She must have known we were coming. It would be hard to miss a crowd of men stampeding up her hill with full force, but she expressed no sign of fear. I had imagined this a lot differently. I thought that she would scream for mercy, I had my fishing boat on it. The other men thought the wench she wouldn't go down without a fight, like a real demon. Begin a bloodbath that she would bathe in, unfazed by our torn limbs and broken bodies floating around her—all while singing her songs of death.

However, when we got to her house, she was waiting outside the door for us. Sitting under the opaque pink flowers occupying all the cave-like lodgings on the island. She had on a white gown that trailed around her like snow sliding down mountains. We shortly recognised she was mimicking a bride without the veil and without a groom. Was this a last attempt to trick the mind? The latest effort at simulating purity and innocence? That's what my cousin thought who was restlessly breathing beside me with the thirst of a wolf. The dress covered her bruised arms but not the swelling of her cheek from last night's beating. Her mouth was stern, her eyes shielded so no one could see in, see that the creature had no soul.

And yet, I am still not so sure. 

She fidgeted with her sleeves like any human would when they were apprehensive, and her skin radiated the sun she had soaked up over her twenty years of living. She had been born on a holy day. The priest said that this should have been enough for us, that she was damned the moment she was born, and yet I couldn't help but look at her and see the child I had once played with. Father said to expect that, they use illusions, turn your own memories against you, so all you'll see was what she was but not what she had become. She became a monster. It was time to treat her as such. 

They handled her as if she were meat ready to be thrown to the lions. Two men approached her one prepared with the rope and bound her wrists. The second man was a guard for the first who prayed the rope cut into the witch's skin. The rest of us were just there to watch. We dragged her to the main square where all of Thira was alive and buzzing. I felt like I was inside a beehive, stingers at the ready even though we all feared the sharp edge of the wasp. I joined my friends near the frontline who were just as hypnotized by the sight of our vampire woman brought down on our cobblestoned street. 

Then a woman so indiscriminate on who she would beat with her broom carefully weaved through the crowd into the square. She carried with her a glinting blade wrapped up with her stubby fingers and still had her apron on over her frock that she was never caught without. She was a woman who always had many creases and crinkles in her skin that overlapped as if she was melting into the road. Old Mrs Anagnos looked like a frightful raisin next to the sweet Acacia who didn't dare look up at the herd while she was forced to her knees. Anagnos came up behind our vampire and felt the texture of her hair between her gritty fingers then suddenly without grace nor care began to cut it all off—nearly cleaning off parts of her scalp and ears. She threw her hands up with the knife in one and the long-bronzed locks in the other, and the village went wild. I saw a light flicker in Acacia's eyes otherwise, she remained much the same. Unfeeling, unnatural but still not as scary as I imagined monsters to be.

Next, the people had their weapons ready. I was one of the men who tied her wrists to the wooden shafts that held her arms up, so she was left wide open and vulnerable. One woman came forward and began to rip the ends of her dress then she lowly hissed something at Acacia and spat in her face. They all roared and threw vegetables at her, and when they ran out, they began throwing any pebbles they could find. Even the children dared to go near her to whip her with sticks. No doubt they enjoyed being the masters rather than the delinquents in this round. By now, I had looked away from the scene and helped my father with his fishing boat. This would be her transport from Thira to the island where we take all our vampires and leave them to starve. They cannot cross Aegean waters and there was no life to drain as it sat beside the volcanic island that hummed sleepily during this feat. 

Not long after the event, when words of the wench grew tedious, the village was in desperate need of a new story. It came with a ship pulling a storm attached to its sails. It swarmed the island and spoiled our desires of summer as the boat stopped at the main port.
No one knew where he'd come from or how long he planned to stay. Everyone felt too afraid to go up and greet the man because he didn't appear to be particularly friendly to any of us. At first, everyone thought he was a ghost. He wore a long black coat with gold trimmings, a ruffled stained shirt and shiny buckles on his shoes. His attire was bizarre but what got to me the most was that his skin was iridescent, and his eyes were the colour of rubies. It was like the red sea parted when he walked through the masses. He went stall to stall, then from door to door asking for something, he made no effort in introducing himself or asking for anyone's names. I learnt by the end of the day that he was asking if anyone knew where his fiancée was. The buzzing stopped. Everyone made it their duty to avoid the public until the stranger was gone. By nightfall, some of us had gathered at my father's house to drink. Everyone was on the edge of their seats waiting, though unsure of what. For the next few days and nights, they all went about the same as if stuck in a loop. The stranger went about searching the village, loosely trending around homes and our market while we pretended we weren't watching out for him. Then at night, we'd return to my father's to complain about it. Was anyone going to tell him? That his bride was a monster and we sent her off to die?

The melting woman, Mrs Anagnos cried out in terror one evening finding us all still on edge. 

"He's going to kill me!" 

"Who is?" 

"Who do you think? That devil man who keeps asking about his devil woman-!" Anything else she said came out in incoherent sobs through her hands. My father tried to straighten her up and make her talk some sense, always ready to help his friends. 

"The hair." She finally said. "He took the hair! He knows that I cut her! He knows! He knows! Oh! Dear God, have mercy! Keep me protected against this beast." She had no proof that he had taken it only that was gone. No one was sure what to do with that information, so they went about their businesses as Mrs Anagnos wept. 

I decided to follow the stranger and where he went made my heart jump into my throat. He walked down the little dock where we had deported Acacia. He took one of our boats out at sea and thick fog rose out of nowhere and swallowed him whole. I stayed up determined to see the man return, and it wasn't until dawn that the boat came back empty of any souls. When I told everyone they all cheered and celebrated.

"Bless our Lord, she's killed him, and our Lord took the boat away before she made haste and returned for more blood." 

That was it. Everyone was convinced that they could wash their hands of Acacia and the stranger, but as I looked up at the sky and then out at sea, the fog and gloom not clearing, the feeling that this wasn't over grew strong in my gut. I felt that something sinister was arising and when I looked at my people moving on to lighter gossip I realised I was the only one unsettled. The grand ship that the man had arrived on still stayed in place with invisible spirits occupying the deck. I had searched the boat admiring the craft but couldn't understand how a single man could control it on his own. This was all wrong. 

I began to think about Acacia. The bronze beauty with the amber eyes was always out in the sun, I used to see her every time I walked to school when I was younger looking after her grandmother. She never looked up at me, even when I shouted at her a greeting and waved my hand in her face. 

I went back down to the docks and sat there watching the water crash violently against the rocks. When from the corner of my eye, the same little fishing boat sailed back over the choppy waters into the mist. I swore I had tied it... 

I then had a dream of Acacia and her foreign fiancé. That they were standing there with glowing red eyes dressed as a bride and groom watching me sleep. She left a lock of her hair on my dresser and walked to every house, luring the children out. They followed them all the way up to the big ship and waved at me as they sailed away. 

The break of dawn was met with screaming. My people calling for their children and met with trails of blood leading to the big dock. When I stepped outside to the square with Acacia's hair in my hand, they all turned on me.

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One day I will come back to this story and turn it into a full novel but for now, you guys get the short--university assignment version. I hope you enjoyed it, give it a vote and a comment of your thoughts.

Thank you so much for taking the time to check it out :)

xxx