• The pain was unbearable. Burning was everywhere, especially my neck. Though the only thing I could concentrate on was the pain, I heard voices. People were talking with each other. One stuck out more than the others. Anna was there. Why wasn’t she helping me?
    I wanted to ask her what was going on, but I feared that I would scream. Every nerve ending in my body was tingling, and yet, it burned like the fiery pits of Hell. My muscles felt as if there were weights on them. I tried to move my fingers, but I simply couldn’t. I couldn’t even see anything either, everything was black. I was stuck with an austere sight. This pain felt like I was experiencing attrition; like the burning was just eating away at me.
    Am I dead? What the heck is going on? , I thought. The images from the attack replayed in my head.
    Anna has changed and I guess I have to accept whatever she is. I have a feeling that I’ll be one too.
    “Kasey, everything is going to be okay. You’re absolutely right, I am different and you will become what I am.” Anna said.
    How did she know what I was thinking?
    “I can read minds. I’m reading your mind right now. No, I couldn’t before, but now I can. I’m a vampire. You’re becoming one now. If you have questions, just think them. I’ll answer them.”
    How am I a vampire?
    “The transformation is very painful, but it only lasts for three days. The feeling of being thirsty is the same as the transformation. A severe burning in the back of your throat. That’s what was happening to me when I attacked you. I was thirsty, and I smelled a human, so I went after the scent. It turned out to be you. I would hate myself forever if I killed you. So I let you become a vampire.”
    Well you could’ve killed me. We would see each other in Heaven.
    “No we wouldn’t. Vampires live forever. We don’t age or change at all. The way I look now, is the way I will look for the rest of eternity. The way you look when you come out of this, is the way you’ll look forever.”
    Oh, well I guess that’s cool. OW!!
    “I see what you mean.” Anna’s words were strained.
    This pain, it’s becoming unbearable! It just keeps getting worse! Why won’t it stop?!
    I started panicking as the pain started to augment and Anna’s voice had dissipated for a moment, but then I heard her screaming in pain.
    Anna? What’s wrong?
    My mind started to race. Something was obviously happening to her and I couldn’t do anything to help her.
    Anna?! Anna are you alright?! Please Anna don’t be hurt!, I thought, praying that she was still listening to me. My panicked thoughts were cut short.
    “Stop child! That is enough!” A woman ordered angrily. As far I knew nothing really happened. There was no response.
    Seconds later I heard Anna’s, and the angry woman’s voice. They were talking about gifts. I didn’t hear everything they were saying, I was too focused on the pain.
    “Whatever it is she had, was already extremely enhanced. To the point that no one would believe that it could be enhanced more, but it will be and that’s why it hurts her so much.” The woman explained, her voice no longer filled with anger.
    “Is it going to get worse?” Anna asked softly.
    “Yes, it isn’t finished accelerating. It will stop increasing when she reaches the 48 hour mark. She’ll be in more pain than a person could ever imagine for her last 24 hours.”
    I blocked everything out. All I could hear was the beating of my burning heart. This pain was going to continue to increase though it was already unbearable. Why did I have to be a human augur?
    I was definitely going to need to go to an insane asylum after this because this pain was driving me absolutely crazy.
    I swallowed what I could of the pain so I could pay attention to what was going on around me. I had to be more astute to what I was hearing because I couldn’t move or see. It was one of the most terrifying things ever (besides being attacked and nearly killed by a vampire). Not being able to see, not being able to move or communicate with anyone, not knowing where I was, and not knowing what was going to happen to my friends and family was just an awful feeling. Even worse than the physical pain that was writhing inside me like an angry venomous snake.
    Out of nowhere I felt something cold on top of my hand. “It’s okay Kasey; everything is going to be alright. They’re going to get some water to try to help you. They’re going to dump it on you. It won’t stop the burning, but it will distract you from it for a little while. I’m sorry for doing this to you. When they come back, I have to leave. I need to hunt, I’m so thirsty. Oh, and I’m not reading your mind right now, I can’t. Your pain is too severe and I feel it when I read your mind. Christopher and Chelo don’t want me to read your mind while you transform.” Anna told me. “I hope you’ll forgive me. I hope I can atone for it when you are done changing.”
