The next morning felt... wrong.
Becky noticed it before she even opened her eyes.
The air in her room had weight. Heavy. Still.
She sat up slowly, blinking into the early grey light leaking through her curtains.
Everything looked the same. But nothing felt the same.
Her notebook
—the one with her dream notes—was open on her desk.
She hadn't left it like that.
And worse…
There was a red stain on the page.
Not ink.
Not paint.
It looked like wine.
She walked over slowly.
It was on the line she wrote last:
"8. I am not his."
Someone
—or something
—had crossed it out.
Her hands shook as she flipped through the other pages. On the last page, something new was written. Not in her handwriting.
Just one sentence:
"Would you like to have some wine?"
She slammed the notebook shut.
No.
No.
Not while she was awake.
This was supposed to be just a dream.
Later that day, Becky sat with her friends in the campus café, trying to act normal. Gail was talking. Gary was laughing. Carly was scrolling through memes.
And yet—
Everywhere Becky looked… someone was drinking red wine.
She blinked.
The glass in Gail's hand was filled with soda.
She blinked again.
It turned dark. Red.
Like blood.
Like the dream.
She stood up so fast the chair fell.
"I—I need some air," she mumbled.
Out in the hallway, she leaned against the cold wall, trying to breathe.
A whisper crawled through her ear:
"You're already choosing."
She turned. No one.
But the hallway lights above her flickered.
For the first time, Becky understood something:
The vampire wasn't trying to kill her.
He was trying to make her choose death willingly.