Zara had been waking up feeling so exhausted lately, but she was reluctant to make a doctors appointment. She tried to convince herself that work was draining her, or she needed to cut back on her screen time before she went to sleep, the nightmares she was having were keeping her from restful sleep, anything to keep from going to the doctor. But when she woke up one morning with the taste of blood in her mouth, she thought it might be time to make the call.
    She looked up her doctor’s phone number and made a mental note to call once their office opened when she had a spare moment at work. Zara brushed her teeth and got into the shower, but noticed that her door was unlocked as she made her lunch for the day. That was highly unusual as her routine included locking the door. Another thing caused by stress? she asked herself?
    Zara made sure that she had everything she needed and doubled checked herself when she locked the door. She would normally stop and get breakfast on the way, but for the past week or so, she had been taking a bite or two before feeling full and not wanting to finish it. Skipping breakfast and getting right to the office gave her enough time to check the news before she logged in and began working. Her local news was reporting some scary stuff these days.
    Just five blocks from where she lived, a man was found in an alley with his throat ripped out by some kind of animal. Reports concluded that it was canine in nature but confusing and conflicting reports about the size of the animal left authorities baffled. A couple of days before that, another man was found on a park bench, seemingly sleeping, but completely drained of blood. The park was only two blocks from Zara’s apartment, and she was starting to get nervous. Those cases were very different from each other, no one would think that it was a serial killer, but for some reason, they both sent shivers down Zara’s spine.
    When Zara got home from work that day, she went right into her bedroom to get undressed for the night. She was looking forward to ordering some delivery and settling down in front of the television. With the layout of her apartment, she hadn’t been into the living room yet at all since the night before. She stopped short as she looked down and saw huge dirty paw prints on her beige rug, fading as they moved along and disappeared. She hadn’t noticed the marks on the faux marble kitchen floor in the morning, but now she could see that there was some sort of large dog with dirty feet that came into her apartment at some point. Zara dropped her glass of iced tea and went for her phone to call the police as the story of the man in the alley came back to her mind. Was this dog loose and in her apartment?!
    The phone began ringing on the kitchen counter before she got to it and she saw that it was her aunt calling. They were very close and though Zara was in a panic, she chose to answer and tell her aunt what she saw. There wasn’t anything immediately threatening her right now.
    “Zara, honey, you home?” her aunt Rhea sounded busy, determined and as though she was on the road.
    “Aunt Rhea, there’s some kind of dog on the loose and I came home to dog prints on my kitchen floor and…” her aunt interrupted her.
    “I’m here, I’m pulling up now.”
    “I’m going to call the pol…”
    “DON’T do that… don’t… I’ll be right up, I’ll explain.” Zara looked at her phone after her aunt ended the call. She didnt’ know why she wasn’t supposed to call the police. Obviously, her aunt knew something about the dog, but a guy died! Why wouldn’t she want Zara to call the police, and why was it in her house!? The next three or four minutes seemed like an eternity as Zara stared at the dirty prints on her kitchen floor, so easily missed earlier but now could not be unseen.
    Her aunt Rhea looked at the prints on the floor when she walked into the kitchen. Zara explained how she didn’t notice them in the morning, but saw the trail on her carpet in the living room when she came home tonight.
    “Was there anything else unusual that you noticed?” her aunt asked her, looking around.
    “Yes,” Zara remembered. “The door was unlocked this morning. And that’s, like… I don’t do that. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately though so…”
    “You said that. You told me that you haven’t been sleeping well lately?”
    Zara affirmed and said her intention was to make a doctors appointment, explaining about the new taste of blood in her mouth when she wakes up sometimes. Her aunt stopped her.
    “Honey, I have to tell you something. It’s… well, this is going to be hard to hear. You’re not going to like what I have to say, and you’ll either think I’m crazy or hate me and the rest of the family.” Zara waited as her aunt gathered her thoughts.
    “We are shape-shifting vampires, the Benet side of the family anyway.” Zara stared at her aunt, her mother’s sister, as a million thoughts and visions ran through her head. Were those dreams and nightmares or were they memories? The taste of blood in her mouth. The exhausted mornings. The proximity of the deaths, and when they began. She looked at her aunt with wide eyes.
    “It doesn’t happen to all of us, I wasn’t sure if it wasn’t going to happen to you.” Her aunt took her hands  and led her to sit down at the kitchen table. “It doesn’t happen at the same time for all of us, like, say at puberty. That would make it to easy,” her aunt added sarcastically. “I was hoping that it was going to pass by, that your dad’s genes were strong enough to overcome it.” Zara had so many questions, but they were all coming at once and she wasn’t sure what she should say, or how she should respond.
    “It looks like you were a very large breed of dog last night…” Rhea said, looking at the 5 and half inch wide paw print on the floor.
    “Is there a way to control it?” Zara asked.
    “Yes, there is. It takes practice, and you need to record things so that you can find your patterns. But once good thing I can tell you is that our morality follows us into our other forms.” Zara looked at her aunt questioningly. “The dog, or… wolf? you turned into last night wouldn’t have attached or hurt a child if you wouldn’t. Or an elderly person. We are vampires, not monsters.” The grin on her aunts face brought unexpected and needed laughter to Zara’s fragile sensibilities.
    “Do you have any chamomile tea?” Rhea asked. “I feel like you might have some more questions for me.”