Deadly Beautiful. by Vivian Vargas (little readers .txt) 📖

In a few days, I am going to die. I know it sounds quite ridiculous. How can I state something so morbid as though I am not afraid? As though the thought of death doesn’t frighten me just a little? Death cannot hurt, can it? Death is just a part of life. Everyone dies whether they want to or not. It just happens – there is nothing that the human race can do to stop from eventually meeting the fate they are destined for the moment they are born. Everyone’s heart is meant to stop – that is why I cannot trust the feelings in my heart because it always betrays you in the end.
In my world, things are not what you think. And I may speak of “death” as though I am not at all nervous about it but truthfully, I am terrified. I am petrified, edgy and excited all rolled into one. No, I am not planning to attempt suicide if that’s what you think. Suicide is a coward’s way out, and above all things I am not a coward. I am just choosing a different path, a path paved with blood and gold, a path that was not exactly laid out for me, but one that I have flagged for myself. One thing is for sure – I am not planning to die anytime soon. I want to live – to be able to walk this world and watch it grow. To educate myself in all matters possible. To travel and see far out places that I wouldn’t have dreamed visiting if I were normal. I am tired of living a boring, mundane and ghastly life where there is nothing for me but medicine and a caretaker, parents who don’t love me – furthermore forever struggling to breathe, dealing with all kinds of agony riddling my stomach and the rest of my body… and last but not least, listening to everyone whispering about me when they think I can’t hear, saying that I probably won’t make it, that I will die before my time for there is no cure, no reprieve… believing every word that others say because the outcome of my life is so clear it is as though it was planned out for me, as though it was written in a book that I should suffer and writhe till the end of my time, wrinkling away like a raisin in the sun…
I know what I plan on doing is going to be excruciatingly painful. I am a little nervous about that. Sometimes to get what you want or need means that you have to go through pain of all forms. No one likes pain, but I am not afraid of it. I lived through pain and weakness enough that I taught myself to not be fearful of it.
This is going to shock you, avid reader : the night I turn eighteen, I am going to become a vampire. Vampire? Yes, Vampire. Blood consuming, soul sucking vampire. I will not necessarily be dead, but I won’t exactly be living. I will be the bloodthirsty undead. It is something that must happen. Before I get sicker. Before I really die, wiped off from the very face of this planet.
I have been sick practically all of my life. I was born with chronic asthma – as my mother once said, “Born as a useless sack of bad lungs.” I lived with not being able to breathe until I was eleven years old, but when the asthma seemed to be going away, sharp horrible pains began in my lower abdomen. It was nothing like I was used to – at that very moment when the pains had started I couldn’t help but think: when is it all going to end? Will it be one thing after the other until I die? When my parents arranged for me to visit the local doctor –for the fifth time that month may I add- he diagnosed me with stomach cancer.
That is when I figured that there was no way out of an early death, one that I did not want. It was saddening to know that I probably won’t even have developed gray hairs by the time I am laid to rest, forever remembered as a living ghost.
When I become a vampire, I wouldn’t have to bear this disease anymore. And the way I see it, it’s either I become a vampire, or be buried underground until my body disintegrates with the earth, because the cancer would surely take my life. I don’t plan on the latter. I don’t want to die. I feel as though I have lived with enough suffering to perish now. I have fought for my life with every breath I took when I was human. If I cannot be healthy as a human, I will be a perfect being as a vampire.
It is not unethical. Sure, some humans believe that vampires were never meant to be created, that vampires were products of the devil. Blood-drinking was thought to be a form of art created by the darkness of Hell, a favorite food that the evilest of demons enjoyed. The way I see if, blood is a form of life, and its just a food. It is the same way I eat bread and soup and fish –since I need it as a human to survive, vampires need their blood to survive. All creatures from the Night Clan are considered to be the evil. Vampires, Werewolves, Druids, Shape Shifters, etc. They are all wicked in my family’s eyes, ungodly and sinful. I was raised with these beliefs. My family is devout Christians.
If you haven’t lived with cancer, I rightfully implore you not to judge my decision as foolish.
