Legally Dead

[confusedcious]

Lucy rubbed the top of her arm as she walked under the bridge. The traffic moved by, each driver moving on, taking no notice of the girl at the side of the road.
That day she didn't feel right, but she had no choice, but to go to University that day. The lectures were too important to miss. She had a strange headache, like nothing she'd ever felt, her eyes were red and bloodshot, and her left arm ached.
Her heart stopped. She fell to the pavement. Lights flashed, and the traffic was disrupted.
In the hospital, there was nothing the doctor could do. He stretched himself, as every time, to the limit of his skills. But he could do nothing. With a heavy heart he signed the death on his register, and went to find her parents. They needed to know.
*****
Lucy opened her eyes. She felt different. There was a white sheet over her face, and she could hear someone crying nearby. She lifted the sheet from off her face.
Her mother screamed. The nursing sister fainted. The doctor walked over, his face ashen.
He wordlessly placed his finger on her wrist. Then her neck. Then he noticed she wasn't breathing, her eyes looking very much alive, but dulled from the brightness of her earlier appearance
Lucy's eyes moved from the sheet on the bed, and around the room. She looked at her fingers, and her nails. They were pale as death.
"How did I get here?"
The doctor nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Have I lost blood? My fingers look as pale as death!"
"Well, that's the thing. I signed your death certificate half an hour ago. You're not breathing. You have no pulse."
Lucy ran her teeth over her lips. She had been in some awkward situations before. But this would have to be the most awkward she had ever encountered. How do you explain to someone how you are functioning, even though you're legally dead?
"Um. I think I'm going to sleep. If you think I'm dead again, could you check with me first?"
*****
Lucy had a dreamless sleep. The doctor woke her three times during the next two hours. Eventually she slept through his attempts to find normal biological activity in her body. He couldn't. Her blood had completely stopped running, it began to clot. None of her systems were working.
The doctor swore he would check himself into a monastery first thing in the morning. He wasn't meant to have to deal with this.
As he watched, Lucy's blood again began to circulate, though it was thickend. Her heart still failed to beat, but she suddenly opened her eyes, with a sharp intake of breath.
The doctor screamed.

Her eyes were black. Lucy felt detached from her body, like she was a spectator in her own mind. She swung her legs off the bed, and turned to face the doctor. A second consciousness in her mind made her breathe a sigh of happiness.
Food.

The doctor never screamed again.
Lucy glanced in the mirror, her grey skin prickled with excitement, and approached the doctor.
A cold hand was clamped over his nose and mouth. Muscles, strengthened in death, caring not of injury. Newly developed bone formed an extension to her upper and lower canines. They sank deep. A tall man, the dead girl couldn't reach his neck. His shoulder was just as effective.
The girl walked over to the sink, a new energy in her step. She washed her face, and looked in the mirror.
Her mind returned. The blood spilled down her front, the near transparent image in the mirror. She was scared.
She finished washing herself, but there was nothing she could do for the hospital gown. She heard quick-stepping shoes approaching. The nurse had heard the scream. Lucy looked around her. She had to get out. She couldn't face this. She couldn't deal with it.
The window in the room was small, and not designed to open. She smashed it, fragments of glass going deep into her knuckles. She felt pain again, and shook her hand furiously. She couldn't wait. She climbed out the window. She was near the back of the building, and only on the second floor. She dropped quietly to the pavement, amazed that she was able to stand the fall, she moved into the shadows,and left the grounds.
*******
Clothes. The hospital gown was coated in blood, and worse. It just wouldn't do. The shopping mall was closed, but she broke the door, the pain faded from that she had experienced breaking the window. The security would be here soon. She ran to the nearest store that stocked clothes she could wear happily, and selected clothing in her size, that would cover her every inch. A jacket with a hood was Clothes. The hospital gown was coated in blood, and worse. It just wouldn't do. The shopping mall was closed, but she broke the door, the pain faded from that she had experienced breaking the window. The security would be here soon. She ran to the nearest store that stocked clothes she could wear happily, and selected clothing in her size, that would cover her every inch. A jacket with a hood was on display. It would do nicely.
Although her reflection had been faded, she saw herself. Her skin was unhealthily gray, and her lips were almost black, a sign of the dried blood sitting in her system. Yet... she looked at her hands. They were pink once again.
The doctor's blood could not offer her life. But she was warm to the touch, and she felt alive. The feeling was beyond anything she had ever experienced. For all her self-horror, she reached her hands up, and laughed a laugh of ecstacy. The blood was a drug. It enticed her, brought happiness, and the illusion of life.
The guard approached through the shattered door. Lucy froze in his torch beam, the doberman, mouth agape, growled softly. Clothes in hand, she ran. She forced her body through the next glass window. This time the pain was negligable. The drug saturating her system was losing effect.
She ran, unbreathing. Her vision jerked up and down as she fled. Swerving through alleys, the lights and sounds of the chase stopped. She sat for a moment, astonished to find she felt no exhaustion.
She had to leave. To run away. She was a killer.
****
Lucy kept running. Early morning saw her running through a small town, her new clothes concealing her death well. She grabbed a newspaper off a news stand as she ran past. The shop owner shouted after her, but she was already gone.
When she stopped a short distance out of town she hunched over on the ground, looking at the newspaper.
The headline struck her first: "The one that Death forgot: Truth or cover up."
*****

