Stay

Not Really Sure How To Feel About It

When I walk back to my room, I pass by the Throne Room, again, with a crate full of books. I avoided looking at anyone, especially Jane. I felt bad after what I had done, even though she knew I had no power in what I was doing. I couldn’t help feeling guilty after any of it.

“Goodnight, Vera,” Aro called out as I left the room. It’d be my last night, I thought bitterly. Why must this happen to me? Why must I be the one to foolishly get in the middle of a castle run by vampires and watch my friends get killed by? What did I do wrong?

I open my door and shut it quickly, putting the crate of books on my desk. I lie in bed and think how the next time my eyes are shut is when I’m becoming one of them, and then I’ll never sleep again.

Dreams are nightmares in the sweetest way. They’re happiness in the form of darkness. Light beaming in the corner of a dark room, I suppose. Maybe mine are always nightmares disguised as dreams, or are they dreams disguised as nightmares? They inspire fear in beautiful ways and distort objects so that I can’t tell what is truly good and what is truly bad. Maybe everything's bad, but some things are better at cloaking themselves from the menace than others. Nightmares project fear and anxiety, but dreams inspire happiness and romance. But what if happiness and romance were cloaked as nightmares? Sweet, loving ideas and plans and schemes all covered up to hide the fact that dreams are nightmares. Dreams inspire a short-term comfort, but after visualising the nightmares and not being afraid, there’s nothing. Not happiness or romane or fear or anxiety, just a blank space.

Maybe Alec Volturi is a nightmare. He scares me, makes me nervous. He makes me know that I’m still alive. I can still dream and have nightmares.

Until I change.

 

I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t. Especially with the nightmare of knowing that I’ll never be able to sleep again after the day is done and another chapter is closed. End of the beginning, I guess. Who knows how long I’ll actually be a vampire? I’d like to think that I wouldn’t drink human blood, not after Seb and Tessa and Brady. I still see them in my cloaked nightmares, but each time I’m less and less afraid of seeing them bloody and cold and...dead.

Am I mourning? Am I over mourning? Did I forget about them?

No, I couldn’t ever forget them. They were my friends, they’re the reason why I’m here.

When I open my eyes, everything is clear. The faint outline of the stone wall isn’t so much an outline-it’s perfectly straight and clear. It’s almost like I’m right in front of it, when yet I can feel my back on the bed and the outline is about fifteen feet away. My eyes wander, and I find several vampires watching me. Aro, along with Caius, Marcus, Jane, Alec, and Demetri stand there. Alec looks frazzled, concerned even. His hair is unkempt and his eyes show uncertainty. Uncertainty at me. Why?

I take a whiff of the air, and somewhere, I smell fresh bread. Not the kind from the store that is just labeled ‘fresh,’ but the kind that someone made with their own two hands and cooked it on a brick oven and left in the warm sun to soak up the warmth whenever someone took the first bite of the loaf. It oddly didn’t make my stomach rumble or my mouth water. Usually, I’d be eating bread if I ever smelled something so delicious. But something wasn’t right. Sure, Alec never showed true emotions for me, but I know that concern wouldn’t be one. Also, I’d be eating that bread by now, and my eyesight was never that good.

Then I realized: they had changed me. They had changed me without me remembering.

“Why?” I croak, looking at them and frowning.

“We knew you’d be too nervous after you woke up, so we just did the transformation,” Caius answers. “It’s not too bad, now is it?”

“Let’s have you a snack so you can think rationally,” Aro suggests, and as if he had set this up, a human walked in. I smelled everything, from the human’s smelly sock stench to his onion breath. It made me want to vomit. Every smell was intensified by a thousand times, and I gagged. “What’s wrong, child?”

“I can’t do it,” I stood off the bed and quickly darted out the window. I landed on my feet at the bottom, and looked back at my window. I saw Aro, Caius, and the Guard watching me as I ran.

I ran home. I needed some sort of comfort.

When I got home, I slid in through my open window and remembered home. Granted, i was alone, but I had some fun. I had my computer, my books, and my emotions. It was enough to make any teenage girl happy, especially one like me.

But I wasn’t home for nostalgia. I was here to grab necessities. I knew I’d need them. I was going to run, run far away where I’d never be found. America.

I love America. In history class at school, I’d be the one to know all about history, and American history was one of my favorites. I’ve dreamt of going to America, but never had the time. Now that I was on the run, I could go and be...normal.

I passed my bathroom to grab stuff, and I realized my eyes...they weren’t my traditional shade of gray. No, they were bright, blood red. Almost like the color of a strawberry or cherry or tomato. I couldn’t go out like this. Nope. I needed color contacts immediately. Unfortunately, I never needed contacts nor colored ones, so I had nothing but sunglasses to cover up my eyes.

I left Italy. I haven’t seen the Volturi for twenty years, mainly because I never stop running.