October 15, 2014 7:49 PM EDT
The night I discovered the world was not black and white, was the night my entire life changed. And I would never know if was for better or for worse…
It all started when my friend, Kara Linstrom, called with an exciting—enter sarcasm here—proposition. “Shay, I’ve got the most awesome thing to tell you. Remember when I told you I was planning a trip? Well, you’ll never guess where to.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled. Kara was ever trying to get me excited about something she knew would definitely not interest me. “I give up. Where are you going?”
“Bran Castle! Can you believe it? We are doing a two-week stake-out with the East End Paranormal Project at Bran Castle! This is so exciting!” she squealed.
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘we’?” I asked, sincerely hoping she hadn’t included me in this. I received my answer soon after that thought went through my mind.
“I mean you, me, and Tad. I thought it would be something fun for us to do together. I know you like to read those books on the paranormal and whatnot, so why not actually do something and put yourself in the middle of a place that’s known for its paranormal activity?”
Tad Campbell was our friend from high school. He taught art classes three days a week at the senior center in town. Sighing, I rubbed my forehead. “Kara, liking to read about it and putting myself in the middle of it are two very different things. And anyway, I don’t believe any of that crap is more than some person’s delusion.
“If you don’t believe it, then what’s the harm?”
I opened my mouth; then closed it. That was a good question. What was I so afraid of? It wasn’t like there would be something waiting there. Rodents, maybe. But ghosts? Vampires? Yeah, right. However, that didn’t mean I was eager to go spend two weeks in a huge castle and sleep in strange places.
“Can’t you just count me out? Why can’t you and Tad go?”
“Shay, I can’t refund your ticket now. You’ve got to go,” Kara said.
“But I don’t want to go…” I whined into the phone. Who wanted to go to Bran Castle at this time of year? Who wanted to go to Bran Castle period? Sure, I loved to read stuff about the paranormal. But mainly it was to get a laugh from the ridiculous stories. The National Inquirer could be a hoot sometimes. Of course, I didn’t believe there was anything there except spiders, cobwebs, and rats hanging out in that castle. But I wasn’t stupid either. There could be looters staying there who could probably kill us or something. But Kara was being persistent.
“Come on, Shay. Just go with us. And if you don’t like it, then you can post it in your blog and tell everyone what a crock it is.”
Oh, yeah. My blog, which centered on debunking myths, ghosts, and paranormal beasties… I stayed silent a few moments. She kind of had a point. And it would prove entertaining for my readers. I hated it when my friends made sense. Sighing, I nodded; even though she couldn’t see me. “All right, fine. I’ll go.”
Kara squealed in delight. “Yes! I was hoping you would. Meet us at the airport on the 14th. Write this down…”
And she rattled off details about the flight number, time, what to pack, and all that good stuff. After we hang up, I looked around. I couldn’t believe it. I, Shay McDaniel—self-proclaimed skeptic of the supernatural—actually agreed to investigate the place that had inspired Bram Stoker’s famous paranormal tale. Seriously… What the heck had I been thinking?
**********
On the morning of the 14th, I took a taxi to the airport—I didn’t want to pay the extra money to keep my car in the parking lot, so a cab was the best way to go—and when I arrived, I took my small suitcase and carry on, and headed inside to find Kara and Tad.
“Shay!” I heard a voice call. Frowning, I turned and saw Kara and Tad waving at me from the self check-in kiosk.
Waving back, I hurried over and smiled at the duo. “Hey. I’m here. So we’re really doing this, huh?”
“Yes, we really are. You could try to be more enthusiastic about this,” Kara said with a slight grimace.
“We’re going to Bran’s Castle. Who would be excited about that?” this from Tad. “The place with probably overrun with rodents and bugs and other things I don’t even want to think about.”
Just hearing him rattle off the unsavory things possibly awaiting us in the Romanian landmark was enough to make me want to turn in the other direction and run after the cab. I must have made some kind of face because Kara said, “Look! You scared her. Now she won’t want to go.”
