For the next few months, the police signaled a serial killer in Tokyo. Dozens and dozens of innocent victims. A cool-blooded murderer who injured and mutilated their targets first, causing them to loose a lot of blood, before killing them entirely. Strange marks in their neck at the place where the aorta meets the skin. Every night a new victim. Every night another unsolved crime. It was driving the police nuts that the fingerprints they found on the victims were not matching any resident in Tokyo, let alone in the rest of the country. They seemed to have been killed by a ghost.

Hirai Momo had tried to call for people when Mina fell and didn't got up again, but no one had heard her scream. She had kneeled down by her lifeless body. First shaking her, asking her to get up. Then furiously tugging at her arms. Eventually biting her, hoping that her venom would resurrect her back to life. But she was gone already. At last, she pressed a kiss upon her forehead.
A neighbour found Mina in the morning. Momo had left the door wide open, in hope that someone would find her precious lover. She wasn't able to call for help another time. Her body failed to work. Not only couldn't she make a sound, she couldn't feel anything anymore. There was only one thought that entered her mind, and kept on repeating and repeating until those words were all she knew: You are a monster.

Her time with Mina had made her forget that she in fact was a monster. It was almost as if the brunette had made her human again. Basic human emotions had returned to her body. Love, lust, desire, anger, sadness. All those years she had felt completely numb. She had almost forgotten what it was like to live. But Myoui Mina had resurrected her from the dead. And she had liked it. She disgusted herself.
Being with Mina was a gift she had never been able to appreciate enough, she only realized that when she was gone. She shouldn't have made the choices she had made. If life hands you lemons, you make lemonade. You don't wait for the lemons to get mouldy. That's exactly what Momo had done. And she would never forgive herself for it. She should've cut their relationship off right from the start.

Momo watched how ambulance employees carried Mina's lifeless body out of her apartment. To reanimate her body was hopeless, she had been gone too long before they finally found her. Momo couldn't imagine how her body must feel like. Her fragile, sweet body, where she had run her hands over so many times so carelessly. She wished she had done it more thorougly now.
Was it cold? Her body limb? Her eyes, had they fallen shut, or were they still open? Momo hadn't paid attention. She had been crying too much. To cry so heavily after years of not feeling anything felt like her body was ripped apart. At least, she knew that her heart had ripped. It had burst in thousands, millions, billions little pieces and has vanished. She didn't have a heart anymore. She didn't feel anything at all besides the everlasting sadness. The numbness had returned at the moments she felt a bit better.

She had watched how the Myoui family had gone to the hospital, and eventually how the ambulance had brought Mina's body away to the mortuarium. Momo had followed the car and had snuck into the building. When everyone was gone at night, she resurrected from her hiding spot, and went to seek her lover.
They had laid her on an iron observation table, with a white sheet covering her face and body. Only a little bit of her arm was visible from under the cloth. Her skin had gotten white. Momo had wanted to lift it, but before she could do anything, her body was ripped apart by a series of sobs again that lasted through the whole night. She hadn't been able to stand anymore, and had fallen on the floor. Her back rested against the wall, her head in her hands, her body shaking. Her cries echoed through the empty building, full of dead people. Because, wasn't she dead too?
She stayed in the mortuarium as long as Mina stayed there.

Momo visited the funeral. She had bound her blonde hair up in a ponytail, the way Mina had once commented looked so nice on her. It made her cheekbones stand out even more. She didn't care about her cheeksbones. If you broke them both at once it would hurt less than loosing her.
She was wrapped in black clothing, like the rest of the people. No one questioned who she was. No one asked. Everyone was silent. They mourned. She had spotted Mina's friend, Sana, crying. Momo mourned, too. But she didn't share a single tear back then. Mina was hers, had been hers, and to cry with other people about her death made her feel like she was only a person out of hundreds. But she wasn't, she knew she hadn't been. She would do her deficit if she would cry now.
So Momo watched. From the back of the crowd, so no one would notice the strange girl. And she kept looking. She didn't look away when they carried her chest to her grave. Her parents had chosen a beautiful white marble tombstone, with her name engraved in graceful black letters. Momo couldn't have chosen better.
Momo dared herself to keep on looking. Because she wanted to take in her white, beautiful, dead face before she was buried under the ground for good. She needed to. Or else she'd forget.
Oh, she wouldn't ever forget her face. But she'd forget what she had done to her. Momo was scared that she'd only remember the happy times. She would never forget those, but she wouldn't want to loose the memories she was making right now. Because otherwise she might forgive herself. And she never wanted to forgive herself. Ever.

She had loved Mina. She had been in love with Mina. Momo had known that all along.
Her choices wouldn't make sense to anyone else but her. If you are a monster, you hurt people. It was basically the defenition of a monster. Momo would have hurt Mina too if she would've given in to her emotions. A monster can't love their prey. A monster can't love anyone.
So she had kept her feelings from Mina. She didn't deserve a girlfriend as good as Mina. She should find someone else to love, someone that can give her everything she deserves. Someone that can hold her at night, and will not leave the night. Someone who can live off of normal human food, and can kiss her without feeling guilty. Someone who isn't selfish and therefor keeps coming back to enjoy her company whilst knowing they shouldn't. Someone, anyone. A person, who isn't named Hirai Momo.
When it finally became clear that Mina loved Momo, she couldn't be happier. But she promised herself at that very moment that she would not act upon it. She couldn't, for the sake of Mina. Hurting her whilst loving her was her biggest fear.

