Chapter 5: Home Sweet Home

A surge of overwhelming odor from the site hit Caine's nostrils as he unlocked the door to his flat, turning the detective's stomach to the fullest. When he walked in, he was struck by the gloomy state of the establishment: unwashed dishes everywhere, moldy ceilings and walls, filthy garments on the floor, and yellow papers thrown over the table. He would have assumed this was a crime scene if he didn't know any better.

Caine sighed and moved towards his couch, locking the door behind him. He sat on it and rested his head on the couch's pillow, resting his neck for a few moments.

Despite the fact that this is undoubtedly his apartment, he rarely visits it. A homicide detective's existence consisted of staying up late in the office, sorting through stacks and stacks of documentation from old and new investigations, and looking for any minor evidence that could lead to a clearance. His office is his home, and here is his second home.

As time went on, Caine felt more and more horrible; ever since he left the coroner's office, he felt nauseous, a constant headache, aching muscles, and chest pain were among his medical complaints as of now. Even after all those red flags, none bothered him more than a particular condition.

Hunger.

Caine felt like he could eat his entire couch right now; the sensation of his stomach churning and begging for food was too much for him at the moment, and he couldn't focus on simply 'resting'.

When he couldn't take it any longer, he got up from the couch and hurriedly headed over to his fridge. When he opened it, a cool breeze went through him, and to his dismay, the refrigerator was nearly empty.

Caine could only see something wrapped in aluminum sheet inside the cold racks, and when he looked to see what was inside, he noticed that it was a few slices of garlic bread that he had brought approximately a week earlier.

When he realized he couldn't find anything else, the detective could only sigh and remove the wrapped garlic bread before placing it in the microwave.

He waited, he waited, and he waited, and finally, after a painfully long minute, the microwave made a "ting" sound, and the garlic bread had been warmed.

Caine took the garlic bread and sat down in front of his table. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he bit into that week-old garlic bread and munched on it like a ravenous dog that had been starving for a month.

He relishes the taste, while it's not the best garlic bread in the world, and for the fact that it's almost a week old at this point, this thing is pretty good, though, it might just be his hunger messing up his mind. He devoured the garlic bread, and his hunger was quenched.

Until, all of a sudden...

A powerful force was emanating from his stomach, as if something was attempting to escape. Caine banged his head on the table, trying to suppress the stinging pain in his abdomen. He moaned and groaned while attempting to pull himself together, dragging his body towards his toilet to deal with this anguish in some way.

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In front of the toilet, the detective spewed a stream of green and reddish vomit towards the hole in front of him. He gripped the disgusting rim fiercely, virtually letting out all of his stomach contents.

"Ugh..." he groaned again; his body felt weak, and after finishing vomiting up, he leaned against the wall. While the ache hasn't gone away, it is lessening, thanks to the things he's thrown out from his body, which can only mean one thing that caused this: the garlic bread.

He wasn't allergic to the bread, garlic, or butter last time he checked, and the underlying explanation could be that the garlic bread had gone bad... but the reaction shouldn't be this powerful.

Caine returned to the toilet and noticed that the liquid in his vomit was slowly separating, revealing a distinct brownish-greenish liquid and a scarlet liquid that was beginning to create its own pools.

Seeing this, he mustered the courage to rise from his prone position and make his way to the sink. Turning on the hot water, he washes the vomit off his face and looks in the mirror, only to see almost nothing.

In the mirror, he could hardly see himself. He could see the things behind him even though they were supposed to be blocked by his body, and it was worse than the mirror in the hospital. Before, he could still see some kind of outline to make his shape, while here, he could only barely see distinct features of his body such as eyes, hair, and mouth.

"Fuck…" He cursed, thinking of an absurd but plausible explanation for why this was happening to him. "Excessive reaction to garlic, mild sting from mild sunlight, not being able to see myself in the mirror, increasingly pale skin... This is a fantasy turned to reality."

His stomach grumbled again as he stood in front of the mirror, and his hunger returned. Finally giving up, he got out his phone and called someone to handle the problem.

"Hello?" Caine mumbled incoherently. "Yeah, I'd like to order a pizza; a Margherita would do, oh, and please do not, under any circumstances, put any garlic in that, thank you."

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Caine was now sitting in front of his cluttered desk, holding a pizza in one hand and a laptop in the other. He was studying this 'illness' he was currently suffering from on the internet, and while he doubted he'd find anything genuine, he could still draw some inferences from the stories he could discover about, well, vampires.

"The vampires' least favorite food is garlic." Caine let out a sigh. "Can't see themselves in the mirror; sensitive to silver; sunlight kills them... that... sort of fits..."

Caine pondered why he hadn't crumbled to the ground if these myths had any sort of truth in them. He was in direct contact with sunlight several times today, and the most he felt was stinging pain, not the horrible death described in these publications.

"A dhampir? Half vampire? No, that's definitely not it." he murmured. "Wait, what's this? Rabbi David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra of the 16th century described an uncharitable old woman whose body was left unattended and unburied for three days after she died before rising as a vampiric monster and slaughtering hundreds of people. So three days... But I'm still alive, and the woman's dead. "

Caine clicked his tongue as he slid his pizza onto his plate, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes. "Searching in myths for clues, how far have you fallen? At least I have, what? A couple more hours till I can't see the sun again?"

Finally, he opened his eyes and gazed out the window towards the sky. A magnificent waning crescent moon was shining its feeble light through the overcast winter skies.

Caine simply chuckled when he spotted the moon. "Well, at least I still have the moon."