The doctor had been found. Back in the hospital the staff did their best to tend the patients, those unable to cope sat around, hunched in on themselves, arms around each other, tears falling in their coffee, there, not as a warm drink, but as a comfort.
The chief detective stood up to the microphone."The discovery of Marcus Smithford, a young but experienced doctor was found in the early hours of the morning. Early reports claim a 'vampire' took him. This is preposterous, the police cannot accept fairy stories as fact, and pass off a horrible death as a mythical attack.
There is a large amount of blood inexplicably missing. Consequently, we suspect he was killed elsewhere, a short time before.
Simultaneously, the body of a young woman who was prononunced dead earlier in the day is missing. We suspect the two are connected. Anyone with information is urged to come forward. Thankyou."
Lucy's mother rushed forward, panicked "She isn't dead. She sat up, she spoke. She's not dead!"
The media turned their attention to her, flashes lighting up the room. The chief looked aside to the younger officers by his side. One went to comfort her."
The chief spoke again, "I am sorry for your loss ma'am, please come with us," He turned to the media, "I apologise for this, the woman is distraught, her daughter passed away suddenly yesterday. I ask you to offer her your understanding, and leave her in peace. Her daughter's is the body that has disappeared. This photograph, taken days before her death, will be distributed to you each at the exit.Thankyou."
****

