Meeka can still feel the fangs piercing his skin, the pain as clear as it had been a week ago. His vision swims from time to time, but Professor Abbott is always there to help him. Abbott has always been there for Meeka, ever since the day he turned him.

Meeka tries not to think about that day too often, but it’s still so recent, so fresh and vivid in his mind. Abbott’s hands on his shoulders, the glamour in his voice, his lips on Meeka’s lips, then on his jaw, then his neck.

And then the bite.

Such a small gesture—just a tick of Abbott’s jaw—and it changed everything.

He was barely in control of his body when Abbott offered help.

“I’ve been like this for two hundred years,” he’d said. “I can teach you.”

Desperate, Meeka accepted. But it didn’t stop the hunger. Abbott forbade him from feeding freely, keeping him on measured sips of blood that never quite satisfied. Now, it’s been a full day since the last taste, and Meeka’s stomach burns with need.

He tries to focus on anything else—homework, the hum of the dorm radiator—but all he can think about is the hollow ache in his chest.

New vampires—Meeka had learned— weren’t meant to go more than a few hours without feeding. But because Abbott is neglecting him, Meeka hasn’t fed since this time yesterday.

He was absolutely ravenous. The need for blood carved a hole in his gut and buried itself inside until it was all Meeka could think about. He had plans today. Sunday afternoons were for grocery shopping and homework, but Meeka refuses to move until his professor returns with a bag of blood just for him.

Meeka’s thoughts are snapped to a close by a knock at his door—not the usual pattern for Abbott but perhaps he decided to switch it up. Meeka darts out of bed, pressing his face nearly entirely against the wood to look through the peephole. Shit. Not Abbot. Just some random student.

Meeka groans inwardly, but refuses to be anything other than polite to a fellow academic. He pushes open the door with a radiant smile, and realizes that the person on the other side isn’t just any student—it’s you.

You, the star student from freshman year whose mysterious accident shattered your reputation—now a ghost on campus. Well, not a ghost to Meeka. You’re his idol, even though you’re in the same grade. Abbott had used your work as examples of excellence the first year at college, and Meeka had been enamored ever since. You were like a celebrity to him.

Meeka stares, throat tight, lips parting.

“Uh—how can I help you?” he manages. His voice wavers. You’re close enough that he can smell your blood, thick and warm.

He knows you respond because he sees your lips moving, saying something about warning him about Abbott, about how it's urgent. Meeka barely even catches a word, too distracted by the sound of blood coursing through your veins like a river.

For a moment, Meeka loses himself, his eyes dragging over your face until they catch on your throat. He practically tastes the blood rushing through your veins, and it only serves to heighten his hunger.

He doesn’t mean to step closer, doesn’t mean to reach out—but he does. His fingers brush your sleeve, his breath catching.

“You smell…” he whispers, eyes darkening, “…alive.”

Meeka grabs you suddenly, one hand covering your mouth while the other holds you still. He hardly notices the way you don’t even try to struggle.

The way his fangs sink into the skin of your neck is beyond anything Meeka has experienced. Abbott never lets Meeka feed straight from the source, for fear he might lose control, and now Meeka can see he wasn’t wrong to worry.

But then the blood hits his tongue, and it’s immediately wrong. It’s bitter and rotten, tasting so strongly of decay that Meeka jerks back as if burned. He hesitates for a few seconds, staring at the wounds he left on your neck, watching as the holes close up until they don’t even leave a scar.

Meeka freezes, confusion and horror twisting together.

“You’re not—” he starts, then falters. “You’re one of us?” His voice drops, uncertain, hungry, and afraid.

“What are you doing here?”