Private YouTube video titled Journal Entry 5, uploaded by user Michelle1980 on October 13th, 2015. Unlike the previous videos, this one has a description: I DELETED ALMOST 24 HOURS OF PRIYA’S NONSENSE. YOU’RE WELCOME.
The scene is essentially unchanged from the final frame of Journal Entry 4. Priya is still in the cage, although she is now sitting in the back, head and arms over her knees. Michelle is in the exact same position she was in at the end of the last video. This tableau remains unchanged for twenty-seven seconds.
At the twenty-eight second mark, Michelle stands up like nothing happened in a single fluid motion. She is still too far away from the camera to see many physical details, but her arm and face are covered in dried blood. Michelle lifts her arm to inspect it. It is no longer broken and there are no visible scars from either the break or the bite. Despite this, Michelle continues to stare at her arm for eleven seconds further. She looks up from her arm and her eyes noticeably widen. Slowly, Michelle spins in place, staring into the darkness of the barn around her.
As she is doing this, Priya silently stands up and moves to the edge of the cage closest to Michelle.
Priya (in an affected ‘Transylvanian’ accent): Vel-come…to ze land…of eternal night! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!
The two women stare at each other for a few seconds, each with a blank face. Priya shrugs.
Priya: You going to let me out of here or what?
Michelle: Is…is this how I’m supposed to feel?
Priya: I’m not a fucking psychic, ‘kay? I don’t know how you’re feeling.
Michelle: How did you feel…after…
Priya: After some asshole outside Club 86 in New York decided he wanted to make me his eternal fuckbuddy? Yeah, I don’t really remember. That was thirty years ago. Thirty…three? Thirty…five. Shit. Yeah, thirty-five years ago. You know, I thought after I became immortal I’d stop giving a shit about the passage of time but I guess it still sneaks up on you. Fuck.
Michelle: But it was important, wasn’t it? A…a rebirth?
Priya (giving Michelle a withering stare): You’re one of those people who still remembers the name of the guy you lost your virginity to, huh?
Michelle: Ro-
Priya: I don’t fucking care. Look, you wanted this, fine, you’re a freak, whatever. I didn’t. I had a human life I actually liked. I was going to Columbia Law School. Do you have any idea how shit the acceptance rate is to Columbia fucking Law School?
Michelle doesn’t move. At all. Not only does she keep her position next to the cage, none of the usual movements that come with being human – breathing, twitching, balance adjustments – are present. Michelle could be a statue.
Michelle: You weren’t always a…a, uh…
Priya: Oh, my God, did I do some brain damage or something? Was I this addled? I seriously can’t remember. Woman. Use. Your. Words.
Michelle: You weren’t always some cheap ho, chasing and using men for personal gain?
Priya: Fuck no. I mean, I did ho around a little, but I was not cheap. And by the time I got turned I had a steady fucking boyfriend. We’d been going out for two years. He…Riz…Wow, I’d forgotten his name. He was Riz and we’d been going out for two years and he was about to propose to me. I wasn’t supposed to know but he was terrible at hiding things. He hid the ring in the freezer, of all places. Still in its little ring box, stuck behind the ice tray. My grandparents were going to come in from Hyderabad in the next month. I think he wanted to do it then. With all my family there. He knew…
Priya trails off. Her face has become tight, and mournful, her eyes staring off into some nothing a few inches to the left of the camera. Michelle takes a hesitant step forward, still testing her new existence.
Michelle: He was the first you killed?
Priya (looking like Michelle slapped her): What? No, you sociopath! What the actual fuck? Why would I do that?
Michelle: Because…because you were…
Priya: A bad person? Are you still stuck on that? That I was a bad person before I got turned? Fuck you. I was in law school, I had an almost-fiancé, I went back to my parents apartment every Friday for dinner.
Michelle is very lost. Not for the first time, her conversation with Priya has taken a turn away from the direction she thought it would.
Michelle: But…lawyer…
Priya (unamused): Oh, yeah, ha-ha, lawyer-bad. Fucking hell. I was planning on becoming a public defender. I wanted to give back to my community. I wanted kids. I wanted PTA meetings and bake sales. I didn’t want this. No one wants this. Well…except you.
Michelle: I don’t understand then. If you were…all that. If you wanted all that. How can you kill people?
Priya (shrugging her shoulders): Girl’s got to eat.
Michelle: Ah. Right. The addiction. Like any addiction, I guess. It ruined you.
Priya: Addiction? The fuck are you talking about? I don’t do drugs. Drink, smoke. That’s it. Not that I haven’t tried some stuff in the past, but reactions to drugs with vampire physiology can be…unpredictable. I once did mushrooms and didn’t stop tripping for three weeks.
Michelle: No, I mean…
Michelle trails off. Her face has remained unchanged through the conversation. It is impossible to read, but there is something in her eyes that makes it clear she is thinking. Fast.
Michelle: We’re done here.
Priya: Great, so does that mean you’re going to-
Michelle crosses the room toward the camera and cuts Priya off by turning it off. End of video.
High Urban Fantasy Jazz 