The pages turned, and Lucy continued through the newspaper. Nothing more. The article, although on the front page, had been brief, and most likely added at the last minute. It had, after all, been early in the morning when she had attacked. There was no time for anything else to have made its way in, and it was far too early to go looking for obituaries.
Lucy leaned back against the tree where she had sat huddled over the newspaper, placing a rock on it, so the paper didn't blow away. As she did so, the dried blood on her hands caught her attention. She slowly began to pull the fragments of glass from her hands. She could feel more lodged along her side, where she had used her hip and shoulder to break through the shopping centre window. It didn't hurt. Only her sight told her where the glass fragments lay. Some wounds had begun to heal over already, a few almost gone. If nothing else worked, at least her body still knew how to heal itself.
She emerged from the small wooded area she was in, and stepped out into the open,deep in farmland. The patchwork of paddocks spread before her, not a person to be seen close by her. Nearby a small dam, its water level still high, caught her attention. She had to get the blood off. She had to be clean. She wanted no more reminder of the events which played over and over in her head. She loosened the clothes she had stolen, and shrugged them off, looking down at the bloodstains running down her front. Grasping feverently at her sanity, she waded out into the water, sinking to her ankles in the slime and mud at the bottom. For a time she merely sat in the water, fully submerged. As she didn't need to breathe the water offered her a place to hide from the truth. Eventually she turned her attention to the bloodstains. They had largely faded, andit took her little effort to remove the rest. Emerging from the dam, clean, but for the mud on her feet she realised her mistake. No towel. Still dripping she returned to the woodlands to dry.
Her back against the tree she had sheltered under earlier, she sat down, thinking. She was alone now. Even if she returned to society she was a misfit. A monster. A murderer.
Return was not an option. Lucille Marinou was dead. Whatever was left didn't live. It merely existed.
That which had been Lucy closed her hand around a rock, smashing it against another on the ground, shattering it. Grasping it, she raised her arm and struck down, tearing it through the flesh surrounding her wrist. She ripped down, again, and again, over, and over. But no blood fell. She was no more dead than she had been only a momen earlier.
Lucy's head tilted backwards, and she cried. She couldn't feel the tears, or the destroyed wrist. But the pain in her mind was keener than ay pain in her body could ever have been. She mourned for her own life.
No-one could cry forever. Eventually she stopped, and just sat, her head back, eyes looking towards the sky.
"Why?"
She stood up, her temper rising, and threw the rock at the nearest tree with all of the force she could muster.

She fell down and cried. She had lost everything.

[Greed]

Interesting, kinda long winded which generally keeps people away, overall it's pretty decent though, but your language in some places is kind of odd, although it's a fun short story.

[confusedcious]

Thanks for the criticism, it helps me improve...
_____________________________________________

In the morning, the wound was gone.
The days ticked by, but Lucy barely noticed. She kept moving, afraid she might be found. The madness had not returned, and Lucy's mood lifted considerably.
She ran her tongue over her teeth. They were not the same. They had been larger when she attacked, but they were distinctly different to the teeth sh had had when her heart beated. When she was just another student, trying to keep her grades up, attending classes. She wondered what it would be like to graduate, to show the world her worth and try to make life that bit better for herself, and with luck, others too. Numbly she remembered her coursework, reciting it. It was comforting, for all she would never have thought so before.
*****
Once again she approached a town, this one smaller than the one she had run through on the first morning after she died.
Not fifty metres before she arrived teh smell fo human blood hit her nostrils. Her mind clouded, and she was once again an observer in her own body. The other awareness stirred.
No she thought. But she couldn't form the words. I don't want this to happen.
Why not? Hunger... it drives me! The other part of her mind spoke back. With a shock she recognised her own thought.
No. It's wrong. No. It's wrong. I can't. I won't kill another person.
"No."
She regained control, but still she yearned for blood. She ran from the roadside, leapfrogging a fence post. Stalking, following. Her eyes, iris and pupil black as night as before. She followed her prey, throwing herself at it's back, gripping the neck of her victim, forcing her elongated teeth into the veins.
This time she had a little more idea how it worked, and the blood didn't spill over her. It spread, warm through her empty veins, warming her flesh, and bringing feeling to her, spreading first through her head and chest, her arms, to the very tips of her fingers, working down to her toes. Then, with a twitch from the carcass, the blood no longer flowed in.
Stepping back, she calmly looked down. The sheep was very dead. But no person had suffered.
The intoxicating feeling spread through her body with the blood. She felt alive!
She strode over to the trough of water near the fence, rinsed her mouth, and looked down at her reflection. As before, her reflection was somewhat transparent, but her skin looked like that of anyone else, and her eyes had regained their greenish-brown colour. She decided to take advantage of her semblance of life.
*****
By the time she reached the small town she had managed to remember to breathe. It served no purpose, but without it risked people noticing.
She walked into the general store, pushing through the strips of plastic hanging in the doorway. At the counter she stopped, a smile on her face. Back in civilisation! Her isolation was over, for the moment. The middle-aged woman behind the counter was perplexed by this stranger, standing by the counter with a grin spreading across her face. Must be drugs she thought to herself.
"What can I do for you?"
"Oh! Pardon me. Do you keep back copies of the newspapers? I really need the last week's papers."
"Not a problem. Just wait here."
As the woman disappeared through the doorway Lucy winced. She had no money to pay for them. Still, it would be rude to walk away.
The woman returned, and placed a stack of newspapers on the counter.
"That's $9.60 so far. Did you want today's as well?"
Lucy shuffled her feet. Her skin was still warm and pink, but touch was beginning to fade. She ran her fingers through her hair, just so she could remember what it felt like.
"I," she paused, "I just realised. I don't have anything to pay with. Thankyou. I'm sorry to have wasted your time."
She headed for the door
"Don't worry. I was only going to throw them away anyhow. Take them."
Looking from the girl to the newspapers, she noticed the uncanny resemblence of the girl to the picture on the front cover, a girl whose body had disappeared from a hospital the week before, and whose family was distraught, desperate to find her. But it couldn't be. The girl was dead. The one before her was very much alive, and stepped forward, gratitude showing on her face.
"Thankyou. I need these very much. If I am here again, I will find a way to repay you."
The bell on the door rang as she left. The cashier was left wondering why someone who appeared so desperately in need of other things would value the newspapers so much.
______________________________________-

