Blood. Everywhere. The alley walls. The floor. My clothes. It’s an endless stream of blood flowing into my mouth. I’m so hungry, more I need more. I keep drinking then the flow stops. I rip my fangs back confused. The body falls and I see his face. I feel the very second, I snap back to reality. I just stare at his body drained of all blood and try to listen for a heartbeat, any sign of life at all. I hear the sound of night animals and the breeze going through the trees. I hear cars drive by on the main road the next block over. The heartbeats of people from afar. I listen closer and hear some people texting the movement of fingers on a screen, the lovers flirting with each other at a nearby restaurant. I can hear everything but his heartbeat. I don’t hear the blood flowing through his veins. Everything about the body laying in front of me is silent. There is no denying it. He’s…dead. I ki-killed h-h-him. I couldn’t control myself. I hear the sound of sudden clapping from a dark corner in the alleyway.

“We’ll done. Now you really are one of us little fangling” A man says sounding pleased.

I turn and stare at the face of the monster who did this, I will never forgive this man. He turned me into this and made me kill my best friend’s brother. The very guy I was secretly dating. The guy who had flowers delivered to my house when I had a dreadful day. The guy who snuck through my window and cuddled with me, so I wasn’t so lonely. The…The- He’s dead. He looks like he is only sleeping like any of the other times in my room bu-but I- the emotion wall I put up crumbles and I scream.

My eyes open and sit up quickly looking around my room. It’s still dark out. I feel sweat dripping down my neck mixed with the tears streaming down my face. I don’t remember going to bed. There is no point in sleeping when I will just keep having the same nightmare repeatedly. It has been a year, and that day still haunts me. I take a deep breath, wiping my face getting out of bed. I grab my phone from my nightstand and look at the time. I breathe in a sharp inhale. Oh no. I run to my closet and quickly change into my usual all black night outfit. I grab my leather jacket from the back of my closet and my boots before running towards my window. I open it and jump using my vamp speed to quickly put my boots on in mid-air and tug my jacket on before running at full speed. As much as I hate to admit it, I feel the freest when I am just running wild. I am running so fast the human eye can’t quite see me in the dark, but I stick to the shadows. The last thing I need is to fall onto some vampire hunters’ radar for being careless. I haven’t found any proof that they exist but that means nothing since I’m a vampire and according to the world there is no such thing. I finally made it to my destination. The broken lights and washed-up alley along with being in a tight tucked away corner you would never know it’s there until you know what you’re looking for. This is the one place I can relax and become someone new, I prick my finger and raise it against the door and hear the usual click open. I quickly pull my finger back licking the blood off my healed finger. I walk in and the sign of the bar is the only light in the room. The name of the bar on display. The words Night Drawlers glow dimly. I take deep breaths letting all my stress fade away as I take in the usual scene. It’s usually a huge but extravagant room. The couches and side rooms towards the back and the huge bar with probably every blend of alcohol in the world. The large dance floor and next to it the feeding station which humans who get paid to let vampires drink from them. It might be pitch black except for the sign but with this being a vampire only bar we can see perfectly fine and prefer it this way. I move through the vampires and walk towards the very back wall. I prick my finger again and raise it to the wall. The wall moves revealing a door. I lick my finger again before turning the handle and opening the door. All eyes on me. Chaos begins.

“Where have you been?” says the red head girly girl Swara

“Yeah Trix” says the bullheaded Jack

“I THOUGHT YOU WHERE DEAD” says the loving worrywart Erla

“Told you she was fine” says the calm white-headed Storm

I sigh as they start arguing with each other forgetting about me. I close the door.

“I am here now so we can start it” I yell over them sitting between Storm and Swara

“We would have bee- “Jack starts before being interrupted by Erla

“Ok ok let’s start” Erla says ignoring Jacks death glare.

Swara drops a blood bag on my lap before looking at the huge TV screen as the movie starts. The word Twilight appears on the screen, and I just know this is going to be a trainwreck. I love this idea of watching vampire movies to see how accurate they have come into play. I just don’t understand how a vampire movie would be named twilight. I grabbed the blood bag off my lap and start drinking. The ragging hunger dulls, and I began to relax on the couch as the movie goes on. From time to time, I look at everyone’s faces and wonder what I would do without them. We might have come up with the rule that we don’t share what our lives are like with each other, but I feel like that hasn’t affected our bond. Even if it’s only a few hours I cherish this time before I must leave, and reality comes crashing down on me. I feel a weight on my shoulder which makes me look over and see Storm fast asleep. I feel the smile on my face. The movie is almost over so I decided to let him stay as he is for the rest of it, I might not have focused on the movie the hole time, but it didn’t seem all that bad except for the part that vampires shine under light. Talk about stupid. The second the movie finishes the arguing starts. I only catch a few things here and there.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

“-Sparkling vam- “Jake yells

“She – pale” Erla tries to add in

“- It’s always the bad looking- “Swara shouts.

I just watch for a while knowing we will have to leave soon. The weight on my shoulder vanishes and I look to see storm rubbing his eyes waking up.

“How long have they been going like this” he asks softly.

“Not long but they probably won’t stop anytime soon” I respond.

“Got it” he says before getting up and grabbing a blood bag from the fridge.

