At 7:30pm when her mother called her to dinner, Lana kept on reading. Lana read her book “Vampire Memoirs” till it got very late. She had dead bolted her bedroom door, and the entire world could just rot in hell for all she cared.
Midnight came and Lana put down her book to look out her window. She had the loveliest bay window in her room. She could remember back to a time sitting by her window at age ten or so, back when she’d read Dr. Seuss stories and think positively that things would always get better. They never got better. That felt like a lifetime ago. Now here she sits by her window waiting for the vampires in her alternate reality to come and take her away from her actual reality. The idea of the existence of vampires makes Lana feel hopeful. It’s all she has left to hold onto. She dreams of them taking her away from here and making her an immortal. She wouldn’t hesitate to go. This is just another reason for everyone to find her to be a crazy loon. She was a blood obsessed, vampire believing cutter. That was what she had become. Lana’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden realization that someone was standing by the streetlamp across the road from her house. It appeared to be a figure of a young looking man. She could only make out a shadowy form of his features. He had obnoxiously long free flowing hair that was whipping around in the night air, and he was wearing a long trench coat. Lana felt her heart skip a beat as she came to the realization that he was staring directly up at her. The insecure feeling that he may be looking directly at her made her turn away for only a second. When she mustered up the strength to look again, he was gone. The streetlamp where he had previously stood only a moment before looked so desolate now. “Where could he have gone off to so quickly?” She wondered. This occurrence made her heart race with the idea that a vampire had visited her finally. She wanted so much to believe in that idea. She imagined him climbing up into her bedroom window and stealing her away in the middle of the night.
Lana logged onto her computer at about 2:00am. Sleep didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight, so she decided to kill time until sleep won her over. She skimmed through every vampire group she was a part of on the web.. She even went to A.R. Price’s official website. Then she decided to check her email. There were eighteen new messages. That seemed a little strange to her. She had a pretty good junk mail filter installed and her former friends had stopped trying to contact her for some time now. For a second, she hoped that one of the emails was from Stacey, but that was only a passing fancy. She clicked on the inbox icon and found herself staring at a list of emails all with the same subject matter “none”. She was hesitant on opening them. She was weary about emails that didn’t contain a return address or a subject. She had good reason to be. Four months ago her computer had contracted an ugly virus just because she opened a shady email similar looking to these. Vivienne had to take Lana’s computer to a repair shop to de-bug it. That was quite a hassle. Vivienne also warned her she was not going to get it fixed if it happened again. She took a deep breath and opened the first email on the list in spite of it all.
It was just some spam about refinancing a mortgage. Junk mail! Lana opened the next email a little more readily. This was an invitation to a website that was listed as private. She was pleased to see it was listed as vampire themed. The name of the group was a little questionable, “Gabriel’s Seduction”. But still, it was a vamp site and of course she would join. She clicked on the icon to enter the site and there was a disclaimer in bold letters there. It read as follows: You have chosen to enter of your own free will. Entering here qualifies as a virtual invitation. You no longer retain the freedom to reject any advances. Life will be forever changed, and forever- beyond this point. “What a strange and deranged disclaimer for a website”, Lana thought. Yet she found it somewhat amusing and intriguing. She figured it was probably there to try and add authenticity and to weed out the wimps who accidently stumbled upon this site without proper invitation. She clicked the icon to agree to the terms and conditions and then clicked the arrow to move onto the next page. When the next page fully loaded she found herself staring into the screen at the most beautiful man she had ever laid her eyes on. He was attired in the most gorgeous gothic clothing. He had on a tight fitting mesh shirt that suited his physique perfectly. His pants were flamboyant red velvet. His hair was longer than Lana’s shoulder length locks. It was a silky, beautiful blue black, and it was so shiny that you could see light reflecting through each strand. He was seated in a lovely throne-like chair that was of gold velvet looking material. Below his alluring figure was the name of the site once again, this time in full animated color, “Gabriel’s Seduction”. Lana felt her heart skip a beat. “This beautiful creature had to be a vampire or a very good imitator”, Lana thought. She knew full well about all the crazies out there that liked to pretend they were vampires and drink blood for the kick of it. She wanted to look more into this site and find more out about this lovely one named Gabriel, but she had just noticed the time on the bottom right hand of her computer and it was nearly 4:00am. She decided that she would bookmark the site and look at it tomorrow. She knew Vivienne would be banging on her door at 20 till 7 to wake her up for school. She logged out of her computer and laid down in bed. It felt like no sooner that her head hit the pillow; the hideous banging on her door violently woke her. “I’m up!” She yelled out so Vivienne would stop the God awful banging on her door. She laid there a good ten minutes dreading the day ahead of her. This was Friday. Fridays were never good for Lana. Each Friday, King High School had assembly during 5th period. Lana grew to dreading it so much over the duration school year. It never failed that during 5th period assembly, Iris Morgan and her nasty cohorts deliberately hunted Lana down and relentlessly messed with her. Iris and her click were not exactly the most popular click at King High, but they were able to stay relevant with the cool kids by stomping on the kids who were different or stood out at all. Iris took a particular disliking to her when Lana changed her look at the beginning of the school year.
