Wings of Butterflies

2. No Man Can Be My Equal

“Gabby, I know that you want to go”, Ray said in an ironical tone.

     “Haha, very funny”, I answered in a dead voice.

     I was not in the mood for his games at the moment. The failure of the hunt and the lack of fresh blood always made me irritated and it had now been three days since our latest hunting trip. Usually I could go a full week without new blood, but since I only drank half of the last woman’s blood, I was now already craving the warm, wonderful liquid flowing inside every human body. But the only thing for me the next coming days was cold disgusting hospital blood. Yuck, I didn’t even want to think about the horrid smell and not to forget: the artificial taste. The old blood from the hospital where Ray was “friends” with a young nurse who satisfied our special needs every day, tasted more like plastic than the real thing. I wanted it to be Sunday night so bad! Before we begun our education at The College, I never used to care about what day or month it was. All I did was to live in the spare of the moment.

     “But I’m serious Gab, we have to go. It’s for the entire freshmen class. The other day I strictly recall you talking about how you wanted to start and fit in”

     I sighed and gave Ray an angry look. Why did he use my own words against me?

     “I did say that, yes. But my thoughts about fitting in meant maybe talking to one person tomorrow who is not a faculty member. Not going to some ridiculous rave party. All those people Ray...” I imagined the warmth pulsating out from every single body in the crowded little dorm. “I don’t know if I can restrain myself.”

     “I know that you can handle it. All you have to do is drink a lot before we go there.” He walked closer to me. “I trust you.”

     All I wanted to do was cut him off and say something mean, but something stopped me. It was those eyes, it was extremely difficult to say no to them.

     “Alright”, I said doubtfully. “I will try Ray that is all I can promise you.”

     “And that is all I’m asking of you.”

I didn’t feel sure about this decision, because even though Ray had faith in me, I did not share his feelings. If I would still be this starved, there was no chance that I would be able to control myself. In a classroom, the situation wasn’t the same at all. Everybody kept to themselves and never invaded my personal space. But at a big party in a tiny room… I could already feel the mouth-watering feeling when humans were being pushed up against me. But I had to bury those feelings deep down. I knew that I couldn’t risk exposing what we were or hurting Ray. Because if I killed someone, it would be the same as stabbing Ray in the heart. It would be fatal. We could never go back to the school and Ray’s dream would be over before it had even started. I would do this for him and I would do it well. All I had to do was to play the beautiful, polite and supporting girlfriend from the south. I knew I didn’t have to say much, Ray would take care of the talking for both of us. That was one of his many talents. He was an outstanding rhetorician and it wasn’t a coincidence that he was involved in politics during his short life as a human being.

     When Ray went through his transformation, he had turned nineteen the week before. For him, it was as unexpected and poorly planned as my own transformation and it was painful in more than one way for him. Ray felt that he had so much more to give as a human and like me; he left behind the love of his life. His maker told him right after he had turned him that Ray now never had a chance to go back to living a normal life but Ray wanted to prove him wrong. I had never asked him, because I could tell that it was a sensitive matter, but I had always thought that those words were part of what made him decide to go to college. Because his transformation had killed something more than the human inside of him, he needed to bring some of that back by surrounding himself with humans and try to live a human life.