Ramona woke up the morning after her attack. Rising from her bed, she looked around her bedroom. The once familiar place now felt drab and boring. Rising from the bed, she showered and got dressed in record time. Breakfast, however, was a different beast. She prepared half a dozen pancakes with bananas, peaches, strawberry jam and a mountain of whip cream, along with the maple syrup.

She sat eating the sugar monstrosity as she wondered what she was going to do now. She couldn't just pretend she hadn't seen anything last night and go back to normal. How was she supposed to deal with the fact that vampires were real? Everything in her life seemed to be vying for attention. She had superpowers, she had just graduated high school with no plan for the future, and her now ex-boyfriend had just tried to eat or turn her or something.

She tried to shake off the morose feeling that seemed to hang over her as she went into her backyard. She had spent days tending to her garden before today and She was hoping that the familiar setting would make her feel better.

She sat down in front of the garden. The collection of lavender, lilac and other flowers formed a beautiful collection of colours and scents. She leaned down to smell the flower, running her hands through the forest of flowers she had personally grown with love and affection.

Then she paused as her flowers moved. They leaned into her hands as if they were trying to smell her. The they started to grow with every second of can’t act they slowly became bigger and more vibrant.

She stared in awe. Raising her hands, she noticed as the plants seemed to follow her hands. Lowering her hand, the plants seemed to shrink down. Moving her hand back and forth, the flowers followed her motions dancing with her motion.

"This is so cool," she whispered.

She started to experiment with her plants. The grass grew to a foot tall. Her flower garden grew wild, the flowers garden turning into a myriad of colours as the flower changed. She finally realized that something inside her seemed to be moving in tandem with the plants. Turning to her strawberry bush, she pushed on that something inside of her, forcing it into the strawberry bush. The plant exploded, its roots ripped through its pot and dug into the ground, the bush grew to the height of her head, and the strawberries themselves grew to the size of pumpkins.

"Holy shit!" she shouted as sweat poured out of her body. "I can do magic! I'm a plant wizard!!"

She was ecstatic as she picked up a giant strawberry and took a massive bite. It was delicious. She wanted more, not more strawberries, more magic, more vampires, more excitement, and adventure. And she just had an idea of where to find it.

🜂🜌🜖🜠🜪🜴🜾🝈🝒🝜

Ramona stared up at the entrance to Bon Secours St. Mary's Hospital. She had met Mathias inside during a blood drive. In hindsight, meeting a vampire at a blood drive was… ironic? Expected? Cliched?

She didn't know how to get the information she wanted, so she figured she would ask the lady at the front desk.

"Excuse me. I'm looking for my boyfriend. His first name is Mathias. I haven't seen him in a couple of days and was wondering if he was in the hospital?"

"Have you talked to the police about this?" the nurse at the front desk asked.

Ramora nodded her head. She was pretty sure her interrogation counted as talking. "I have, but I haven't heard anything back from them."

The nurse looked down at her computer and typed something into it for a few minutes.

"Sorry, no, Mathias. Do you have a last name?"

"Sorry, I can't remember, but he comes to the blood bank at least once a month."

"I'm sorry, those records are privileged, and I can't give them out."

"Oh ok," Ramona nodded and walked away.

Ramona cursed as she turned and left, she didn't expect the hospital staff would have given her Mathias's medical records, but she didn't lose anything in the attempt.

She considered if looking for her ex-boyfriend, who is a vampire, was smart. Probably not, but Julius hadn't given her anyway to contact him, and she didn't know any other way into the paranormal.

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She was wandering around the hospital when she caught something out of the corner of her eye and paused.

Bon Secours St. Mary's Hospital Records Room.

She tried the door. But it refused to open. Locked, but she wasn't willing to let that stop her. Gripping the door handle, she yanked the handle down with all her strength. SNAP. The door handle snapped off.

"Oops," she said.

She looked around to see if anyone had noticed her. Seeing that no one was paying attention, she tossed the door handle into a potted plant and tried the door again.

