Shadows

Guildford

For the first night here, I slept in one bedroom whilst he slept in another. He thought that I would want to get used to my surroundings before we did anything like that or anything at all. I slept in my black and yellow stripped pyjamas and slept peacefully for a change. No nightmares and no subconscious meetings with any more family members.

  I opened my eyes and glanced around at my surroundings. The walls were a cream colour, the curtains a pale shade of blue, the carpet was a navy colour. My bed spread was a scarlet colour and the under layer was white. The room was also lightly furnished, it take a genius to realise that this was a guest room and it was probably used for when he had girlfriends such as Candice. Thinking about that wench made me shiver and I felt my stomach convulse, women like that always had it in their heads that they owned men, yet what they didn’t know was that they pissed most of society off, always flashing their bodies around in public… they gave themselves a label.

 Stretching outward and upward my body clicked and soothed itself. That had to be one of the best sleeps I ever had. Sniffing around I smelt what I thought was a food I had missed entirely, all that healthy stuff Anna was serving me made me miserable, I actually craved for a plate of greasy chip shop chips that was sprinkled in salt but drenched in Vinegar. Bolting out of bed, I ran down the small and narrow hall toward the kitchen, there it was… on the table lay a plate of chips. Oh my god I have to say I nearly cried I was famished and food sick… it that was possible.

   Almost running over to the kitchen I immediately started to shovel the food in my mouth. It burned my throat but I didn’t really care, I was so hungry it was almost unbelievable
“Enjoying the treat I prepared are you?” Dante chuckled behind me. I swallowed the mass amount of food that clogged my throat, nearly gagging in the process before I turned to face him
“Yes!” I laughed as I exclaimed, he kissed my forehead before wandering over to the kettle, filling it up then flicking the switch for it to boil. By the time the kettle had boiled I had finished my food with a loud burp and sigh. It felt good to not feel like a rabbit for a change and just enjoy a plate of greasy chips. He made us both a cup of milky, sweet Nescafe coffee.

  I took the cup to my lips and inhaled the sickly smell of a good cup o’ Joe,
“How did you sleep?” he asked
“Very well, the bed is extremely comfy. I noticed that the room wasn’t that well decorated though”
“It is a guest room” he raised a brow at me “But I’m glad that you liked it in there” I raised the cup to my lips and took a chug. He had gotten the sweetness just right; I could barely taste that damn awful aftertaste that coffee normally has.
“I know that, just I was a tad surprised since everything else here is so full of not only objects but warmth and life” my cheeks burned so I cleared my throat “That’s why I asked”
“Oh, now I see what you mean. But you think this place is warm do you? I feel that it’s quite cold and lonely”
“I’m sure it’s not lonely, you must have had loads of people up here” I took another sip as I stared at him; the light that I normally saw in his eyes was dying away… I understood that my speculation was the exact opposite to what I had first thought.  
“No I don’t, that’s the problem really. I don’t tend to trust that many people… things just seem to go so wrong” he shivered and closed his eyes; I reached out and grabbed his hand. I think I understood what he meant by things going wrong, he must have lost control somehow. He probably drained them clean but felt horrified by what he had done… that was one of things that I was terrified by, now that I was drinking blood I didn’t want to lose control. Not ever.
“I’m so sorry” I breathed, he smiled at me gratefully before gulping down some more coffee.

  Dante decided that he thought it best to show me around the place, since we were going to live here for a while. I got dressed into a simple outfit of black skinny jeans, white vest top and my grey golddigger jacket. Once we both felt that we looked presentable enough he led me outside, locking the door behind him of course. The first thing he told me was that the town has deep Saxon roots, which was why he felt he was drawn to it.
“Father never liked this place”
“Why is that?” I asked him
“Because when our family first emigrated here apparently we lived in that castle” he pointed to the one at the far end of the street. The grounds of that castle were most surprising, it was littered with a rainbow of flowers, I thought it was truly beautiful “Well anyway, once he realised that it had Saxon history he got outraged and wanted to move as far away as possible”
“I don’t understand”
“Well back when the Saxons were around, they hunted our kind til we were all almost extinct. It was barbaric, they didn’t understand at all. They thought that we were the rejects from god and all that shite” he scowled and shook his head “But because of that, father hates them bitterly. I guesse it’s a passed down hate. But nowadays we have all accepted that hunters and slayers will always be around, but they aren’t as barbaric as they were thank goodness”
“Oh I see” I muttered
“Yes, now would you like to go see the castle?” I glanced up to him “I’m serious”
“Ok” I smiled.

