The 4 Kingdoms: Rise of The Vampire

Chapter 16: 15

     I woke up that very night. I was in my bed, my breathing was difficult and I felt completely out of energy. The lights were on and I knew some one was in the room. I couldn’t see who though, I couldn’t move. “He’s awake!” I heard Kim yell out. I wanted to get up and see who it was that went into my room when she said that but I couldn’t. I kept looking up at the ceiling when I saw Kim, Cynthia, and three more people appear looking down on me. I only recognized one of the three others that were looking at me. A silver eye and a black eye in a shaved head, I recognized it perfectly from last night. The shape shifter! I was going to attack him without realizing that he wasn’t here to hurt me but I couldn’t move at all.

“Chill, I’m not here to fight you.” He said. I knew that but part of me didn’t want to relax. I looked at the other two standing next to him. One of the guys was wearing a police uniform and the other a suit. I didn’t recognize either of them and I didn’t know what they were doing here. “See, he’s awake so there’s no need to take him to the hospital.” said Charlie to the other two. “He may be new to this but he’s a fighter, so there’s nothing to worry about.”

“We should get to the news station then.” said the man I the suit. “The video hasn’t been sold to any other station yet so we might be able to steal it.” The others nodded and turned to Cynthia and Kim. “We’re leaving now, you should all consider changing location; things haven’t been so good in Vegas.”

“Oh, we will once he gets all better. Well thanks for everything you’ve done.” said Cynthia walking off with the three of them. I could hear them talking in the other room.  I decided to ignore them and turned my attention to Kim who was sitting in the side of the bed.

It even seemed to be hard for me to talk. “…What’s…going …on?” I asked feeling like I was on a sedative; my mind knew what to say but my mouth didn’t seem to react with it. “Why...? Can’t…” I gave a moan of fatigue “I move?”. It was then that I noticed that I wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“You got seriously hurt when you killed that witch. Cynthia said you were going to bleed out if you didn’t get any medical attention. We were about to send you to the hospital when she decided to try a healing spell. She said it would make your body recover perfectly but that it would consume all of your energy. So you can’t move as long as you’re recovering.”

“Nice…So who…were they?”

“They’re called Cleaners” she answered. “Cynthia told me about them. They’re supposed to be people from the Kingdoms who make sure that the kingdoms stay secret when something happens that could expose them. They’re here because of the fights you’ve gotten into.” I smiled and took a deep breath; my lung must still be pierced. I felt the shooting pain as I exhaled. “You know, you may have changed in a big way but you’re still the same Gerard I met almost two years ago. You’re always doing things that very are dangerous without thinking things twice. Now that I think about it; that’s how we ended up going out. Remember at my little brother’s birthday party?” she said gently looking at me.

“It wasn’t… my fault.” I gasped a little for air “remember” I couldn’t help but smiling at the memory. The day I met Kim and the day I ended up in the hospital. I remembered that day very clearly, mostly because in a way I think of it as fate.

We were both in sixth grade, my friend Alice invited me to go with her to Kim’s house. Kim’s little brother was having a birthday party and the kids were playing with a soccer ball. There is one thing I have always remembered about her house, and it was the four gargoyles that were put as a decoration around the four points of the roof of her house. Alice introduced us to each other and we began talking in the patio furniture with some other kids. Kim’s mom came up to her and told her to get the two birthday cakes out. Kim got up and asked if one of us could help her, I volunteered and walked towards her.