This Is What Hunger Feels Like

How did a short, half-black, asian kid from Detroit end up the leader of one of the most infamous covens in the vampire world?

Let’s start with something easier, then I’ll tell you the rest, cus this shit’s gotta go in pieces.

You know that one friend who thinks vampires are cool?

We’re not.

Nobody wants this.

Lemme tell you how my life went.

Somebody busted into my apartment a couple days ago and saw me eating my mom.

Look, get your mind out of the gutter.

No, I mean straight hogging her. I was on the rest of her leg when they came through the door. I didn’t even know what I was doing. I just...

Woke up like this.

Then my neighbor made a phone call. I figured the police so I just sat there. Looking at the mess I made.

You ever have something horrible happen, and then you think of something you wish was true to avoid the inevitable?

Like living with the fact that I just ate my little, sweet, Asian mother.

I was sitting there thinking of some MK-Ultra, Manchurian Candidate shit.

I ate my mom, man.

Anything had to be real as long as it wasn’t that.

I didn’t know what to do. Do I run? Do I just accept the consequences?

Do I cry?

I didn’t have that long to think about it. Some guys showed up in suits. I thought I was getting arrested.

One of ‘em just nudged me out of the way and got to work.

They started bagging shit.

I’ve seen shit like this before. This is Detroit.

But usually they do this after you’re in jail.

These niggas were cold. Ruthless. Didn’t care I was ripping mom-burps.

They just got the mess up, politely told me to move now and again so they could finish moving things.

Like they were preparing the room to be sterilized.

A guy came in with a duffel bag. Starts putting on a rubber suit.

They didn’t say anything to me, and I certainly wasn’t about to say shit to them.

By the time they were done, you’d think my mom never existed. They even took pictures off the wall.

“Why you taking pictures? What’s that for, the news or something?”

“Yeah. The news or something,” he said sarcastically as he moved to me.

I saw it.

A needle.

“Hey, wait- hold up, man, what the f-...”

We tussled, but one of his boys came over.

Nothing I could do.

Assholes beat me the fuck up, too.

I woke up at a dentist. Kinda.

I saw him leaning over me. Maybe I was high on something? He had metal fangs. Like his fangs were capped in silver.

The dentist. Something about the way he stared at me told me he liked his job more than a little.

I went in and out of consciousness. Feeling pain in my face. In my teeth.

I felt the unmistakeable feeling of him doing the same thing to me. Those new sharp extensions I had for canines. The ones I had torn people apart with.

Had eaten my mom with.

The entire experience left me scrambling to put my life back together in my head.

Whose life was I living?

Then I was here.

Back at my place, looking at a black envelope.

I stared at it.

Ran my hand over it to make sure it was real.

When I picked it up from my desk, I opened it and read the black sheet of hard cardboard inside.

“Stay here. Do not leave. Someone will collect you in three days. If you run, you will be hunted. If you call the police, you will be incarcerated... if you...” I looked around my apartment, bleary. “What kinda shit is this!?”

A very small percentage of vampires have awesome lives.

Money, power, respect...

This ain’t that story.

This one is about the vampires you never hear about.

The ones who don’t get power, wealth, or... I dunno, latex, black clothes, and big tiddy pale bitches.

We them other niggas.

This story is about Omertà and what it’s like to be at the bottom of a caste system older than civilization.

One that decided I’m just food.

So let me just get one thing out of the way before we get started here... Cus this is important.

I’m black.

You just need to know that. If you’re gonna nope out, this is the part where you nope out. You’re about to see what it’s like to be a black vampire.

Why? Cus nobody ever tells that story and... honestly that’s kinda fucked up.

No, our problems aren’t as cool and high-stakes as Dracula.

I’m afflicted with this... what... ailment? I guess we could say.

Let’s say ailment.

That ailment is, I tend to like a specific kind of nourishment, and this shit ain’t Twilight.

My skin doesn’t glow, I’m not preternaturally fast, I don’t even know what the fuck preternatural means.

And there’s a bunch of us actually.

Not everybody gets bit out of a colonial prairie town or from the suburbs.

