• I met a girl once, not that long ago. She was crouched in a doorway by the side of the street, her hands covering her face. I approached her cautiously and enquired as to her wellbeing.

    She didn't reply, not at first anyway, and her head stayed buried in her hands. But then a voice drifted out, as soft as velvet and sweet as honey. She said, "You are a Libra" It wasn't a question. It was a statement. A true statement, for I am indeed a Libra. She continued, "I can smell it in your blood. You were born during the Libra period."

    Slightly sympathetic - and only a tad unnerved - towards this strange girl, I muttered something about how no one could smell blood through seven layers of skin. She shifted at my words.
    "I can. My sense of smell is unusually acute," she paused, "I cannot see." At this point she raised her head and I saw her eyes, vacant and misted. The girl was blind.
    "Sit with me?" She asked. So I did.

    We talked for a bit. Or I did anyway. She mainly sat with an eerie stillness, listening to the sound of my voice. Then, when my conversation lagged, she moved. Her hands unfolded and she reached towards me, so I took her cold, frail hand in my own and held it for a while. Then, slowly, she tilted her head towards me. I could see what she intended, so I leant forwards and met her lips with mine. We melted into each other, fitting together like two jigsaw pieces.

    That's when things got strange. The girl - whose name I did not even know - slowly traced a finger over my neck. She said, "Our starsigns match. We match." Then I felt pressure just below my jawline and a sharp pain as her fingernail sliced through my skin. I didn't try to stop her but my heart raced nervously as her head bent down and I felt her tongue grazing the wound. It hurt at first, I could feel blood pulsing through the open cut. but the girl was gentle and soon I relaxed into the dulling pain.

    After a minute, she leant back and strectched her own neck out to me. As thought in a trance, I imitated her small cut, just below her jawline. And when a red bead of blood trickled out my tongue was there to catch it.

    The tase exploded in my mouth. It coated my throat with a metallic shell. I gagged, overpowered by the inhuman experience.

    Now, it would make for a far more enthralling tale for me to say that I stayed and unravelled the mystery of this unseeing girl. But alas, one cannot be as fearless in really life as the characters of books. Every word on this page is the truth. And at this point, the truth is that I ran. I ran as fast as I could away from the girl.

    But to this day, I can't escape the memory. I think about it every single day. Even as I write this, I can recall with exact precision that fiery heat that burned my throat.

    I never saw that girl again, nor anyone like her. I also never spoke a word of what happened to anyone. It was my secret. And now it shall be an anonymous story, written on the internet by an identity that doesn't really exist.

    I'm not desperate to know the truth, I suppose I'm afraid of what it might be and I strongly believe in the saying, "Ignorance is bliss."