I'm Still Breathing

William Beckett sat smiling in the back of an old, rusty yellow cab. Things were finally starting to look up. All of his biggest dreams were coming true. He was considered a famous rockstar in a band with four of his closest friends. They had been through some rough patches together while recording their second record, but if anything it had just made them closer. Now their happy, meaningful third album was out, and his life was looking promising. He was going good for money, and got to write music and lyrics for a living; the things he loved doing most of all. Ever since he was in high school he dreamed of this.

There was just one part of his high school American dream that wasn’t complete in this picture. But William didn’t want to think about that right now. He pushed it to the very back of his mind, a practice that he’d learned to excel in over the years.

Handing a wad of dollar bills to the driver, William opened the door and got out of the cab, stepping into the invisibly swirling autumn wind that had always held a special charm to him. The strong breeze blew his soft brown hair into his matching eyes, gentle regardless of the force. He shivered slightly, wishing he’d remembered to bring a jacket of some sort. It was around five-thirty in the afternoon, the sun only just beginning to go down as it danced an orange glow across the clouds that skimmed the Chicago sky. It seemed quite late for a meeting, but he shrugged it off. Pulling out the piece of paper that he’d hastily scrawled the address on, he stepped into the elevator from the marble foyer of the tall building and pressed the seventh floor button.

Following the directional signs, William found the room that he was looking for. Stepping into the room, he was surprised to find that it wasn’t a conference room, and was instead a private office. And it didn’t look like the kind of offices he was used to; it looked like it belonged to some respected executive in the corporate world or something. This was just too weird. This building wasn’t right, the time wasn’t right, the meeting had been too impromptu…

He was about to leave, convinced that he’d gotten the address wrong, but sudden awe got the better of him and he crossed the large room to the pane of glass that served as the opposite wall behind a polished wooden desk. The huge window painted the unique picture of the Chicago cityscape. The view was positively breathtaking, making him fall in love with what he considered to be his city all over again. He briefly wondered who had the privilege to work in such a spectacular office.

Too busy outlining the skyscrapers in the distance, silhouetted sharply against the colorful sky, William didn’t hear the shuffling footsteps of someone joining him in the spacious room, nor did he hear the sound of the metal bolt sliding quietly to lock his only exit.

“Hi William,” a distantly familiar voice rang softly behind him.

Slowly, dream-like, he turned around, frozen in terror, to come face to face with someone who had once meant a lot to him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, trying to keep the tremble of panic out of his voice.

“We need to talk, Bill,” she said simply.

“No we don’t,” his voice came out sharp. It always hurt her whenever he shot that tone of voice in her direction.

“Please,” she looked at him with big, begging, brown eyes.

She didn’t seem to look right. Just looking at her, William knew that she was just as strong as she was beautiful, her perfectly curved figure still muscular. The way she stood looked strange, awkward but at the same time not at all; her hands in the front pockets of her black skinny jeans, wrists peeking out from a well-cut black jacket, rocking back and forth on her heels. She was different to the last time he saw her, but also exactly the same. Last time he’d seen her must have been five years ago, at their senior prom.

They had been close friends for years, and as they grew they had both begun to look at each other differently. William had finally asked her out on a date, and after that first kiss they had been known as the couple that were going to last. Everything was going fine, perfect, until things began to change. She began to change. As opposed to her loud and happy self, she became shy and reserved. She felt uncomfortable and fidgety whenever he touched her or kissed her. She started burning up whenever she sat in the sun. Something had happened, but she wouldn’t confide in anyone. The last time William had seen her was when they went to prom together. She had pulled him outside for a walk, and throwing all her trust in him she told him. She told him, and he didn’t believe her. The one person she thought would stand by her.

“No,” William said again. “You’re crazy.”

Tears had welled up in her eyes.

“I’m not crazy,” she whispered, looking down at her feet adorning red platform shoes.

It was almost an exact repeat of their words on their prom night. She wasn’t wearing her blue dress, he wasn’t wearing his tux, and years and experiences had passed, but the script had hardly altered at all.

“So you still stand by it?” William asked darkly, although it was more a statement than a question. “You still haven’t accepted the fact that you need help?” His eyes softened. “Please, Meghan, I’ve already told you that I’ll pay for everything as long as…”

“William!” The tears were cascading down her cheeks now. “I’m not sick! I’m not insane! I don’t need help, I just need you to believe me!”

He shook his head sadly. She’d always been so amazing. She never deserved anything like this.

“Meg, you’re living in a nightmare. Vampires don’t exist and you weren’t bitten by one. You’re not a vampire. Please, let me help you wake up.”

“No, Bill. You’re the one living in a perfect dream where you bury your head in the sand at the mention of anything supernatural. It’s natural instinct, but I’m trying to be your proof. Vampires do exist, I was bitten by one, and it’s taking a hell of a lot of my willpower not to kill you right now!”

“I didn’t believe you before. What makes you think I’m going to believe you now when we haven’t even spoken since we were eighteen?”

