I had a habit of lying awake in bed, staring at the ceiling while my mind went through all that had happened during the day. It diverged in places where I could have said something different, wondering why I had said what I did. When the thoughts kept moving past, I often put on sweatpants, slipped into my sneakers, and walked around campus, making sure one hand was securely around my phone, the other on my pocketknife. I never wanted to use my knife, and I was sure I wouldn’t ever have to, but the pitch black night always made me feel uneasy. I was certain there were things watching me as I roamed the dark. Things that didn’t take kindly to me imposing on their time in the world. But the cool air always helped slow down the thoughts.

There was a noise like the ripping of flesh coming from somewhere by my right. Against better judgement, I edged closer, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on in the dim moonlight. I hoped it was some sort of animal feasting on another’s corpse, or maybe it was only some raccoons in trash. The sound stopped the closer I got. Piercing blue eyes turned to look at me, shifting oddly in the dark. My body froze, my mind telling me to run until I collapsed, but there was something primal in those eyes that stuck me in place. I was prey to it. It stalked forward, footsteps light on the concrete walkway. The closer it became, the stronger the smell of blood was emanating from it. Iron filled the air making my stomach churn.

It never took its eyes off me, watching me as if I were something curious. My breath kept hitching, my body seizing up as it reached a bloodied hand to graze my cheek. It grabbed my jaw, holding my head in place as its other hand found the band-aid on my collarbone as if it knew it was there. Its fingers inched ever closer to it, then stopped as something came over it. It let me go, fear clouding its blue eyes as it ran off into the darkness. I took a few deep breaths to calm me before doing the same.

I made a beeline for my dorm’s bathroom, seeing the blood smeared on my face in the mirror. My mind was racing more than before trying to figure out what that thing was. It felt human, but not entirely. I peeled off the band-aid, looking at the spot of blood collected on the small piece of gauze. It knew it was there in the dark. Did it want my blood? Could it smell it? I scrubbed the blood off my face, realizing too late that I maybe should’ve called the police, and the blood was most definitely evidence. All I wanted, though, was to curl back up in my bed and force my body to sleep.

It never worked if I tried not to think, only bringing up all the thoughts I had wanted to hide. Head tucked safely under my comforter from old childhood superstitions, I thought about my mother instead. That I should call her soon even if she wouldn’t pick up. That I wanted to eat her cooking, listen to her voice as she told me stories. I wished I could crawl into her bed again after a bad dream, letting her soothe me back to sleep. The moment when my brain shut off, when I blinked and morning had come, were the only things I could look forward to now.

I felt sick walking past that part of campus in the morning, knowing just across the street something wicked had taken place. Part of me wanted to cross the street to ask the police what had happened, but I stayed away, not wanting to dispose of the little I ate for breakfast on my dress shirt or pants. I told myself to focus on getting to my internship in one piece, I didn’t need the added of being an accidental person of interest in a murder investigation. Those blue eyes were going to haunt me.

I hadn’t my doctorate’s yet, but through some networking and pulling of strings, my advisor was able to get me a shadowing experience at a psychologist’s office he was familiar with. I had done everything Dr. Chase had asked me the past couple of years, and while it wasn’t entirely standard practice, she was going to start allowing me to practice. I was familiar with the patient who allowed me to practice on him.

“He’s had a troubling childhood,” Dr. Chase had told me after the first session of his I observed. She sat behind her desk, fork poking at whatever it was she had brought for lunch. “Remembers it all in frightening detail, with some…peculiar details.”

“How so?” I remember asking, staring down at my mundane notes. It wasn’t anything impressive, things he thought triggered panic attacks and was going to avoid, conversations he had with coworkers. A different thought had struck me in the pause she took to chew her food. “Should you even be telling me this?”

She had shrugged, swallowing. “You’re part of it now.” Dr. Chase dug around her desk, then opened a folder. “I find him interesting,” she said. “Three people were central in his upbringing, but I’m starting to think two of them were the same person.” I waited for her to elaborate, eyes skimming whatever notes she had taken. “He won’t tell me names, just calls them ‘tată’ and ‘unchi’, but they both did the same things to him.” She had checked her watch, ending our conversation there.

I felt ill-prepared when I entered Dr. Chase’s office. A mixture of nerves knowing I wasn’t going to be able treat him as well as she could, and dread remembering the police officer and police tape. I was sure it showed on my face, but Dr. Chase didn’t say anything about it, only going over things I should be aware of, how to phrase things, everything I would ever need to know. I sat in Dr. Chase’s usual seat, her behind her desk, and Malachai Luca in front of me. He kept his head tilted down, giving me a view of his fluffy pink hair. Finally, he looked at me through round rimmed glasses. My blood went cold. My body froze, my voice sticking in my throat. I couldn’t take my eyes off his blue eyes, the same ones that had stared me down last night. His hand moved to push up his glasses, my body flinching before I even realized what he was doing.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, my name uttered, I found myself on the floor, heart hammering. “August?” Dr. Chase asked, voice, face, full of concern. “You feeling alright?”

