pink ribbon at the neck untied. Her developing breasts
peeked out with every tug she made on the thin, white
cotton fabric. The girl’s mother scurried to cover up her
daughter’s virtue, but her efforts were in vain as the
nightgown defiantly slid down the girl’s arm, baring a
small, soft pink shoulder.
I walked from the door, passed the foot of the
bed, to a round wooden table with silver trim as I watched
the girl jerk a bit, side-to-side, continually moving her feet
forward and backward, digging her heels into the mattress.
Two maids stood on either side of the girl, one fanning her
with a long wooden-handled clamshell paper fan while the
other used a cold compress on the girl’s feverish forehead.
I set my bag on the table and glanced over at the girl’s
father. He hadn’t moved from the door since escorting me
into the room, seemingly too scared to get closer and thus
cherished his distance from the bed, though it was only
about five feet.
The girl’s panting noises brought my attention
back to her. When she breathed deeply, her air intake
stuttered, like a shiver in cold rain. Though the room was
dim, I could clearly see two fang marks on the left side of
the girl’s neck. A fresh bite was like any other wound,
open, seeping, bloody. But the bite mark on this girl’s neck
had already begun to heal, the skin growing back together,
red around the outside but puckered in the center. Her
three days of transformation were almost up. The girl was
in the last phase, yet her parents counted on me to save
her from the curse. There was nothing I could do but end
her suffering.
“Hold her down,” I told the mother and two
maids. “I’m going to give her an injection.”
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