VAMPIRE SURVIVAL - ENHYPEN

What are you?

'You'd better get this sorted before you find yourself jobless faster than you can-' The door is swung open and two people stopped in the doorway as they caught sight of something on the floor. Heeseung and I held our breaths and prayed for the best for the best, even though we both knew this could be the end. I clung on to his sleeve as we sit, trembling.

'What have we here?' a female voice asked, the same one who had been speaking before.

'A-a loose floorboard, Ma'am,' a male, more timid voice replied.

'A loose floorboard?' the lady asked, stepping further into the room until she was within range of mine and Heeseung's view. She had short blonde hair and small green eyes that seemed to pierce everything she lay her eyes upon. 'How did that-' She froze on the spot, her eyes widening.

'Alex... its gone. The map... its gone!!! Raise the alarm and put all the guards on high alert! First eight of our children escape and now our map is gone!' she exclaimed, rushing out of the room and shouting instructions at the man named Alex. I turned to Heeseung, map in his hand, and almost collapsed with relief.

'We have to get out quickly, before the security team is on alert and the underground passageway is blocked,' Heeseung told me, leaping down from the closet on which we were both hiding and holding out an arm to help me down. We sprinted to the back door and down the steps, meeting the others, who were all waiting with worried expressions.

'We need to get out, and fast. The passageway will be blocked up if we don't hurry,' Heeseung told them. We ran. Faster than we had in the forest, faster than I had thought was possible. I slipped and skidded over the muddy floor, falling behind once again. Jay turned and grabbed my arm, pulling me along. There was that feeling again: a feeling of belonging. We sprinted down the passages, and I wondered if Heeseung even knew where he was going. But finally, we came to a stop. We reached the opening in the ground, and the others clambered up the ladder, Heeseung staying back to help me up. I was small back then, but I  knew how to climb. To Heeseung's surprise I'd climbed up faster than the others without his help. He came up behind me and went to the front again. But this time, rather than going round the building, he ran towards the empty fields on the other side of the school.

'Hyung, you're running away from the forest!' Sunghoon called.

'I know that,' Heeseung replied, still running. I noticed the map in his hand, and any doubt I'd had melted away. We sprinted from one side of the open field to the other, the long grass scratching my legs. Eventually I couldn't do it any more. I collapsed onto the ground, clutching the stitch in my side. The others didn't notice at first since I had been behind them, and they carried on running. But I had no energy left in me to call to them. I was left staring into the night sky, panting hard and wondering where I would be if mum hadn't left me, if she had loved me. My eyes began to slowly shut, and the tears that I had been holding in streaked down my face, warm on my cold skin.

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'Sophie! Sophie? SOPHIE!' I opened my eyes. The pain was gone. The tears had dried on my face but my eyes were still slightly sticky. I heard familiar voices calling my name. I sat up, only to be reminded of the pain in my side. But as I did I caught sight of Ni-ki, hid face contorted with worry, running about like a madman.

'Ni-ki?' I croaked. He heard and looked in my direction, relief flooding his face.

'Sophie!!!' he screamed, running at me and giving me a warm embrace. I was shocked at first, but eventually I returned the gesture. Then I felt something wet running down my neck. I let go.

'Ni-ki, are you crying?' I asked. Ni-ki looked away, hiding his face and quickly wiping his tears. But he didn't try to protest.

'I... I thought we'd lost another friend,' he muttered. His emphasis on the word 'another' brought back painful memories.

'Ni-ki... don't worry. I'm not going anywhere,' I told him. The other six appeared behind him and let out sighs of relief.

'You must've been really tired to fall asleep here, right Sophie? I'm sorry we didn't find you sooner. We were just so desperate to get away from the orphanage that we didn't look back and carried on running. Our breed of vampire are really good at two things: focusing well and running fast. It's only when we were half way to Kalbaek meadows that we realised you were gone,' Jake explained. But something caught my attention in that sentence.

'But... Jake, I was told before I joined the orphanage that most of the vampires here were Draculian vampires, which includes you, right?'

'Yeah,' Jake replied.

'But, I remember learning that Draculian vampires can only focus after they've had a glass of blood a day. But I'm pretty sure you haven't had yours today since I've been with you most of the time.'

'Oh no, we don't drink much blood. We're not the kind of vampire that follows rules like that: we only drink blood on red moon nights, we aren't affected by the cross or by garlic, actually we're pretty much like humans in that sense,' Jungwon explained. I shook my head, unable to process it.

'No no, but that's all wrong. Those are the key features of Draculian vampires, have you never read 'a handbook guide to vampires' before?' I asked.

'The orphanage never let us read books that weren't published internally, or access anything from the outside world,' Jay said.

'Never? So the orphanage has kept you cooped up with no access to the outside world all these years?' I asked.

'Pretty much.'

'And you've never wanted to escape, to see the outside world?'

'The orphanage made it seem like everything was within its walls, it never made us feel the need to escape,' Sunoo told me.

'But you don't know anything about the real world... I've never heard of vampires like you... for all you know, you might not even be vampires!' I exclaimed.

'Actually... that's what we've been thinking too...'

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