I passed out from hunger while hiking off-trail in the Blue Ridge woods.
When I opened my eyes, a pale little face hovered over mine.
“Auntie, are you still hungry?” he asked sweetly.
Weirdly, my hands had stopped trembling, but there was a metallic taste in my mouth.
The kid beamed with pride. “Auntie, I just gave you some high-sugar blood!”
“High what now?”
He blinked, totally serious. “High blood sugar blood. From a diabetic.”
Blood?
HUMAN BLOOD??
What the actual fu—
And just like that, I nearly blacked out again.
But I didn’t.
I forced myself to stay awake, scanning my surroundings.
I was in a huge, dusty old house that screamed “haunted mansion on Zillow.”
Antique furniture, thick layers of dust, and silence so loud it hurt.
I swallowed the bile in my throat and asked, “Hey, kiddo. What’s your name?”
“Danny.”
Round face, big eyes, messy hair—looked like a chubby Disney prince that got lost on the way to the castle.
I resisted the urge to pat his head. “Thanks for saving my sorry ass, Danny. But I gotta go.”
His smile dropped instantly.
And in the blink of an eye, he zipped to the front door like some creepy anime blur.
He pressed his back against it and stretched out his tiny porcelain arms.
Two sharp, dog-like fangs peeked out as he growled,
“You can’t leave. I found you. You’re mine.”
My whole body trembled.
“I… I have to go home, sweetie. People are waiting for me. I have a job, I’m an adult. Danny… where’s your mom?”
His face twisted in confusion. He stepped back, teeth disappearing.
Then he squeezed his eyes shut dramatically and started fake-crying like a kid on a courtroom drama.
“I don’t have a mom.”
He sniffled loudly. “So I picked Auntie to be my mom.”
He glared right at me. “But Auntie doesn’t want Danny.”
And just like that, my blood turned to concrete.
Nope. Nope. This is not normal.
This place was fucked six ways to Sunday.
I needed to get out of here.
But my legs were jelly, completely useless.
“…How about this,” I croaked. “Tomorrow, I’ll take you to preschool. I’ll be your mom for a day. Then you let me go, okay?”
Danny’s eyes sparkled.
He vanished in a flash, bouncing away like a happy demon child.
I collapsed to the floor in a heap.
I’m a grad student at Eastwood University, pharmaceutical sciences.
I came out here to find purple duskroot—a rare plant with blood-glucose-lowering properties.
Totally ran out in the lab and didn’t wanna get chewed out by Dr. Mason Blake.
So I figured I’d try my luck in its natural habitat: these godforsaken hills.
Didn’t expect to get kidnapped by a kid vampire with emotional attachment issues.
That night, the mansion was dead silent.
No sounds from Danny’s room.
I peeked inside.
Moonlight spilled over a tiny coffin in the center of the room.
Danny was lying in it, limbs flopped out like a starfish.
No chest movement. No breathing.
Scattered around him were faded toys, cracked picture books, and a vibe that screamed “child ghost museum.”
Everyone else gets rescued by magical koi fish.
I get adopted by a bloodsucking preschooler.
I closed the door gently, then started tiptoeing around the house.
Gotta map this place out. Figure out my escape route.
Because what if he’s been alive for decades and has more mind tricks than a Vegas magician?
What if he changes his mind and decides he wants a fresh snack instead of a mommy?
In the kitchen, I found a huge walk-in freezer.
Inside were dozens of blood bags—stacked neatly like Costco inventory.
Labeled with dates, types, and charming tags like animal blood and high-sugar human.
Great. The little bastard runs on Whole Foods vampire diet plans.
The master bedroom was creepier than his.
Dust-covered bed, broken wedding photo above the headboard.
Can’t even tell what the faces looked like.
And the sheet music on the busted piano kept flipping pages with zero wind.
I curled up on the smallest couch I could find and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” like ten times just to fall asleep.
At the crack of dawn, Danny’s crazy mop of hair poked into the room.
He held a glass filled with something dark and sloshy.
“Auntie, breakfast time! This one’s not sweet!”
He tiptoed over and set it on the nightstand like it was orange juice.
Looked at me with the purest puppy eyes ever.
Kid, you’re sweet, but I’m not drinking that murder smoothie.
I smiled and pulled him close. Smoothed his hair, wiped the dried blood off his lips.
“Danny, where exactly did you get this… meal?”
