Okay, I hit a major writers block with this and my muse ran away. So sorry!
It was dark when I woke up again to the sound of the night nurse closing the door behind her. I counted to twenty before pushing back the covers and padding to the only window in the room. Down below I could see people coming and going in A & E and ambulances speeding off. The streets were bathed in the orange light from the street lamps and I rubbed my face, wincing at the error. I felt the air shift and counted down from ten. When I reached zero Ilish crashed in through the door, closing it behind her and diving under the bed.
Before I could ask her what was going on the door opened again and the night nurse re-entered. “I didn't think you'd be up.” She said distantly but not really sounding surprised. I decided then and there that I didn't like her and when she demanded gruffly 'where's your sister?' I really decided I didn't like her.
“Wouldn't know.” I snapped. “I haven't seen her.” The nurse huffed, stalking from the room and closing the door loudly behind her.
“What a cow!” Ilish called from under the bed, scrambling out with a grin. “Been after me since she spotted me on the floor below. She isn't too smart. Or that quick for that matter.” She stands up, dusting herself down and straightening her shirt. “Your face looks better. Not perfect but it never was.” I rolled my eyes, giving her the middle finger as I headed back to the bed.
“How may I help?” I asked as Ilish flopped across the end of the bed.
“Bored. The press are crawling all over the place trying to get statements out of Xavier, Jasmine, Elliot and Lacy's parents. They nearly got me but I led them to the wrong floor and caught the attention of the security there. Reporters ran even faster in the other direction.”
“But that's not why you're here?” I guessed and Ilish grinned.
“Nope. I'm here because there's one tiny little detail that's bothering me about you; you didn't heal. I healed and had to cause the damage all over again. You just never healed. Why?”
“If I knew the answer I'd be sleeping.” I confessed. I don't know if you remember, but when I introduced Ilish and I, I said that we healed fast. And by fast I meant ten minutes for a break. And my face still hasn't healed. Conclusion; there's some weird voodoo crap going on here. “We've done exactly the same thing for so long now it can't be related to our everyday life.”
“Maybe this just 'wears off' after a certain amount of time?”
I shrugged. “It may be possible. We're rare enough to find as it and it would why that's so.”
“175 is a bit of a strange age to stop though.”
“Maybe I'll have another twenty five years left of ageing then I'll just drop dead or something.” I sighed. “Look, I don't know and I can't hope to find out without speaking to an immortal older than me.”
“Well, when you find one, I say 'hi'.” Ilish smirked before sighing. “You know there's no chance of that happening. You've been alive for this long and you've only found me. And you made me what I am!”
“Yeah, unfortunately. It's a pity the bastards which started this whole thing didn't hang around.”
“Well, that's boys for you. Completely unreliable.” Ilish grinned. “Is there no one that you can talk to?”
“No. To be honest, I think I'd rather not know.”
X
We're all let out of the hospital the following day except for Xavier, who needs to stay for another few days and Lacy, who still hasn't woken up yet. We're still not allowed to see her. The day after our release and Jasmine, Mel, Ilish, Elliot and I are seated on our living room floor. A game of Cluedo sits between us, unfinished. Mel and Elliot are playing a game of Eye-Spy and Jasmine's braiding Mel's hair. Ilish and I are reading through old history books. She's finally gotten me to look up Immortals in history. Unless you're looking at Gods there are just a bunch of cook-coo people claiming to be immortal. Not a great help. “I think you'd be Hades.” Ilish said under her breath. “Or the ugliest one.”
“Yeah? Well you're Satan.” Ilish stuck her tongue out at me before closing the book with a sigh.
“You two okay?” Jasmine asked, looking up from the top of Mel's head.
“We're fine.” Ilish smiled thinly. “Just can't find anything on 'immortals', rather than 'vampires'.”
“It's a bit of a strange thing to be searching up, isn't it?” Mel laughed. I shrugged.
“Just something we're interested in. It makes no difference though. I can always Google it later.”
“You could.” Elliot said after loosing his third game. “What's with your face, by the way? It's looking much better.” He turned and thumped Mel's arm at the gagging sounds she was making. “I mean that it's healed quickly you sick little ba-”
“I'm just lucky!” I cut in before things escalated and we had to take Mel back to hospital. “Has anyone heard any more on the school situation?”
“Other that we're going to be off school for a month? Nope.” Jasmine shook her head.
“Who the Hell cares?” Ilish demanded. “That's the only news I'm looking for!”
Elliot rolled his eyes. “No idea on who did it or why, only that it was a professionally made bomb that was designed to kill people.”
The room was silent for a few seconds before Ilish cried out. “He did it! Run for you lives!”
I turned to glare at her. “Cant you keep your voice below the legal noise limit for more that a few minutes?” She pouted but shut her mouth.
“I know because I read the papers in the morning and watch the news. The press are still calling for any eyewitnesses.”
I snorted. “No, what they're calling for is for people to interrogate. The eyewitnesses will be people at the school. It's unlikely that some fat lorry driver or old lady with twenty cats saw what happened.”
“Yeah. School's pretty crap at keeping people out, but I'm sure they'd have noticed my grandparents.” Mel chuckled. “I better be heading off. My parents are still edgy about me being gone for long periods of time.” She got carefully to her feet and headed towards the door, calling a goodbye over her shoulder.
“I think we should all be heading home.” Elliot sighed. “It's been a long few days and I'm beginning to hurt.” Once the other two had cleared off I headed up the stairs for a bath. Hopefully, by tomorrow morning, my face would be completely healed. I was pretty sure that my wrist was nearly healed, but that would have to stay on for another six weeks to satisfy the hospital and avoid complicated questions.
Once I was back to a human standard I fired up my dying laptop and logged onto the local news site. I didn't want to know anything about what had happened at the school, but it felt disrespectful to not know the names of the dead. I blinked in shock when I saw that the number of dead had doubled. Twenty six people dead. I scanned the names slowly, putting a face to each one;
Matthew Coulson (19)
Rebecca Roberts (16)
Macauley Savage (27, Biology Teacher)
Amanda Morris (12)
Emma Stevenson (11)
Rebecca Brown (18)
Cerys Waters (16)
Kelsey Calvert (39, Music Teacher)
Tamsin Williams (14)
Amy Llewellyn (14)
Emily Becker (19)
Sara Evans (17)
Bethany Smith (14)
Darren Walters (15)
Abigail Turner (29, Teaching Assistant)
Lewis Day (49, Physics Teacher)
Michael Hoadley (38, Maths Teacher)
Ben John (12)
Nicole Parsons (19)
Daniel Cromwell (11)
Tyler Campbell (11)
Sara Lawrence (12)
Erin Jenner (16)
Dylan Nurse (15)
Hannah Edwards (15)
Alex Jenkins (19)
I read and re-read the names over and over in the hope that something would jump out. Maybe an intended target but there was nothing. Other than the teachers giving us too much homework, there was nothing that would make someone want to blow up half of the school. Well, nothing which would prompt serious action like this.
A chilling thought entered my head; what if it wasn't the dead they were trying to kill?