Writing this story was far more difficult than I anticipated. I first came up with the idea of writing a story about vampires in Istanbul while writing a research paper for my PhD four years ago. I was bewitched by the idea of using a vampire’s long lifespan to explore the city’s history. How wonderful would it be, I thought, to have characters living in the so-called golden age of Ottoman Istanbul who remembered the rise and fall of the Caliphate of Córdoba, or who remembered the Byzantines, and who brought centuries of memories and diverse cultural influences the story?

The first paragraph of any piece sets the mood for what’s to follow—whether it be languid scene-setting or, in this case, a stripped-down story of monsters and survival. It all depends on the atmosphere the writer is attempting to evoke, and how to best get the reader there. For “Antripuu,” that best way was to throw her or him to it immediately and unflinchingly. That lack of emotional ramp up gives the narrative a propulsion that helps drive the story all the way to its end.

I was thinking a lot about motherhood and relationships. I’m turning twenty-eight soon, and I’ve never wanted children, but I’ve been interrogating that desire—is it trauma from caregivers that led me to that conclusion? The fear of losing my autonomy to a child? The mistrust of the nuclear family structure, which is still the prevailing narrative of what family “should” look like in the US? These are all questions that came out in the story.I was also thinking about how women are taught very young that it is our duty to change ourselves for others.

The title occurred to me while I was assisting with summer classes at a middle school near my university over 2011 or 2012, and I found myself supervising the basketball court at recess (although why my students struck me as royalty of the nocturnal variety, I don’t recall anymore). Later that year, still in my student teaching, I experienced my first school lockdown, and that experience—waiting in a small space for who-knows-what, surrounded by the familiar objects of my classroom while startling and unfamiliar noises sounded in the hallway—ultimately shaped the frame story of Batul in her apartment.