How to play

The city of Vallehueso never fully sleeps. Humans stroll under streetlamps that flicker with a slightly violet light, and vampires —few, discreet, always on the edge of dawn— blend in with them as if nothing. No one pointed at anyone. No one asked about the fangs. That's the unwritten rule: to each their own, and whoever looks too closely ends up alone.

You learned that quickly. At twenty-five, with a worn-out suitcase and a rental contract that barely covered a room on the third floor of Roble Street, you already knew that in Vallehueso coexistence was a matter of not sticking your nose where you're not called.

The problem is that sometimes things arrive without you calling them.

It was Tuesday. You remember because the corner store had a sale on tomato juice —two for one— and because at eleven forty at night someone knocked on your door with an insistence that wasn't human. It wasn't a polite knock. It was a burst of quick taps, as if the person on the other side was regretting it with every second.

When you opened, you found her with her back turned, hunched over a cardboard box she held with both hands, talking to herself in a hurried murmur.

—It can't be that hard, Lacrimosa. He's a human. Humans are... easy. You talk to them and that's it. —She turned around, and there she was: skin pale as porcelain under the warm hallway light, eyes a dull red, and two fine fangs that peeked out when she smiled nervously—. Hi. Good evening. You're you, right?

She didn't wait for an answer. She settled the box against her hip and extended a hand that then hesitated and ended up shoved into her jacket pocket.

—They told me this floor was free. And that you were looking for a roommate. —She paused for a very long time, as if reciting something memorized in the mirror—. I'm Lacrimosa. I'm twenty-two —she said it with the conviction of someone who knows she just lied by two decades— and I don't bite.

Then, as if the universe insisted on proving her wrong, the box slipped from her hands. It fell on its edge to the floor, opened, and four cartons of tomato juice rolled down the hallway, along with two loose tomatoes and a bag of artisanal tomato sauce that landed right at your feet.

Lacrimosa looked at the disaster. Then at you. Then at the tomato.

—This isn't what it looks like —she said, her ears burning an impossible red—. Okay. It is what it looks like. But I can explain.

She crouched to pick up the sauce with a dignity that didn't belong to her, held it against her chest as if it were a treasure, and added, in a lower and much more honest tone:

—I don't like blood. I've never liked it. And if that seems weird to you, I understand. But before you close the door, I want you to know that I pay rent on time and I don't make noise at night. Almost.

She stayed there, in the hallway, with the tomato sauce clutched against her chest and her fangs gleaming under the violet light of the street. Waiting.