Early June 1965
I did not die
That was the first thing I learned.
Starvation, for us, is not death—it is descent.
The long unraveling of reason, a dull gnawing at the boundaries of the self. My body, this frozen, unnatural thing, refused collapse—even as it hollowed me from the inside.
I stopped counting days. Stopped measuring hours. The cellar held only dark and thirst, and the silence between.
I slept without sleep.
Dreamed without dreams.
Until the scent came.
It arrived one morning—if morning it was, for I could no longer tell—like smoke through a keyhole. Barely a thread of air, and yet it pierced me.
Blood.
Fresh. Human. Alive.
It came from beyond the vineyard, drifting in on the breeze like a whisper of heat. Not near—but near enough. A wound, perhaps. An accident, or someone walking the hills with a cut finger, unknowing.
It should have meant nothing.
But to my starved senses, it was symphony. Sunlight, a flame in the throat of winter.
My whole body stiffened.
I hadn't moved in days. Now I shot upright so quickly I knocked over a crate beside me. My vision went white, and my throat constricted so sharply I clawed at it, desperate.
No...No...
I pressed my forehead against the stone wall, trying to think. Trying to breathe through lungs that hadn't drawn breath in weeks. My fingers dug into the mortar until they cracked.
It's just a scent, I told myself.
A memory, even.
But that was a lie, the blood was real.
I could feel it.
Not only its smell—but its warmth. Its shape, its distance. Like the ghost of a heartbeat radiating outward. The predator inside me stirred, stretching its limbs with terrible grace.
I fell to my knees.
For a moment, I considered it. Truly considered it.
If I were fast—just once—I could take what I needed and vanish. No one would see, no one would find a trace. I was not like before. I had changed. I could be careful, gentle, and efficient.
I could feed and return.
And never do it again.
I shuddered.
The cellar seemed smaller. The shadows moved strangely. I felt watched—but not from above, but from within.
"You said you wouldn't," said a voice near the stairs.
I turned.
It was Serge again.
His sweater was torn. His eyes were glassy. A single line of red crossed his throat like a necklace of guilt.
I squeezed my eyes shut. "You're not real."
But another voice came.
"Will you promise me again?" Élodie.
She stood against the opposite wall, bare feet mottled with dirt. Her arms were crossed, her expression unreadable.
I covered my ears.
Still the scent lingered—growing stronger, not weaker. Someone was coming closer. A hiker? A farmer? A boy chasing a stray goat?
They had no idea what waited beneath the vines.
No idea what stirred beneath the soil.
I stumbled to my feet, disoriented. My strength had not returned. I was fast—but I was weak. And yet the scent called louder than thought.
One movement.
One impulse.
I could break the hatch, leap, feed, flee.
And who would stop me?
But the hallucinations—my dead, my regrets—they circled me like a jury.
"You locked yourself in," whispered Victorine. "Will you let us out now?"
I pressed my back to the wall and screamed.
A wordless, furious sound.
The kind that cracked ribs.
It echoed in the stone chamber, shaking dust from the ceiling. When it faded, the scent of blood still lingered—but the silence was intact.
I was still here.
I was still me.
I collapsed once more, and this time, I did not rise.
Instead, I whispered to the darkness.
"I will not feed. I will not become what they made me. Not yet, not for this."
Outside, somewhere on the wind, the scent faded. A shift in direction. A turn in the path. Whatever source it had—was gone.
Relief and grief struck me like twin blades.
I had passed the test.
But the thirst remained.
The thing inside me had tasted the idea of blood, and it would not forget.