• "We're running out of food. Are you watching the news?" A tall woman with pale skin and dark hair says into her phone.

    "Hm? No, what channel?" A voice replies.

    "Any of the news channels, it's everywhere. Channels 10, 30, and 50 have the best coverage of the issue," She replies, flicking between the three channels. No words are spoken while the man on the other side of the phone turns on his TV and changes the channel.

    "A famine," He says, "That's nothing new."

    The woman shifts back in her seat, crossing her legs.

    "It's     spreading, Michael," She says almost coldly, "It's not just here, there's no food anywhere. You have to do something soon. You said that if it went on for much longer you would have to take initiative, well it's not only still going on, but it's gotten worse."

    A pause.

    A sigh.

    And then, "All right, Tessa, I'll see what I can do."

    The man hangs up and the woman smiles, her bright white fangs contrasting with her ruby red lips.

    More food. She thinks to herself.



    ——————————————————————————————————————————


    It's been thirty-six and a half years since the vampire epidemic broke out. On that fateful day of March 12, 2024, a bright young scientist named Marie Burgess proudly announced that she had found a way to create a vampire. She had created them solely out of loneliness and longing for the kind of person she’d read about in her silly vampire novels, and, as many people had thought, it had turned out to be a bad idea.

    Beaming brightly as she'd unveiled her creation, her fellow scientists began to denounce her, but none of them were around for very long after that. A third of the population was either dead or infected by only a month later, and soon it was half, and soon it was nearly everyone. People managed to last hiding out in the wilderness with guns, but by ten years later they were very, very scarce.

    So Michael Mercer, a scientist who had criticized Dr. Burgess and then changed his mind about vampires not long after becoming one, created a solution: human farms. He gathered up as many of the few humans he could find, studied them for a month, and then began to synthesize more. The first few were mistakes, all were deformed or sickly, but they provided fresh blood all the same. His later attempts were more successful, and within a year he had a surplus of perfectly synthesized humans, which he began to ship off to other places.

    According to the vampires, I am SH14129, but you can call me Kate. Welcome to the New World, where you'd better watch your neck.