Sense of feeling fading every moment, Lucy left the town, clutching the newspapers. The town was small, and within a very short time she was well outside the town, and knelt down, leaning forward over the newspapers, shaded by a large tree.

She flipped through each, scanning the pages, halting each time she found an article or item she sought.

The articles had progressed during the last week, from the front page until they were buried within the bulk of the news. Arrests had been made, and releases had followed. Leads had been followed, evidence processed. But progress had not been made. Impossible evidence had been found too, but in the end, a nurse had been arrested. Someone was responsible. And the police would find them, and find the way to convict them.

Lucy unfolded her legs from underneath her, and leant back on the tree. Someone was carrying the blame that should be laid on her. Someone who evidence may have pointed to, but who couldn’t have done it, if they were dead, as the records showed, even if the ravings of her mother, considered insane, said otherwise. Four days after the beginning of the investigation her mother had accepted her as dead, if she hadn’t, threats had been made that she would live her days out in a mental institiution.

Lucy sighed. There was nothing she could do. She was nothing but a bad dream and a myth. Stories don’t murder people.

She sat, without moving for some time. A sly wind began to swirl, lightly at first, ruffling the pages of the newspaper. It grew stronger, and one page from the newspaper slowly moved slowly away. Lucy’s eyes riveted to it. She moved, faster than she realised she knew how, and planted an index finger on the page, sliding it back towards the pile of newspapers.

She continued. Obituaries were prolific. Her age was one where a death ensured a plethora of notices of sympathy, loss and grief. From friends, family, associations, educational institutions of her recent past. All had something to say. She found it morbidly amusing to read what people had to say about her now that, to their knowledge and legal fact, she was dead. Some tried to combat grief with reflection, or an offering of wisdom, others met it with humour, or focused on the grief of the family to calm their own. Lucy realised she might be the first person in human history to have the opportunity to read her own obituaries. It was without a doubt, the strangest thing she had ever done. There were funeral notices too, or, at least, memorial services. Without a body, there would be no funeral, and at the current moment in time, Lucy was in no mood to provide such a body.

After many deep thoughts, some of which, in retrospect, were mildly ridiculous, Lucy took the newspapers further from the road, put them in a pile, and placed the largest rock she could move on top of them.

She kept thinking. The thoughts touched on her mind, many of them too big to be fully grasped by her mind, but she turned them over, examining them from every angle she could. She had thought, on many occasions in the past, that she didn’t know where to go from a situation, but now she knew what it meant to have no idea.