Pretending not to care was the hardest thing she had ever done. It might've seemed easy for her to leave, but she only made it look that way. Perhaps, that way Mina would fall out of love with her. It didn't happen, and Momo was desperate. She was torn in a dilemma that couldn't be solved. Her selfishness was too big to ignore. Her yearning for Mina's love too great. She couldn't stay away, even when it would be the best for the both of them. So she kept coming back. Perhaps it was a big mistake. Perhaps it was the best choice of her life. She wasn't sure about that, and she would probably never be sure. Mina had been her life. Her time with Mina was the best in her whole life, and in the aftermaths of it. But to love someone so hard until you kill them... Her biggest fear had become reality.
Momo blamed herself. She would always blame herself for murdering Mina.

For the next few months, the killing rampede went on. It was easier to cope with her sadness through anger than to actually cry. Hundreds of innocents died at her hands, but Momo couldn't care less.
During the day, she spend her time at ambandoned houses, moving from spot to spot every now and then. She'd spend her days slumped against the wall, with her arms wrapped around her body while her sobs made her body shake. Mina's smile was burned on her ratina; she couldn't set it out of her mind. Tears would run over her cheeks.
When the night fell, she would emerge from her hiding spot. She'd walk back to the city. Sometimes she spend hours walking before she arrived, but it was a good way to stay occupied.
Once she came there, innocents fell to her anger. Converting her sadness in anger was easy. Killing someone was easy. Even though they hadn't done anything, and their screaming and pleading was agony to her ears - it reminded her of Mina... but everything reminded her of Mina nowadays - she still blamed them. She blamed everyone for Mina's death. Including herself. She hated herself more than anyone.
When the morning came, and another victim had fallen to the 'serie murderer of Tokyo' Momo would go to the graveyard where Mina's body rested. She'd sit by her tombstone until the sun had risen enough for her to be spotted by other people. She'd cry. Her tiredness would turn on her sadness and she'd cry again. Momo would touch the letters of Mina's name on the smooth rock, and wrap her arms around it, as if she was holding her. Her sobs ripped through her body and she cried until she couldn't cry anymore. Her tears wettened the still turned earth beneath her. The picture of Mina's body being eaten by worms and ants and other insects made her stomach turn. But she couldn't throw up anymore.

From the moment Mina had died, Momo hadn't fed herself anymore. She hoped that she could starve herself to death. Then she'd finally be lost from the everlasting agony that crippled through her body. She noted that she was being selfish again. But maybe, maybe then she'd able to meet Mina again. Did vampires also go to heaven? Momo was sure Mina would have gone to heaven, if there was one. She probably wouldn't go to heaven. But that was okay. To burn in hell for what she had done was okay too. At least then she'd be punished with pain, instead of this vicious melancholy that had invaded her body.
So she starved herself. She didn't drink one drop. And eventually, the wished effects started to kick in, even though it took way longer than she would've liked it to.
It took a month before her body started to feel weak-ish. Another three months before she wasn't able to walk anymore. From that moment she stayed day after day in the abandoned house, barely able to move her body. On good days she'd be able to walk around for half an hour, but afterwards she'd be too tired to even open her eyes.
It took another two months before her tears ran out. Crying had become to exhausting. Again two months passed before the hallicinations started. She couldn't distinguish the reality from the fantasy anymore. Mina was with her, then she was not. She held her, but suddenly vanished into thin air. Momo couldn't understand anymore what was happening, and kept longing and longing, which probably made her mourning even worse.

Mina's death anniversary started to come up again, but Momo was too weak to move. She only hoped that she'd die soon. Could vampires die? She hoped so.

At the night from the 15th to the 16th of January, a lifeless girl was found in a building that was about to be wrecked. The abandoned, empty houses would be replaced by brand a brand new factory. Momo had her eyes closed when the rescue workers came in. They shook her arm and body, asking her to wake up. Someone felt her pulse. She hadn't had a pulse for decennia. They called an ambulance, but she was already proclaimed dead before they arrived at the hospital. The annoying sound of the sirene still rang in her ears. It surpressed the dreams she had of Mina; it annoyed her.
Because her fingerprints didn't match anyone in the system, she was buried alone. In the same graveyard of Mina. Momo hadn't had any energy to oblige. She was as dead as they proclaimed her to be. So she was locked in a coffin, and lifted in a hole in the ground. The thuds of earth on her coffin drummed in her ears. She laid still, with her arms crossed over her body.
I have always loved you, don't forget that, Momo. Mina's voice sounded in her head, so clear and so pure that it almost was as if she was right next to her. The hallucinations had gotten worse, but they had never been this vivid. Maybe, because she was on the edge of death, she thought. She hoped she was at the edge of death, anyway.
Momo opened her eyes for the first time in months, but didn't see anything but darkness.
"I have always loved you too..."