Because that is how I created her. Blind.

Oh, his sweet pet, kept safe in that room, kept safe since infancy. Never having to deal with any kind of struggle or anxiety of free will. Never having to endure that sad, pathetic existence led beyond these walls. He cringes at the memory of clawing and digging his way through filthy streets and filthy people. What a disgusting fate. But he has protected her from that. His sweet, sweet Vanilla . . . He alone is responsible for protecting her from that. She should be on her knees, begging him to accept her gratitude! Begging and begging and begging!

And yet, to continue to protect her as I do now would only mean killing us both.

He cannot keep her locked inside, caged in with this torment until she explodes within her lifeless flesh. And surely the blowout, the foggy red binge, when it comes, will be taken out on him.

He has to let her go.

But how can he? How can he when her function in the world will surpass any version of normalcy? Any grasp of the everyday. Will she need to understand normalcy in order to thrive in sin? Out there? With them?

Her limited knowledge . . . that safe trap within her skull to which he fed such violently sweet information. What he thought was for her own good will now be her undoing.

Because, of course, fool that he is, he couldn’t just let her die.

Damn his inability to foresee this! Despite his knowledge, somehow he was the blind one! Hah! From the moment he first carried her life in his arms, he knew, he knew he would have to accept it when the Underworld demanded her soul to collect. When she would shudder her last breath against his chest.

When Death had its way with her.

But he had to do it. He had to save her. The fool! He couldn’t let her go. Not so soon! Not to Death, that cruel opposer. He’d be damned if he let Death have her!

But I suppose now . . .

He comes to a stop over the compact mold.

. . . now I have all of eternity.

Like a puzzle he’s already figured out far too many times over, he places a white paper stick in the empty slot and fills the ball-shaped top with a healthy dose of human blood straight from his syringe. He closes the mold and waits for the metal to freeze. Once the mold issues its final hisssss, he pulls out the lollipop, grabbing a wrapper and neatly twirling it around the red ball. He holds the finished candy, a nightmare in confectionary disguise, at eye level and twists it between his fingertips.

These won’t be enough. They won’t satisfy the lust. Decades it took for him to tame his hunger into submission. His mind travels to the bags of blood resting at the bottom of his medical-grade fridge nearby, one of which he’d drained just moments before and now sits deflated in the sink like a used condom. Even so, no matter how much he drinks, he still gets the same hunger pains and adrenaline rushes of rage. No matter how much he gorges, no matter the restless nights of impossibly glutinous digestion. Still the hunger.