She missed her family. They had always been central to her life. Even when her mid-teens had seen her rebel and push them away, behind that, perhaps buried by the current emotion, she always loved them. They were there for her, whatever happened. Friends, for the most part, came and went with time. Especially when she finished school. Many promises had been made to keep in contact, but in reality, she had seen few since that day, and most of those she had seen were in passing. But her family was always there. She wanted desperately to return to them, to show them she wasn’t dead, just not quite alive either. But she was a murderer, and her mere presence, once people understood, frightened them, and caused them to create distance. If she returned she would find herself with an unspoken distance between her and the rest of humanity. Why would they want to have anything to do with a walking freak show?

Still without an idea of what to do, Lucy rubbed her face with her hands, pushed her hair back behind her ears and stood up. She followed the line on the side of the road, staring at it, wondering where it led. She walked, without stopping. Slowly, as she had no deadline, but nonetheless without stopping. The sun rose and fell several times. But Lucy wasn’t counting. There was no reason to it, and it detracted from the oversized thoughts she was attempting to process. When the line turned, so did she.

Then one day, the line stopped. The road had become gravel, coloured orange from the dirt of the surrounding area. Lucy lifted her head from the road for the first time in many days, looking to see where the iridescent white line had led her.

[confusedcious]

Anyone even vaguely interested in seeing the rest of this?

[confusedcious]

Okay then. I'm putting this on hiatus. Possibly permanent... I've lost interest in writing it, and no-one else seems to give two shits so...

[SevTiZ]

gah... this is what I get for leaving this forum alone for a couple weeks. When is this hiatus going to be over?

[confusedcious]

When Lucy looked up she had no idea how long she had been walking. The quality of the road had decreased, and there were now potholes at random intervals.

The sandy soil was orange, almost red. Lucy had heard stories, and seen pictures of how red the ground in the centre of the country was, but to see it was another thing altogether. Vegetation was sparse, but pockets of plant life were all around in her field of vision. At first glance, asides a few sheep, nothing moved, but as Lucy took time to take in her surroundings she noticed a multitude of small creatures, and wondered how they survived out here.

The sun was harsh, and Lucy had to squint. She couldn't feel the heat of the sun on her skin, and she was, as she couldn't feel the heat, still dressed in clothes that hid most of her skin from view, still, she headed from the road, climbed a fence, and sat down in the shade of a small group of trees to examine the thoughts she had been turning over in her mind during her journey. They were, although worn down from intense examination, still hopelessly beyond her ability to properly comprehend.

Lucy heard a noise nearby, and returned to reality with a start. A sheep was only a short distance away, and the smell reminded her she hadn't eaten in some time. She chased the sheep, which surprised her with its speed, for a short distance, unfeeling muscles, Lucy found, could be forced to attain the speed she required. She threw herself at the terrified creature, latching onto its neck near the point it merged with the creature's body. Breathing hard and fast, the creature struggled to get away from the strange weight on its back, but soon it collapsed, its last memories hazy, as it was drained of the life-bringing blood.

Lucy stepped away from the dead sheep, finding this time there was no need to wash her face- and just as well - she couldn't see water nearby, though it must be if sheep could survive here.

Walking from the place the sheep had died, she broke into a run, skipping and spinning, head thrown bacck and laughing for the sheer joy that the drug of life bought to her.

Behind her she heard a sudden noise, and turned once more in surprise.

"Well, you do seem happy. Might I enquire why?"

The man, for his somewhat elegant speech, was scruffy, and looked like he had been dragged through a bush backwards. He had unkempt grey-shot hair, dazzling green eyes, several missing teeth, and weathered skin.

Lucy was sure all of his clothes had been patched together so often that the worn threads were all that were keeping them together.

She stumbled for an answer "Just... enjoying life"

"Pardon if I'm trespassing on your lands - merely passing through, you know."

"Oh! No, I don't live here, just a traveller."