“No, no. I’m fine. Let’s just hurry and check-in so we can get through security. We don’t know how long that will take.”
“Okay…” With that, Kara went to the kiosk and did the check-in for us since she bought the tickets; then handed us our boarding passes. We headed toward the security gate soon after.
Security and bag checks, and carry-on scanned, we sat in terminal waiting area. It was pretty boring. Kara was listening to music. Tad was playing a game on his phone. I was reading, but I wasn’t interested at all in the book. For some reason I was feeling uneasy about this trip and that was silly. I didn’t believe there were ghosts or something in that castle, so what was my problem? Rubbing the back of my neck, I turned my attention back to my book.
A few hours later, we began boarding the plane. Kara found our seats and saved them while Tad and I stowed the carry-on bags. We got settled into our seats while others boarded. About a half hour later, the flight took off.
It took forever. I’d never been on a fourteen hour flight before. And I never wanted to do it again. We had to take connecting flights, landing in Paris for a few hours before boarding the next plane to Romania.
Finally, we landed and went to baggage claim. Finding our bags, we left the terminal and looked around. The research team was supposed to be meeting us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few people coming toward us. Could they be the ones?
“Are you Kara Linstrom?” The guy in the front of the pack said to me.
I shook my head. “No. That’s her,” I said and pointed to Kara.
He held out his hand to her. “Glad, we found you guys. I’m Aaron, this is Maggie,” he gestured to the woman to his left. “And this is Mike,” indicating the man on his right. “And we are part of the East End Paranormal Project. As I’m sure you know, we investigate haunted landmarks and either verify or debunk any evidence of paranormal activity. Mike is our techspert. He sets up the cameras, recorders, and other tools we’ll use. Maggie is our medium. She will be able to sense if there’re any spirits present.” He paused and glanced at me and Tad to include us in the conversation. “It’s not an easy task, I’ll admit. But it’s a good experience and will be a good story to tell others even if we don’t find anything concrete. So shall we head out?”
Kara looked at me and Tad. I looked at him. We both shrugged and nodded. She turned her gaze back to Aaron and nodded. “Yeah, I think we’re ready.” And off we went.
When we left the airport, there was van waiting for us. We all loaded inside and took off. I didn’t keep track of how long it took for us to reach the castle. But it seemed like forever before we made it. We had to ride a boat to get across the lake to the castle. Once there, we were met by another woman who called herself a priestess. She led us in prayer and blessed us—I resisted the urge to roll my eyes—before we went inside.
The inside was considerably different than I expected. There weren’t cobwebs hanging in every corner. There weren’t any rodents that I could see. I was worried over nothing. This would be a cakewalk. We set up in what looked like a drawing room of some kind. Maggie gave us different tools to use; pendulums, dousing rods, thermal scanners, digital cameras. You name it, we had it.
Aaron finished setting up his pack and camera, and then looked at the rest of us. “All right, we’re going to split into groups of two. Kara, you will go with Mike. Tad, you’ll go with Maggie. And Shay, you’ll be coming with me.” I gave a mental sigh. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be paired up with the guy, but I had the feeling he knew I totally wasn’t buying this whole thing and wanted to convert me into a believer. “Midnight is five minutes away and we’ll start.”
**********
I really had nothing to worry about. We were almost three hours in and there wasn’t anything to be found. Nothing turned up on the scanners, the dousing rods weren’t moving, and the pendulums weren’t spinning. It was actually very boring. Every now and then Aaron would say, “Did you hear that?” I would respond with, “No. It’s your imagination.” We continued on our search, keeping in touch with the others through the walkie-talkies.