   So that’s just what we did, we made our way over to the castle, he wrapped his one arm around my waist whilst resulted in me becoming glued to him. As my head leaned on his shoulder, he leant down to kiss it and tell me how much he loved me. I adored hearing those words emanate from his mouth, I don’t think anyone precides him has ever said it either, which made it that little bit more precious and longed for. Of course I said it back to him and hopefully the way I felt was mutual to him too. The castle was even more beautiful up close, I don’t know who was looking after this garden outside, but they were doing a damn fine job! We both looked around and saw that there was no one else near us… on that note we decided to take a wander inside. You could instantly tell that the place had been remodelled and modified because the flooring had lighting fitted to it for the more darker corners, there were these corny information stands… the only thing that seemed to be untouched were the bloody windows.

  There was some brickwork that was slowly chipping away which to be honest… I was glad to see, it was nice that they were keeping this place alive and standing, but trying to turn it into a show home… well it made me slightly sick. We wandered more into the interior and my face lit up like a Christmas tree, there was finally a section that wasn’t all that modified, the only thing that had been restored was the staircase, but that was actually fine by me for a change. I took a few steps up and began to hear creaking coming from the stairs, inhaling and gulping down my heart I continued to press on, it creaked even more as you walked up and I began to feel increasingly nervous. On the top of the stairs I spun around to face Dante, but the stairs moved way over to the left and actually broke!

  Spiralling away from Dante at an unprecedented speed I screamed for my dear life. It all happened so fast yet all I could see was his pained expression. Closing my eyes I waited for the fall that would probably snap my back, thinking that this was a bloody stupid idea, that I shouldn’t have gone here, shouldn’t have tried to walk up stairs that were meant to be fixed to very old and unsecure stone. The only thing I didn’t regret was being near to Dante. Tears slipped through my closed eyelids and cascaded down my face, my arms outstretched and longing for him to catch me… it all seemed to happen in slow motion… why hadn’t I hit the floor?
“Got you” he moaned as he caught me. I didn’t open my eyes once and began to shake; it truly terrified me that this place was so unsafe “Easy, I’ve got you now. You’re ok” he cooed into my ear as I tugged at his shirt and buried my head into his shoulder. He began to carry me, I didn’t open my eyes and I certainly didn’t move. I felt really shaken up and physically could not stop shaking… if I had gone there without him, I would probably be either dead or really hurt right now.

  He carried me into town and sat me down on the nearest bench. By then I had calmed down and had opened my eyes. Glancing around I saw brown, cream, white and yellow buildings everywhere. The town was chock a block and seemed more busy than London during rush hour… it got me that these people lived such hectic and busy lives yet they didn’t once just stop and think that there might be another world right next to their own… that the mythical stories we were all told as a kid were more than stories or myths, they were warnings and facts. Vampires had been around since the beginning, when humans were said to be created by God, but according to the Istrati’s books that I had read countless of times, Vampires roamed the earth about the same time as the dinosaurs, and they were the main predators back then. As soon as humans appeared on the scene they saw us as nothing more than dinner and took us for granted. They didn’t realise that we were not like the dinosaurs, we had created weapons and most of us had fought back. They became the first ever slayers/hunters.

  It was remarkable to think that people took all this for granted and brushed it off as stories, myths and legends. It made me laugh that people thought Pocahontas was not real, they thought she was a made up character thanks to Disney for heaven’s sake. Oh no, she was real all right. Disney had got the facts right down to a ‘T’ just because it was Disney, they assumed it fictional. Shaking my head at the facts that roamed my head I looked up to the sky. It was getting darker quicker now… probably thanks to the time of year… how long had I been with them now? How long since I had known what I was? Time was both an ailment and a medicine. It healed but it also burned. In this case, it made me forget about time. I asked Dante to take me back, I had enough for one day.