MY SUGAR MUMMY IS A BEAUTIFUL VAMPIRE

In her downtown condo, Becky Owens was adjusting the black wig in the mirror when Josh walked into the bedroom, frowning slightly. "Are you sure this is a good idea? Going to see Blake in prison after everything that's happened?"

Becky turned to face him, her expression resolute. "Of course it is. He nearly killed me remember? I deserve some answers."

Josh sighed but didn't argue further as Becky finished getting ready - applying bold red lipstick, slipping into high heels, and grabbing her press badge. She wore a confident, authoritative look.

"I'll be back in a couple hours," Becky said briskly, giving Josh a quick peck on the cheek before heading out. She hopped into her black SUV and drove to Valley State Prison on the outskirts of the city.

Meanwhile, Blake Shelton sat on the edge of the cot in his tiny cell, shoulders slumped in dejection. The harsh fluorescent lighting and bare concrete walls closed in around him oppressively.

It had only been a week since his sentencing to life in prison for attempted murder. A week of being shuttled from temporary holding to this permanent hell, processed and stripped of any final traces of humanity and individuality. The vibrant life and career he had built now seemed like a dream from another existence entirely.

Blake's head throbbed as he replayed the nightmarish chain of events - being attacked by an impostor, the following days delirious and bedridden, accused of attempting to murder a well known journalist Becky, and finally his trial and conviction.

It was all so surreal, like the most sadistic form of cosmic snakebite. How could his charmed life have spiraled into this inescapable darkness practically overnight? Where the only sliver of hope had been Rose working behind the scenes to hopefully exonerate him...

The metallic clanking of approaching footsteps pulled Blake from his tortured reverie. He glanced up as the towering prison guard stopped in front of his cell.

"Shelton! You've got a visitor waiting in the main room," the guard barked gruffly. "Front and center for transfer if you want your visitation period."

Blake felt his heart lurch as conflicting emotions surged through him. Could it be Rose already, with some progress to report? Or did this represent another demoralizing low point? Nonetheless, he rose mechanically and shuffled toward the cell door, allowing the guard to cuff his wrists and ankles before leading him out.

The visitation room was a dismal, cramped space divided by a thick pane of reinforced plexiglass. Scratched metal stools were bolted to either side, providing no comforts during these dreaded interactions.

When Blake entered and saw the petite woman with raven hair already seated on the other side, his face fell in bitter disappointment. It wasn't Rose who has come to buoy his hopes - only his prosecutor Becky Owens, eyes glittering with contempt behind those eyes.

"Well well, if it isn't the infamous Blake himself," Becky began in a saccharine tone as Blake slowly lowered himself onto the stool. Even with the barrier between them, he could detect the undercurrent of hostility crackling around her. "Looking pretty downtrodden for someone the jury decided to lock away forever, Blake."

Becky reached up and tugged off the wig, shaking out her signature blonde tresses as Blake's expression hardened. Of course she was here under journalistic pretenses once more to grind salt in his still-raw wounds.

"What do you want, Becky?" he asked tiredly, muscles tense. "Here to gloat at the big bad monster doing hard time now?"

"You could say that," she replied coolly, crossing her toned legs and leaning back. The confident smirk twisted her features into an inscrutable mask that made Blake's skin prickle with unease.

"Though I'd love for you to explain yourself properly, Blake. Or should I say, properly account for nearly murdering me!"

Blake recoiled at her venomous accusations, the claustrophobia creeping back into his chest as haunting flashbacks flickered behind his eyes. Snarling, he slammed a fist against the plexiglass, making Becky flinch.

"I didn't try to kill you, what the hell would I gain from doing that!" he shouted, fury and anguish straining his voice. "I was set up, framed by some psychopath who stole my identity and ruined my life!"

For several long moments, Becky simply stared at him with an inscrutable expression from behind the safety of the barrier. Finally, she gave a derisive snort.

"That pathetic conspiracy doesn't hold up, Blake. The police reports, the photos of me bruised and battered from your hands around my throat." She leaned forward, eyes glinting with challenge. "Why don't you walk me through the finer details of that tragic evening when you nearly choked the life out of me all to save your lover's name?

By the way, I didn't see that monster at the court, care to explain? Trouble in paradise?"