I look back at the rest and they are still going. Something about insults. I decided to just lay back and go on my phone. I’m surprised I remember putting it in my jacket pocket after getting home. I notice I have a few messages from the only person I talk to at school. Lily Packerman my best friend since forever and the same girl whose brother I murdered.

Lil

- Yesterday 3:40pm –

You free tomorrow?

- 6:32pm -

You home?

- 10:34pm –

Strixy are you ok?

- Today 1:35am –

I miss him too

I turn my phone off unable to handle the overwhelming guilt rising within me. I’m happy I was able to tell her about how close me and him really was but now it makes me even more guilt that she is trying to comfort the person who killed him. Everyone thinks he died by some kind of animal attack, but I know the truth it was me. I can’t be around her knowing what I did. Ignoring her is best for both of us.

“FINE I’M DONE WITH THIS” Jake yells snapping me out of my thoughts. It seems their “debate” has finally come to an end. Strom is fast asleep again next to me but this time he has the blood bag in his mouth only half full.

“Trix” I hear someone call.

I turn my head looking for the source. Erla, Swara and Jake are all looking at me.

“Uh what is it” I ask unsure of what I missed

“Wake storm up it’s almost time to leave” Swara says putting her bag on.

“Why don’t you do it?” I say not in the mood to get my face bitten off by a cranky storm

“Because he is least likely to attack you half-asleep” she says in a tone that makes me feel stupid for asking.

I sigh and get up bending down in front of the sleeping storm. I carefully shake his shoulder, but he doesn’t wake. I feel the sweat dripping down my forehead. There is only one thing left to do. I slap him across the face and use my vamp speed to tun behind Swara, but he already saw me and catches up throwing me to the ground. He looks furious. He just stars down at me while I’m pinning.

“Was that necessary” He ask still angry

“It was. I would have gotten a good laugh out of it if I was pinned to the floor with an angry vampire on top of me” I say smugly. 

“You play too much” Storm says before getting off me walking towards his fallen blood bag.

“Hey, I’m not the one who fell asleep during our hangout time” I say defensively getting up leaning on Swara.

“You can’t really say anything because you were super late for our hangout time” Swara whispers to me but she might as well have shouted it since we all picked it up with our vamp hearing.

No one comments but I see a smirk on Storms face. He shoots a glare at me as he grabs his blood bag from the ground. I laugh as I walk towards him to grab my phone off the ground. He speeds down before me grabbing my phone before I could get it and out the door in a flash. I sped after him through the body of people and out the bar door. I spotted him speed up a fire escape on a nearby building. He makes it to the top and speeds across roof tops and I’m on his fangs as I gain on mine. I jump grabbing on him slamming him to the ground of the roof top.

“You can’t outrun me” I say my ego on display.

“I let you catch me. That’s all” he says managing a causal shrug pinned down.

He shifts his body weight making us tip over. He has me pinned down now before I know it. We wrestled on the rooftop for a while. He is stronger than me, but I have the brain and the speed to outwit him. I twist his arms behind his back and place my knee down on his lower back. Using all my body weight I keep him pinned.

“So, you let me win huh?” I say breathing heavy. “Yeah right”

He wouldn’t let me, or anyone win on purpose. His competitive nature would not let him.

“Well, I got my payback.” He says before flipping us with such force it knocks the air out my lungs and runs into the night.

I slowly get up realizing my phone is in my head. That sneaky vampire thinks he can just man-handle me like that. I’ll get him back for that later. I’m hungry too, this sucks. I didn’t grab a blood bag before I left which means I won’t be ending anything until tonight. I curse storm out as I walked home saying every curse word I can think of no matter the language. I get to the front of my house and walk around it towards my bedroom window. I notice the windows are closed which makes no sense since I left it open. I climb up the side of the house slowly making sure to avoid the window. I use my fingernails to get under the creak and pull my window up. I stumble in but catch myself before falling. Even as a vampire I still manage to be clumsy.

“Where have you been” A voice says from my bed making me jump.

I whip around a freezer in my tracks. Lily is sitting on my bed looking at me.

“What are you doing here” I whisper-yell confused and slightly outraged.

“You weren’t answering your phone, so I came to check on you and guess what I found. You weren’t home! So, I’ll ask you again WHERE WERE YOU?” She says almost yelling.

I don’t say anything since I am completely flabbergasted. How can she think, break into my room and then yell at me for not being in it. That’s breaking and entering for crying out loud and to be fair she is not in her room either! Words came out of my mouth before I even thought twice.

“NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! LEAVE!” I yell instantly regretting it knowing I probably just woke the house up. I heard someone get out of bed. As quickly as humanly possible Lily is here and jumps into bed pushing her under the covers, hiding her. The door opens and I snoring, and sleep taking and slightly yell trying to make it sound realistic. The door closes and I relax as I hear the footsteps retreating and a door closes. I forgot about Lily until she started kicking under the covers and I moved off her and take my hand off her mouth. She comes up quickly gasping for air breathing heavy.

“A-are y-y-ou-u in-nsa-ane” she says through her heavy breathing

“I did what I had to do next time don’t bother coming over” I say coldly

She just looks at me saying nothing, but I can feel the guilt in my heart strengthen every second that passes. She finally gets up and climbs over me heading towards my window. She opens it and before climbing out she looks back at me.

“I’m not going to give up on you because if me and his role were reversed, he wouldn’t give up on you” she says before closing my window and disappears into the night

“If only you knew” I whisper into the night