"Very well, call me Jimmy" The stranger spoke with a grin showing his lack of teeth, and offered a rather dirty hand, which Lucy tentatively accepted.

"I am quite familiar with the area, and as night is approaching, perhaps I could offer you a camp for the nght - nothing evil intended!" He added the last past hastily

Lucy had missed the company of other people, so she agreed, and followed the scruffy man in the direction she had come from previously.

As they passed the dead sheep the man looked like he had just won the lottery. "Well! don't know what happened to this one, but I imagine it will make a rather nice roast."

At that he pulled a knife from his belt, and started to peel the wool from the sheep, cutting a neat leg roast from the sheep. "I was once a butcher, you know. That was a long time ago." The man looked away suddenly, much thought evident in his face.

"Are you ok?" Lucy asked, biting the inside of her lip to ensure her sense of feeling, and therefore normal colouring, was still in place. She didn't want to have to explain that.

"We all have our skeletons in the closet. Sometimes you have to stand right up to them and face them down. Other times they're best left to lie."

Lucy heard the truth in his words, and reminded herself to consider them later. The sun began to sink, and the pair reached a grove of trees, some distance further from the road than Lucy had been before. Not sure what to do, she followed the man as he began to gather firewood, picking up some herself as she went, then, once they returned to camp, helped the man clear a circle and build a campfire, over which he used skills which must have taken years to develop to cook the lamb he had cut from Lucy's kill. The smell, Lucy found, didn't excite her in the slightest, though she knew that it smelt delicious.

The man offered a piece of the roast, still steaming, and Lucy watched it steam. She hadn't eaten normal foods since she had left the city after her death, she wasn't sure that she wanted to, but she ate the meat quickly, finding the taste nothing like she remembered lamb. Whereas the smell told her it should have been delicious, it felt somehow wrong. With what remained of her sense of feeling, she felt her stomach do a backflip and, without explanation, walked quickly away until the man by the fire could no longer see or hear her, and threw up violently.

After the nausea ceased, she kicked dirt over the partially digested lamb, which should have tasted wonderful. She thought for a moment, and it occured to her, that she might not be suited to food anymore. Facing the prospect that she might never be able to eat the foods she had loved before, she felt saddened.

Death had taken so much from her. Yet it had left so much behind. Lucy found this strange state of Limbo unsettling, but, as before, couldn't run from the truth, so she merely internalised it, waited until she was sure she was in control of her emotions again, and returned to the campfire. "Excuse me there, just needed a bathroom."

"Fair enough. More lamb?"

"No, I couldn't eat another thing."

Lucy watched the man, who, with his life fully intact, finished off the entire remainder of the lamb leg. Lucy was left wondering where he managed to put all of the lamb once he had eaten it. They both sat in silence for a while. "So then, what shall I be calling you Miss?"

"Um. I'm Lucy"

"Nice name. Lucy what?"

"Just Lucy. The rest has become irrelevant over time. I don't really know who I am anymore. Sometimes I have these wonderful moments where I think I have life- if that's what you want to call it- all worked out. Other times I just don't know what I am, or where I fit in. So I am just Lucy, and sometimes not even that."

"Those skeletons causing you trouble?"

"To say the least. Life had a beautiful certainty about it. I didn't know all of the exact details, but I knew what each day held, and what I had to do to make it work. I was a student, almost halfway through a University degree. Between that and a job, life wasn't exactly overly exciting, but it was secure, and I was happy. Then one day it was all ripped away. Something happened to me, which... changed my way of looking at things, and I just can't go back to where I was before."
"I might be able to relate that better than you might imagine. Sometimes details might not bear repeating, but why can't you go back? For me the answer is simple, though I don't plan on giving it to anyone, sometimes I'd rather not know myself. Sometimes going back can help, even if you don't stay. If you need somone to tell, I can listen. I'm not going to make you, but maybe it will help?"

