The Chosen Ones

She needed a blood meal to nurture the lives of her young. She would probably die trying to get it, but she had no choice. Without blood, there would be no children. So she spread her wings and went in search of an unwilling donor.

Little did she realize that the donor she would eventually find would give its blood willingly.

She alighting from the swaying reeds above the brackish water from which she had been born. In the wet years, this swamp would have been part of the Sea of Galilee, but now it was cut off, a mere fen of stagnant water, choked with weeds and green algae scum. Yet for her, it had been a nurturing womb. The murky water had cradled her life, even though it was filled with monsters that had eaten uncounted numbers of her brethren. But she had beaten the odds. She had lived to emerge from the water to be reborn as something utterly different. No longer a creature of the water, she came forth a denizen of land and air.

Shortly after lifting into flight, a sultry wind buffeted her along, pushing her wildly toward the land. Her tiny wings were no match for the overwhelming force of the atmosphere. Luckily for her, the winds were carrying her to good hunting grounds.

A sudden stillness helped her regain volition of flight. Where she ended up seemed the very fields of Elysisum! She sensed with wild passion the pungent presence of carbon dioxide. The C0-2 saturated air jazzed her nervous system into lustful sensations of hunger so extreme, she went blind with an ardor to gorge!

It didn't take her long to locate a host, a gigantic warm blood bag moving slowly. Overtaking it would be easy. Already, just beneath its skin she could sense incredible oceans of luscious blood, enough in this one blood bag alone to feed millions of her kind!

She moved in, hovered above the blood bag's lumbering form, smelling ambrosia sweet! She alighted quickly and jabbed with mindless ecstasy, plunging her sharp stinging organ into the tender flesh. It yielded easily, mellow and succulent.

But even before she could reach the rich crimson soup beneath the skin, a huge, swift and menacing form blotted out the sky above her. It was death. Pure instinct overcame fierce hunger, forcing her in agony to pull short and lift off -- just in time before the deadly blow came down to crush away her life.

She flew up wildly, and despite the extreme danger, tried a second, third and forth landing, but it was no good. The ungodly Goliath was relentless in its deadly pursuit. On her fifth try, she was struck by the thing. Her momentum heading away from the blow minimized the contact, however, and she was pushed along, only to be captured again by the wind.

She struggled for control as the currents of air rushed her along. Again, she was released suddenly, and everywhere the air was brimming with C02. She was already getting weak. She needed blood. Her time was limited. Even if it meant a swift death, her craving was compelling beyond all other instinct.

With her multi-eyes and other senses, she perceived vast crowds of lumbering blood bags, crowding together frantically around a particular, central blood bag. The others seemed almost as desperate to get to this special blood bag as she was, and certainly, there was something unnatural and profound about the central blood bag.

She moved in. Before she could get to the exquisite blood bag which all the other blood bags wanted to catch, it separated from the crowd and went out over the water, where it somehow stood alone. She followed it.