If you were an age-old blood-drinking creature who could dodge bullets, why would you avoid all the free food past 8 Mile road that nobody’s gonna miss?

I know. That’s a fucked up reality to think about.

You know how many niggas would let you put a straw in them right now for an authentic pair of Concorde 11s?

Some niggas would do it if for a crack pipe refill.

And that’s why we have Omertà.

Believe me. I always wanna juice somebody and I’m fresh out of life.

And this is how I found out how Omertà works.

But if you’re gonna be riding along in my consciousness, you gotta understand right now listen...

You’re gonna hear some fucked up shit about me.

We need to just be cool with that, alright?

We cool?

Alright, so... I guess we should start at how the hell my ass got turned.

Back to what I was saying, I have this ailment. My ailment means I like to juice people. And by juice, I mean get my teeth in a part of them that bleeds real good and treat them like a McDonald’s Value Meal. If I don’t eat them all together.

Remember when they used to have Value Meals?

They do a little squirming. I do a little vibing. I back off before I dead them.

Not that I’m mad if I dead them.

I be hungry.

Now, I know, I said two things here that are curious.

You get all the cool powers with age. Your venom even gets stronger. Right now, I couldn’t turn someone if I wanted to. They’d die from blood loss first.

I’m just a suck puppy.

That’s also why I’m food.

I’ll explain later.

My victims go home traumatized but blissfully happy.

If they live.

Why? Young bites feel good. Part of the trade-off. Again- later though.

I go home fed, and everything works itself out.

Unless I get caught for illegally juicing someone, cus we’re totally not supposed to do that anymore, right?

So, I look pretty young. I got turned on my eighteenth birthday. And not like Bella Swan.

I’m basically every negative statistic about the ghetto you can imagine. Single mom, poor, zero chance at a college education, poor school attendance, and early drug use. Sex, stealing, lying...

I’m not awesome.

My only saving grace is that my mom taught me to speak pretty good.

I don’t do that shit no more.

I sadly got turned while I was out here trying to get some specific attention from a young woman on my birthday.

Turns out she was a different kind of thirsty.

You know what it’s like, looking like black Sasuke?

It’s getting your ass whooped in high school.

Constantly.

Straight hair on a dark skinned black kid with Korean eyes.

And I’m short, nigga.

Four nerfs is excessive, right? I’ve made peace with the fact that God don’t like my ass.

The point I’m making is, no, I don’t get waifus.

Why do you guys always nope out when there’s no waifus?

Not yet, anyway. We’ll get there.

Relax, bitch.

Why is that important? Didn’t I just say I got turned getting my di-... anyway.

I did. Like two weeks ago.

Blood included.

Ten out of ten, would not recommend.

After that, I woke up really fuckin’ hungry.

I had this overwhelming urge to chew.

To just chew and chew and chew. I kept eating until my stomach was so full I had to do that floor thing.

You know, where you lay on the floor when nobody’s looking and just kinda like squoosh out? Can I make that word up real quick, and we be fine with it? You squoosh out, right?

But then I was still hungry.

I tried everything.

I even drank a little Drano for some reason?

I dunno what I was thinking?

Don’t do that shit, by the way, you’ll die.

In fact, that’s why I realized after that girl bit the base of my junk, my life was not the same.

Cus I drank Drano, nigga.

And I’m still talking to you about it...

That’s fucked up.

But then stuff got really crazy because the hunger situation wouldn’t solve itself. All joking aside, I was really upset about it.

I felt like I’d never be satisfied again in life until I ate these college kids...

And the mailman...

And my mom...

The only reason I escaped a murder charge was cus the neighbor turned out to be a vampire too.

They came over because of the smell.

Not my mom, me, nigga. I wasn’t there eating her that long.

God, I never want to repeat that sentence again in my life.

Neighbor reported me to the authorities. Not the human authorities.

That’s when I met the law.

Our law.

That’s vaguely how I ended up with you in my head and a memory full of screaming pain in a dentist’s chair.

It’s why we were spending time together while I got ready this morning, brushing them.

