Anything For Rachel

Chapter Thirty Seven.

           

So dark. I hate the dark. I always have, so why am I here? What is that feeling? It's all over my body, burning in my veins, tearing me apart, or maybe freezing my blood into solid stone inside of me, making me ache. I don't know what's happening. I'm conscious. I was just with Calvin, and now I'm here. My body seems to fall away from me, I'm nothing but thoughts anymore, yet pain is still in them. How can I hurt without a body? It didn't make sense, but that didn't stop the freezing pain from turning to the pain of being burned alive or pressed with a trillion red hot coals over and over. My mind is coming and going. I remember Calvin was here. Calvin was with me, kissing me, and then...The bite. That's right, he bit me. God, it hurt, but then I was here. I can't feel him anymore and that terrifies me. I can't feel me either. Did something go wrong? Oh, god. Did he accidently kill me? Was the bite too much for him? "Calvin?" I try to call to him, but I know it wasn't loud enough. "Calvin!"

"Calvin!" My voice, it's real now. It came out of my throat and mouth instead of just echoing around in my head. I noticed how different my voice sounded to me now. I heard the pitch in a new way, every dulcet tone standing out to me in my mind. I realized I have a very modulated voice, even though before I'd assumed my voice too pitchy to be thought attractive.

At the same time as I was thinking of my voice, I was noticing the smell around me. Definitely mildew, and moth balls, and some kind of cheap cleaner that doesn't have nearly enough bleach in it. The smells were weirdly vibrant to me. The sounds were everywhere too. Someone laughing raucously, a TV humming, a man's nasally snores. 

I knew the different sensations all taking place in my mind, none taking a bigger precedent over the other, instead just intermingling and processing through without confusion should have alerted me. I knew my reaction should be fear of what was happening to me and why I was able to think so quickly, but I wasn't afraid. I was too busy immersing myself in it all.

I sensed someone near me, and I knew who it would be. I braced myself, taking a voluntary deep breath that did nothing for me other than make me feel slightly more normal after I realized I hadn't taken a breath in a solid minute and a half. I continued the influx of air, manually filling and then dumping my lungs as I opened my eyes.

The light was brilliant even though it was just a small red and green lamp beside the bed that threw all of the grandiloquent light across the room. Grandiloquent. I didn't even realize I knew how to use that word. I'd seen in in books before, but now it just popped into my mind, eloquently describing the way the warm, brilliant golden light fanned across the sparse and tiny room.

I moved my head slightly, and there he was again. "Rachel?" He whispered my name, his singsong voice like music in my ears. I wanted to hear him repeat my name over and over, and I found that replaying that memory in my mind was much simpler than it should have been; it was like he really was repeating it even though his face was completely still.

"Beautiful." I whispered as I looked up at him. As much as everything else looked, sounded, and smelled different, it was like Calvin couldn't be touched by anything, not even heightened vampire senses.

Holy shit. Is that what this is? Heightened senses? Am I really a vampire now?

"That's funny." He whispered, his eyes playful as he looked down at me, and then I did notice something different. His eyes, those perfect smoky blue eyes that I never dreamed could be more beautiful had little tiny flecks of silver in them right outside of the irises that I'd never seen before. "I was just thinking how beautiful you are." He smiled, the light shimmering off of his pristine teeth. My husband is the most beautiful man in all of creation. I'm certain of it. "How do you feel?" He asked carefully and I sat up slowly.