Aaron and I went down to the dungeon. This part I thought was really cool. Since there wasn’t really much in the way of electricity, we had to use flashlights to look around. I shivered when I heard the tell-tale sounds of squeaks and scurrying feet. I knew there were rats or mice down there with us and I wasn’t too happy about that at all. There wasn’t anything strange down there that I could see; few skeletons, some medieval torture devices and chains hanging from the high ceiling. That was all I could see. Just to make sure though, we took pictures and used the pendulums and dousing rods. Still it didn’t turn up anything. Deciding to give up, Aaron and I turned to go back up the stairs. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but when we heard screams from somewhere in the castle, both Aaron and I jumped. I didn’t think we could hear anybody from this far. That was the reason for the walkie-talkies. We took off at a run, nearly tripping over each other in our desperation to make it back to the others. We burst through the doors and heard more screams. By this point, I was scared. Was I right in my guess that looters were hanging around and killing anyone who stumbled upon them?
“Kara! Tad!” I continued to shout as we ran throughout the place. Doors slammed and more screams sounded. What was happening to my friends? We saw parts of equipment strewn across the floors as we ran; then that’s when I saw it. A small trail of blood leading toward the next set of stairs… This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
“I’m going to see if I can find someone to help. You stay here,” Aaron said in a shaky voice. I was too numb by the sight to say anything. I merely nodded.
At my nod Aaron left. I stood there for all of two minutes before I realized that I had never been afraid of anything before in my life. And I wasn’t going to start now. If my friends were dead, then I owed it to them to find them and take their bodies home to their families. Aiming the flashlight toward the stairs, I continued to follow the trail of blood. My grip was shaky and I made it to the top of the staircase. I glanced down the hall, but I couldn’t see much. I turned to go down there, but I tripped over something. I aimed the light to spot I tried over and saw a tennis shoe. A woman’s tennis shoe. And it was very familiar. I knew what I was going to see even before the light made it to the woman’s face.
I moved the light upwards and swallowed the scream I knew was coming when I saw Kara’s face. There was blood all over her and it looked like she’d had her throat cut. But on closer inspection, it looked more like someone or something had ripped it out. I stifled a sob and reach up to close her eyes. Another twenty minute search and I found the bodies of Tad, Maggie, and Mike. Each dead by the same means: throats torn. What could have possibly done that?
I heard footsteps thundering down the hall and I raised the flashlight to use it as a weapon if need be, but all I saw was Aaron. I let out a sigh and lower the flashlight. “Did you find anyone?”
He shook his head. “No… We’re stuck here until morning. The boats don't run after sundown.”
Stuck… We were stuck in this god-forsaken place until dawn? I nearly whimpered, but I wasn’t going to be a baby about this. My friends had had it even worse. Before I could open my mouth to say anything to Aaron, the sound of a door slamming sounded behind me and we turned to it, but didn’t see anything. I turned to look at Aaron and suddenly he was yanked toward something. I quickly moved the light up and what I saw made me turn tail and run. A man was sucking the blood from Aaron’s neck! Had some sicko deluded himself into thinking he was a vampire? Looked like it.
I ran for my life only to realize I ran away from the stairs not toward them. Oh, God. I was in big trouble. Before I could make it to the end of the hall, a blur went past me and there I saw the same man who had been drinking from Aaron as if he were a water fountain. I gasped and turned to go back, but he grabbed me and held me in a death grip. I was well and truly scared at this point. His breath blew against my ear and I struggled to get away. This…whatever he was, had killed my friends.
He sniffed my hair—gross!—and sighed. “I can read every thought in your mind. Every part of you is rejecting everything you’ve just seen… But I will make a believer out of you…” and then something sharp sank into my neck. It was his teeth. He’d sunk his teeth into my neck. The thought was so farfetched that I… I passed out.
