Losing My Reflection: Myself and Lizzie B
Tom could hear them, almost so much as he could smell them; the sound pierced his ears, and burned his very soul, what little there was left. He took deep, concentrated breaths, each blink of his eyes lasting longer than the last. The sound repeated; a rhythmic motion, as clear as the own voice within his throbbing skull. His fingers tapped anxiously, inkeeping with the rhythem that surrounded him. He couldn't keep it up any longer, and he knew it.
Five years, seventy-two days, three hours, sixteen minutes. All about to go to waste.
Looking at the dingy clock that hung from the smoke-stained wall, Tom realised that it had been that long since he last fell to his primal urges, an urge which was unusually stronger tonight than normal. He was panicing, a few beads of sweat falling across his brow. They surrounded him, all of them, and the sound of their hearts beating plagued Tom to the point that he wished to simply tear his ears from his head, if only to make the noise stop. The constant beating of their hearts, the stentch of their warm blood, which he longed to taste with every natural fibre of his body; any will to resist it had long since vanished tonight, much to Toms horror. He needed to distract himself, to keep himself occupied to keep the thoughts away.
Tom sat at the table of the bar, a half empty glass of whiskey resting in one of his hands, and the other hanging loosly at his side. The drink might as well have been petrol to his lips this evening; he never did grow a taste for their food since he vowed off blood; it all tasted bland... empty. Unsatisfying. It just made it that much harder to resist.
He wasn't sure how he found himself at the bar this evening. One moment, he was marching around the confinding space of his apartment, almost pounding the walls and tearing his hair out, and the next he was here; it all seemed like a blur of events, that would end the way it always did; with blood and regrets. He could feel the all too familiar tingle of his lips, his mouth overwhelmingly dry, no matter how much he drank. He could feel his predatory instincts kicking in, and it would soon be time to find his prey.
When he first saw her, only one thought engulfed his mind; was she alone? He watched her from across the bar, the women whom he would eventually come to know as Charlotte, for many moments, completely unaware of the events that would spring forth from this moment onwards. His initial intention was clear; he needed to feed, and she looked like an easy enough target. Alone, in the middle of the city at night; it seemed pathetically simple to him in his current state of self-collapse. She had a disinct look about her, as though she was lost in her own thoughts, a look that Tom shared. In time, he would later try to think back to what it was that attracted him to her in the first place; she was beautiful, but he had seen beauty before. She was young, but so were the countless others he could have chose that night. She was easy prey, but to Tom, so was everyone. No, if Tom had to decide, he would say it was her eyes that drew him to her that night, but he was never quite sure why.
Moving his seat aside, Tom's eyes latched onto the girl, as he began to walk towards her, each step on the hard-wood floor echoing through his mind; every aspect of sense and reason he had left begged him to turn around and flee, terrified of what he intended to do. And yet, he continued onwards, the thirst guiding each step. The unsuspecting girl had no idea of the danger that now stalked towards her, which made a very deep, primal part of Toms mind smile.
It was time to feed.