A Feast For The Vampires

XIV

The sea before them danced unrythmically, promising the students—who held worried yet excited gazes—of an adventure. The sun was high up in the clear, blue sky, specks of immaculate clouds invading it.

Kimi just placed his hands in his pockets and listened as the teacher took roll calls, his leg digging a hole in the dirt. When everyone was certified to be present, they were divided into groups.

Students marvelled at the ship that was down at the bustling docks, its black colour shining bright. It was adorned with Rhodes Isle’s flag—a red rose against a green background, and the flag danced proudly with the wind.

“Alright,” Principal Aardvark said, “everyone’s here. All we need to do now is wait for the captains who sail the ship.” She pulled up an umbrella over her head with squinted eyes and fidgety hands.

“Captains?” Dae-yang tightened her grip on the straps of her bag. “There’s two of them?” She directed the question to Kimi, but he didn’t answer her.

Kimi paid her zero attention as he blinked away the glare of the sun; a few students held fists to their mouths as they watched Kimi with disgusted gazes.

“Ugh, this sun is stupidly hot today,” Clover griped and adjusted her sunglasses. “Why today of all days?”

“Don’t worry,” the person beside her said, “you still look perfect.” His voice came out timid and flat.

“Did I ask you a question?” She rolled her eyes and averted her gaze, only for it to land on Kimi. She hacked and grumbled, “why is he even here?”

*

Time seemed to evacuate their thoughts as they waited, and waited for hours, but there was no sign of any of the captains, except for a few crewmembers who knew nothing about the position of their bosses. Some students found peace in the ground and were splayed in the sand, counting grains of sand and accessed anybody that walked past them.

“Are we there yet?”

“Dae-yang,” Silver drawled as he adjusted his position against Illiad’s back. “We aren’t even on the boat, talk less of actually starting the journey.”

Dae-yang snorted and looked down at Kimi who was lying in the sand, his hands behind his head and his face buried in the material of his hood. “But he’s far gone.”

“Who?”

She pointed at Kimi and drew invisible circles in the air. “Kimi.”

Silver looked at his cousin with squinted eyes. He tightened his grip on his rucksack as he watched his cousin’s chest rise and fall, his breathing even.

All this years, and Kimi still survived the pain, and Silver wondered how. As his mind and heart reminded him of the broken image of a young Kimi Mikaelis—silent tears in his eyes, and his sanity a long way from home—his heartbeat quickened with the fear that came with a similar memory of himself. A broken image. A lost image.

“I can feel your pulse quicken,” Illiad said when he felt Silver’s heartbeat quicken against his back. “Don’t worry, it’s all in the past and he’s coping,” he said, assurance in his voice. “Hopefully this trip will help him.”

“That’s if your uncle cooperates,” Silver said with a light smile.

Illiad’s body started vibrating against Silver’s when he suddenly found something funny.

“What?” Silver asked and looked over his shoulder.

“Who would have thought that uncle and aunty Raspaard are the captains who Mr. Jaeger could get at such a short—”