"I don't know what to say. I did something awful, though I didn't mean to. It was like watching life through the windows of my eyes, but having no control over what happened. Even if I did tell the people who should know what happened, I don't think they'd believe me. I don't think they'd even believe I was really there telling them. Most people think... I'm dead. Which is closer to the truth than you'd think, though I don't care to reveal why. The truth, sometimes, is much harder to believe that the conclusion you'd draw without knowing what really happened. The thing that hurts me most is that someone else is bearing the consequences that I should have - someone else has taken the blame, which is entirely mine, and I feel that I am taking their life from them, though I don't even know them.”

"Sounds like someone up there hasn't been making your life easy. What does your heart tell you to do?"

Lucy snorted "My heart. Whole lot of use that is. Just a lump of muscle sitting there and..." Lucy paused, but Jimmy gave her time, as he sensed she hadn't yet finished.

"I don't want someone else to suffer for what I did. But I'm scared. I don't know what will happen to me."

"I can't make the decision for you. You're the only one that can make that decision. Remember that this decision, if it is of the magnitude it sounds like it might be, will not only effect the rest of your life, but the lives of others too. That includes your family, if you're a lucky enough person to have one. If I had a family left, anyone, I might have decided otherwise. But I found myself without connections, with nothing and no-one in my situation. And I wouldn't wish it on anyone. If you have just left yourself, you are taking them away from yourself. If you can avoid it, do. Without your family, and your close friends, you have nothing. If there's something my time in the wilderness taught me, it's that."

Lucy didn't reply, and shortly after Jimmy pulled his hat over his face, and began to snore.

With the tools of thought Jimmy had given her, Lucy re-examined her situation, and although it was still fuzzy, her choice began to move closer to being in focus. She still couldn't understand what had happened to her, and didn't know what her future would be, or how far away it was, but she knew what she needed to do to begin working towards it. She only hoped she didn't hurt too many people doing it.

When Jimmy woke up in the morning, Lucy thanked him, and left, walking back towards the road, where she had left it before.

[SevTiZ]

Now this is DEFINITELY something nice to chew on for a while... should keep me satisfied until the next installment is up.

just a little grammar fascism, though:

"Remember that this decision.... will not only effect the rest of your life...."

BZZT!! *slaps your desk with a ruler* The word you're looking for is "affect". Another viable option would be "This decision...will not only have an effect on the rest of your life....". Common mistakes, but those are the kinds of details that set The Greats apart from The Hacks. Otherwise, as the buzzards say, carry on (carrion... haha)!

[Pout]

I'm also following this one with much interest.

Just to help keep you motivated.

((ps: if you're running out of ideas, I wouldn't mind knowing how she got turned.))

[confusedcious]

Do tell me about grammar issues, I want to make this better. Just... ignore blatant hit-the-wrong-key typos....
_______________________________

Lucy followed the line again, walking in the direction she had come from. She hadn’t looked beyond the line, so again it was her guide.

Hands in her pockets, Lucy looked around and saw the changing landscape that she had missed before in her self-absorption. She didn’t blame herself for it, merely regretted not looking beyond herself. She didn’t deny herself the urge to feed this time, her diet varying from sheep and goats to the occasional pig. She tried a cow once, but the enraged animal had been beyond her ability to control, throwing her off and trampling her before it escaped. She didn’t feel the pain, but it was a day before her body allowed her to move once more. After that she avoided large animals.

Cars passed barely noticing her presence. Lucy raised her hood and put her hands in her pockets to hide her discoloured skin when she passed through towns. She was old news now. Someone had been jailed, and for most the story was closed, and finding a body had been given up on. Lucy felt momentary anguish as she realised she had been given up on, and would soon be forgotten. But she pushed that aside, intent on finding her goal. Now that was all that mattered, and eventually, when she reached it, she would be remembered, if only by some.