**********
I woke up some time later. Or at least what I thought was some time later. Alone, thank God. Maybe this was all a dream. However, the strangest thing was that I had awakened inside a box of some sort. Why would I be waking up in a box? Frowning, I pushed against the top and it lifted. It was like opening a door from the under the floor. Pushing it completely out of the way, it dropped to the side and the sound was so incredibly loud. God, that thing had to weigh a ton. But it didn’t seem to be a problem for me. Guess this wasn’t a dream after all. That…thing must have put me in here after he got done. He had better have done anything other than drink my blood. Geez that sounded so strange.
I got up and stepped out of the box to inspect it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I woke up in a coffin. The idea was laughable. I think even chuckled a bit. Stepping away from it, I decided to find my way out of this room. I had to see if Aaron was okay and we had to do something about our dead friends. No one would believe that ‘vampire’ had done this. Just thinking about Kara and Tad made me want to cry, but I didn’t feel the sting of tears and that was weird… As I turned away, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and I froze. My hair was longer. My skin was almost perfect. I looked down at my hands. My nails had gotten considerably longer. What was going on here? Running to the mirror, I noticed my eyes had taken on a strange shade of hazel; almost yellow. My eyes should have been brown. I swallowed and opened my mouth. I knew what I would see before I did. My canines had grown…
**********
I couldn’t go back home. There was no way I would have been able to explain my sudden aversion to light or my incurable thirst for blood; I would have been put away and experimented on and there was no way I would have let that happen. The term ‘night owl’ had taken on a whole new meaning for me. I instinctively knew when the moon rose and set. Hunting for my prey had proved easy. I usually went after ones who attempted to prey of those weaker than themselves and showed them exactly who the predator was. I didn’t kill them; just scared them a little and took what I needed, and then I left them alone after tinkering with their memories of me. It was simple and helped me survive…
A month ago, if someone told me I’d be one of those shadows lurking in the night, I’d have laughed in their face. And really, why would I have had a reason to believe them? But these days, I’ve learned to embrace the night. I welcome the darkness.
As I step out into the night, I leave you this lesson: Listen when others tell you there is more out there than you could imagine. You’ll never know when the monsters are lying in wait. Waiting to steal your soul…
The night I discovered the world was not black and white, was the night my entire life changed. And I would never know if was for better or for worse…
It all started when my friend, Kara Linstrom, called with an exciting—enter sarcasm here—proposition. “Shay, I’ve got the most awesome thing to tell you. Remember when I told you I was planning a trip? Well, you’ll never guess where to.”
I rolled my eyes and smiled. Kara was ever trying to get me excited about something she knew would definitely not interest me. “I give up. Where are you going?”
“Bran Castle! Can you believe it? We are doing a two-week stake-out with the East End Paranormal Project at Bran Castle! This is so exciting!” she squealed.
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘we’?” I asked, sincerely hoping she hadn’t included me in this. I received my answer soon after that thought went through my mind.
“I mean you, me, and Tad. I thought it would be something fun for us to do together. I know you like to read those books on the paranormal and whatnot, so why not actually do something and put yourself in the middle of a place that’s known for its paranormal activity?”
Tad Campbell was our friend from high school. He taught art classes three days a week at the senior center in town. Sighing, I rubbed my forehead. “Kara, liking to read about it and putting myself in the middle of it are two very different things. And anyway, I don’t believe any of that crap is more than some person’s delusion.
“If you don’t believe it, then what’s the harm?”
I opened my mouth; then closed it. That was a good question. What was I so afraid of? It wasn’t like there would be something waiting there. Rodents, maybe. But ghosts? Vampires? Yeah, right. However, that didn’t mean I was eager to go spend two weeks in a huge castle and sleep in strange places.
“Can’t you just count me out? Why can’t you and Tad go?”
“Shay, I can’t refund your ticket now. You’ve got to go,” Kara said.
“But I don’t want to go…” I whined into the phone. Who wanted to go to Bran Castle at this time of year? Who wanted to go to Bran Castle period? Sure, I loved to read stuff about the paranormal. But mainly it was to get a laugh from the ridiculous stories. The National Inquirer could be a hoot sometimes. Of course, I didn’t believe there was anything there except spiders, cobwebs, and rats hanging out in that castle. But I wasn’t stupid either. There could be looters staying there who could probably kill us or something. But Kara was being persistent.
