Broken Ties

Chapter 1

Faythe~

Warm. Cold. Hot.

These are the sensations I am experiencing on this fine morning. I’m also unusually lethargic and dizzy, even though I just woke up. It’s Saturday as well, so I slept in. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes as I stretched. As I was removing my silk scarf from my head, I felt a thick stickiness on my neck. What is this? I thought to myself. I thought I just slept hard and ended up drooling a lot again, but I doubt that’s the case this time.

I touched my neck with my fingertips and removed them, only to discover semi-coagulated blood on them. What the heck…?, I asked myself internally. To say the very least, I was worried. It is not-I repeat, not- normal to wake up with blood covering any part of your body. Walking slowly and fearfully towards my private bathroom, I attempted to think about the possible ways this might have happened, each idea becoming vaguer as I became more afraid of what I will discover.

When I entered the room, I looked at my reflection...and almost screamed. The girl I saw in the mirror was not me. It couldn’t be. She just happens to look like me, that’s all. That’s what I wanted to believe, anyways. The only problem was, it can’t be anyone but me. My stomach fluttered as if an army of butterflies were flying furiously in it. My complexion was paler than it was before I went to bed the night before, only darkened by the color of half-dried blood on the left side of my neck. Eyes that lost some of their light stared back at me, highlighted by dark shadows on the bottom eyelids. It was in that moment of genuine fear that I realized my heart no longer palpated normally. The pulse was too faint. Tears began to fall from my eyes as all of the pieces began to fall into place.

“I’m a living corpse.” I touched the mirror, allowing my hand to align with it’s reflection. “I’m dead, but I’m alive”. I had a feeling that Jesus didn’t raise me from the dead like Lazarus. I feel darker, hollow, and abandoned. I sank until I was sitting on the cold tile floor. Staring into space, I began to pray. “God...please, help me. I don’t even have a slight clue as to what I should do.” My body began to convulse as the tears fell harder and the sobs became more violent. Please, LORD! I don’t know what happened, but I’m so afraid! I went into a state of shock, rocking back and forth on the floor with my face to my knees, whispering incomprehensible prayers that only the entity I was speaking to could understand. Nothing felt real in that moment, and everything was too accentuated, to the point it was out of focus. Attempting to remain calm, I inhaled and exhaled while keeping my head between my knees to keep from fainting. Though I did not faint, I was still having trouble breathing since my body was still racked by sobs. Eventually, I fell asleep on the bathroom floor.

~~~

I thought I was only unconscious for a few minutes, but when I check the clock on the wall, it shows it has actually been half an hour. My head was still filled with fluff, and my body was almost as stiff as a stick. When I fully came-to, I realized that my mom was knocking feverously on the door, which I had locked immediately so no one would see me panic, should they walk into my room. “Faythe? Faythe?! Answer me, baby!”, she said with obvious worry. I croaked, “Hold on, Mom,” as loud as I could to ease her growing concern. I rinsed my face and neck to wash away the tear stains and dried blood, then put on my best “everything-is-okay” look, even though I knew she would most likely see right through me. As I opened the door, she gave me a quick once-over to assess my physical condition. Once she concluded that there was no physical damage to be seen, she whispered ‘Thank you, LORD” up to Heaven, seeming slightly more relaxed.

“Are you okay, honey?” she asked in a soft tone. “Yeah, I’m fine,” I lied through my teeth, putting on a fake smile. There is no way I am telling her that I might be a vampire. Mom hesitated for a second, giving me a more thorough analysis. I knew she knew that everything wasn’t okay. I just hoped she didn’t notice my-

“You seem a little pale, and you have bags under your eyes. Something else seems different...”

Well, so much for that. I just hope I don’t have any fangs popping out all of a sudden. If she found out that I might be a vampire now, who knows what would happen? I remember asking both my parents what they would do if I became a vampire. They both said they would kill me, but I convinced them to at least wait until they felt I was a threat to them and my siblings before they acted. I was only joking, but who knew that it might actually happen? I’ll wait a little bit before I tell her. I haven’t even wrapped my own head around it yet.  Since I’m not a convincing liar, I decided to use the lying by omission tactic.

“Well, you know that I’ve been up until two o’clock for the past few nights, and I haven’t been feeling too good lately.” “I told you not to stay up so late! You need your rest, especially since you get up so early in the morning,” she began. “But as long as you’re okay…” She’s still a little cynical, but decided not to push it. “What do you want for breakfast?” I replied, “I’ll take an omelet, please.” Though I wasn’t really hungry, I knew that I would regret it later when I went out later today. I was going shopping for a new outfit, since someone had insisted on throwing me a Sweet Sixteen party against my explicit desires of keeping my birthday low-key. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day, and I’m not looking forward to it in the least bit.