… Which direction is it coming from? Presumably he can tell with his enhanced senses and go grab it.

Downstairs! Right by his door.

Ooh! So he moves to go downstairs because these enhanced senses are so useful, wow, it's great that he became a vampi—

Wait.

He stops.

He thinks he's just going to hold his nose for a minute now, thanks. Maybe longer. Does he need to breathe? He can try not breathing.

It's... really uncomfortable not to breathe!

But no, he doesn't need to breathe. And he finds it's not actually hard to notice that the smell is very likely a person, per se—it just seems to be the case that his mind defaults to not noticing that unless he's paying attention.

Also it's significantly easier now that he's not hungry and really high on turning.

It is really uncomfortable not to breathe! That's true! But it'd be really fucking inconvenient for someone if he decided to bite them and drain them so he thinks he's just going to stick with the slight inconvenience of not breathing!

He is tempted to go find out why someone is right by his door – maybe it's a mailman, who knows – but he doesn't want to go down there while they're around, thanks muchly.

Person. It's a person. He's just going to sit here and try to focus on how much of a person with a whole history and a whole potential future and lots of relations to various people and money and a life and people who would miss them and– everything that he stole from the other people while he was high.

You know, it's really fucking horrible to focus on the fact you didn't mean to kill five people and yet did it anyway and look how much you've fucked with while doing it.

The noises—recognizably steps and a heartbeat—recede from his door.

And when he is really sure that they are gone, he will wait another minute and then go check for mail at his door.

There's an envelope on the ground.

He picks it up. Is it addressed to his mom? He's guessing it's addressed to his mom.

Nope! It's addressed to him! And written by one Sadde Woods, apparently.

… Right.

Well, he picks it up and opens it, in that case.

I have no idea why I'm writing this, because you're dead, and that sucks, and it makes no sense, and no one will give me any answers. I'm going to school and I won't see you, and it's pointless and stupid and I can't fix it and I don't even have any stupid magic that can undo this because I couldn't ever find any. Nothing other than the useless. Your mom will probably find this and, well, hi Theo's mom, I'm sorry for your loss, the world sucks, but I hope you know that your son'll be missed.

Goodbye, I suppose. I'm too atheistic to hope that an afterlife could be real, so I'll have to learn to live with the you-shaped hole now.

… Owch. Ow. That makes him feel even worse for being such a colossal monster because now he has someone unwittingly grieving over a murderer.

Eugh.

He's only been dead for like a day though, right? … He probably should check that. He should probably also check where his phone is because– while he gets very little signal out here, he still gets some, and while there's nobody he'd be likely to call at this time (except maybe Sadde, eugh) it would still be useful, right?

He goes to turn on his laptop and check the date.

Yeah, it's only been a day, he "died" yesterday.

… He remembers Sadde's number, right? He'd expect to. It's not that difficult to remember cell numbers. Unless Sadde has an obscure cell number.

Yep, he does. Given the time, Sadde is probably making their way to school.

… It would be bad of Theo to call Sadde, because that would result in them possibly missing school or alternatively seriously worrying about Theo or for their health.

It could also cause Sadde to want to come over and then result in Theo being a horrible murderer and continuing his killing spree.

But it's not like Theo really– has anything else to do, anything safe that might possibly slow the spiral of 'Theo is dead' and 'sell his house' and destruction of his life, not that he can really do much with his current position, not that he necessarily should because he killed five people and that's horrible, not that he necessarily shouldn't because he's a vampire and could be useful for things, and really he's having difficulty deciding anything and Sadde seems like they might at least possibly have some idea of what to do or at least offer some input that might possibly get Theo out of this spiral of confusion and self-doubt and (entirely justified?) self-loathing and such.

So he calls Sadde. From his landline, because he currently lacks a cell.

"Ms. Owens?" he guesses when he picks up.

… Slightly long pause.

"...Ms. Owens? Are you okay?" What a stupid question, of course she's not, um... "Can I help?"

Theo finally decides to start breathing, after having held his breath for however long. "Not Ms. Owens," he says.

"Okay, who is it instead, and if this is a prank it's not a very funny one."

"Not a prank," he says, then continues in a bit of a rush: "There's something I kinda need to tell someone and it's really difficult and I think you might hate me for it but– I'm Theo."

"...okay, care to prove this assertion?"

"It wouldn't be safe for you to see me if that's what you're asking but– I can recap something we did together without other people there? … I made you pasta with bacon the first time you came over?"