“Come on, Shay. Just go with us. And if you don’t like it, then you can post it in your blog and tell everyone what a crock it is.”
Oh, yeah. My blog, which centered on debunking myths, ghosts, and paranormal beasties… I stayed silent a few moments. She kind of had a point. And it would prove entertaining for my readers. I hated it when my friends made sense. Sighing, I nodded; even though she couldn’t see me. “All right, fine. I’ll go.”
Kara squealed in delight. “Yes! I was hoping you would. Meet us at the airport on the 14th. Write this down…”
And she rattled off details about the flight number, time, what to pack, and all that good stuff. After we hang up, I looked around. I couldn’t believe it. I, Shay McDaniel—self-proclaimed skeptic of the supernatural—actually agreed to investigate the place that had inspired Bram Stoker’s famous paranormal tale. Seriously… What the heck had I been thinking?
**********
On the morning of the 14th, I took a taxi to the airport—I didn’t want to pay the extra money to keep my car in the parking lot, so a cab was the best way to go—and when I arrived, I took my small suitcase and carry on, and headed inside to find Kara and Tad.
“Shay!” I heard a voice call. Frowning, I turned and saw Kara and Tad waving at me from the self check-in kiosk.
Waving back, I hurried over and smiled at the duo. “Hey. I’m here. So we’re really doing this, huh?”
“Yes, we really are. You could try to be more enthusiastic about this,” Kara said with a slight grimace.
“We’re going to Bran’s Castle. Who would be excited about that?” this from Tad. “The place with probably overrun with rodents and bugs and other things I don’t even want to think about.”
Just hearing him rattle off the unsavory things possibly awaiting us in the Romanian landmark was enough to make me want to turn in the other direction and run after the cab. I must have made some kind of face because Kara said, “Look! You scared her. Now she won’t want to go.”
“No, no. I’m fine. Let’s just hurry and check-in so we can get through security. We don’t know how long that will take.”
“Okay…” With that, Kara went to the kiosk and did the check-in for us since she bought the tickets; then handed us our boarding passes. We headed toward the security gate soon after.
Security and bag checks, and carry-on scanned, we sat in terminal waiting area. It was pretty boring. Kara was listening to music. Tad was playing a game on his phone. I was reading, but I wasn’t interested at all in the book. For some reason I was feeling uneasy about this trip and that was silly. I didn’t believe there were ghosts or something in that castle, so what was my problem? Rubbing the back of my neck, I turned my attention back to my book.
A few hours later, we began boarding the plane. Kara found our seats and saved them while Tad and I stowed the carry-on bags. We got settled into our seats while others boarded. About a half hour later, the flight took off.
It took forever. I’d never been on a fourteen hour flight before. And I never wanted to do it again. We had to take connecting flights, landing in Paris for a few hours before boarding the next plane to Romania.
Finally, we landed and went to baggage claim. Finding our bags, we left the terminal and looked around. The research team was supposed to be meeting us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few people coming toward us. Could they be the ones?
“Are you Kara Linstrom?” The guy in the front of the pack said to me.
I shook my head. “No. That’s her,” I said and pointed to Kara.
He held out his hand to her. “Glad, we found you guys. I’m Aaron, this is Maggie,” he gestured to the woman to his left. “And this is Mike,” indicating the man on his right. “And we are part of the East End Paranormal Project. As I’m sure you know, we investigate haunted landmarks and either verify or debunk any evidence of paranormal activity. Mike is our techspert. He sets up the cameras, recorders, and other tools we’ll use. Maggie is our medium. She will be able to sense if there’re any spirits present.” He paused and glanced at me and Tad to include us in the conversation. “It’s not an easy task, I’ll admit. But it’s a good experience and will be a good story to tell others even if we don’t find anything concrete. So shall we head out?”
