յօ 𝔪𝔬𝔫𝔱𝔥𝔰 𝔭𝔯𝔦𝔬𝔯~ 𝔥𝔲𝔪𝔞𝔫𝔬𝔦𝔡 𝔪𝔬𝔰𝔮𝔲𝔦𝔱𝔬𝔢𝔰
"Murder attempt in disguise" These were the words that hadn't ceased resonating in her mind since she left the hospital as if she were still testing their meaning and weighing their veracity.
Luna entered her eerily silent apartment. Her forearm still felt sore under the bandages where the IV had been. A loud meow startled her. She jumped only to find Marie Curie rubbing against her knee.
As a precaution she had double locked the door and that evening she wouldn't roam the streets of Paris. The neighbor's tv was turned off so she wouldn't be watching tv either. Instead she sighed, sitting on her bed. Everything was so still and empty just as she had left it that morning as if nothing had changed from then til now. But things had changed for Luna since this morning.
Murder attempt in disguise. She repeated internally.
Her eyes fell on a piece of paper that was sticking out of her coat pocket across the room. Curious, she decided to go see what she had put in her coat pocket that she had forgotten. It was the draft De Revel had given her at the café. When she picked it up, a piece of torn paper fell into her palm. An elegant slanted hand had written a series of numbers. Below, it was signed 'Edmond De Revel' with a note that indicated it was his phone number. Alright, she would read his wretched draft, she decided but she wasn't getting involved in his project no matter how interesting it may be. Above all, she wished to know more about this man and possibly what he knew.
"If my suspicions are confirmed, it is best they presume that you are ignorant of the danger they pose." She remembered his words to her earlier that afternoon. Who were they?
So, she proceeded to heat a plate of plain pasta in the microwave for her diner and sat at the dining room table with De Revel's work by the side of her plate. And damn was it interesting... Like De Revel had promised, it was much easier to understand when written as well as more detailed. De Revel kindly made sure to explain every complicated term.
The worst was that he was right. Not only would her theories help him with his work, his work might even prove her theories. With a moan, she threw the draft into the trash but a couple minutes later, she was unable to abstain herself from retrieving it. Her mind was already bubbling with possibilities and ideas to complete his work. She traded her fork for a pen and abandoned her meal. Before long, the draft was crowded with annotations as she scribbled away on the back of the paper in her tight scraggly writing.
After a while though, she rubbed her temples to try to not lose her focus. She felt herself getting increasingly tired. After all, she had barely slept last night and had only just recovered from a recent overdose. The young professor took in her surroundings. She hadn't noticed the night slowly creeping in or the darkness settling in the room. Her heart began to drum in her chest. In the distance, a dog could be heard barking.
She had the intuition or you could say, the conviction that there was someone standing right outside her door. Fear made her heart beat frantically but froze every other part of her body. She waited paralyzed, her hand still holding the pen over the paper. After what seemed like an eternity, she summoned the courage to set her pen down and move slowly toward the door. When she brought her eye to the peephole, her heart was hammering faster yet. Though she didn't see who was there because her eyes suddenly snapped open. Her forehead was pressed against the dining room table. But it wasn't the usual relief she felt from being woken up after a nightmare. She was still trapped in her nightmare's obscure scenery and there was still someone out there. She could feel their presence.
She decided the best thing to do was to certainly not turn the lights on and anyway they wouldn't be able to come into the apartment. All they could do was watch her. Therefore, she curled up in her bed under the covers. Beads of sweat ran down her forehead as she waited in silence. For the first time, she longed to hear the concierge's voice break the unbearable silence, to prove that she wasn't alone. Her terror grew. Damn it. She couldn't resist turning on the lights. However, removing the darkness didn't remove the intense eery feeling that was etched into every corner of the place. She stood next to the door, barely daring to breathe. But finally she decided to face whoever was out there, this course of action surely would be better than endless apprehension. The door clicked twice when she unlocked it. She pulled the handle forward and... gasped.