Besides, there are certain good things on becoming a vampire. I will be immortal. I will never die, unless someone kills me. That fact happens to be the main attraction on my decision on becoming a vampire. I will live for as long as the very earth survives. I will be beautiful forever. I will be suave and debonair. I will be elegant yet fierce. I will never get old. I will be strong and fast and smart, with animal like instincts no human will ever have. I will be extraordinary. I will be everything that I am not now. I will no longer be considered human, but I will be far greater than one.
****
“Did you take your pills yet, Morgan dear?” Sue said. I watched her as she bustled around making me one of those putrid potions that helped clear my lungs.
“No ma’am.” I answered her. Sue was my nanny. She was a stout, portly woman with a face that looked like black pudding and hands that were strong and calloused –in short, she was absolutely lovely. She has taken care of me since I was very young. She had spent most of her life caring for cancer-sick children. She had always told me that she has never seen a child like me fight so hard for my life. She never saw someone so determined to live, even when an early death was surely to be anticipated. I loved her because she believed in me, unlike my mother and father. My mother and father are waiting for me to die. It’s actually quite wrong and cruel to say that they actually have no love for me, but they cannot suffer the burden of having a very sick child much longer.
They have seen nothing yet.
I was sick in bed today. I am most of the time I am too weak to go outside my room, especially during the day (maybe I am supposed to be a vampire)and today was one of those absolutely horrid days. My room was a tad bit too cold and the sheets that covered me felt itchy. I was coming down with a fever and I was not breathing well. My skin was ashen and sweaty. I was probably reeking of illness. I was used to this.
Even when Sue came around with that blasted tin pillbox and her yellow bubbly concoction, it did not ruin my lovely mood. The prospect of me living happily healthy, human or not, made me pleased. I could not wait for the time to come.
Sue popped two little white pills in my mouth and then forced that disgusting brew down my throat. I coughed. I only coughed because the liquid was terrible, but Sue naturally thought it was something else. She looked at me with worry, sitting me up so that she could rub my back. I did not like when she worried like this. She was an old woman that did not need her heart to be troubled so. She had enough trouble taking care of me; that’s the problem when you care sick children. Sue will be heartbroken when I die because I was always like her own child.
Good moods really don’t last forever. It vanished like a wisp of smoke.
“Morgan, you cannot go outside today. There is a chill in the air and you are as ill as it is.”
“But Sue! Fannie needs exercising .”
“You’ve been exercising that horse every day of this week. No wonder you are
sick today. Give that poor horse some rest. You both need it.”
“Please, please! Riding Fannie is such a joy! She keeps my mind off things.”
Sue stopped rubbing my back. Her eyes narrowed on her portly face. She crossed her arms and her jowl quivered. I knew this look. I have seen it plenty of times throughout my life. It was one of those, “Morgan Helen Blackwood! What on earth you have been up to as of late?”
I bit my lower lip as Sue glared at me. I could never tell her. Though I love Sue dearly, I could never let her know what’s going to happen –what I planned to do to myself. No one should know, considering a vampire’s social status was very much written along the lines of pure evil. I can damn myself to hell by changing into a vampire, but I could never let my family and Sue know such a thing. What would they think? That their daughter decided to turn into a “monster” rather than stay human, stay normal?
What’s the necessity of being normal, when I can be immortal?
“You are not to go outside today. Promise me Morgan.” She said sternly. I hated when Sue was cross with me. Sue was like my mother and she can exert all the power she wanted to, just because she can. But still, Sue was everything to me, more to me than my own mother was.
“I promise Sue.” I sighed in defeat.
“Good. I’ll go make you some soup. Stay in your bed dear.” She said, getting up from my bed and gathering my sick things, “Drink your potion.”
I groaned. But as she left, I uncrossed my fingers from underneath my bed sheets. So help me God, but I fully intended to disobey her.

*******

Whitney

I was bloody fucked. There was no doubt about it. The shit hit the fan. Not to mention it slapped me right in the face.
If I don’t get out of this place soon, I’m surely going to go crazy. Insane. Loca. Those iron bars shut me in hell and there was no way out of it. I never thought I was claustrophobic until now. I can feel the prison walls constricting all around me, compressing me as though I was