Chapter 23 - Reunion

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A painful twitch ran through my body when I woke up in the night, drenched in sweat. Without knowing why, I had not had a nightmare, my heart was racing with agitation and an unexplainable nervousness. My breathing was so fast that I was afraid I would start hyperventilating at any moment.

Yibo was sleeping quietly next to me, as I noticed when I looked at him. My eyes could see that without any problem and despite the darkness. His chest was rising and falling quietly, he was sleeping soundly.

Not wanting to wake Yibo, I got out of bed and quietly left the room. I needed fresh air, so I went upstairs to the deck and stared into the all-encompassing darkness. It was so dark that not even the sea could be seen. Only the small waves slapping against our sailboat proved that we were still on the high seas.

I slowly turned my head up to the sky, breathing in the cool autumn air. There were no stars to be seen, and I didn't expect to see any. Well, maybe I had hoped. But since it had been cloudy for a week and it had rained again and again, I knew what I would see when I looked up.

Only very slowly my restless heart calmed down again and I could finally breathe normally again. But what had happened? This question circled me for minutes through my head, while I directed my gaze on the pitch-black horizon. And then, as if someone had pointed a shining arrow at it, I saw something that should not have been there. Light!

The light, which was clearly coming from something burning, quickly became brighter. I saw flames that were getting higher and higher. I looked around again and gulped in shock and amazement with both hands to my mouth and then to my forehead. This could not be! How could this have happened?

Hastily I ran to the anchor, the anchor chain still hanging down into the water. I shook it, it moved, which shouldn't have happened, because it was normally always taut and didn't move. But now I could move the heavy chain at least a few inches to the right and left.

At the same moment as I realized what had happened and that I had not been wrong about our "new" surroundings, I felt a strong breeze above me. It was not the wind! With a great leap I jumped onto the steering cabin and concentrated my gaze on our surroundings. I slowly turned in a circle and then I felt this breeze above me again.

Something was there, I just couldn't see it. Maybe it was too fast, maybe I was too slow. The fact was, there was something! I jumped off the roof of the steering cabin roaring for Yibo and He Peng, ran downstairs and grabbed my spear that I had stowed next to the door. Yibo came sleepily out of our room, looked at me in confusion, and then seemed to realize.

Yibo grabbed one of the harpoons and his axe. He Peng, who was now also there, wordlessly grabbed the second harpoon and a machete, which he already had with him when we found him on this deserted island.

We hurried upstairs and the two of them sharply caught the air between their teeth when they saw the fire on the horizon. Whereby horizon was wrong. Because as it seemed, we were driven very close to shore. While the two of them looked around, I explained to them about the anchor, which had apparently come loose from the chain. If that was even possible.

He Peng rushed into the steering cabin and checked the monitors. Then he shouted, "We're in Beijing!"

"But that's impossible!" Yibo shouted back.

"I know, but we are here in Beijing!" Shouted He Peng.

I didn't waste time thinking about how this happened and why. I couldn't. Because in my head I heard a voice telling me, "My frrrriend! Jump into the waterrrr! Dangerrrr!" Without being able to explain it, I knew it was the voice of the creature that had bitten me. The elf vampire!

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