Her breathing seemed to stop in that instant. However, she suddenly woke up again, this time her cheek stuck to the table's surface. In her frustration she held her head in both hands, trying desperately to remember what she had seen. Instead, her gaze fell upon the paper that lay flat on the table. Scribbles ran down the page, when they met its edge, they cascaded onto the table where her unconscious self had decided to continue. She noticed that she was still holding the pen. What's more, her phone indicated it was quarter to six in the morning. Sunlight filtrated through the window near her bed, illuminating the rest of the room. It was no longer the scenery of her nightmare. All of it had been but a cruel nightmare. She sighed. They were just watching over you, making sure you were okay. She calmed herself.
The unfinished plate of pasta remained from last evening. She heated it in the microwave to have for breakfast instead.
When walking to work, she wore a big scarf that gave her a false sense of security. Although she wasn't actually cold, it shielded her from unwelcome glances.
During her class, the young professor did her best to ignore Edmond De Revel at the back of the room that she knew was watching her. Her briefcase had broken when she had fallen. So when the class ended, she stood struggling with all the paper she would have to carry by hand while trying to manage her huge scarf.
"Here let me help with that." De Revel offered.
"No need." Luna answered hastily but almost immediately she watched the paper at the top of her pile slowly slipping out of her grasp and fall into De Revel's hands in time.
"May I have a word with you?" he whispered. The last time they had spoken was at the hospital. She frowned, glancing at the remaining students.
"If you don't mind doing so as I walk to the metro." she grumbled.
"I have time." he replied airily, striding to the door and holding it open for her.
When they were out of earshot, he asked:
"You knew for madame Valdret didn't you? You sensed it. How?"
"Sensed what?" Luna asked, confused.
"That she has cancer." he announced gravely. They were in the university courtyard. Luna stopped abruptly, the pile of papers she was holding, crashing to the ground, though she did not bend down to retrieve it.
"She has cancer?"
De Revel studied her.
"You could somehow feel it when the two of you shook hands. Isn't that right?"
How could he have noticed? The papers she had dropped began to whirl in the wind around them. Even if he did, how could he come to such accurate conclusions? It had been years she had been trying to convince others that she had visions of people's deaths without them calling her 'lunatic' but now that someone actually showed signs of believing her, of uncovering a secret she had kept her whole life, it was terrifying.
"How do you know she has cancer?" At this point one of the papers hit him on the side of the head. He added it to the stack he was already carrying and bent down to pick up the rest that she had dropped.
"You do know what I am?" His voice held doubt. Immediately she felt stupid for asking. Based on the migraine she had experienced during her vision, Cendrine suffered most likely from a brain tumor. And as a neurobiologist, De Revel maybe had contacts in the field that knew about Valdret's condition. They walked out of the university's gates and onto the street.
"Sorry of course," she added, not wanting to offend him. "You're a neurobiologist..."
"I didn't mean as a job... I mean what I am."
"I... I don't understand..."
"You don't know why we're different from them then. Would you like to know why?"
One moment his eyes searched hers. The next, his dark hair and coat ruffled in the wind as he turned away from her. Luna stopped, dumbfound. She watched him walking swiftly away from her, holding her stack of paper in his left grasp and felt torn between retrieving it from him and heading home.
"Hey!" she called hesitantly. "The metro station's in the opposite direction."
"Change of plans. We're going to my lab." he replied calmly without turning around. She caught up with him.
"Says who?" she demanded indignantly.
"It's only a few blocks away." He justified.
Finally, her curiosity got the better of her. When they entered the building, he handed her a visitor card to scan as well as a lab coat and gloves.
"Is this really necessary?"
"It's the policy for visitors." He apologized.
The space was arranged into cubicles with different offices and equipment. A woman with short jet black hair emerged from one of the cubicles, eyeing Luna snobbishly.
"Edmond, why did you bring her here?" She asked with a careless french accent. De Revel repressed an amused grin.
"Dr. Enwright, this is my sister and cellular biologist, Marie-Elise. I think what she meant to say is she's pleased to meet you."
Her lips pursed as if refraining herself from contradicting Edmond's introduction. Her lab coat seemed only to accentuate her paleness and though her skinny frame suggested otherwise, Marie-Elise looked anything but feeble.
"Is it dinner time?"