He didn’t even blink.
“Ms. Blanche gave it to me. She makes sure all the kids eat. If you don’t, she pokes you with a needle.”
…What in the hell kind of messed up preschool is this?
Danny tilted his head. “Can I call you Mom today?”
I nodded with a forced smile.
“You’re a vampire… but you can go out during the day?” I asked gently.
He zoomed off to the coat rack.
Grabbed a black cloak like he was off to Comic-Con.
There was a stitched-on name tag, crooked and barely hanging:
“Shadow Grove Preschool – Class 2B – Daniel Wells”
He slipped it on like a pro, slung a red kiddie backpack over his shoulder, and beamed.
“Mom! Look! I’m ready!”
We stepped outside. The path was shaded by thick trees, barely letting the sun in.
He darted ahead like a tiny shadow scout.
God, he was weirdly adorable. And terrifying.
“How far is this freaking school?” I muttered.
“Danny,” I called. “You know what’s the first rule of being someone’s kid?”
He turned around, eyes wide and curious.
“Obedience?”
“Loyalty?”
“Nope,” I said, tapping my empty stomach.
“Filial piety. Which means taking care of your mom. Like, say, bringing her stuff to eat.”
Right then, a pile of leaves rustled near my foot.
A squirrel popped out, cheeks stuffed like a hoarder, pawing at its stash.
Danny bowed to the squirrel like it was an ancient blood god, then pounced.
Sure enough, under the moss and twigs were hazelnuts, pine seeds, and shriveled walnuts.
I gave him a thumbs-up. “That’s my boy.”
Danny’s preschool wasn’t even a real building.
It was an old abandoned chapel buried deep in the woods.
Crooked steeple, shattered stained-glass windows, weeds taller than my waist.
A rusted carousel lay collapsed in the yard like it had given up on joy.
The swings creaked by themselves, even though there was no breeze.
Somewhere nearby, I heard children laughing… singing. Faint at first, then louder.
Something in my gut twisted.
Then, out of nowhere, a crowd of kids swarmed me like a horror-movie flash mob.
Tiny pale faces. Cold fingers brushing against my skin.
One girl in a torn red velvet dress, twin pigtails tight as hell, grabbed my hand and sniffled,
“Danny! You brought food today?”
Jesus.
Their little noses flared, sniffing like starving wolves.
A sickening chorus of greedy breaths filled the air.
I froze. One wrong move and I was going to end up as their communal lunch.
Danny gripped my hand like a lifeline and glared.
“She’s not food,” he growled. “She’s my mom.”
The crowd gasped like he’d just brought Beyoncé to career day.
“She smells so sweet…”
“Your mom’s scent is so fresh!”
“Can she be my mom too, just for one snack—uh, I mean, minute?”
A dozen little faces stared at me like I was a cinnamon roll dipped in blood.
Cold noses brushed against my wrist and neck.
I was about two seconds from screaming when a skeletal boy with sunken eyes lunged forward and sank his teeth into my arm.
Pain shot through me as blood gushed out.
I clutched my arm, trying not to pass out.
Danny snapped.
Eyes blazing red, he launched himself like a rabid wolf, body-checking the biter across the playground.
The kid went flying into a pile of dead grass.
Bones clattered everywhere like he was made of Legos.
“Dumbass,” Danny snarled. “Put yourself back together.”
He bared his fangs and turned to the others.
“No sniffing. No touching. She’s mine.”
The yard fell dead silent.
Even the haunted-ass swing set stopped creaking.
All those creepy little weirdos now looked terrified.
My brain finally clicked—vampires protect their food.
Or in this case… their fake moms.
Danny turned to me, dead serious.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I gotchu.”
And then—because of course this place wasn’t done yet—a huge white blur floated in from nowhere and grabbed Danny by the throat.
A voice shrieked, slicing through the silence:
“Who the hell gave you permission to brawl at school?!”
The floating thing was a woman.
Barely human-looking.
She was over six feet tall, all bones and menace, draped in an oversized white lab coat like a scarecrow in drag.
Danny kicked and clawed at her, legs thrashing as she held him in the air by the neck.
The rest of the kids dropped into absolute silence.
No more sniffing. No more giggling.
Just a bunch of creepy toddlers looking like they’d peed themselves.
I blinked hard.
Nope. Not hallucinating. This woman was literally floating.