    I wanted to cry. Anna felt so bad for what she did to me. I wanted to reach out and give her hug and tell her that it was alright and that I forgave her.
    “Here comes the water, Kasey. It should help a little bit,” The woman said. I assumed that she was Chelo, the one Anna had mentioned a moment earlier. She dumped the icy water on me. It most certainly distracted me and even though it didn’t really help with actual burning, it did feel refreshing. At least it was some form of relief and seemed to turn the attrition into something more like atrophy; like the pain was slowly scarring my brain causing it to just waste away into nothing. I don’t care what Anna said. I was going insane.
    I heard arguing next to me. It was so loud and it was about me.
    Anna was yelling. She was desperate to help ease this god-awful pain, but that angry-voiced woman, Chelo, was trying to convince her that anything they do will not help me at all during my last 24 hours of transformation.
    How was I supposed to deal with that kind of pain for 24 hours? It was hard enough to handle the level it was at for even a minute.
    “Fine, but I have to leave. I can’t just sit here and watch. Come and get me when she has one hour left. I’m going to Carla and Jorge.” Anna said, voice slightly agitated. My heart sunk. I mentally screamed at her to stay with me and not leave me alone with two strangers.
    “Hush, child. She already left,” Chelo whispered, her normally irritated voice was now soft and soothing.
    You’re a mind reader too? I asked.
    “Yes I am. I read mines a little differently than Anna does. For hers she has to concentrate on the person of choice, then she can feel what they feel and hear what they are thinking. For mine, I just hear them as they’re being thought. Oh, and by the way, my name is Chelo, so you can stop referring me to me as ‘the angry-voiced woman‘.” She chuckled softly.
    Oh, I’m sor--
    “Shush”
    Everything went eerily silent.
    “Chris, we have to leave, I hear the police in the distance. They’re looking for Anna and Kasey now. We’ll go to Carla’s. Anna should already be there so we don’t have to worry about her.” Chelo said quietly.
    Suddenly I was lifted up and slung carefully over either Chris’ or Chelo’s shoulder and the cool evening air twisted through my hair so rapidly that for a second I thought we were in a car or motorcycle, but I heard no engine. It felt like they were…running.
    All the qualities of a vampire were just so fascinating, but the pain and the suffering to become one was just atrocious and the things that they do to survive just seemed like something out of a movie. Just then I realized that as soon as I wake, I’ll have to kill someone.
    I had forgotten about that.
    I instantly felt sick. Maybe that’s why the churches thought of vampires as an atrocity. They had to kill God’s creation to survive and that was just wrong. They thought of vampires as something that the Devil had created and I don’t blame them. I don’t think that God would allow this sort of torment to happen, unless he had little control over his demonic brother.
    My thoughts were suddenly cut short when something bright flashed across my darkened eyesight. Could it be that I could still have visions even though my mind was already stressed enough as it was?

    I saw Anna before me; her beautiful pale complexion was twisted into an aggravated expression.
    She was mad at me and she absolutely refused to talk to me.
    The vision seemed to fast forward, and throughout it all Anna refused to talk to me whatsoever after I had finished transforming    .

    Everything went black again. I was so confused. Why was she mad at me? The more I replayed it in my head the more I realized how long she was ignoring me for. She was going to be angry at me for the first 26 hours after my transformation.
    Fantastic.
    Surprisingly my thoughts drifted off the topic due to a rather loud sigh of relief.
    “Anna, we were so worried! You said you would be here, why weren’t you? Where have you been?” Chelo demanded.
    “I’ve been in California. I wasn’t really planning on being away until Kasey’s last hour, and I wasn’t in the mood for conversation. So instead of coming here, I went to California for a while. At sundown I ran back home, but you three were gone, so I came here.”