An enthusiastic voice in the background sang. A young man appeared. Luna was beginning to feel uncomfortable with all the attention.
"And this is geneticist and biochemist, Arthur Ramsey." De Revel introduced. Ramsey's lab coat was unbuttoned revealing a black tee-shirt with the bright yellow universally known radiation symbol which uselessly warned 'Radioactive Material'. He shoved some of his unruly curly red hair out of his face. He was tall and lanky. In spite of his hight, he looked astonishingly young, like he could have still been in his teens.
"You're the new physicist?" he asked.
"Well erm... not exactly. I'm just coming as a visitor."
"It's a pleasure to meet you." He greeted with a smirk and a British accent. "We're not as young as we seem." Arthur added as if guessing her thoughts.
"Why is she here?" Marie-Élise hissed.
De Revel was already poking around the shelves.
"She's a shifter." he explained.
"You said no shifters lived in Paris anymore." she argued.
"I was wrong." he admitted while picking up a small box. He emptied the contents cautiously on the desk near the optical microscope and expertly transferred the specimen on the petri dish onto the slide.
"What are you doing?" Marie-Elise asked, her slim brows furrowing as she watched her brother adjust the optical microscope. De Revel turned toward her.
"She needs to know about Project Salamander."
Luna felt a shiver as he turned her way, his silvery glance delving into hers.
"Dr. Enwright, after you." He gestured towards the optical microscope.
Arthur grinned and Marie-Elise glared. Regardless, she advanced as prompted and peered through the eyepiece.
"What am I supposed to be looking at?" she inquired.
"Live cancerous cells also known as HeLa cells. They never die yet they continue to replicate which creates a tumor. Now," he switched the slide and adjusted the microscope again. "Look at these." he instructed.
To be totally honest, she didn't notice much of a difference.
"All the cells are in interphase. Always in interphase yet they are not dead. They don't go into mitosis until..." he took the slide back. He held up a small labeled bottle. "This is sodium hydroxyde, as you know, a highly corrosive substance."
Her eyes widened as he popped the lid open with ungloved hands and applied a tiny drop to the specimen before putting the coverslip back into place and inserting the slide onto the mechanical stage. He proceeded to adjust the microscope a third time. Even with her limited knowledge of biology, what she saw through the eyepiece was clearly beyond the ordinary. All the cells were dividing themselves in two all at once.
"High-speed mitosis." De Revel explained. "Like HeLa cells, these cells don't auto-destruct like they're supposed to. However, whenever some of them die from exterior factors, they will go into high-speed mitosis. Therefore, these cells are virtually immortal."
"Why haven't you published these findings?" She asked, astonished. This discovery could earn them a Nobel prize.
"Because, these cells are..." he hesitated, "mine." He finished somberly.
There was a pause. Luna didn't know what to say. What to think. She looked around at the three researchers. "These cells... your cells never grow old?"
De Revel nodded solemnly.
"That's not possible."
Arthur smirked.
"It is."
Marie-Elise crossed her arms and gave him a stare that dared him to continue which of course, only encouraged him to do so. "Edmond hasn't told you everything." he added. "We have discovered that in contact with mortal cells, our leukocytes produce a retrovirus. I'm sure you're familiar with the mechanisms of these types of viruses... they modify cell dna. So, after prolonged exposure with immortal blood, mortal cells become immortal." He shot a mischievous glance at De Revel who didn't do anything to stop him from continuing. "This is a rare process where we decide to give our blood in exchange for the blood we take. Our red blood cells despite being immortal can not carry glucose to our vital organs as they should therefore we must take blood from others in order to survive."
"So, what? Are you saying you're some sort of vampire?"
At her greatest surprise, De Revel's gaze grew foggy at the mention of the ridiculous term. Arthur's mischievous grin widened.
"Yes."
He was obviously taking a huge delight in watching her reaction to the news. "Though, I prefer the term of humanoid mosquitoes but yes otherwise we're vampires." he confirmed.
A/N
Somebody's watching me from Rockwell and Michael Jackson. I think it fits this chapter ;)
Sorry... all the invented biology seems ridiculous and far fetched 😅 but hey guys this is fiction :b
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