Had I been afraid? No, fear is not the way to describe it. In fact, I don’t think that there is any way to describe it. I felt as if I was inexplicably old, yet newborn all the same. My heart felt weak, my stomach felt as if it were coated with a sort of mucus, but my skin…my skin was fresh, any wounds healed, scars faded. And my muscles had a new-found strength within them. I screwed my hand up into a tight fist, gasping at the definition on my arm. I looked around now with open eyes, and it was as if I had never seen the world before. It truly felt as if I had never lived until now. Everything…each table, candle, stone tile, had a fresh haze to it, like morning frost, or mist across a vast plain. Oh, I had not seen beauty till this day.

It did not occur to me that were I had awoken was not where I had fallen asleep. Nor did I think to call out, ask for help. I just sat there and stared at myself and my surroundings. I knew I was in some sort of a cathedral, but I did not recognise the room that I was in. I involuntarily drew a deep breathe, absorbing the smells of must and decay…and fresh air creeping in from the cracked window…and a strange somatic smell, which I later learnt must have belonged to any insects cowering in their corners, perhaps even the residues of people who had entered this room some hours before. And I kept on breathing in. I couldn’t stop, not even when I felt I was sure to distend to a point past no return. And then I breathed out, an almost infinite breath.

I stood up slowly, pushing my hand against the mattress that I had awoken on, but my strong limb failed me as I fell, as if disintegrating, back onto the bed. For the first time, I cried out. Not calling a name, or for assistance. Rather a single cry of pain, shock and sickness. My stomach seemed to be pulsating and grinding in on itself, only its lining felt as if made of thousands of the sharpest needles. My heart, at that very point of delirium, seemed to creaking as it pumped what felt like sand through each vein. My head was pounding, skin tightening around my skull. I felt as if I might be sick. Everything around me was foggy to the fullest sense of the word; the room was as if filled with a miasma. I don’t know long I had lain there; minutes, hours, days perhaps, though I know now it was mere seconds, for when I had regained my sobriety from this unknown intoxication that my transmuted self, I found I was no longer alone. I opened my mouth so speak out, but my mouth produced only silent air. I felt a liquid being poured into my mouth, far too slowly for my liking. I felt like I was being given it drop by drop. I had been so thirsty. Water! Water! I had thought in my head, my conscience screaming the words over and over. But then I realised that its consistency was too thick. The taste too bitter. And the smell…I had been blinded by this gesture to recognise the carnal stench being emitted from this substance. I had choked at that point, throwing myself away from what was being poured into my mouth.
“Blood!” I had hoarsely cried at my sudden realisation. I stared wide-eyed at the man who was crouched  next to the bed I had been laying on. “Blood!”
“You disappoint me. I thought you may have figured it out by now” He said, in a monotonously cold voice. Of course, I had figured it out by then, but I was refusing to listen to my answer. I was in denial, as if grieving over my own soul.
“Vam…vam…” I began to form the word through my stammer, but my mind was refusing to allow my mouth to speak that vile word. “Vampire.”
I had blurted the word out, only for the man to smile at me.
“My name is Strigor, and…”

But I had not heard the rest. At the mention of his name, I dove into my own thoughts. Or rather, his. I had unknown memories stabbing their way into my eyes. Strigor, son of the Strigoi family of . Born eighteen-seventy-six. Died nineteen-eleven. Someone had been speaking in my head, or so I thought. Instead, I had Strigor’s entire life swimming inside of me.

“Girl…girl!” Strigor shouted, waking me from my thoughts. I glared at me, before softening his expression. He too had been reborn at some point. It was only fair that he be sympathetic. He then took my face into his hands and stared into me. My eyes felt as if they were on fire. And then he whispered. “Felicia”
Felicia…yes, that was my name. I had suddenly remembered. Infact, suddenly I remembered everything. I was seventeen years old, I lived with my parents. I was in college. I had gone for a walk…yes, along the river, like I did most nights. And I had been attacked. And stabbed, although it felt more like a bite. On my neck. I had then unconsciously reached up to the point where the neck meets the shoulder, and my hand felt a bloodied gauze.
That night, he taught me of our clan Whyhng. Of the Othrorhem, the ones who had attacked me, and each and every story there was to know. I learnt that yes, I was in a cathedral.
“Crucifixes have no effect,” he had told me. The myths were all wrong. All that was fatal was sunlight. That night, I was given my final lesson. And as I lay in bed, fresh blood still staining my lips from my first kill, I dreamed only of the taste.