There was no smell this time, no unique sense pouring across his intellect, no time for his mind to process the flavour, the taste, to contemplate what he was taking in. Just a blindness, a whiteness that obscured the mind’s eye with its brilliance, to such a point that it hurt. No taste, just the texture of the blood flowing over his tongue. Later he would learn that when he was hungry for too long, the more beneficial aspects of the vampiric act itself became more muted, subdued. If he abstained, gone would be the enjoyment he would take from the act as one would enjoy a fine meal. It would be as simple and as mundane as the starving beggar taking the stale piece of bread and being grateful for it, regardless of who or what he fed from.