Get out of here and leave me be! Because if you say another word, I will kill you.”

“Me? I am you. You are me. We are Sirius Hush Grimes. A girl not so different from the ones we’ve met. Grace, Hummings, they are all cursed. Scared, frightened, angry—trapped. That’s why you lash out. That’s why you hate Woods, isn’t it? He keeps slipping up. But he can do that. He is human, after all. As for monsters—one slip up, and you are no different than the thing that turned you. It’s why you hate yourself. Are we certain we found the right guy this time? The last one was definitely not him.”

“Shut up!” I snapped.

Myself was too fast dodging the second knife I threw. 

“Siri, stop. Come now, we are better than this.”

“Shut up!”

Before I knew it, I felt something cold around my neck, sharp with a sting—the knife.

“A monster who is cursed to make more monsters,” myself whispered.

“…” Why did I feel a tear roll down my cheek? I am not a monster. I am not a monster.

“But you are,” the voice continued. “We indulge. We enjoy. We do as we please—and you’ve been doing so for so long you don’t know anything else.”

“This is not real!” My denial came out fractured, desperate. “This is not real!”

A soft, razorblade whisper cut through my resistance. “A dream? A nightmare? Does the difference matter?” The voice was honey and poison. “There’s only one way to wake from it.”

The words settled like a kiss, a sweet melody I hadn’t known I was waiting to hear. I knew what had to be done. My hand trembled—hesitating. My teeth sank into my lip, drawing blood. The sweet taste exploded on my tongue, a familiar seduction.

“I can’t...”

But I already had.

When my eyes snapped open, reality twisted. The knife was not at my own throat but pressed against the fragile neck of a petrified little girl.

“De-D…”

“You, you were crying in your sleep. It looked very painful. Was waking you up a bad thing? Are you mad at me? Mommy gets mad when I—”

“….N-n-no, no, no, no, Delilah. Y-you’re a good little girl.” I stuttered. Seeing her startled eyes left me choking up. In my hand was not a knife, but a foldable axe, which the Lieutenant had given me one year as a birthday present. I tossed it away before crouching to clutch my head into my knees. 

What is wrong with me? I had nearly snapped. Or had I already?

“I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry!”

What am I? The question detectives hate asking themselves. We’re supposed to be observers, not participants. But here I was—part of the case, part of the darkness. A vampire investigating monsters, wondering if I’m just another file in some cosmic case folder.

Anger is a great motivator. It gets you focused, attentive, and with a goal in mind, whether you know it or not. But it drowns out a lot of noise you wouldn’t otherwise hear. For example, the soft words of a little girl telling you it’s alright, that it’s okay, and that we all make mistakes.

When I looked up and saw her looking at me, she didn’t stand back. She wiped away one of my tears, telling me again that it was okay. How could a child be so strong?

“Hi, Miss Vampire Lady,” Delilah greeted me.

“So you know what I am?”

“Mommy told me that I should be scared. But I asked her why. You were nice enough to buy us gloves, and I got to eat lots of candy. But Mommy was mad, telling me I shouldn’t run off like that ever again before crying.”

“Heh. Your mother is right. You should be scared of me. And you should never, never run off like that again. Promise.”

“I promise. You’re far nicer than the cat.”

Delilah’s words left me wiping my tears to clear from my face. 

“A cat? That cat you told me about?”

“Yeah. He’s very mean. Keeping everything to himself. We always have to play his games.”

“Is that right? Like what?”

“Ring around the Rosie.”

“I see… Delilah, do you mind showing me this cat?”

Collecting myself, I retrieved the axe I had thrown—keeping it close and behind my back as I followed Delilah. She led the charge and brought me over the hill full of the greenest grass I had ever seen. It was unnatural.

A table sat perched with an umbrella over its head. It provided little shade for the children sitting around in a circle underneath it. All the snacks were half bitten into, leaving the children with expressions of unease. Along the table were some cups with what looked to be tea, steam still coming off the surface to alert me it was freshly brewed.

For a moment, I just stood there quietly. Something was off. 

“Where is it—the cat,” I asked.

“He’s hiding. Likes to play hide seek sometimes before taking our food.”

“Is that right?” I said before glancing around, my eyes sifting through the children’s faces, the table, and the rest of the scenery. It didn’t make sense as it stretched endlessly in every direction. The fact that the cat was playing a game right now in plain sight left me very uneasy. My grip tightened around the hilt of my axe. 

“Delilah, do you or any of the children ever find the cat in hide and seek?”

“No, he wins every time. Then we always have to play Ring Around the Rosie.”

“Do you mind playing the game?”

My words made all of the children look at me uneasy. Fear and fright washed over their faces, except for Delilah. She stepped forward, grabbing hands with the closest children to either side of her. They closed their eyes and began to sing. 

“…We all fall down ♪.”

Just as the song ended, the children followed their words uniformly, falling backward onto the soft grass below their feet.

Then, a cat with the most unique pattern along its fur crawled from the umbrella’s shadow. Rolling my shoulders, I began to twirl my axe.

“Let’s play fur ball.”

Then, an inhuman grin stretched from one cheek to another. Its mouth was lined with crooked, stained teeth of all sorts. Before I could move in, my feet stopped dead in their tracks.

“You.”

Out of the corner of my eye, a woman stood by my shoulder. She had dirty blonde hair and piercing purple eyes. She was wearing a dress fashioned with various patterns seamlessly sown together. Her head was tilted an unnatural angle to one side, as if perplexed but more curious, with a brow that screamed annoyed. 

“Me, oh my,” she said, her voice a sing-song blade, “you’ve been very, very, very, very, very, very naughty.” Each ‘very’ was a nail being slowly driven into reality.

In her hands, she was holding onto something like a baton. A pain like no other had already begun tearing at my shoulder. My arm had been severed.

“Ghleghh…”

A weight of heaviness left me to drop to my knees. Her single finger placed under my chin stopped me from any further descent.

“Me, oh my, for you to be in my garden…”

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t move. My entire body screamed out in pain.

“Mr. Fluffystuff, you know the rules. No bringing in adults. They taste putrid, especially this flavor.”

My fangs sank and seeped deep into my lips. Tasting the bit of blood allowed me to muster my strength to jolt forward and bite. 

“Me, oh my, what’s this? How strange. How very, very, very, very, very, very strange. I am not the first Witch to touch you. Who was it?”

“P-Piss off—”

“NOT, in front of the children.” She said. A single finger in the back of my head kept me at bay. My face was stuffedinto the grass. “Please—tsk tsk tsk, they are so tender at this age. So impressionable. The younger, the better, as they taste the sweetest. No cursing.”

“What—”

“—sort of monster am I? I should be asking you. Who was it? Tell me or don’t? I have all the time in the world. Children, what do we do with all the bad little boys and girls.”

““Time out corner…”” They all said in dry and dreary unison. They were all still lying on their backs. Their eyes closed. They slowly moved their hands over their ears, rolling over to ensure they did not see or hear what would happen next.

“That’s right…”

Her finger withdrew with a flick. I noticed an ever so slight trace of my blood on her nail. Before I knew it, I was coughing up a storm, my lungs searing with heat as if I was being lit up on fire from the inside. My whole body felt uncomfortable like I was wearing an itchy sweater that shouldn’t be on my skin. As I coughed up more blood, the color turned black. The Witch pushed me over with her heel, her one hand grabbing my own. I heard a snap, followed by a crack and pain I had never felt before.