She tried pushing the door open only to find it was still locked. Losing patience with the door, she kicked the door with a bang. The lock held strong, and the wood surrounding the lock disintegrated from the blow.

Immediately people started to look around for the source of the noise. Ramona gingerly stepped inside and closed the door, hoping that no one would notice her or the broken door while she was inside.

As her eyes adjusted, she eyed the rows and rows of folders. Moving inside, she headed straight toward the nearest computer and typed in Mathias's name. Four entries came up, each with an image next to them.

She found the Mathias she knew under Mathias Verdean. She printed out a copy of his file, and the printer next to the machine spat out his file. She snatched up the file looking over the details.

The sheet was minimal. No blood type and no age listed. But she found his address, 2721 Madge Ln. It wouldn't take her more than an hour to reach on foot.

Closing up the file, she stashed the file under her shirt and walked out of the records room, right into two hospital security officers.

"Hey, what are you doing in there?!" the first officer said.

"Um," Ramona said smartly,

"Did you break this door down?! Come with me, little lady. You are in a world of trouble."

The first police officer grabbed her arm and yanked. This was the first time, but hardly the last, that Ramona would reflect that super strength didn't equate to increased mass as she was yanked off her feet by the police officer.

Digging her feet in, Ramona grabbed the officer's head and slammed his head into the wall with a sickening crack. The officer slumped to the ground as Ramona took off running.

"Hey, stop!!" the second security guard called out as she ran quickly, gaining speed with every step.

She turned around to check if the guard was still chasing her, only to immediately collided with a doctor knocking him to the ground.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing?!" someone called out.

Ramona didn't listen. Instead, she pulled herself up by yanking the nearest person down as she scrambled to her feet.

"Sorry," She said as she sped off.

"Someone stop her." the guard called as he chased after her.

Ramona was euphoric, utterly euphoric, as she revelled in her power, she could throw grown men around like rag dolls, and she could run like an Olympic sprinter.

When she saw a balcony on the fourth floor of the hospital overlooking a small grove of trees, an idea popped into her head. Just one of those crazy idea's that everyone has from time to time. Wouldn't it be cool if I leapt out of the window and did a superhero landing? Normally she would dismiss the idea as a crazy scattered thought. Normally she would walk away, not giving it a second thought. Normally she wasn't high on adrenaline and dopamine.

In a moment of pure adrenaline-filled insanity, she changed course and lept off the fourth-floor balcony. She immediately regretted it.

"Shit, shit, shit!" Ramona's lizard brain immediately started screaming as she was suddenly in free fall. Her arms shot out in a vain attempt to grab onto something, anything to stop herself from hitting the ground below her.

As she was falling, regretting her choices and desperately hoping she didn't go splat when she hit the ground, the nearby tree moved.

The tree's trunk bent, intercepting her with its branches midfall.

"I'm saved!!" Ramona thought, relieved.

Then she painfully crashed into the tree branches. The branches bludgeoned and scratched her body as she tumbled through the tree's canopy like a ball in a pinball machine before sliding down the tree's trunk and landing on the ground feet first.

"Ow," Ramona groaned internally. While she hadn't impacted the ground with a splat, it still hurt. She was pretty sure she had twigs and leaves in her hair. Despite that, she was ecstatic that she had survived, she had escaped, and she was awesome.

"Thank you, Mr.tree," ramona said affectionately as she patted the tree.

The tree rustled happily from her patting. Ramona was a bit surprised that a tree could respond to her, but she just choked up the weirdness that was her life now. She pulled out Mathias's file again and double-checked the address.

"2721 Madge Ln," she confirmed.

Ramona ran off, heading towards Mathias's house to get the answers she wanted. No the answers she needed about what was happening to her, the paranormal, and the BPA. Then she was going to show Mathias what it felt like to be powerless. Maybe she would shove an entire oak tree up his ass.