//------------------------------//
// VIII. Spirited 
// Story: Love the Costume, Vinyl! 
// by SkyLovesPie 
//------------------------------//

	Moonlight, Hurricane and I stood in the crystal cave she'd showed me a few days ago. He was gasping and looking around at everything wide-eyed, as I had the first time I had set hoof here.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Hurricane said as she sat down on the soft moss on the cave's floor. As I walked, it seemed to caress my hooves, massaging them with each step. It was the best thing I had felt since Moonlight had been discharged from the hospital. After the day he had woken up, he had refused visitors, and this meant that I'd had a lot of time to think, what with Hurricane's solemn silence. This left me to think uninterrupted about the last few words I had accidentally overheard.
The sibling's conversation had bounced around in my head over and over. 
"You know how water usually quenches thirst?"
"Yes...?"
"Well, this time, it didn't." 
It was like my head was stuck on rewind, the sentences entwined in my memory forever. The only thing I could draw from this was what I least wanted to believe. What I had tried to stop. What I feared, for some reason.
Part of me knew that if it was true, and why wouldn't it be, then there was no reason to dwell on it. No reason to fixate on the fact that, no matter what I did, nothing would change it. But the other part, the irrational part, loved him, yet I've known him for less than a month. It was highly improbable, but then again, not very long ago, had I been asked if vampires were real, I would've laughed it off. But that was true, so what else was there to believe?
He's a vampire.
This was all I could think. The only explanation.
"Melody, are you alright?" Moonlight asked, his pale form glowing with the light of the fireflies of the cavern.
"Huh?" I shook out of my thoughtful trance. "Oh, yeah, sure." He eyed me, and I knew he saw through my quick response.
"So, what do we know about... you know?"
"Well," I began. "We can run extremely fast, we drink blood, we don't show up in mirrors, and we can't go out in sunlight."
"Those were kind of obvious," he noted. "Anything else I should know?" Hurricane and I shook our heads in unison, resulting in a sigh from the light yellow stallion. "How many are there? Like, how many... you know?"
"I don't know. There's at least four, since a stallion I've never met turned me, then there's you two," I said, my voice rising in pitch unintentionally. There was a short silence, then Moonlight spoke.
"You never did tell us how you turned. Why not now?" I'm not sure what my expression was, but it probably wasn't good. I shrugged, then began recounting the pub and the ten bits, and how I ended up the way I was.
"...And now I'm sitting in this cave telling you about what happened." Hurricane's eyes were roughly the size of dinner plates. Her crimson eyes were fixed on me, unmoving and unblinking. It was quite creepy.
"Wow," she said in a hushed whisper, eyes still locked onto mine. "You've turned me, and you're not even a month old. Just, wow."
"You turned him, and you're barely a week old," I reminded her. Her eyes narrowed and she frowned a bit. Suddenly, the smell of blood wafted through the cave as Hurricane and I turned our heads in unison to a rustling sound near the cave's entrance.
"What are you staring at?" Moonlight asked dubiously. He didn't get a reply, because Hurricane and I sprung towards a deer that crossed in front of the circular entryway. 
As we flew through the air, fangs bared and dripping with venom, I saw my reflection in the doe's widening pupils. She shrank away, but it was too late. She was already dead.



Three sets of hoofsteps echoed through the abandoned alleyway. Hurricane, Moonlight and I casually walked in the night, enjoying our little stroll. One thing was off, however. While Hurricane's eyes, as well as mine, glow blood red in the darkness, Moonlight's were a semi-purplish colour, and there was no ambient light surrounding them in an aura of red, or any colour for that matter. Yet, his eyes had previously been blue-- or had they? I couldn't remember. 
It had been a day since my last meal, and I was thirsty again. I didn't know how often we needed to feed, but since Moonlight was in the hospital, I had fed every day, along with Hurricane, to protect other random ponies. Except for selected meals. Those were meant to be bitten, and savored. Meant to sustain us. I shook my head. I was still a pony, but with... different feeding habits. Yes, that's it. 
Different was putting it mildly. We, the Vampiric trio that we were, were hardwired to kill- to feed upon every last drop of the life-giving crimson liquid known as blood. It was how we spread the gift-- or curse, depending on how you look at it. Throughout history, we've been credited as myths, stories to scare foals. To explain unfaithful husbands and wives. To make ordinary ponies feel as though they had manipulation or control over things they do not understand.
Yet, we could bless them with that knowledge. Give them power, and they would endure the pain if they were worthy.
All of these thoughts, tangent or not, ran through my mind as we walked. However, a strong scent brought me back to reality. It was originating from around the corner, extraordinarily potent for such a wide space as Luna's Night. But I recognized it in a heartbeat. As I smelled the luscious scent, the burn in my throat reignited. It burned with a lust for blood, a need, a want, to quench the flames. To sate the desire. To fill my body with the essential fluid. To strengthen me.
As we rounded the brick wall's corner, a grim scene came upon us. An alicorn was sprawled on the ground, wings bent at an odd angle, horn and coat smeared with red. The Princess of the Night gasped for air, and I saw her wound-- a knife was embedded in her brisket, sticking out and running with streams of crimson. Hurricane drew in a sharp breath and spoke rather fast.
"Princess Luna, are you alright?" she asked frantically, and quite stupidly. Yet the princess smiled.
"I *gasp* don't think... *gasp* anypony with... a knife... *gasp* in their chest *gasp* is alright," she choked out, blood pouring out of her maw.
I decided to act on instinct (other than to sate my bloodlust, that would wait.), and save the Princess. Filled with adrenaline, and levitated the injured navy blue pony and galloped faster than even my vampiric speed had allowed before towards the hospital. It was roughly five blocks away, but I made it there in less than a minute. A trail of blood splattered the stones as I ran. I didn't stop until I was in the emergency ward, and even then I kept moving with as much haste as possible.
"ATTENTION, EVERYPONY!" I shouted as loudly as possible. It worked effectively-- all the hospital staff turned our way. I watched as mixed emotions crossed their collective faces: Shock, hatred (potentially of me), curiosity, and many more. 
Princess Luna gasped, and the staff shook out of their stupor and set to work, grabbing various bags filled with liquid, rolling a stretcher out, and hoisting her onto it. I made a mistake, in my shouting though.
A teenaged colt stared at me with humongous eyes, as well as his small group of friends. They had seen. They knew the secret that I had failed to keep.
They knew I was a Vampire.
I may as well have given up.