The Young Blood

1.

The last thing I remembered was Mama telling me to be a good girl as she tucked me into a box. The Revolutionaries were coming, she said, go to sleep it'll only be a few weeks.

A needle in my arm slowly bled me dry as darkness came over me.

And so I slept the dreamless stillness of torpor, becoming a corpse once again...

***

When consciousness returned, it was from the scent of blood. I was covered by dust, my clothing had gone all ragged and moth-eaten...

How long had I been out? Where was Mama?

Everything was so distant.

"Fuck!" I heard a man's voice.

"Careful you idiot." Another replied.

Although I knew English I did not recognize the strange accents they affected.

A small drip of red warm blood came down onto my cheek, it took all my strength to lick it. The dark ambrosia brought me back to life, gasping for air.

My chest burnt, firing back to life as my empty stomach churned. I needed to feed. A few more drops of blood fell down and I reached out to lick it, giving me a sliver of strength and Vitality.

The box I was trapped in was forced open and a man with a long beard gazed upon me.

"What the fuck! There's a girl in there!"

"Where am I?" I asked.

"A warehouse on the docks?"

That had not narrowed it down at all.

"Who are you, how did you get here?"

"My name is Anastacia, I do not know how I got here."

The men looked at each other for a moment. My head was still pounding from being in torpor so long.

Where had mama gone? Why hadn't she woken me? Had something happened to her?

One of the men took out a strange flat device made of glass and plastic, he spoke into it. I observed them, their fashion was nothing like I had grown seeing in person or in pictures.

I did not have the strength to walk so I waited, gathering my thoughts. They spoke English but not the queen's English, perhaps I was in the Americas? It was the most logical place.

A wailing noise came to my ears, and soon two people wearing a blue uniform came forward.

They asked me a great many questions, I barely could answer before they elected to take me 'downtown.' The world outside the warehouse was an even stranger one; complex automobiles were everywhere, people affected strange fashions, and a bizarre metallic contraption flew in the sky.

I must have been slumbering for a long time... But how long?

I was brought into a 'Police Headquarter' and sat down in a room, given a pastry and water to drink. A large flat device had moving images and broadcasted sound as we came in. They had given me strange loose fitted clothes to change into as well. All of this was so unfamiliar...

I told them what I could remember and could say without raising suspicions; the name of my mother, where I had been born. Eventually, I was left alone.

They must have thought I could not hear them.

"She has no ID, she doesn't match any missing person's report, we asked the Russian embassy but no response so far. Do you think she was trafficked?"

"Sounds likely."

"She was probably drugged, she looks terrible and can't remember basic information like her birth year..."

I was not sure what this trafficking business was, but it seemed wise to play along. I tried to think, but I hardly could, feeling the pain of hunger. Although my kind could eat human food, we required more to live...

I was alone for a long time, I could hear people speaking in other rooms, their words becoming muddled and confused.

After a truly long time, a dark-skinned man in a suit came to me.

"Hello there, my name is Alejandro Gomez, I'm the social worker assigned to your case. What's your name?"

"Anastacia Mikhalkov."

"Do you know where you are?"

"America, I believe."

"Yes, you're currently in California, do you know how you got here?"

"I do not. I am afraid I woke up in that crate, my last memory was going to sleep at home." I lied.

"When was that?"

"I am not quite sure, I believe it was around mid-October."

"We're now in January."

"I see." January of what year? Surely it had been a long time since I had last been awake.

"Do you think you were kidnapped and kept drugged?"

"As I said to the policemen, I do not know."

Mr. Gomez nodded somberly. "We are keeping watch over that warehouse you were found in, see if whoever may have put you there come back.

"A smart move."

"In the meantime, it's been decided you can come and live with me."

"With you?"

"My wife and I are foster parents for various girls in situations like you, whose parents cannot care for them for one reason or another."

"I see."

"I brought you some clothes, they might not fit too well."

"They shall do."

He gave me a bag and I was sent to a private bathroom where I changed into these new clothes; the shirt felt quite sheer and loosely fitted, meanwhile, I was given denim trousers to wear. What a strange era to be in where women wore such things.