Kim Yujin forced herself to quicken her pace in the dark corridor. A metallic scent filled the air. She didn't know where she was, she never came there before. The walls and the ground were blended. The only thing she could clearly distinguish was a white door, in front of her, that seemed to draw away at every step she made. Her heart beat rapidly. Her legs were hurting but she didn't stop walking. She had no choice. The darkness was going to overwhelm her. Yujin was scared of the obscurity because she knew the horrible creatures hidden in it, creatures that occupied children's nightmares. She started to run. And when, finally, she opened the white door, she only met the void.

As well as two red eyes.

The brunette suddenly sat up straight while taking a big gulp of air. It took her vision a few minutes to adapt to her surroundings and her brain to understand what, where, why and how. The first rays of sun shyly warmed her face up whereas Yujin hardly stood up. Her legs, numb, gave way and she awkwardly caught herself with the wall, bumping her shoulder against the bricks. She repressed a cry, gritting her teeth and put one foot in front of the other. Her eyes landed on the large dark stain on the ground as some memories arose in her mind. The pain. The blood. The chase. The tears. The plea. Yujin shook her head, grimacing because of the sudden pain and walked away. « I survived. » She repeated these words as if she tried to convince herself that it wasn't a dream. She nearly died twice the previous night but she had survived. An odd smile appeared on her lips. The young girl didn't know how to describe what she felt : a combination of relief, fear and sadness. And mostly, she was thirsty.

It was only by passing-by one of the mirrors of the district that she understood the real meaning of surviving. Yujin looked like she just raised from the dead : her hair was dishevelled, stuck with blood. Her skin looked paler under the morning light, her cheeks were dirty and scratched. The young girl looked down at her ripped sweatshirt : the clothe was loosely hanging on her arm and revealed a bloodstained shoulder. The collar of her sweater was covered in blood too. Without losing eye-contact with her reflection, Yujin lifted a trembling hand and winced when she barely touched her neck, where it was bleeding.

She gritted her teeth once again and turned away.

Kim's house was located at the corner of Sugug Street and Saum Street. The damaged wood beam construction, the dirty tiles, sometimes misplaced, and the closed shutters whose paint was peeling, made the building looks like it was abandoned. Yujin walked along the wall and positioned herself under the window of her room, which was opened all night long, asking herself how she was going to haul herself towards it. The strenght was leaving her body little by little. Feeling dizzy, she lose her balance and banged into a trashcan, causing a horrible dim. She awkwardly held the garbage upright. Cold sweat running down her spine, her breathing was weaker and weaker, yet her heart beat ever more quickly. Her head was spinning, like her surroundings.

« Yujin, is it you ? What time do you call this ? Are you insane ? I was worried sick ! »

A voice in her back called her name. « Mum » she thought as she slowly turned around. She blinked and focused on the figure which was coming closer to her : dark hair pulled back up into a bun, two inquiring eyes and a light pink dressing grown – the one she gave for the Mother's Day, three years ago.

« Young lady, this is not going to- Oh my god. I-is it blood ? »

The figure rushed in on Yujin, wrapped its arms round her frail body.

« What happened ? What did you do ? Oh my god. Oh. My. God. Why is there blood on you ? Are you bleeding ? Yujin ! »

The voice sounded distant, muffled. « Mum... » whispered the young girl before sinking into darkness.

Days had passed since Jungsook, the mother of Yujin, found her daughter in the small passage that followed the house, lost and pale as death. The days were blurred in Yujin's mind, as if someone has thrown a veil over her eyes. She remembered her mother's cries when she has phoned her father, Youngchul, totally panicked. She vaguely reviewed Dr.Kang, who was the only doctor in Yulyeong, leaning over her to examine her. She could almost feel the freshness of a needle against her skin and the tingling when the blood perfusion was placed on her arm. Kang concluded that it was another case of Hirudinea, as Yujin thought, but the mystery around her survival persisted. How a seventeen-year-old petite girl was able to survive from an important blood loss ? The doctor wanted to give her a test at the Kangwon Hospital in Chuncheon, where he worked when he wasn't doing home treatment in Yulyeong. But the Kim family refused for different reasons : the young girl didn't want someone to notice the bite she had managed to hide under her hair while her parents didn't want to pay extra costs nor send their only child in a lab to be a guinea pig.

