The Vampire Koala
Originally published on October 5th, 2012 by Dimitri Bouniol. #FNADNST
The girl's head was throbbing…
She slowly opened her eyes, but shuddered at the bright light on the ceiling.
When she reopened her eyes, she looked around, but all she could find was a somewhat cozy looking living room with a single window peering into the night.
She had no clue as to where this location was, or how she got there.
After thinking it through some more, she realized how little she remembered about the world around her.
Horrified that she might not even know who she herself was, she tried to remember.
Just as she was about to pass out from the fear of finding nothing, she remembered.
She remembered but a single fact: that her name was Elyse.
Relieved to have remembered that much, she steadied her posture, but her head was still filled with a harsh throbbing sensation, so she put the matter to rest for the time being.
She got up from the couch from which she slept moments before, and walked over to the window.
No matter how far she looked, all she could see was darkness, even in this night bathed by the full moon above.
Suddenly, she heard a sound behind her than made her jump.
She herself was quite surprised by the speed with which she turned around, and by the fact that she took up an immediate defensive position.
Was she always so quick with her movements? She thought it strange that she would even think such a thing, despite not remembering a single fact about herself other than her name…
But upon realizing the source of the noise, she lowered her guard.
An old man had just walked unto the room with a cup of water in his hands, and he spoke: 目が覚めたか？
The girl looked straight into his eyes, and although she didn't understand a word that came out of his mouth, she understood that he meant no harm, simply by the smile on his face.
The old man walked forward and handed Elyse the cup of water.
"お名前は？" the old man seemed to ask her, but the girl had no clue what to respond.
She thankfully took the glass of water to her mouth though, hoping it would soothe the pain she was feeling.
Oddly enough, as she drank, she only became thirstier, and the pain only grew.
Was the liquid she was drinking poisoned? No, she thought, as the old man had no reason to do such a thing.
It tasted just like water, as fas as she could remember, but somehow, it wasn't quenching a deepening thirst that was growing inside of her.
With a shot of pain, her face tensed up and she half collapsed to her knees.
Worried, the old man ran to her side, yelling more gibberish: 大丈夫か!?
She tried to relax a bit, but upon looking at the old man, she felt a drip of saliva escape her lips.
Of particular interest was his neck, but she had no reason to be picky. She thought to herself that if she could only grab a bite of that, she would be fine.
All the pain would simply go away, and all her memories would return. Thats what a voice inside her head was telling her.
Thats what her instinct was telling her…
Realizing the absurdity behind these thoughts, she realized she had to escape the presence of this gentle old man.
She pushed him back, and ran to the window, jumping through it feet first.
Where she had learned about such acrobatics, she did not know, but she did find them to be particularly useful given the situation.
With nothing but plains and hills in front of her, she ran.
She again thought to herself that going back was a better option, that she should at least take a taste…
But she could not bring herself to accept this, and with this resolve, the pain in her head grew tremendously.
As her consciousness faded in and out, she started to wonder what she would be able to do on her own here.
Would she simply pass out on these green plains?
With this thought, she had a moment of déjà vu.
This was not the first time she was running in such a scenery…
She had no clue if it was just hours ago, or even days, but she clearly remembered running these plains in the nick of the night.
That's right, she had collapsed of exhaustion, and could do nothing but stare at the stars above her.
But she knew deep inside that there was no one looking back at her.
She was alone, she wasn't like the other two who happily partook in the consumption of living flesh.
She had no idea it would even turn out the way it did, their little experiment.
All she knew was that she needed to get away from them. From the others around her that brought forth a deep hunger in her gut just by looking at them.
That was when she heard someone call out to her; it was the old man.
She tried to tell him to run away, but all he did was looked slightly perplexed by the girl's eccentric gestures in front of him, and so he smiled.
However, the desire to consume grew tremendously inside of her until she simply passed out.
That is what she remembered.
Why did she have to partake in that foolish research for the sake of immortality.
If she had known it would be at the expense of there people's lives, she would have never committed such a horrendous crime.
She slowed her pace, and looked up at the stars.
That's right, immortality was impossible after all.
All they could approach was a being able to continue their lives indefinitely, by consuming the live energy of others.
And in the process, would become consumed themselves by this greed.
While her partners kept on eating other humans non stop, Elyse held out for as long as possible.
But not consuming had a limit attached to it as well.
She watched her partners turn into veritable monsters, truly horrendous beings that ate not because they were hungry, but because their prey was easy to catch.
She couldn't bring herself to accept what they had done.
At that point, she also remembered the reason she was running.
She wanted to destroy those so-called immortal beings that were once her friends, and concur this overwhelming instinct inside of her that made her so hungry.
Although it was just a hunch, she was wondering if it was possible to create an anti-elixir, an opposite to the one they created with the help of demons.
She had researched the opposite ingredients of all the things that went into the original elixir, but she hit a dead end quickly
Then she had heard from a villager that there was a eucalyptus forrest not too far from where they were, and the villager explained that even the normally violent koala could be tamed when it was fed the leaves of this tree.
So she decided to give it a shot, and she set out on this journey that brought her here.
How she was able to hold out so long, she did not know.
Was it the power of the elixir itself?
She hadn't eaten nor drank anything in weeks, out of fear she might lose herself like the other two did.
In fact, she was quite proud that she lasted so long.
But she couldn't give up.
The forrest was just ahead, so she looked straight ahead of her once more and started running once again.
Upon arriving at the forrest, the urge to consume was unsurmountable.
Out of panic, she broke off a branch of a young eucalyptus tree and devoured it.
The speed she was able to bight through not only the leaves, but the wood as well surprised her quite a bit.
And although it had a bitter taste, she continued to eat from these trees.
Slowly, her hunger slowly disappeared, along with the throbbing sensation in her head.
Her mind cleared up… amazingly, this worked.
But her instincts were still on fire, causing her to quickly turn around, only to greet two great beasts of the night that were behind her.
It seemed that her partners had grown tired of human flesh, and wanted something more.
Their bodies had grown three times their original size, their hands fitted with fearsomely sharp claws, and their bodies covered in cool blue fur, that could be seen as an outline formed by the moonlight around their huge silhouettes.
They were no longer her partners at that point, not even human.
One of them took a step forward, and suddenly lunged at Elyse.
Quickly reacting, she dodged and simultaneously attacked the other one.
It turns out that after turning into such instinct driven creatures, they had lost all the traits that once made them human.
And despite eating so many humans, all they became was something more distant.
It was thus no effort for her to outsmart them and defeat them.
She was, however, unable to kill them. She just could't bring herself to do so.
She knew deep inside that there would be a way to save them.
In an act of desperation, she took a handful of eucalyptus leaves nearby, and brought them to her mouth.
After thoroughly chewing them, the placed them in the unconscious beasts' mouths and forced them to swallow.
After doing this several times, one came to.
But instead of viciously attacking her, it calmly looked around.
In a way, it looked rather at peace with itself.
The setting moon reflected in its eyes, and the other also silently woke up.
After looking around for a moment, they both looked up to the stars.
As if trying to reach them, they climbed high up into the trees.
But at that moment, Elyse simply passed out, and woke up once again on a couch.
Once again, she squinted at the bright light above her, but her head did not hurt.
In the corner of the room, an old man asked her: "Have you woken up?"
"What's your name?" he asked.
Why she didn't understand this old man the last time around she could not explain.
But she felt like her problems simply faded away by being in this cozy living room.
So she answered the man's question with a soft smile spread across her face: "Elyse!"
THE END
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