Kara looked at me and Tad. I looked at him. We both shrugged and nodded. She turned her gaze back to Aaron and nodded. “Yeah, I think we’re ready.” And off we went.
When we left the airport, there was van waiting for us. We all loaded inside and took off. I didn’t keep track of how long it took for us to reach the castle. But it seemed like forever before we made it. We had to ride a boat to get across the lake to the castle. Once there, we were met by another woman who called herself a priestess. She led us in prayer and blessed us—I resisted the urge to roll my eyes—before we went inside.
The inside was considerably different than I expected. There weren’t cobwebs hanging in every corner. There weren’t any rodents that I could see. I was worried over nothing. This would be a cakewalk. We set up in what looked like a drawing room of some kind. Maggie gave us different tools to use; pendulums, dousing rods, thermal scanners, digital cameras. You name it, we had it.
Aaron finished setting up his pack and camera, and then looked at the rest of us. “All right, we’re going to split into groups of two. Kara, you will go with Mike. Tad, you’ll go with Maggie. And Shay, you’ll be coming with me.” I gave a mental sigh. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be paired up with the guy, but I had the feeling he knew I totally wasn’t buying this whole thing and wanted to convert me into a believer. “Midnight is five minutes away and we’ll start.”
**********
I really had nothing to worry about. We were almost three hours in and there wasn’t anything to be found. Nothing turned up on the scanners, the dousing rods weren’t moving, and the pendulums weren’t spinning. It was actually very boring. Every now and then Aaron would say, “Did you hear that?” I would respond with, “No. It’s your imagination.” We continued on our search, keeping in touch with the others through the walkie-talkies.
Aaron and I went down to the dungeon. This part I thought was really cool. Since there wasn’t really much in the way of electricity, we had to use flashlights to look around. I shivered when I heard the tell-tale sounds of squeaks and scurrying feet. I knew there were rats or mice down there with us and I wasn’t too happy about that at all. There wasn’t anything strange down there that I could see; few skeletons, some medieval torture devices and chains hanging from the high ceiling. That was all I could see. Just to make sure though, we took pictures and used the pendulums and dousing rods. Still it didn’t turn up anything. Deciding to give up, Aaron and I turned to go back up the stairs. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but when we heard screams from somewhere in the castle, both Aaron and I jumped. I didn’t think we could hear anybody from this far. That was the reason for the walkie-talkies. We took off at a run, nearly tripping over each other in our desperation to make it back to the others. We burst through the doors and heard more screams. By this point, I was scared. Was I right in my guess that looters were hanging around and killing anyone who stumbled upon them?
“Kara! Tad!” I continued to shout as we ran throughout the place. Doors slammed and more screams sounded. What was happening to my friends? We saw parts of equipment strewn across the floors as we ran; then that’s when I saw it. A small trail of blood leading toward the next set of stairs… This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening.
“I’m going to see if I can find someone to help. You stay here,” Aaron said in a shaky voice. I was too numb by the sight to say anything. I merely nodded.
At my nod Aaron left. I stood there for all of two minutes before I realized that I had never been afraid of anything before in my life. And I wasn’t going to start now. If my friends were dead, then I owed it to them to find them and take their bodies home to their families. Aiming the flashlight toward the stairs, I continued to follow the trail of blood. My grip was shaky and I made it to the top of the staircase. I glanced down the hall, but I couldn’t see much. I turned to go down there, but I tripped over something. I aimed the light to spot I tried over and saw a tennis shoe. A woman’s tennis shoe. And it was very familiar. I knew what I was going to see even before the light made it to the woman’s face.
I moved the light upwards and swallowed the scream I knew was coming when I saw Kara’s face. There was blood all over her and it looked like she’d had her throat cut. But on closer inspection, it looked more like someone or something had ripped it out. I stifled a sob and reach up to close her eyes. Another twenty minute search and I found the bodies of Tad, Maggie, and Mike. Each dead by the same means: throats torn. What could have possibly done that?
