When Emergency Medical Services arrives at Sugar Mama’s, I’m awake again, dazed and suffering a splitting headache. Gunnar insists he’s fine, but the woman who got bitten is going into shock—either from a loss of blood, or … you know, shock—so it takes a minute before the paramedics get to me. As they check my pulse and vital statistics, they subject me to a battery of questions, like When’s the last time you ate? Were you bitten? Have you consumed any vampire blood? I do my best to answer, but I’m rattled by the way they have their crucifixes out the whole time, just in case—even though they know I’m not Turning.

The thing is, Turning involves a whole exchange of fluids; a vampire sucks its victim nearly dry, then feeds them back some undead blood before delivering a killing blow. The body is then interred in the earth, where the immortal blood inside it lives on—replicating, reawakening the lifeless tissue, generating new and horrifying attributes. When the brain is reactivated, the creature rises again, crawling from the grave with its memories and personality completely intact. Only now it lives forever and hungers for blood.

If the organic tissues are too compromised before the victim is buried, the change won’t take place—because, as powerful as it is, even vampire blood can’t undo a cremation or reattach a severed head. But even a small amount of it can still heal burns and flesh wounds; it can knit bones and close brain lesions; and it can temporarily imbue an otherwise normal human with heightened sensory perception and increased strength.

Unsurprisingly, this is one of the reasons humans hunt vampires as much or more often than vice versa.

I’m given a clean bill of health only moments before my parents arrive, shaken and frantic, and they hug me so hard I’m tempted to ask the EMTs for painkillers. All the way home, I endure a new round of questions—Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are you okay?—but I’m not sure how to answer, because now I’m starting to wonder … what if I really am the Chosen One?

Hear me out: I know it sounds ridiculous, but why not? For as long as there have been supernatural beasties crawling the Earth, there have been legends about humans called to fight them and protect mankind. The oldest records have been purged of almost everyone but the straight white guys—Beowulf, St. George, King Arthur—while the modern accounts tell of warrior girls and goddesses, gifted with otherworldly powers and fated to play a key role in humanity’s battle against the undead.

But why can’t it be me this time? Why can’t it finally be a gay kid with terrible math scores but a good skin-care regimen? After countless folktales about swaggering jocks and brave, beautiful girls, why shouldn’t it be my turn?