Supernatural Boarding School - Short Stories

Immortal - Eros' POV

Hey guys - so many people responded on the story "Old jacket" about Eros and his dad, that I figured you might enjoy another Eros' story! This one is very say, but I hope you'll like it anyway. - Love, Mokita

----------------------------------

Immortal

 

This is the story of how Eros’ dad died. It’s a flashback of an older Eros reflecting on the past.

 

Eros’ point of view

The day my father died, I was in full knight’s costume at school. I was starring in a play about the middle Ages and my parents were supposed to come watch. My dad always called me his little knight, so it only seemed fitting that I was now playing one. I couldn’t wait for him to see me in my costume, complete with ornate shield and a very real-looking but very fake sword.

“Are you sure your parents are coming?” the worried teacher asked an eleven- year-old me. The play was starting in ten minutes, but my mom and dad were still a no-show.

“They’ll be here,” I promised her solemnly. “They wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

A friend of mine – Theodore – nicked my sword and ran off, laughing. I chased him with a huge grin on my face, screaming for him to give it back or else... His dad was a werewolf and my parents and I were over at their place a lot. Of course we both kept our fathers’ true nature a secret, but it was nice to have friend who knew what it was like to keep such a thing from everyone else. We both thought our fathers were amazing superhero-like figures and we hoped we’d turn out to be a vampire and a werewolf as well.

I’d just managed to get back my sword when the teacher was in front of me again, her face grave. “Eros, could you please come with me?” she asked in a far too gentle tone of voice. “I need to talk to you about something.”

I just knew something was terribly wrong. She was too kind and careful for it to be just a normal conversation. If it had been about me making too much noise backstage, she would’ve just said so.

“Your mother just called me,” the elder woman started. Her name was Miss. Monnow, I recall. “Theodore’s father will be picking you up soon to go see her.”

“But I need to be in the play,” I replied with a frown. “And Theodore’s dad should be watching. Theo is going to be a prince!”

“Don’t worry about the play, sweetie.” Miss. Monnow patted me on the shoulder, making me feel queasy. “There are more important things to worry about right now.”

She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, so I just sat down on a desk back in the classroom, away from all the other students. Theodore came to check up on me, but he was sent away by Miss. Monnow. After fifteen minutes, Theo’s dad showed up, looking rugged.

“Come on,” he urged me, not even looking at the teacher. “We need to get going.”

“What’s wrong?” I inquired the moment we were in his car. It smelled like popcorn and sweaty socks, which was exactly what I could see lying on the floor of the rusty old vehicle.

“Your dad was in an accident,” Theo’s dad informed me brusquely.

“Oh,” I breathed. “But he’ll be okay, right? He’s a vampire, he heals real fast.”

Theo’s dad dragged a hand across his face and didn’t reply. When I opened my mouth again, he turned on the radio so loudly that I couldn’t possibly be heard no matter how hard I would yell. I stayed quiet for a little while, running through the possibilities in my head. Surely he’d only broken his leg or something. He’d be fine.

When Theo’s dad pulled into the hospitals’ parking lot and shut off the motor, I could finally talk to him again. He got out immediately and didn’t even bother locking the car.

“Hey!” I hurried after him. “What’s wrong with Dad? What did he break?”

“His neck,” he replied, glancing in my direction. His brushy eyebrows were pulled together in a frown and there were tears glistening in the corners of his eyes. I felt my heart stop in my chest for a moment – surely they would need to take me to the ER now. I couldn’t breathe anymore, my legs were refusing to function and there was a ringing in my ears.

“Eros?’’ I could see the man’s mouth move, saying my name, but I didn’t hear it.

I was only eleven, but of course I knew what it meant when someone broke his neck. There was very little chance that he’d survived it. The kind way Miss. Monnow had treated me, the gruff way Theo’s dad talked to me, his watery eyes… It all added up.

“Is he dead?” I asked, my voice inaudible to myself.

Theo’s dad shrugged mechanically. I had to focus real hard to hear what he was saying. “When your mom called me, he was still being operated on, but I’m not sure what the situation is now. Chances are…”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence. I held out my hand and he immediately took it, squeezing a little too hard to comfort a kid. He took me down a long hallway and into a waiting room. He went to ask a nurse something and when he came back, he sat down his head in his hands. I couldn’t bring myself to ask him what he’d heard.

“Eros!”

I flinched at the loud shriek that was making my head hurt, but I turned around anyway. My mother flung her arms around me and held me close. Tears were streaming down her face.

“Is he…?” I swallowed, clinging onto Mom with all my strength.

She pulled me even closer and her tears made my stupid costume wet.

“At least he lost consciousness right away,” Theo’s dad said behind us.

That last part didn’t bring me any kind of peace then, and even weeks later when my mother kept repeating it like a mantra – “at least he didn’t feel any pain, at least he lost consciousness” – I never felt like it was any consolation. My father died – there was no way to soften the blow.

He’d been my hero and he’d always fought the monsters underneath my bed for me. Once he’d died, the monsters seized to exists. I was also no longer afraid of the dark. Dad not being with me anymore was the worst possible nightmare – all other fears seemed stupid, childish, futile.

It turned out he’d been hit by a drunk guy running a red light. It had been entirely out of Dad’s hands, he’d just been driving from work to the school to watch me play a knight, with a fake sword and everything. This idiot had rammed into him, pushing the car into a tree. Both men snapped their necks – it was strange, because theoretically they could both have survived. They could have walked away with only a few breaks in less major places. They were just unlucky. Or rather, my dad was just unlucky – the other guy got what he deserved, in my opinion. He was a murderer.

Everyone knows a man can die. I also knew vampires were no exception to that rule. I was aware of the fact that my father was both a man and a vampire and therefore his death was always a possibility. But facts don’t prepare you for real life. Fathers are supposed to be immortal, or at least die of old age. That he died in a car crash made it even more difficult to grasp.

He was my hero, my whole world. Heroes don’t die in car crashes, they die fighting bad guys. If he’d been shot trying to help someone or if he’d been run over pushing someone else out of the way, I could’ve made my peace with it. At least, I think I would have eventually. But something plain and simple, something so ordinary that humans died of it every single day? No, that didn’t fit into the way I saw my dad.

In my mind, he stayed the immortal hero he’d always been.