Post by silent.lullaby on Dec 10, 2009 15:55:33 GMT -5
Dusk .::Chapter 05::. Shut Down
Waking the next morning, I felt groggy. I pushed up on my coffin door to find I couldn’t get it to budge. Panic set in quickly and I shoved, kicked and eventually screamed. The lid lifted and I seen Tobias folded over in hysterics. I sat up slowly, trying to put the most wrathful glare upon my face. Finally my brother started to get a hold of himself and looked at me, “oh scary face,” he rolled his eyes.
“Don’t do that ever again.” I told him as stood and jumped off the stand my coffin was on.
“Oh but it’s so tempting,” Tobias replied snickering as he went for the door.
I looked back at my coffin. Vampire coffins are larger than the normal ones. After all we occasionally toss and turn in our sleep. Mine was white in colour, and shiny as a pearl, the inside was plushy and white also, blue sheets and quilt my mother had made for me while I was still growing within her kept me warm at night. To the right of my coffin was my brother’s, his was mahogany, with black insides. To the left of mine was Angelique’s, hers being a baby blue with a matching interior.
As I stood there I could hear the two beats of Angelique’s separate hearts as she still slumbered inside. I turned away and stumbled toward the door, shaky vision, blurred as I got out of the basement where the sleeping quarters were. The sunlight caused me to close my eyes, and even cover them for a minute. I felt ill, which really meant, I was hungry.
“Mom,” I whispered as my knees started shaking, I didn’t hear her up and about, which either meant she was taking advantage of having a coffin to herself for a change by sleeping in, or she had already gone out to run errands. She was right, I should have eaten yesterday. “To-Toby,” I murmured as I tried to make my way to the kitchen leaning against the wall for support.
I hardly made out the blur with my shaky blurry vision. Toby grabbed my arm and threw it over his shoulder. “You okay?” He asked grabbing me by the knees and pulling me up into his arms before walking me toward the kitchen. “Did you drink some bad blood? Were? Ill-human?” The blood of werewolf wasn’t what supports our system and can leave us sick, weak, and even in a comatose state for a few days, not always, but sometimes. The blood of humans that are sick can leave the effects of illness on the drinker for a few days. On our own we don’t get colds, but if we bite a human with a cold, we get it too we just don’t react the same way.
“I didn’t,” I inhaled and my vision worsened. “Didn’t bite anyone.”
“You really should drink more often.” Tobias said taking a blood pack from the back of the fridge. “Don’t start giving me the excuses: ‘We don’t have many packs,’ ‘the humans need this blood,’ ‘we need to ration the packs.’” He mocked me trying to soften and pitch his voice to a more feminine tone. “Here.” He put the pack in my hand and I stared at it for a moment before all I could see was red. “Airy,” he might have spoken louder, but all I heard was a whisper of the nickname only he’d ever called me.
“I... I can’t see.” Panic hitched my breath my stomach tightened painfully and my head pounded. I could hear my own two terrified hearts and my brothers hearts who’s sped up in worry as I spoke.
“Airy!” The pack was gone from my hand and in a second I heard a tear and all I could smell was blood. My second row of teeth slashed through my gums painfully blood soaking my mouth as my gums hurried to heal around the new teeth. It’s what starts the blood lust, the taste of your own blood in your mouth. I felt plastic next touch my lips, it was wet and metallic. “Drink it,” my brother scolded. I bit down and started drinking the liquid down, my brother let go of the bag as I grabbed on to it. “Good girl,” he patted my head in a patronising way that bothered me but the blood was giving me my vision back, and my knees stopped knocking together so I kept my remarks to myself. My own foolishness had brought me to this point, I suppose my brother deserved the right to bug me a little for it.
The red ebbed away from my vision till it was no more, and the blood pack was empty. I looked down at it. It belonged in a hospital, saving the life of a human, but the Covenant had stopped a vehicle transporting it and made the man driving forget all of what happened. The blood had been split up and there weren’t many packs left. They needed to be saved.
Tobias pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat across from me. “You need to start drinking from humans.” I shook my head in protest but Tobias held up his hand to keep me from speaking. “I know you don’t like the thought of potentially killing the donor.”
“They are hardly donors,” I argued, “sweet talked, mind controlled.”
“You can make them forget.”
