Author notes

Strip IV: Blood Thirsty

J_Scarbrough

on July 13, 2022

First of all, I have to take a moment to acknowledge a good friend of mine, Marie Kerns. Marie is a Vancouver-based artist who has experience in various different forms and mediums from character design, to digital animation; she definitely has a knack for creating worlds and the characters who inhabit them. I would definitely recommend you check her out sometime, and take a look at some of her work for yourself at her website:
Sorceress Raven Productions

Marie is also totally into (dark) fantasy, much moreso than I am (I'm a little lighter and more humorous), so I brought her on the project as my creative consultant, and one of the ideas she had pitched to me was to have Levana befriend a hospital employee, and preferably somebody expendable like a nursing assistant, as opposed to an actual doctor or nurse, which is how Laura came into the picture. The idea was that this person would ideally have access to the hospital's blood supply, and thus be able to swipe units of blood when nobody is looking for whenever Levana goes through withdrawals from her desperate efforts to not drink blood. Eventually however, some did begin to notice that units of blood were turning up missing, which is why Laura eventually quietly switched to using placebos instead, such as Sangria in this case. As far as Levana is concerned, since she seems so crazed from her urges, she doesn't seem to even notice the difference, so long as it's a dark red liquid that quenches her thirst. As for where Laura gets the Sangria is anybody's guess . . . maybe one of the doctors is a booze hound and keeps a secret stash of it somewhere, I don't know.

Next week: Laura finds herself and Levana a place to have a heart-to-heart discussion.