Do You Ever...?

“Are you one of the fortunate kind, alone but not lonely?”

Jessie tapped her thumb on her knee in time to the music as she drove through the night. The window was open and a hot prairie breeze blew her hair into tangles, but her mind was already on the town ahead. The hunt and the feasting. She had let the hunger grow too strong again.

She knew that others of her kind grew to hate the dark or found the solitary existence too desolate. They sought relief in depraved societies of their own creation. She had seen bright, garish lights in an underground city filled with cows who willingly gave away what should rightly be hunted on dark streets or in fragrant, damp forests.

She wasn’t ashamed of what she was. She didn’t resist it. But her two strongest desires were ultimately at odds. The need for solitude. The need to feed. What drove her away from the cities always, inexorably, brought her back. People. An enchanting, intoxicating smorgasbord of people.

Soon she would be in Broken Bow. And she would feed.


"Do You Ever...?" was a Lyric Challenge ficlet originally published at 01:22AM on Sunday, October 28, 2007. Thanks to the ficlet memorial I was able to find it again. Memorial story link. The lyric is from “Alone But Not Lonely” by Mary Ann Redmond (Album: Here I Am). I picked the song randomly but think it worked well. Had only listened 40 seconds in when I picked the lyric and wrote up the Ficlet, so was surprised when I went back to listen to the rest of the song and caught the line “Which one are you tonight? Do you change with the morning light?” How perfect for a little vampire story.