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...in Moscow, Russia, in the Year of Our Lord 598, to Valerye and Sergei Petrov. I was 18 when I met a strangely pale man who said he had traveled a long distance. I let him stay in my house to rest. However, I had been outside for a long time that day and the cold had made me deathly ill. That night he came to me in my bedroom, pale as the driven snow and eyes gleaming like the moon. He was like a dark angel. When he spoke, it was like he was speaking from another realm. "Ekaterina, dear, sweet girl," he said to me. "What if you could, with one kiss, never feel sickness again? You would never die, always young - as we are - and always your true self? Would you like that, my dearest?"
"Who are you?" I cried. "Why do you call me 'dearest,' and why do you speak of these things? What are you?"
"I, my dear, am an immortal. I came to offer you this gift. Do you want it? You must ask for it, darling."
"Ask for what!?" I cried.
"The Dark Gift, my dearest."
"The Dark what? Are you a demon?"
"No, malenkaia, I am a vampire."
I sat still in my bed, frozen to the spot, unable to comprehend what was happening. I was being offered immortality, and like a coward, I became speechless at the presentation of such a gift.
Now he bent low, whispering in my ear. "What will it be, my strange one? Do you accept my invitation?"
Suddenly an excrutiating spasm wracked my body. Flashes of light passed before my tightly-shut eyelids and pain shot through my weakened frame. It was too much to bear, I thought. To end it all, to rid myself of pain...but in exchange for what? My soul?
I had no more time to consider. Another convulsion attacked me and I hissed through clenched teeth, "Yes. Do it. Do it now...please..."
Smiling, he said, "Oh, malenkaia, this will be the most exquisite choice you have made. Now trust me..." before he sank his teeth into my neck. I felt the blood beginning to drain from my veins. My heartbeat pounded in my head and I felt my life slipping away. He drank more and more and soon I was so weakened I went limp in his arms, images of darkness and the beautiful night pouring into my mind.
Suddenly he let me go, dropping me onto the bed. He fell back into a chair laughing softly to himself. I lay on the bed for a few moments before the pain set in, twisting my body into strange contortions. I gasped for air, knowing my death was imminent.
He came near me and watched me for a moment while I agonizingly clutched my stomach. "Relax, my dear," he said. "Your body is dying. Soon," and now he whispered, "I will give your body what it craves." He broke open the vein on his wrist and put it to my mouth. I smelled the blood as it dripped into my mouth and before I could take another labored breath, I had put his wrist to my mouth and began drawing out the blood, faster and faster. Oh, it was so sweet, even though in my mind I couldn't believe I was doing this thing, drinking the immortal blood of the demons I had been warned about by my late parents. When he took his wrist away, I was almost disappointed by the sudden lack of sweet burning liquid in my mouth, until my stomach began to feel as if it were on fire. I felt his blood coursing through my body and when the turbulent change finally took place, images flashed before my eyes and I felt every limb in my body as if it were but an extension of my mind. Finally, when it ended, I sat up with a wondering gaze about the room. I could see everything down to the most minute details. I jumped off the bed and threw open the curtains, and then the window, peering out into the dark night sky. The stars were no longer the weakly twinkling lights they had been the previous night - now they were the most beautiful, brightly shimmering orbs I had ever seen. The moon was like God to me and I stretched out my arms to it as a small sigh escaped my mouth. Behind me, the stranger just laughed quietly.
"You see everything anew, don't you? It's as if you were suddenly given the eyes of an angel, isn't it? The all-knowing eyes of God? Revel in it, my child, and love it, for this is what you will live in for the rest of your immortal life. Come. There are things I must teach you." He put his hand out and I placed mine in his tentatively.
"Your skin is so cold," I gasped.
"And yours so warm, your hand so small," he whispered. His eyes looked far away, as if he were remembering something, then suddenly he blinked. "But enough of that, I have many things to show you. Come." He lead me out of the room and left my house, walking out into the now-peaceful snow.

Read Ekaterina's vampire poetry

What my teacher showed me that night