I was having a bad day. Actually it had been a bad year if you want to know the truth. That's how I ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Drowning my sorrows in the seediest bar I could find. Not that I saw it like that at the time, you understand. My boyfriend had left me, took the dog with him too. I'd been overlooked for a promotion at work, which I'd worked my backside off to get, and to cap it all I'd pulled out two grey hairs from my usual glossy black mane that morning. My crowning glory, it turned out, was as flawed as my life.

So what do you do? Do you choose life? Or do you choose to feel sorry for yourself?  Staring at the bottom of a glass, waiting for that spark of inspiration to tell you where you went wrong, and how to fix it. It's an easy choice now, life every time. Sadly, I didn't quite see it like that at the time. I chose the latter.  But then I've never been an upbeat kind of girl. And I didn't really see the point of starting just when my life was getting worse by the day.

I guess I was an easy target. Single woman, sitting at a bar, drinking to oblivion. I often think back to that night and wonder what would have happened if I'd just bought a few bottles of wine and took them back to the flat, instead of finding that bar. Not hiding out amongst the shadows, living some kind of half-life, that's for sure.  I'd picked the seediest bar I could find, craving anonymity and just the chance to get drunk amongst people I didn't know, and who wouldn't care. What I wouldn't give now to turn back time and choose a different bar.

He'd been looking at me for some time. I'd caught him from the corner of my eye, staring down the bar at me. At first I'd tried to ignore him, I figured he was just some creep. But the longer he stared, the more intrigued I became. It was the alcohol giving me a false bravado. I just had to take a proper look at him, know who he was. That was the second mistake I made that night. As soon as I turned to smile at him, he was by my side. The rest is just a blur now.

I know at some point he told me who he was. And what he was, too. And I know that I didn't care. He had an exhilarating effect on me, almost like a drug. I just had to have more of it. He listened to me, nodded and sympathised in all the right places, and told me that none of it was important. It was all a fake. And it wasn't living.  Humans were animals, he said, living crazy lives, working for an impossible dream and then burning out before they'd really lived. And I was terrified. I didn't want to burn out; I wanted to live.

He told me I had a choice, to live or to pretend to live. I was high on alcohol, endorphins and excitement. And my life pretty much sucked leading up to that moment. What would you have done in my position? I can tell you're a bit more sensible than I was. Or can you just see where my story is leading? I know the guy's a vampire, but I'm going to let him bite me anyhow. You probably would turn on your heels and run as fast as you can away from this man, this beast. But unless you've met one, a bona fide vampire, you don't know what you'd do.

Have to admit, I was duped. I believed his story of immortality, an eternal life of everything I could wish for, no more disappointment, and no more heartbreak. And at what cost? A little bite, a moment of pain.  That's all. Then immortality would be mine. Immortality. Such a little word. It didn't mean anything to me then, in that bar, staring at the disaster my life had become. Not now, though. Now I know what it is, what it means. Now I'd swap my soul for a chance at mortality again. If I had one, that is.

It's not like the movies you know. There's no Angel, no Louis and Lestat. It's not all gothic glamour and heady nights of fun and endless parties. I'm an outcast. I live in the shadows, hiding by day, hunting by night. I'm shunned; no-one wants to know me. They think I'm a drug addict. The ones who know the truth don't trust me not to bite them. It's hard to believe, but my life was better when I knew it would end one day.

I still visit the same seedy bar. Only now I go to feed, not to drink to oblivion. I'm careful who I choose though. No-one with a wedding band, no-one who's young enough to have a full life in front of them. I am a monster, a beast. A creature that should live only in myths and the minds of authors. But I'm real. In the stories, vampires have no soul, they have no conscience. What they don't tell you is that you retain some part of your old self. And that's the hard part. The mistake you make lives with you forever. Forever is a long time.