Days had passed and Yujin didn't leave her room. Was it because of a lack of motivation or a lack of strengh ? No one knew. The young girl refused to answer questions. She didn't sleep, barely ate. Her stare was vacant. She didn't stand for herself when Jungsook, her mother, blamed her for sneaking out. She didn't answer when Youngchul, her father, asked her if she had a bad run. Yet, she thought it none the less : her inner voice shouted at her mother that it was her fault if she had sneaked out for the nth time because she couldn't stand seeing the people she loved the most arguing. Another, more bitter and full of sarcasm, answered to her father that she didn't only have « a bad run » but that she rubbed shoulders with death and caught a glimpse of Hell.

The night was dark and for Yujin, it was a sleepless one. Again. The young girl deeply breathed in then let out a long sigh. She tossed and turned in her bed, the mattress was uncomfortable, before taking her phone. Three a.m, she read on the screen. She pushed the sheets and stood up. She felt hungry. She wasn't sure if she had a knot in her stomach or if it was just the product of her imagination. The room was plunged into half-light, so Yujin managed to reach her desk, where her mom had left a meal on a tray, without bumping into furnitures. She took the chopsticks and a bit of rice that she immediately ate. Before spiting it out. The taste was foul as if the food was rotten. Yujin coughed and decided to try something else. She then grabbed a piece of kimchi, brought it to and slowly chewed. She forced herself to swallow but the unbearable flavor almost brought tear to her eyes. They prickled. To make the sickening taste disappear, Yujin grabbed the glass of water placed next to the bowl and dipped her lips in the clear liquid before she pushed it away, suddenly putting it down. She cringed while she wiped , trying to remove the bitterness that seeped in between her teeth. She rushed to the bathroom when she felt the food burning and brought back up what she had ingested in the toilet bowl.

A few minutes later, Yujin was rinsing , leaning on the sink. When she lift her head, she met a reflection in the mirror. A reflection that wasn't hers. A young man, who seemed proud, was staring at her with his redish eyes. He passed a hand in his brown mane without looking away and gave her a faint smirk. The young girl saw the end of a bloody canine.

Her scream resounded through the night.

To the foul food, the insomnias and the hallucinations was added another symptom, even odder – Dr.Kang had concluded that the previous ones were only du to a post-traumatic response, her organism had difficulty in regaining a normal functioning. The first time it showed itself, Yujin was in class. She had begged her parents to let her go to high school because « she had already enough things to catch up with » and she didn't want to repeat a year. Moreover, she was missing her friends. Admittely, she was texting them but it wasn't the same. The news of her survival had spread round the school. If, at first, people whispered behind her back and shun her, fearing the contagion, Yujin was now the local celebrity. She recieved a lot of messages – to the extent that her phone was clogged up – and ceaselessly recieved a few invitations : there wasn't a day where nobody would ask her to go out – althought she didn't accept any of these. Despite all the attentions, Yujin stayed true to herself and to her friends who with her new position. Her attitude in class wasn't different : she was still the serious and attentive student.

That day was like any other, Mr.Kim, the professor, observed the students copying the formulas he had written on the board. Yujin was focused on what she was writing when her nose started to tickle. She sniffed then turned her attention on her notes and furrowed her brows when she saw a black stain in the middle of the page. She stared at her pen, asking herself if it was leaking but her hands were clean. It took her a few seconds and another stain on her exercise to realize that it was coming from her. She put her left hand in front of her nose and lifted the right one to ask the professor if she could leave, which he agreed to. Yujin quit the classroom and ran towards the nearest toilet. She still had a runny nose, the dark liquid was leaking in and dripping from her chin despite the hand that tried to hold it. Small drops fell on the ground. She pushed the door marked with a sketch of a woman on it and leaned on one of the sinks, which soon filled up with an ink like blood. The young girl panted, inhaling and exhaling, then coughed. A bloody coughing. She spat in the basin and the tap to wash her black hands. She lifted her head, looking at the dirty mirror. She had deep dark rings under her eyes, pale and hollow cheeks and the pony tail she had made this morning lazily hung in her back. Two long marks went from her nostrils to her chin, passing by her lips. Yujin thought she had seen a red glow in her eyes. She blinked and regarded once again her reflection. : the iris were back to black. She then grabbed a paper towel and wiped her face. The blood didn't seem to stop running. She kept the tissue against her skin as she turned away, ready to go back to class when her body suddenly bumped into something hard. The young girl cringed, dropped the paper handkerchief then froze.

He was in front of her.

She wanted to shout but no sound left her gaping mouth. She simply stood there, arms alongside her body, unable to move as the object of her nightmares stepped forward. A flawless pale skin, a thin face but a jaw as sharp as a razor blade, a dishevelled brown hair, a piercing flame-like gaze, a smirk tugged on his bloody lips, Byun Baekhyun had an unreal beauty. She moved until the distance between their body was reduced to a few inches and lifted his hand towards Yujin's face, who was staring at him with wide eyes and short of breath. He wiped the blood on her lips and pushed a strand of hair away. He moved his face closer then turned away at the last moment, pressing his mouth against her ear and whispered, with an unctuous voice « Do not withstand ». He disappeared.

