You Are the Shell to My Tortoise | ✓

69

My stomach churned restlessly.

"I don't know what exactly she did, but it was insane how immense the pain was. It went through my entire body, and—I can't even begin to describe it to you. I felt like I was going out of my mind. I couldn't even hear myself screaming.

"Everything that took place after that is just a huge blur in my memories, to be honest. I woke up in a hospital bed. My father and a couple of detectives were already there, asking me to recount what had happened for them.

"The pain was mostly gone, but I could still feel the echoes of it all everywhere. Everything felt unreal, even the bed I was lying on.

"I couldn't speak—my mind was a total mess, so there was no way I could've answered their questions properly anyway. My father got them to leave since it was already late at night, and I wasn't very receptive. After they were gone, he tried to ask me the same questions. He thought I just didn't want to answer in front of the detectives, but it wasn't like that. I couldn't even find the words to say. He started recounting what he was told when he made it to the hospital, probably thinking it would get me to talk.

"Apparently, the school caretaker happened to be nearby and heard me screaming. He came bursting in through the doors just in time to see a girl make a big leap up to an open window and escape through it. He found me lying there, screaming my head off and completely unresponsive to anything that he said, so he called an ambulance and went to search the school grounds for the girl. She was nowhere to be found.

"When they got me to the hospital, they checked me over and declared that I was physically fine although obviously in shock. There were two punctures in my neck, but they weren't bleeding. My behavior didn't make sense for someone who didn't appear hurt, which was probably why the detectives stayed to ask questions.

"My father asked about the girl from the caretaker's account, and then he asked me about my neck." Nolan placed his hand over the left side of his neck. "I don't know why I didn't sustain any serious injuries—the pain at the moment of the bite was excruciating. Ultimately, he couldn't get anything out of me and gave up for the night. The hospital let him fill out the discharge papers and take me home.

"The next morning, I woke up when the sun rose enough to pour light into my room—it was way too bright. It hadn't touched me yet, but there was something about the sunlight streaming in from the window that filled me with unease. Before I knew it, I had run to the other side of the room. That was when I knew that something was very wrong with me. I couldn't even force myself to get up and draw the curtains.

"My father came into the room to see me huddled in a corner of the room, staring at the window. I begged him to draw the curtains for me, and it took him a while to do it because he was so confused. I couldn't give him a coherent reason, either; I was a complete mess.

"I went down for breakfast and finished all of it before my stomach started protesting. I made it into the bathroom just in time to hurl into the toilet. Obviously, my father asked again what exactly was going on, but I was too frightened to say anything. By then, I kind of already guessed that my body was changing, but I couldn't be sure yet—all that had happened was me vomiting after breakfast. There's no easy way to tell someone that you're probably a vampire now, especially if you can hardly believe it yourself.

"I was hungry, though. I just couldn't bring myself to touch any of the food on that table again. I skipped lunch after that, and I would've skipped dinner too if my father hadn't forced me to try to eat something. I sat at the table, but I couldn't eat anything. I already knew that I would puke if I tried again. Then I realized that my father smelled kind of different. He smelled like he usually did, but underneath that scent was another kind of smell that reminded me of food."