Coffin - Emma Cole

The first thing Emma notices when she wakes up is the smell. A thick earthy odor that seems heavy in her nose. For some reason, that smell ignites a furious hunger in her stomach. It aches deep in her bones, in her teeth.
She runs her tongue over them, and something cold and coppery fills her mouth. She swallows convulsively even though it tastes stale and rotten, but it doesn’t help the hunger at all. Instead she feels sick.
She rolls over to stop it from draining down the back of her throat and is met by hard, splintery wood. It’s only then that she realizes she’s surrounded by darkness. Her fingers find the crude joined outline of the edges of a box. Too long nails rasp against the wood as she feels out the dimensions, the sound as deafening as the chewing and squirming of the moles and worms she can hear in the dirt beyond.
It’s a coffin.
Emma screams. The sound echoes off the rough boards, assaulting newly sensitive ears.
But there’s a voice in her head, drowning out even her piercing cry.

“Come to me, my child. Come and join me.”
Emma has never wanted anything more. A sense of calm replaces the next shriek bubbling up in her chest.
“You must be hungry. Come, I have everything you need.”
Emma claws frantically at the box, but only succeeds in causing a rain of splinters to fall onto her face.
She’s hungry. She has to get out. She has to feed.
She slams a fist against the side of the coffin in desperation and hears the wood crack. That’s…impossible, right? But the smell of earth grows stronger, and she feels a little trickle in and over her fingers.
She pulls her arms back and then slams them, open palmed, at the top of the coffin. Splinters dig into her skin, but she barely feels them, the hunger risen to a fever pitch demanding her attention. She needs out. She needs to feed.
Dirt rains down on her, and nails screech with rending creaks. She slams upward again, and this time, the top half of the coffin bows upward for a moment before slamming down. More dirt falls, clogging her mouth and nose, and she spits it out. She wants hot, fresh blood, not this stale filth.
She shoves the top of the coffin up harder, feeling dirt fall back, listening to the bottom section of the lid tear free as well. She tosses it to one side and sits up, blinking at the assault of light on her eyes. Everything is so much. The light breeze in the grass, the chomping of insects, the blare of car horns and screeches of tires, brake lights and headlights and street lights and neon and cigarette smoke and asphalt and sweat and…blood. Hot, living, pumping blood. So close.
She stands up and turns around. In the gloomy recesses of a mausoleum, a tall figure stands. Crimson eyes gleam, long fangs glitter, and his voice that matches the one in her head drowns out all else but the need.
“Come, my child. Come and feed.” He pulls back his cloak, revealing the slumped body of a night watchman, his forehead gashed, blood trickling down and perfuming the night air irresistibly.
Emma licks her lips. Something tugs at the edges of her mind, something about those eyes. Those fangs.
“Do not be afraid of who you are. You have power. Do not be afraid to take it. It is your birthright, born of blood and shadows.” The voice is smooth, calming, but exhilarating. A promise, a hand held out to give her everything she could ever want.
And the hunger snarls, feral and desperate, and everything else is lost.