Blake opened his mouth to hurl more angry denials, but the words died on his tongue. He already knew the futility of trying to argue or change this woman's bitterly ingrained perspective. She had clearly made up her mind long ago that he was a soulless, sadistic monster.

With a weary shake of his head, Blake sagged back against the wall, all the fight draining from him as resignation set in once more. This visit wasn't about achieving any absolution or closure - it was simply an excuse for Becky to indulge in a vindictive public shaming under the guise of journalism.

And in that moment, another brutal realization finally crystallized in Blake's heart: no one was coming to validate his innocence or extricate him from this hell. Not his lawyers, not Rose...he was utterly alone, with only his swirling doubts and despair for company.

The smug grin had returned to Becky's lips as she sensed his surrender. She opened her mouth to undoubtedly unleash another volley of withering condemnations.

But just then the overhead buzzer rang shrilly, signaling the end of their allotted visitation period. The hulking guard had reappeared in the doorway, mouth set in a hard line.

"Time's up, Owens. Let's go, Shelton - back to your hole."

Blake remained silent and motionless as the guard uncuffed and pulled him to his feet roughly. With one last scathing look over her shoulder, Becky tossed her wig of black tresses back into place and strutted out with her head held high.

The walk back to his cramped cell felt more hopeless and disorienting than ever before. As the guard deposited Blake back inside with a dull clang of the barred door, he simply crumpled to the cold floor in a boneless heap. Waves of self-loathing and misery threatened to pull him under into the deepest recesses of his own psyche.

In the end, Becky was right about one thing - where exactly had Rose been during his day of utter debasement and reckoning at the trial? Fighting for his exoneration and freedom...or accepting his guilty verdict as foregone conclusion? Blake wondered if Rose had truly abandoned him. After all, he is a mere human and is no match for Rose.

The absence of any whisper or sign from her today burrowed like insidious parasites in Blake's doubts.

Had the immortal damsel abandoned hope for their eternal love after all the obstacles mounted inescapably? Did pursuing his freedom from this worldly cage no longer serve whatever ulterior endgames she had cautioned were greater than his comprehension?

If Rose's intrigues on his behalf really had reached their bitter conclusion, it would represent a betrayal more cosmically agonizing than anything Becky could orchestrate.

As the shadows grew longer and bleaker in his cage, Blake retreated inward to stare vacantly at the dingy walls. Oblivion and defeat were rapidly settling in to form his new bleak status quo until...something...transcendent reignited even the faintest slivers of hope in his soul once more.

But for now, that unbreakable spirit, once a radiant pillar of persistence, felt alarmingly frangible in the abject despair rapidly encircling Blake's heart.

While Becky had departed in smug satisfaction, scoring some vindication over her fiery wreckage of a love life...Blake simply curled in on himself. A broken, disgraced shell of his former aspirations and glory, mourning every unraveling thread of life's vibrancy that may have officially guttered beyond any hope of rekindling once more.

"This is it, isn't it?" Blake folded in a fetal position asked himself like some cosmic beings would answer.

The entire situation felt like a comic book. Like the writer was intentionally making the main character go through some traumatic experiences only for character development. The things happening made no sense. He met a vampire, fell in love with her, life seemed perfect, fast-forward and now he was in jail. Surely, this had to be the work of some bored deities, right?

Each twist and turn, each cruel blow dealt to him felt like the deliberate machinations of a heartless deity, orchestrating his suffering for the sake of some perverse narrative arc.

Well, if that be the case, Blake felt the Elder Gods were awfully cruel.

"What have I done to deserve this?"

Blake couldn't help but wonder what he had done to deserve such a fate. Was he merely a pawn in some cosmic game, a character doomed to suffer for the sake of someone else's entertainment? The thought was both chilling and maddening, driving him to the brink of despair.

And yet, even in the depths of his anguish, there was a flicker of defiance within Blake's soul. A stubborn refusal to surrender completely to the darkness that threatened to consume him. For deep down, he knew that to give up hope entirely would be to concede defeat to those unseen forces that sought to break him.

So he clung to that fragile spark of hope, nurturing it like a dying ember in the midst of a howling tempest. For even in the bleakest of moments, there remained the possibility of redemption, of salvation from the abyss that threatened to engulf him.

"24 hours left. Surely Rose has something up her sleeves, right?"

"This isn't it," he muttered.