Lucy knew her target was getting nearer when she passed through the town that she had been given newspapers in when she last passed through. Looking at the current newspaper, she could see that six months had passed. The news was the same as ever - somewhere a politician was lying, and people suffered for the actions of others. Hate was abroad in the world, causing devastation that seemed so far away, yet cut into Lucy's mind. Suffering seemed universal. She felt that she had suffered, but in the face of the trials others had passed through wondered if her situation was so bad.

It was close now. Lucy could nearly feel it. And a certain anxiousness crept over her, as she dreaded what might go wrong. And who she might hurt. But she had come so far that she refused not to reach her target. She would go there. And then she would act, if she could.

Lucy re-entered the city of her death one day when the rain was falling. It didn't bother her in the slightest, but in this weather the city seemed devoid of people, inhabited only by cars, and the occasional person making a dash for shelter. Still with some distance to go, Lucy felt reassured by the familiar surroundings. There was certainly much insecurity left within her, and she could not deny herself the feeling, but she grew more confident despite this every moment. She was nearly there.

Lucy was standing behind a jacaranda tree in the rain, staring into the red brick house over the road from her when she found herself unable to continue for a moment. She leaned up against the tree, hiding from the view of the house, and tried to convince her mind of what to do next - the wrong action could lead to anything, and here were those she could hurt most. She already had. They had grieved, and they had been frightened. Her mother had been ridiculed for her thoughts that Lucy was not dead, and though others might have thought that too they did not want to be considered insane, and so had abandoned her to the critical eye of the media, which had seen her proclamed as insane by specialists and journalists alike. Lucy would make amends, for she loved her mother still, but she could not put her through more torment than she had already. There seemed no two ways about it, so Lucy resumed her watch on the house.

As darkness fell a car pulled into the driveway, and two people stepped out. She wanted to speak to these too, as they would have suffered no less, but first she wanted to speak to her mother. So once they had vanished into the warm dryness of the house, Lucy scaled the gate, and started to circumnavigate the house, avoiding being seen. First she passed the kitchen window, but nobody was there. Familiar smells emanated from the room, inspiring memories to come forth and remind Lucy of what she could no longer have, but wanted so dearly. Passing the bathroom, there was nothing to see. The glass was designed, as it often is, to avoid intruders watching. It did that well, and Lucy moved on. The back garden opened up, and Lucy could see many of the garden projects that had been planned before her death had been completed, and the garden had been kept neatly trimmed. Then she passed the room that had been hers. Sheets covered everything, and a healthy layer of dust suggested it had been abandoned. But boxes lined the room, labelled to describe their contents. Her life had been boxed - and if not forgotten, they had tried to. Finally she rounded another corner, careful not to be seen, as there were many windows in this wall, and saw into the room where the family often sat. Sitting alone there was her mother. A lump rose in Lucy's throat as she saw the woman sitting there, working industriously on something held in her hands, another scarf, it would seem. But the woman had changed. Grey roots from her hair had not been covered, and the woman was gaunt, her eyes haunted. She did not appear as anything Lucy remembered. She knew she was responsible. Lucy squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to let guilt overwhelm her, knowing that it was action, not tears, that would correct the mistakes she had made.

[SevTiZ]

I can't believe this thread is only one page long...

I don't see any grammar errors, which means either
(A) I'm too wrapped up in the story to notice
(B) Your compositional mechanics skills are improving
OR
(C) Both of the above.

I vote (C). That was a nice little insight on her attempt at feeding on a cow at the beginning--now I won't feel so guilty when I craft and consume The Perfect Home-grilled Burger. I'm curious to see what will happen when/if she decides to show herself to her mother and/or anyone else in her family.

by the by, have you read a (fairly-)new book called "Vamped", by David Sosnowski? Amusing tale of what would happen if vampires were the dominant species in the world, and one of the first "Benevolent Vampires" who winds up raising a mortal girl.

[Blaze]

It's good. Very very good. A bit matter-of-fact in my personal opinion, but that's a matter of taste, which there's no accounting for. I just happen to be a fan of more drawn out language.