The words of Baekhyun resounded in her skull. Do not withstand. Do not withstand. But withstand what ?

The bleeding became more regular. Most of the time, it happened during the night, on the rare occasion where she would sleep, and Yujin often woke up in a pond of ink. Every morning, she would change the bedsheets because she didn't want her parents to worry. Sometimes, it happened in class and she was obliged to run and hide in the toilets or in the infirmary, a small room with one bed and a medecine cabinet, usually deserted because devoid of a nurse, because she didn't want someone to ask about the black blood or to call Dr.Kang whom she had seen enough for the rest of her life.

The days at school became harder. Firstly, because the unpleasant feeling of being observed stuck to her skin. Yujin felt a tingling in the back of her neck when she was in the corridor, in the canteen, even in the street. The young girl had some hypothesis about her stalker : a certain vampire she hadn't met since the day he gave her the advice Don't withstand. Sometimes, she asked herself if it wasn't a warning Don't withstand. Was withstanding painful ? She didn't know.

Her body was so weak that she didn't have the impression of resisting : the blood loss, the unbearable food (she couldn't even drink water) didn't help much her condition. The issue of the hunger was more important than Baekhyun. How could she feed herself without eating the meals one has given ? Yet, she felt it. The Hunger. She ran through her veins, ate up her stomach, gritted her aching teeth and wandered on her rough tongue. The Hunger. It wasn't a normal hunger and appeared when Yujin was surrounded by people. Her friends, her family, her professors, even the poor cashier of the grocery suddenly had something attractive : a peculiar perfume, a melodious voice. Yujin at times smelled the bewitching scent they emitted. She then got a grip on herself and asked herself what was wrong with her. One day, Yujin had to bit her lip to prevent herself from smelling the neck of her best friend, as she was hugging her, so hard that the blood leaked in . And for the first time, Yujin thought the taste wasn't that bad.

People also told her something ridiculous about her eyes. Eunseo, a girl she had known since primary school and who had dyed her hair blond, asked her on what website she had bought her contact lens because « it is bloody original », « red is trendy right now » and she « wanted the same contact lens so they could be twins ». Yujin rushed out of the classroom, excusing herself.

Admittedly, Yujin had survived the attack but for how long ?

Don't withstand.

The worst happened on a friday night. Yujin, wearing her summer pyjama, that is a pale pink tank top and short, went downstairs and towards the kitchen, where her mother was cutting vegetables for the diner. The sun was disappearing behind the mountains in the distance, plunging the room into an orangey glow. The table at the center of it was set for two. Younchul worked late that night, leaving the two women of the house eating together. Yujin was still standing on the threshold, looking at the graceful figure of her mother, who was back facing her. She was wearing a flowered apron and had her hair raised in a high ponytail, clearing the back of her neck. The young girl felt her stomach tightened. The hunger had returned. She sighed and closed her eyes, her mother's fragnance, a combination of orange blossom, cumin and amber, filled up her nose and Yujin thought of how much her senses were developped. The voice of Jungsook seemed distant as Yujin opened her eyes, aware of another scent that was added to the rest.

Metal.

The young girl her lips before stealthily walking towards the poor woman who tried to stop the bleeding. She didn't notice the young boy, hood on his head, who were gazing at the scene from outside. She didn't notice the fire that burnt in her own eyes either. She only focused on her hunger. And on the blood that dripped from the finger of her mother, who still hadn't felt the threatening presence behind her. Yujin opened and suddenly stuck her teeth in her mother's neck, grabbing her shoulders in order to stabilise the body which arched under the shock – or the pain. A warm liquid spurted in as she drank big mouthfuls of what seemed extremely delicious. She couldn't control herself. She didn't even hear the horrendous let out by her mother.

But Yujin was abruptly teared away from her meal and pulled backwards by a strong force. A feeling of injustice and revolt arose in her body. And the hunger returned..

« Let go of me ! I want more ! » she yelled, almost in despair, while she wriggled, trying to free herlsef from the hold of the stranger.

Her eyes were as red as the blood that was running down her chin. The force turned her around and faced her.

She showed her teeth and redoubled her efforts, almost biting the one who prevent her from feeding herself.

He put a hand on her eyes.

And plunged her into unconsciousness.

I hope you enjoy~

I'm still sorry for the mistakes (english isn't my mothertongue)

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