Children of the Night

Chapter S I X

My heart beat fast as I realized that Brandi walked in. She fell to her knees, crying at the bloody sight of her dead friend. She hadn’t seen me yet, and if I wanted to escape, the timing would be very limited before her terrified eyes found me. Understanding what she had to do; Brandi stood up and ran out of her pink door, screaming wildly for help. With inhuman speed and agility, I ran to the door and locked it, taking the key off of her dresser. Loud footsteps ran to the door seconds after and forcefully tried to get in.

            The blood rushed quickly to my head and black spots formed on my vision. My chest contracted making it difficult for me to breathe and I fell back to the wall. After I recovered, I ran to her window and struggled with opening it. It was only after I punched open the window did I realized that it was locked. The door broke open and I quickly jumped out of the window, falling gracefully down the very tall two story mansion.

            I landed on my feet with a loud thud that rocked up my whole body, sending harmful waves of shock up my spine. I was about to escape to the car, but forgetting Aliza, I sprinted to the front of the house and casually walked inside, careful not to draw attention to my distressed state. People had crowded around the room, and I easily sniffed out a sweaty Aliza. I pushed my way through the sea of teenagers and grabbed Aliza’s hand, pulling her out of the house. She tried to wriggle out of my grip, but I was many times stronger than her.

            “Miranda, can you please tell me why you’re acting like such a freak?” She asked as anger pulled her voice out strained. I shook my head and continued to walk to her car. There were no words to explain the horror of what had just happened. Or what I’d just so blindly done. My eyes blurred and I blinked fast to clear my vision from hot tears.

            “We need to leave.” I said as tears streaked down my face. She ran in front of me, slipping her hand from my grip and putting her hands on my shoulders.

            “What’s wrong Miranda? Why are you crying?” She asked with polite concern that crowded her face. I shook my head and closed my eyes, trying to relieve myself from the sweet scent coming from her body that washed over mine, making my jaw twitch and my nose burn. It hadn’t occurred to me that this could happen. I mean, I knew about them, vampyrs. I knew they existed because there were schools around the world that particularly hosted these vampyrs… or fledglings, which were humans in the transition to becoming a vampyr. The House of Night school was a chain that I was familiar with. No one ever really encountered a vampyr dangerously before though. They learned how to control their hunger, and control was something that I was not familiar with in my newfound transformation.

            A growl of frustration rumbled from my chest and I screamed at Aliza, baring my fangs at her. Her blood had become too much to bear. It made my mouth water. We learned about vampyrs in school, the symptoms that we should be cautious of if we ever began to even remotely feel sick. Humans didn’t praise the vampyrs, just as the vampyrs didn’t give much thought to the humans. They were a much divided race, even though they lived together. I didn’t know a bunch about them, only what I was taught by school and that they worshiped a goddess by the name of Nyx.

            “Whoa, you’re costume is really…real.” She said with fear and knowing her eyes. I had scared her, but she knew I would never intentionally hurt her. After all, I did just save her life.

            “Just get in the car” I screamed, pulling the driver’s door open and slamming my body into the seat. She got in on the passenger side, and as soon as she closed the door, I pulled out and began driving back to my house.

            “So do you want to tell me what the hell is going on” Aliza whined, placing her elbow on the dash. I swiped a glance at her then looked back to the road I was speeding down. My face itched and my teeth hurt like hell. It felt like someone took boiling hot water and splashed it into my mouth. I gripped the steering wheel tight, and when I took away one hand, imprints of my fingers left sharp ridges.

            “Not really” I growled through my teeth. Aliza nodded and was silent the whole way to my house. When I pulled up into my driveway, I looked at Aliza. She was shaking. I could hear her heart beating fast, and a vein in her neck throbbed. I suddenly threw open the door and sprinted to my house. I was at the front steps within a second. My speed surprised me, and I ran into the door. Infuriated, I grasped the doorknob and twisted hard, breaking it off the door. I pushed open the red door and walked inside, ignoring my mother’s calls and my siblings screams. I sped to my room and gathered all of Aliza’s stuff with speed, stuffing it forcefully into her bag, then sprinted down stairs and out the door. She was still sitting in the passenger seat with her eyes locked on the moon. I twitched my head up at the moon and winced. It was full. The stars shone brightly and I inhaled the deep scent of the night sky. Suddenly, shallow breaths cut my attention short and I looked to Aliza. Her chest went quickly up and down, and I knew she was uncomfortable by the way her body tensed.

            I opened her door and threw her out roughly, and then put her bags inside. She looked at me with bewilderment, and she was speechless. I left her to her own devices and stomped inside.

            Ignoring my mother who questioned me all the way up the stairs to my room, I went over the events that had occurred this evening viciously in my mind. I stopped halfway up the stairs, wincing at a terrible and wonderful burning tingle on my forehead. I put my hand to my sweaty face but felt nothing unusual, so I kept walking to my room. When I got to my room, I turned on the lights and walked to my bathroom to take off the makeup that had my face sweating. I looked in the mirror and was shocked to see that the outline of a lavender crescent moon was glowing softly on my forehead. All of the breath escaped from my lungs as I realized what this meant. I would be turning into a vampyr or I would reject the change and die.

            I lifted my hand to touch the crescent and as I made contact, my world spun and my vision blackened.