“I could kill them,” I responded my panic about the entire thing ebbing into my voice.
“Yes,” Tobias admitted, “you potentially could, but you getting to this state.” He pointed at the blood pack in my still trembling hands. “This is far more dangerous. If you were out with your friends,” Tobias shook his head, “you could have easily killed a human, with out thought, or sweet-talking mind control. You’d be exposed, you’d expose us all.” I shook my head and could feel my bottom lip start to quiver. There was someone getting angry, that I could handle, but the way my brother was talking, he was disappointed which in my mind was far worse. “Aw, Airy.”
“Don’t tell mom or dad, kay?” I asked biting my lip to still it, which was a mistake considering my second row of teeth had yet to recede. Having my brother be disappointed in me was one thing, having my parents disappointed would be even worse.
Tobias nodded, “I won’t tell them.”
“Thanks.”
He took the empty pack from my hand, “you want another one?” He tossed the empty bag in the garbage and licked the remnants from his fingers.
“I think I’m okay now,” I responded.
“Are you sure?” I nodded slowly and he gave a sharp nod in return. “Want some chocolate cereal and coffee?” I wiped a tear from my eye before it could fall and nodded. I could hear the coffee machine at work, the scent calmed me and I felt my back row of teeth slowly start to climb back into my jaw.
“Thank you.” Tobias looked at me and I wrung my fingers. “For everything.”
Tobias shrugged his broad shoulders before turning toward the basement, “Angel is up.”
I nodded, his informing me effectively shut down our conversation. I hadn’t even heard her, my senses were slowly coming back to me. Vision first, still blurred by the daylight streaming through the windows. Scent second coffee and chocolate beckoning me.
“Morning,” I heard Angel crack her neck as she stepped in the kitchen, despite just getting up, her pajamas hadn’t crinkled, her hair still laid perfectly straight. My hearing perking up as she arched slightly backward her spine cracking before standing perfectly upright. “I need a new coffin,” she complained as she grabbed the box of cereal from the counter and poured herself a bowl.
Tobias put my bowl in front of me which I took a spoonful of the cold milk and cereal, chocolate lingering on my tastebuds before I swallowed. It wasn’t as good as the blood, but still I shoved the spoon in for more.
Angelique sat down beside me, “Aerabella?” She asked after a moment and I looked to her. “You have some blood,” she pointed to her own chin, and I wiped mine. “You okay?” She asked after a long moment of us both staring at our cereal.
“Fine,” I responded.
She dropped it and we both ate in silence.
“Either of you know where mom went?” Tobias asked as he sat down, putting down a cup of coffee for me, and one for him.
Angelique shook her head, “I thought it was quiet when I woke up, you two both gone from our room. I poked my head in mom and dad’s room, but their coffin was made. I guess she went out.”
As if on cue I heard the front door unlock and it open. “Two sets of footsteps,” I whispered.
Angelique looked to me and we both jumped out of our seats and went down the hall. “Dad!” I got to him first and hugged him. He laughed and pulled Angelique in too.
“Welcome back,” Tobias said as he walked down the hallway.
“Your father called this morning.” Mother said, “I went to pick him up at the airport.”
“Did you get to speak with the elders?” I asked quickly, “are they really shutting down St. Viktor’s?”
Father sighed, “yes.”
“But... then the Covenant will have to move!”
Father seemed stressed, and uneasy. “No, actually.”
Mother seemed pleased, “really darling, we won’t have to move!”
“The elders want to try something...” Father responded in a apprehensive way.
“What kind of something?” Tobias asked crossing his arms and shifting his weight from one leg to the other.
Father sighed, “they want to test adolescent vampires of today to see if they have more or less control than the vampires they tested a century ago. St. Viktor’s will be closed for a full year allowing for renovations, and all the students that went there...” Father ran his hand through his thick dark hair, stressed would be an understatement. “They will go to a human school for a year.”
“You can’t be serious!” I shouted as Angelique shouted, “They can’t do that!”
“They can, and they have. All the other schools around are also being shut down. You will both have to go to the human school.”
“What if one of us hurt one of them.”
Father shook his head, “honestly, I don’t know. The elders have been very secretive about this.”
“This puts our children in danger,” Mother whispered as she took hold of Father’s sleeve. “What if there are...”
“Slayers?” Father shrugged, “we must hope there aren’t.”