Vivienne dropped Lana off two blocks from the high school at Lana’s usual request. Lana contemplated skipping class, but she really didn’t know of any particular place to go. She figured there was probably too much hassle involved in that idea. She was also afraid that Ms. Kemp would raise a big stink about it. Her first stop in the school was at her locker. It was still right next to Stacey Townsend’s, her former best friend. Lana hurried to get her books to avoid that uncomfortable encounter she’d inevitably have with Stacey if she stuck around any longer than she had to. As she slammed her locker shut, she realized it was too late. Stacey was coming down the hall already with none other than Iris Morgan. They were laughing and carrying on. A heat flashed across the backside of Lana’s neck. She turned and walked off in the opposite direction as fast as she could without calling attention to herself. “How the hell could life get any worse?” She thought to herself. She barreled into the girl’s bathroom only seconds before the last bell rang for 1st period to start. It was expectedly empty. She climbed to the top of a stall where there was an overhang in front of a small frosted glass window. She was able to maneuver herself into the corner of that windowsill and hide there for as long as she needed to. She stayed there huddled in the corner for the rest of the school day. It was a relief for her to skip fifth period assembly, for this week at least.
After some time passed, she must have fallen asleep because she was startled awake by the four o’ clock bell that let school out for the day. She suddenly remembered the horrible nightmare that she was having while she had slept only moments before. She dreamt that she was killing people. She was killing all the people that she could ever think of knowing. She had Mark’s hunting knife and she was walking calmly from one person to the next slashing their throats, even Vivienne’s. She was ashamed of how exhilarated it made her feel to watch the blood gush from her victims’ throats. She felt someone there with her sharing in her perverse exhilaration. She just never exactly saw who it had been. Lana knew there would be hell to pay when Ms. Kemp would surely call Vivienne about her skipping classes today, but she didn’t really care anymore. It didn’t matter to her if the whole world fell down on her at this point.
Lana waited out in front of the school until 5:10pm for Vivienne to pick her up. After an hour and ten minutes passed by she decided to start walking the three miles home. As she was walking, she felt like she was being watched. It felt a lot like she was being followed. She looked all around and it seemed as if everywhere she looked there were prying eyes scrutinizing her every move. She was scared inside, but nowhere near ready to admit such a silly idea. Lana kept a steady pace and made it to her street at about 15 till 7. It was already well past sunset and pitch dark as she entered the house. She was relieved to be home because by the time she made it onto her street she was sure that someone was following her. She kept seeing a shadow disappear and reappear closely behind her. She fumbled around in the darkness until she found the light switch in the living room.
She turned on the light only to find Vivienne passed out on the couch. She was walking over to Vivienne to yell at her for forgetting to pick her up when she noticed there was something very amiss. Vivienne was badly hurt or even worse possibly. On the way to the hospital in the ambulance, all Lana could do was sit in the corner and watch the EMT try to revive her mother’s still heart.. “It had to have been Mark who did this”, Lana thought to herself. This is what Mark had always threatened when he and Vivienne would get into their knock down, drag out fights that had been happening more and more recently. Lana felt so guilty for not being there to stop it from happening. She hated herself for it. She felt sick for having a dream of doing the very same thing to Vivienne. It was hard for Lana to look at her mother lying there on the gurney. She was still losing so much blood and it seemed like there was no end to the constant bleeding. Vivienne’s throat was sliced from one side to the other. This looked very bad for her.
Lana was waiting for the worst. The EMTs rushed Vivienne into the ER with Lana following closely behind. A nurse stopped Lana at the OR doorway.. “Please remain in the waiting area. Someone will let you know something as soon as possible”. The nurse looked at Lana with such pity it made Lana sick to her stomach. She couldn’t deal with the situation. She ran back out the ER doors into the open night air. She needed to breathe fresh air and get herself together. She felt the heat rush into her face like two hot irons striking her cheeks. She fell to the ground right around the corner from the hospital. As she laid there wetting the pavement with her tears, she noticed a pair of shoes directly in front of her. They were fancy, large designer shoes. The kind you see in fashion magazines that not too many people actually ever wear. The sudden appearance of these feet in front of her was startling. She looked up to see who was standing before her. She was taken back for a second. She couldn’t believe her eyes. It was the man from that website “Gabriel’s Seduction”. She thought her mind had snapped and her eyes were playing games with her. He was so beautiful, but in a strikingly unsettling way. He was dressed much like his image on the internet site. He looked very Euro-Goth. Although, this time there was a more tangible quality to him. He extended his porcelain hand to Lana to help her get up off of the cement. She did the only thing that came to her mind and accepted his hand. He smiled at her angelically when she took his hand. She instantly withdrew her hand in reaction to his ice cold touch.
She quickly lunged herself up off the ground on her own and ran past the gothic angel that was just staring at her with the most tragic eyes. She ran back into the hospital to find out about her mother. “Why did I even leave the hospital? What kind of horrible person am I?” She thought to herself as she was running back inside. She ran all the way to the OR doors and found the nurse who had blocked her entry before. The nurse was pointing at Lana and telling a doctor something quietly in his ear. The doctor approached her with a look that only meant one thing. It hit her like a ton of bricks. It seemed like suddenly everything was happening around her in an awkward slow motion. “I’m very sorry to inform you about the passing of your mother Miss Kelly. We did all that we could. Your mother just lost too much blood.” “It couldn’t be true, not Vivienne”, Lana thought. She was just yelling at Lana that very morning and now she lay dead on an operating table with a slit throat, and Mark still lived, walking around as a free man. Lana’s world was surely crashing down on her now. She wanted it all to be over. If she had the strength to take her own life in that second, she would have. She turned and ran back out of the hospital once again into the night. She had no idea where she was running to. She just ran until she could no longer breathe and she had to stop for air. She felt a low guttural pain in her side that made her have to bend down and throw up. She cleaned her mouth with her sleeve and looked around at the street in front of her.
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