Forest was dying inside, and it wasn’t a figure of speech.

The feeling spread from the bite on his arm and settled in his stomach. Then it extended upward and grabbed hold of his heart, a cold hand squeezing tighter every day. He could feel his heartbeat slowing. Every time he took his temperature, the reading was lower than the last.

It didn’t hurt, really. It seemed strange that it didn’t.

The story of the police raid on Flynn’s hideout spread from the moment Flynn’s minions were released. Forest had been escorted out of the holding cell to meet with the chief of police. Hours later, he had been dragged back, unable to stand, and Flynn’s entire staff was released without a single charge being filed. Nobody knew what Forest had done to engineer their release. When anyone asked, he just smiled.

The raid itself was devastating to Flynn’s reputation. Forest didn’t even need to sew the seeds of dissent — everywhere, he heard rumors that Flynn’s power had waned. The underworld was ready for a new Emperor, and Forest was their chosen heir.

Everything was going the way he planned.

During his rare trips to the hideout, Forest avoided Flynn. He was sure that if the Emperor could see the way he was changing, Flynn would kill him outright. Avoiding didn’t turn out to be hard. Flynn spent much of his time secured in his armored underground office. The rest he spent… elsewhere.

As the Change progressed, Forest became more and more restless. He knew he should stay inside, away from prying eyes and innocents, until he was sure of his new form. But he couldn’t manage it. He wanted — needed — to be where other people were. Normal, hot-blooded people.

That’s why he was at Tinkerbell’s Beautique talking to a Stylist when the vice finally released in his chest. His heart stopped beating.

Suddenly, Forest was thirsty.

———-

I intended to cover more time with this post, but it felt like it ought to end here.

The transformation into a vampire turned out to be WAY cooler than I expected. I don’t think screenshots can really capture it. And, sadly, I lost all my screenshots of it anyway :(. I actually caught one in a memory, which I posted to my EA account.

The reason for this Sample hiatus is that I got hung up when I realized that I actually had pictures for them in three separate folders, all numbered the same (of course). There was also a lot of duplication. I really have no idea how this got so messed up. I had to figure out what I had and how to get them consolidated. And, being me, I decided to learn python so that I could write a script to rename the files so they could all go into the folder with the rest of Gen 5. Don’t laugh too hard.

The good news is that I have one important scene I thought I’d lost.

We’re almost to the end of the missing pictures. I have about half of the pictures needed for the next post. After that, it’s back to normal.