My brand new, on-board monitors. Those cute shiny caps on my sharp canines.

The ones that prevented me from ever feeding without permission again.

My shared consciousness. My new consciousness?

What if I wasn’t before and now I am? Did Vampirism wake me up?

I never had a voice in my head before. I never had an inner projector.

I guess that’s you.

I let my tongue play over the now blunted points of my fangs as hunger punched the bottom of my stomach.

It felt like they took my manhood away or something. Not being able to bite. To chew. My ability to feed myself the only thing that would make this annoying ache go away.

So fixated on the chew.

I worked my jaw, feeling it. Wanting it.

Thinking about it for too long messed with me. I was kinda glad when my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I snatched it out, fumbled about, and finally heard it face unlock, swiping to a new text message.

[TEXT] hurry up baby teeth

I knew who it was. Whoever decided they were my handlers after cleaning up my mess.

I texted back, frowning at their choice of pet name.

[Me] Aight omw!

“Man, fuck outta here with that baby teeth shit.”

I don’t really dress like most black dudes from my neighborhood. A lot of them have this messed-up obsession with wealth and pretending to have money they don’t.

I don’t really get that shit.

Fuck is the point of having a car that costs more than everything your family owns?

Fuck are you doing with rims that cost more than the vehicle? That cost more than your life?

Whatever.

I’m more the type to dress kinda like a nerd.

Cus I’m a nerd.

I wear black framed glasses, wooden bracelets, and black rings on my middle fingers. I wear cardigans and jeans that fit... and high top Chuck Taylor Allstars and shit.

Oh. Also, I’m poor as shit, and this is the fashion I can afford. Believe me, niggas, I think I deserve designer just like you do.

My bills just don’t think so.

Sometimes I walk around blind with my glasses off, though.

If there’s girls.

Act like you don’t do that shit.

A few minutes later, I was pulling on my letterman cardigan and heading out of my apartment door. This used to be where me and my mom lived together before I ate her.

I know, I say that casually, but honestly, it sucks.

I came home that night after I got bit and couldn’t handle it. The pain of getting age-old venom jammed into my neck.

It hurt my spine.

My brain felt hot in my skull and pain injected itself down every vein in my body.

I nearly lost my mind.

The older they are, the more painful the venom is.

Us babies?

Our bite still feels good.

There’s a tradeoff to age.

Younger vampires are harder to kill, but they don’t have any power yet. Best you can do is run for your life. Problem with that is, you taste good to other vampires for the first hundred years, so they like to get friendly.

Too friendly.

Once your blood starts to taste like death warmed up, then you shed a little defense for a healthy amount of offense.

That’s when the real game starts.

I came home after that hungrier than I’ve ever been in my life and...

Like I said, I’m not proud of it.

Anyway, that chapter of my life is over.

Now I had the authorities up my ass.

That’s what the text message was about.

That’s why I was finishing getting ready to leave.

“Fuck are my keys, man?” I asked no one, looking around my small apartment.

I’d gotten over missing my mom. I had no choice. Right after I killed those people, the neighbor sniffed me out and came for me.

I knew I’d fucked up when she didn’t look surprised, seeing me hunched over my mother’s body.

I looked at the spot I killed her. Right over there in front of the living room couch.

Staring a hole in the floor for a moment.

“Damn...”

Maybe I wasn’t completely over it.

I made my way down the narrow hall of my filthy old building, skirting sideways around a couple crackheads. The elevator was broken, so I took the stairs.

Down past the vending machines at the bottom, with scratched-up glass and graffiti written all over them. I stared at them for a second, wanting a bag of pork rinds before I remembered the urge.

The hunger.

Blood. Protein. I’d never get blood on my own again. Or at least not until I was old enough to hunt open game in the echo. Right now?

I was the open game.

Best I could do was cooperate.

I went to the front counter in the lobby and slid a white envelope under the bulletproof glass to the woman sitting there.

She smacked her gum and rolled her eyes, frizzy black hair up in two afro puffs on either side of her head.

Not gonna lie though. She could get the business.

She could save that nasty attitude, though.