    “Well thank heavens! We didn’t know where you had runoff to. If you don’t really mean what you say, then don’t say it! Things like that can worry us when a situation occurs and we come to the place out said you would be, just to find you were never there!”
    Anna had run off? That wasn’t like her to just lie about where she was going. Then again, she has changed. Both physically and I guess mentally as well. This was going to be one heck of a journey.
    Something happened and I missed it. By the sound of it, Anna got upset so Chelo was telling her a story about how she and Carla had become vampires.
    Apparently they had turned in 1850 due to an attack on the way home from church. Some important papers were blown into the forest so of course they had to go into the forest to get them. That’s where it happened. Chelo was the first to be attacked. Carla tried to run but, the vampire dropped Chelo before she was dead and went after Carla. The vampire heard a noise and ran off before Carla was dead. Then they were found by Jorge. He calmed them both down and told them about hunting animals.
    After they were completely changed, Carla and Jorge immediately feel in love and married the following week. While that was happening, Chelo was hunting humans and plotting her revenge against the church.
    Chelo attended hers and Carla’s funeral. She blended into the crowd with her fake sadness. Soon she started to feel thirsty, and that’s when her plan was kicked into action. She walked up to the podium and told the people in the crowd that she was Consuelo Gutierrez and that Carla was alive. She told them that they have been lied to about vampires. Authorities tried to remove her, but she just threw them aside and threatened anyone who dared to interrupt her again, but the priest butted in and tried to convince everyone that Chelo was a Satanist. Chelo had had enough of the foolishness so instead of killing the priest, she turned him into a vampire.
    After Chelo had finished the story she told them her the people now tell the story and how theatrical it was. Anna commented that it would make a pretty great Broadway show.
    The conversation quickly faded and their attention turned back to me. Of course Anna immediately felt the guilt. Sort of like the way I felt when I found out she had gone missing.
    Chelo comforted her and told her that it wasn’t her fault and that she should stop worrying, but Anna was just as stubborn to letting go of the fact that we caused each other ‘s demise as I was.
    Several hours went by and the pain increased intensely. The transformation had to be close to done already.
    Then something weird happened. I started to have another vision, but I couldn’t tell what was going on.

    I was so confused. All around me, the air filled with the screeches and howls of dying people. Limbs were everywhere as my coven was torn to shreds. It was all happening so fast that I had no time to process it all. I turned and looked into the dark, bloodthirsty eyes of a brunette man. Before I could even react, I was joining my friends in a pile of limbs

    The vision was so frightening that I continued to scream. Even though the vision was over, the pain had remained. I squirmed and screamed uncontrollably. It was too much to bear.
    Someone put their hands on my shoulders, but I continued to squirm. Then they tried to push down on my chest to keep me still, but it still didn’t work. I didn’t think that anything would. I wanted to stop screaming, but I couldn’t. The vision was so terrifying and so real that I actually thought I was there being ripped to pieces.
    “Kasey, calm down! Just calm down, you’ll be okay!” Anna pleaded. I could barely hear her over my screaming.
    Only seconds passed when my heart started to beat harder and harder. It was becoming harder and harder to breathe. I began gasping for air as my chest rose and fell over and over again.
    The pain was getting worse and worse. I balled my hands into fists and attempted to embrace the pain, but it didn’t help much. My heart and my breathing also continued to augment.
    Then it happened.
    The rate of my heart had finally reached it peak, my breathing stopped, the pain gathered in heart, and then it was all over.
    No breathing.
    No heart beat.
    No pain.
    I opened my eyes and looked up at five of the most gorgeous people I have ever seen. One of them belonging to Anna.
    “I knew you would save me,” I smiled widely at my best friend.
    “I couldn’t let anything happen to you,” She said smiling back. Her smile was so real, so authentic that I knew that Anna and I were one hundred percent true friends forever. Literally.