I heard footsteps thundering down the hall and I raised the flashlight to use it as a weapon if need be, but all I saw was Aaron. I let out a sigh and lower the flashlight. “Did you find anyone?”
He shook his head. “No… We’re stuck here until morning. The boats don't run after sundown.”
Stuck… We were stuck in this god-forsaken place until dawn? I nearly whimpered, but I wasn’t going to be a baby about this. My friends had had it even worse. Before I could open my mouth to say anything to Aaron, the sound of a door slamming sounded behind me and we turned to it, but didn’t see anything. I turned to look at Aaron and suddenly he was yanked toward something. I quickly moved the light up and what I saw made me turn tail and run. A man was sucking the blood from Aaron’s neck! Had some sicko deluded himself into thinking he was a vampire? Looked like it.
I ran for my life only to realize I ran away from the stairs not toward them. Oh, God. I was in big trouble. Before I could make it to the end of the hall, a blur went past me and there I saw the same man who had been drinking from Aaron as if he were a water fountain. I gasped and turned to go back, but he grabbed me and held me in a death grip. I was well and truly scared at this point. His breath blew against my ear and I struggled to get away. This…whatever he was, had killed my friends.
He sniffed my hair—gross!—and sighed. “I can read every thought in your mind. Every part of you is rejecting everything you’ve just seen… But I will make a believer out of you…” and then something sharp sank into my neck. It was his teeth. He’d sunk his teeth into my neck. The thought was so farfetched that I… I passed out.
**********
I woke up some time later. Or at least what I thought was some time later. Alone, thank God. Maybe this was all a dream. However, the strangest thing was that I had awakened inside a box of some sort. Why would I be waking up in a box? Frowning, I pushed against the top and it lifted. It was like opening a door from the under the floor. Pushing it completely out of the way, it dropped to the side and the sound was so incredibly loud. God, that thing had to weigh a ton. But it didn’t seem to be a problem for me. Guess this wasn’t a dream after all. That…thing must have put me in here after he got done. He had better have done anything other than drink my blood. Geez that sounded so strange.
I got up and stepped out of the box to inspect it. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I woke up in a coffin. The idea was laughable. I think even chuckled a bit. Stepping away from it, I decided to find my way out of this room. I had to see if Aaron was okay and we had to do something about our dead friends. No one would believe that ‘vampire’ had done this. Just thinking about Kara and Tad made me want to cry, but I didn’t feel the sting of tears and that was weird… As I turned away, I caught sight of myself in the mirror and I froze. My hair was longer. My skin was almost perfect. I looked down at my hands. My nails had gotten considerably longer. What was going on here? Running to the mirror, I noticed my eyes had taken on a strange shade of hazel; almost yellow. My eyes should have been brown. I swallowed and opened my mouth. I knew what I would see before I did. My canines had grown…
**********
I couldn’t go back home. There was no way I would have been able to explain my sudden aversion to light or my incurable thirst for blood; I would have been put away and experimented on and there was no way I would have let that happen. The term ‘night owl’ had taken on a whole new meaning for me. I instinctively knew when the moon rose and set. Hunting for my prey had proved easy. I usually went after ones who attempted to prey of those weaker than themselves and showed them exactly who the predator was. I didn’t kill them; just scared them a little and took what I needed, and then I left them alone after tinkering with their memories of me. It was simple and helped me survive…
A month ago, if someone told me I’d be one of those shadows lurking in the night, I’d have laughed in their face. And really, why would I have had a reason to believe them? But these days, I’ve learned to embrace the night. I welcome the darkness.
As I step out into the night, I leave you this lesson: Listen when others tell you there is more out there than you could imagine. You’ll never know when the monsters are lying in wait. Waiting to steal your soul…