Meanwhile, the bony kid Danny had wrecked was crawling through the dead grass, gathering up his detached ribs like nothing had happened.
I tried to steady my voice. “Uh, ma’am? He bit me first.”
I showed her the gash on my arm, still bleeding.
She looked me up and down with dull, pale eyes, like she was inspecting spoiled produce.
Then she pulled out a moldy-looking notebook and started flipping pages.
“So… you’re Danny’s mom?”
I opened my mouth to deny it but she steamrolled right on.
“You’ve missed twenty years of parent-teacher conferences. You proud of that?”
“What kind of trash parenting lets a kid tear a classmate apart over a juice box dispute, huh? You think that’s normal, Mrs. Wells?”
This could not be real.
First I get forcibly adopted, now I’m getting mom-shamed by a ghost lunch lady?
“School rules are school rules,” she snapped. “Whoever breaks it, fixes it.”
She dropped Danny like a sack of rocks.
He hit the dirt hard and scrambled behind me, eyes wide.
She didn’t even glance at him. Just stared at me.
“You and your little darling are gonna put Colby back together. Every piece. No bones, no class.”
“And everyone’s snack privileges? Revoked.”
The entire yard erupted in whines and wails.
Kids were rolling on the ground like she’d just told them Christmas was canceled.
She pointed at me like I was the one who ate the last pudding cup.
“Fix him. Then get the hell out. You don’t belong here.”
Lady, I know. Believe me, I know.
If I could’ve walked away, I would’ve ghosted this place faster than a Tinder hookup gone wrong.
Colby—if that’s what his name was—held a rib bone in one hand, trying to guess where it belonged.
Every time he thought, his jaw clicked like a busted metronome.
The swing creaked again, just to set the mood.
Sun was climbing, burning the fog off the cursed playground.
I pulled Danny’s hood up over his messy hair.
“Go sit in the shade,” I muttered.
He didn’t move.
Just stared at the bite mark on my arm like it offended him personally.
I was already pissed, but something about his stare set me off.
I stood up, grabbed the super glue I’d been using, and chucked it across the yard.
Colby flinched so hard he dropped the bones he’d just reassembled.
Danny looked up, stunned.
I grabbed his tiny hand and started walking toward the gate.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, Danny,” I said, voice low and shaking.
“This place? This preschool from hell? Screw it.”
“We’re ditching it. We’re going to have some fun.”
Truth was, I had no damn clue where to take him.
This place wasn’t Earth. Not my version, anyway.
The sun was out but gave off zero warmth.
No Chuck E. Cheese. No Six Flags. Not even a single gas station convenience store.
I was just a three-hundred-month-old kid in grad student disguise.
I had no idea how to raise a vampire child.
Meanwhile, my stomach was staging a full-blown riot.
I could barely see straight, and every step felt like a trust fall with gravity.
Finding purple duskroot?
Yeah, screw that. I just wanted to not die.
Danny darted between trees like a squirrel on Adderall.
Then he trotted back, tugged on my hand gently.
“Mom,” he chirped, hopeful. “Wanna play a game?”
“…Sure,” I muttered. “Let’s play treasure hunt. First one to find food wins.”
God, the shame. Hustling a baby vampire with survival games because I was too weak to function.
Danny beamed. “Okay! Game starts now!”
He started peeling bark off trees, flipping rocks like a mini meth addict.
After a few minutes, he turned those black eyes on me.
“Mom… your tummy’s been growling nonstop. Why do you get hungry so fast? We usually drink one bag of blood per month…”
Then he paused. “Unless… you wanna try—”
“No.” I shook my head violently. “I’d rather starve to death than suck down high-fructose hemoglobin.”
He pouted, then dug into his cloak and pulled out a squished snack cake.
“Mom… last year Ms. Blanche found a man in the woods. He wasn’t moving. This was in his backpack. It’s expired. I didn’t want you to have to eat expired stuff…”
Too late. Gimme that.
By the time I processed what not moving meant, the cake was gone.
Crumbs and shame. That’s all I had.
“Wait,” I said. “What happened to the guy?”
“Ms. Blanche told me to find purple grass for him. I never saw him again. Maybe she ate him.”
Purple grass?
Could he mean purple duskroot?
You’re telling me this whole time I’ve been in the lab extracting compounds like a maniac, it was just… edible?
You could just… toss it in like trail mix?
Are you shitting me?
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