“First Kill” is a long short story by Victoria “V.E.” Schwab which was published in an anthology titled Vampires Never Get Old: Tales with a Fresh Bite and later adapted into a successful Netflix series. It is the story of two high school girls with an intensifying sexual attraction for one another facing just one somewhat significant problem. One is a vampire and the other is a vampire slayer.
Each story in the anthology is subsequently followed by a short essay leading to the pertinent question the story raises. In this case, the question is “Who is the real villain: the slayer or the vampire?” The story complicates the answer to that question by presenting two charismatic and attractive young women to choose between. By making both vampire and slayer females the story instantly is a subversion of the more traditional take on the vampire tale. The subversion also takes place at the level of trope. Juliette is a vampire who asks herself about her complexion, “What kind of vampire has freckles?”
This question is posed because she can see the freckles in her reflection in the mirror. “First Kill” is the kind of vampire story that not only does away with the myth that vampires are not reflected in a mirror but makes the point somewhat meta by having Juliette question the logic of such a limitation. Also somewhat subversive relative to most of the history of vampire stories is that Calliope, the vampire slayer, is African-American. Adding to the subversive qualities of the story is a scene in which the two girls spend seven minutes in heaven inside a closet at a party passionately kissing and feeling each other as a result of the choice made in a game of Truth or Dare.
The underlying conflict associated with the title is that the first kills for both vampire and slayer are a big deal rite-of-passage sort of thing. The underlying conflict of the burgeoning romance between Juliette and Calliope is that they both recognize one must actively hunt the other who must herself take any means required to ensure survival. These two aspects of the story are used metaphorically to expand the inherent natural conflicts of adolescent maturation. As vampires and slayers, both girls are raised with certain expectations of behavior that must be either accepted and conformed to or rejected and rebelled against. The first kill that both fear and desire simultaneously carries a symbolic connection to losing one’s virginity.
“First Kill” is a story that seems to be constructed and designed for continuation. It is possible the author had in mind expanding the short story into a novel. Alternatively, a series of short stories. The expectation of continuance arrives because the story ends with both girls recognizing the other for what she is and leaving that all-important closet with wicked grins on their faces and the suggestion that both realize the hunt is officially on. How the story ultimately ends is, of course, less important than applying the ambiguity of the ending to that opening question. The real point of the story is not to give a reader any definite answer but to make the question more difficult by giving them two equally likable characters who stand in potentially fatal opposition to each other.