He tried to ignore the twinge of regret. Crazy or not, he’d abandoned his best friend when she needed him the most. To be fair, though, he had never expected her to disappear the way she did after that night.

“I want to prove it to you, Will. I loved you… I still love you, and you’re the only person I can tell. If you don’t believe me, no one ever will.”

There was a silence. Dead quiet. It was as though the world had stopped turning, if only for a few moments.

“I loved you too. I still love you, but I can’t just let you waste your life away captured in your own mind.”

“So let me prove it to you.”

“How? You going to drink my blood? Turn into a bat? Douse yourself in holy water?”

“Don’t mock me, Beckett,” she snarled, and what he saw in her then threw everything he’d always believed in the air.

In astonishment, he watched as her canines elongated into sharp, pointed fangs and her chocolate eyes flash red. That wasn’t normal…

“Believe me yet?” she cocked her head to the side and smiled, showing those two sharp white teeth.

William shook his head and walked across the room to the door, determined to get out of the room fast as possible. It was surely some kind of trick. He couldn’t do this. He shuddered just a little as he walked past her; it was almost as if she was radiating cold.

“If you leave now, you’ll always wonder,” she called out from behind him. When he stopped in his tracks, she knew that she’d successfully planted that seed of doubt in his mind. “If you leave now, you’ll regret it. You’ll always wonder how I intended on proving my sincerity, and deep down you might believe me. Then, the more you dwell on it the more sure you’ll be that I was telling the truth, but you won’t ever really know.”

William turned around and looked at her. She didn’t look at all helpless now.

“Well then how did you intend on proving it to me?” he asked shortly, blankly.

Instead of answering, Meghan slowly pulled something out of her jacket pocket. At first he didn’t know what it was, but the shiny metal glinted in the setting sun and his eyes widened.

“Meg… what are you doing?”

“I’m proving it to you,” she whispered, raising the knife in front of her, examining the sharp edge.

“No! Stop!” he yelled, starting towards her, but it had no effect.

“It won’t kill me, Billvy,” she said softly.

“But it’ll hurt, won’t it?” he blurted out, forgetting, for a second, that she was insane and of course it would kill her.

She gave him a small smile. “It’ll be worth it, though.”

“Don’t,” he begged. “Don’t do this to yourself.”

What if he pretended to believe her? Would she stop this ridiculous stunt?

“Do you believe me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

After a moment’s hesitation, he answered with a breathless “Yes.”

She gave him another small, sad smile.

“No you don’t. I have to do this, and you have to watch.”

He shook his head, about to protest again, but before another word could break free from his lips, Meghan had plunged the knife forcefully into her chest; right into her heart. She collapsed to the floor and William ran to her side, kneeling over her twitching body that was writhing in pain until it fell motionless. The blood from the deep wound was spreading, staining her white shirt, as he pulled the knife from her cold flesh.

“Meg?” he whispered after a few horrified moments.

She didn’t respond at all. She just remained limp on the floor, eyes closed, her blonde hair splayed out around her shoulders.

“Meg?” he called her name more urgently.

She couldn’t be dead. There was no way she could be alive after this, but she just couldn’t be dead…

For the first time, he wished against everything that her absurd claims were true.

Minutes passed and Meghan still showed no signs of life. William had checked for a pulse, but remembered that if her claims were true – not that they could be, but just if – then she probably wouldn’t have one anyway.

Just as he had given up any shred of hope, Meghan started to stir. It was so slow, ever so slow, but she was moving just a bit. Suddenly, her eyes snapped open and she took a sharp intake of breath at the indescribable pain. Seeing William’s face looming worriedly over her, her pale lips cracked a smile.

“You were crying over me,” she teased, reaching up and swiping a tear away from his prominent cheekbone.

He couldn’t help but smile back just a bit; this was the Megz that he’d missed so much. All anger, doubt and any other negative emotion had been torn from him, and he leaned in and kissed her lips the way he’d wanted to for years now.

“I didn’t know whether you were going to wake up or die crazy…” he sniffed, but before he could finish blubbering Meg sat up and connected their lips again. A cold rush ran through his body as her tongue ran gently along his bottom lip.

“Still think I’m crazy?” she smirked as she pulled away and wrapped a lock of his chocolate hair around her index finger.

“Yep,” he nodded, causing her to frown slightly. “But if you’re crazy then so am I, and I’d rather be crazy in love with a vampire than sane without her.”

She beamed brightly and stood up, pulling her jacket tighter around her to hide the blood that had spread viciously from the mostly-healed-but-still-sore wound. Entwining their fingers, they made their way out of the building and into the city streets, too busy grinning to say anything.

“I can’t turn into a bat,” Meg said after minutes of walking in blissful silence.

“Damn,” William sighed. “Sisky will be disappointed.”

Meghan bit her lip.

“Do… do you really think that I should tell them? What if…”

“They react the way that I did?” William finished.

“Yeah,” she whispered. William smiled down at her.

“If they react the way I did, I still get to keep you in the end.”

She smiled up at him and they continued their aimless wandering through the city, now lit up with neon lights for the Chicago nightlife.