“Bout time you paid the rent, Loxadante,” she said, setting aside her sleazy romance novel.

She rolled her eyes and snatched the envelope.

“Yeah, my bad. I ain’t exactly fortune five-hundred,” I said, ignoring the snatch.

“Nigga, yo broke ass ain’t even fortune five thousand,” she said, opening the envelope.

“Why you always gotta be nasty? That’s why you ain’t never got no man, always running your mouth,” I said, watching her sort and count my god damn money.

“Nigga, shut’cho short fried rice ass up. Bruce Lee Roy,” she finger snapped and neck rolled back, cutting eyes at me.

“‘Ey, look, just give me a receipt. Shout out Last Dragon though.”

She drew a receipt out in that overly showy, loopy writing of hers and shoved it under the glass.

“Three-foot-six ass,” she had to throw in her last word as I collected it.

“Man, shut up, Julissa,” I snapped back, headed for the door.

I should eat this bitch.

“That’s why Adonis fucked you up.”

“No, he didn’t!” I said from the door, turning to look at her.

Yes, he did, by the way.

Assume I made my face beat up his hands.

“They jumped me. Besides, that was last month, why you always bringin’ up old shit?” I asked, twisting my face.

“You can go now. You can go now!” She started repeating sarcastically as if she was doing me a favor.

Why’d they have to cap me now?

Oh. Right.

Cus I’d eat this bitch.

“Whatever... ‘ey, you seen Adonis though?” I asked, trying to hide the worry in my voice.

“He was lookin’ for you,” she went back to her dime store sex novel.

“Fuck...” I shook my head, blowing a sigh and heading out the front door, “That’s just what I need.”

Shittiest part about finding out you’ a vampire is realizing it’s not like the movies.

You’re not cool.

You don’t even get the moment where you come back and get all your enemies.

They’re dead by the time you get any real power.

Fuck is the point?

I turned my attention to the parking lot of my building, stepping out into the fall cold, and already knowing the deal.

Black sedan, five spaces over, parked in reverse and waiting.

We had one of those low rises with a tiny, L-shaped parking setup. Every inch of it was full of barely functioning, busted-up pieces of shit except that sleek black sedan.

Couldn’t miss it.

Other people were looking at it too.

The usual useless dudes were waiting outside.

Some cool, some not.

I dapped up the ones that mattered, got insulted by the ones that didn’t.

Hood shit.

“Poindexter ass nigga. What’s up, Lox? What kinda nigga you s’posed to be with that white boy hair?” I heard him say from his pack of hyenas.

Do I even have to describe this nigga?

Six-foot-three, buff as a bitch, fresh out, bald head.

He’s not wrong, though. I should braid my hair.

“Man, every morning?”

“You damn skippy, nigga.”

“Shut the fuck up. Terry Crews lookin’ ass.”

“Yeah, that’s right. Cus you a baby. Back. Bitch,” He said in a mechanical voice while doing a terrible impression of the robot.

“Aight, man. Can I go now, Marcus?” I rolled my eyes and kept going.

Marcus ruffled my Asian-boy hair, and I shoved his hand off.

His stupid pack of stupid niggas stupid-laughed stupidly, and I moved on.

Right over to that dark sedan as a tall fucker in a suit got out the passenger side.

It’s fucked up having to pay your rent by being delicious.

That’s the last thing I needed somebody like Marcus to find out.

Can you imagine the jokes? I’d have to kill myself.

You know how hard it is for a vampire to kill themselves?

I looked up at this dude.

Way up.

“You are tall as shit,” I said flatly.

“Why do you talk like you’re sleepy?”

“... Facts,” I agreed.

“Get in the fuckin’ car,” he said, staring at me through sunglasses and a military cut.

Guess this was day one.

Dark meat’s on the menu.

“Nice to meet you, too, brother,”

He put his hand on my head and escorted me into the back seat.

Like a child.

I heard Marcus’n them laughin’.

See... you got irritated and wanted to fight.

These days? I get irritated and want to consume.

Irritation just makes me hungry...

Why can’t I just eat people?