“Did I…do something?” Malachai’s mouth seemed awkward, like he had…fangs crammed in there, causing his lips to touch in an odd way.

Dr. Chase extended a hand to me, telling him he hadn’t done anything. She helped me up, dragged me to a corner and lowered her voice. “Are you doing okay, August? Do you want to do this another day?”

“Yes,” I said matching her voice. “I’ll tell you later…I…need some air.” I collected myself while she took my seat.

I left Dr. Chase’s practice, heading outside to calm down. It couldn’t be that Malachai was the same thing that I ran into last night. If was only my imagination, many people have blue eyes. His just seemed so much more…clear, yet I could never tell what it was he was thinking. I could only ever observe him while trying to piece together the relevancy of the things he said.

I took a deep breath and pulled out my phone for a distraction. As long as I didn’t open a single news article or tried to look for information on that body, I could become peaceful. I thought about texting my mother, but one look of our old text messages was too much for me. I switched to the text thread with my best friend Naddy instead. She was the one person I could count on, even if half the time I came to her with a problem she told me to “put on my big boy pants and figure it out” it was surely needed. I texted the time away with her, getting startled by Malachai an hour later.

“Sorry,” he said, slinking into himself a bit. “Doctor…Dr. Chase asked me to tell you that you can go back in.” I thanked him and started to go back inside when he grabbed my arm. He quickly realized what it was he did and dropped his hand, “Sorry, again.” He started fidgeting with the sleeves of his sweater. “If…um…If I did anything to scare you, I’m really sorry. I’ve always, um, liked you.” He looked at his shoes and pushed his glasses up his nose. “So, um, yeah, I’m very sorry and…pl-please don’t hate me.”

I pocketed my phone as I made more mental notes about his behavior. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I said. “I’ve just had a lot on my mind, is all.” He seemed to perk up at that. “I’ll see you next week, and I promise I won’t—I don’t hate you, Malachai.” He nodded his head, and I went back to Dr. Chase’s office after watching him walk down the sidewalk.

Dr. Chase was already seated behind her desk, pouring over takeout menus. I took a seat across from her, wiping my hands on my thighs nervously as I tried to figure out how I could explain everything to her that didn’t make me sound a little out there. She placed a menu in front me. “Get whatever you want. It’s on me, today,” she said with a smile before it fell in a flash of a second. “Unless you don’t want sushi? If it’s still—”

I shook my head and picked up the menu. “No, it’s alright.” I wrote down my order under hers on a piece of paper. I waited while she called in our takeout. “I’m…still figuring out how I feel about her.” I glanced down at my hands.

“It’s alright to feel hurt by it. She’s your mother, August.” I asked her to drop the subject as kindly as I could. I knew she was just trying to help me, but I wanted to go through it all myself. I’d ask her for her help if I ever needed to. “Okay, well, do you want to tell me what that was about earlier?”

I was about to answer her when a knock sounded at the door. She got up to answer it, bringing back with her a takeout bag with our food. She set everything down and told me I could start whenever I felt ready. I told her about last night and this morning as I broke apart my chopsticks. “This may sound a little…crazy,” I put wasabi and ginger on a roll, “but I think…Malachai might be a…vampire.” I shoved the sushi roll in my mouth so I wouldn’t have to explain myself further for a few moments.

Dr. Chase sat back in her chair, thinking. “That’s an…interesting theory.”

“I know it’s crazy,” I said. “But have you ever seen his teeth when he talks? What if he’s hiding fangs?”

“Or” she drew out the word, “he has adult braces and is embarrassed about it.”

“Has he said anything that makes it seem like he wasn’t born when he claims he was?” I asked.

Her eyes went wide, and she paused bringing her own food to her mouth. “Actually, there was one thing.” I waited in anticipation as she chewed and dug through her desk. “I asked him if he had any friends growing up and he said no. When I asked why he mentioned they were all to work in the factories.”

“But there are child labor laws.”

“I know,” she said emphatically. “Maybe your onto something, August.” She cleared her throat. “He even went so far as to mention his mother never let him work in the factories because she thought he was ‘a little touched in the head’ and ‘fixated on things a little too hard’.”

I put my chopsticks down and rubbed my hands on my thighs again. “Um, Dr. Chase?” She looked at me and I tried to stop my hands. “I think…his latest fixation is on me.”

Dr. Chase was quiet for so long I wasn’t convinced she heard what I said. I was going to repeat it when she spoke. “Good,” she said, and I flinched. “You might be able to help him in a way I can’t.”