Sleepwalkers || The Lost Boys - & The One Who Found Them [ Part II ]

Prologue - Sleepwalkers

________

[ ]

Then, everything went dark & silent, the swan pendant slipped through my fingers like sand when I raised my hand to place it on David's cheek & granted him to erase the last few inches that kept us separated, & not even for a second did he hesitate; his lips crashed into mine with breathtaking madness, eager to savour me like prey, however in a way that I would remember for a lifetime.

This moment, familiar. The taste. The scent. The feeling. The sensations. The emotions resurfacing.
Fragments of a past once sent far away, now returning to me for an embrace that would soothe my aching soul & become the ointment for the gaping wounds in my heart.

Home at last...

'Home?'

Slowly, with immense effort & dedication, I finally opened my eyes; those awfully heavy, tired eyes, generously stained with what felt like hours of deep slumber & silent tears, cried in the presence of a malignant nightmare & soon abandoned, left to dry. Darkness greeted me like so many times before, a mocking smile under its empty, condescending gaze as I faced it completely unprepared. My diaphragm shook & trembled with terror, gallons of adrenaline rushing through every inch of my body within mere seconds. All was silent, & silent was all; only the frightful beating of my own heart echoed between my ribs to stop me from drifting back to sleep. I was tired, felt drained; emotionally & physically. Hundreds of questions flooded my mind, threatening to crush me under their weight. I saw faces assemble before my inner eye, familiar faces & unfamiliar faces alike, their vacant expressions mocking the confusion that held me hostage.
With every blink I took yet another step back into my current reality, unconsciously recollecting even the tiniest memories as I slipped out of the arms of sleep. My head was aching, my limbs were heavy & numb, barely distracting me from the strange tingling sensation in my lower abdomen. With the abdominal pain came a sense of dread that my body seemed to remember all too well, far more than I was aware of at this point in time, the faces before me one by one distorting beyond recognition, or rather morphing, taking new shape. The questions rushing into my mind were no longer questions but memories, now embracing me with wide open arms & gently peeling the invisible veil named ignorance from my tired eyes.

Paying the pain in my lower body no mind I sat up straight in what appeared to be a bed made of soft, velvet cushions & various blankets, crimson & maroon-coloured drapes performing graceful dances in the grasp of a tender breeze. I smelled salt & kelp, & somewhere in the far distance my ears perceived what was most likely the echoing scream of a sea gull. My lungs expanded in response to a deep breath, drinking in the new oxygen the ocean air provided me with. Although refreshing & undoubtedly revitalizing the air was incredibly cold, almost wintry, blessing my bare skin with a thin layer of goosebumps.

...bare skin?

Gasping in surprise I looked down, my eyes adjusting slowly to the faint lights that came from the nearby fire bowls; only two out of seven flames had survived the night. I was indeed bare, stripped naked from head to toe, with merely a red silken blanket wrapped around my torso, although poorly enough to reveal almost all of my breast. Why though, I wondered...

Why am I naked? What happened to me?? How did I---

... & there, as though someone had suddenly turned a switch inside my head, they returned at last. The memories I'd been aching to find.

Memories of skin against skin, stained by desire & radiant with heat. Raw flesh longing for raw flesh; biting without teeth & screaming without a mouth. Restless tongues, hungrily dancing on moist, blood-covered grounds, stealing gasps & whispers of pleasure. Two bodies, intertwined like roots in the soil, moving rhythmically to the sound of purest, highest ecstasy. Lustful screams & moans, lurking along the cavernous walls like shy little ghosts; I could still hear their echoes upon listening closely.

"...David..."

" ...Lily..."

" ... David..."

" My... sweet... Lily..."

" No... This can not be... "

Patterns & colourful smudges soon turned into fine lines, forming pictures right in front of me in the centre of the room, as though I was looking at ghostly projections... Showing David & me, performing the most intimate dance of all without an ounce of doubt nor hesitation in all of our actions, under the judgmental eyes of seven wildly flickering flames.

" I... I couldn't..! I never would've... No...
This is not real... "

My up to this point calm breathing soon grew shallow, a hard lump forming in my throat & rapidly growing in size the longer I stared at the image of the vampire & myself, bereft of both thought & word. Multiple shivers ran down my spine, the clutches of a new, unfamiliar kind of fear that shook me to the very core tightening its grip on me; the realization what I had done, hand in hand with the painful realization what tragic consequences would inevitably follow.
Tears blurred my vision, & with it the picture of me & David fornicating like wild animals in their final hours, the overwhelming scent of blood, sweat & lust hanging thick in the air & poisoning every corner of my lungs. My head dropped forward in utter shame & bottomless guilt, my already tear-soaked face about to drown in the palms of my hands when a paralysing pain in my right wrist forced me to freeze.
I gasped, biting my bottom lip to withhold any other kind of sound. Something warm ran down the side of my arm, tickling the skin before landing in my lap with an audible dripping sound.
With my wrist at eye level it still took me several blinks to be able to see, my vision still distorted by tears, & once my terrified self understood what I was looking at that caused me such insane amounts of pain, my breathing stopped entirely. An air of deafening silence fell, much like an invisible wall, cutting myself off from the world around me.

" No..."

A violent tremor took hold of my hand, causing more rivulets of blood to depart from my wound.
I nearly choked on the sobs of denial.
" NO..! "

Bite marks.

______