Deep Scarlet Secret

On an average day, I would be treading home alone, four hours before sunrise. On an average day, I would not be pardoned of undeserved punishment. On an average day, my things would be knocked out of my hands. On an average day… this would not have happened.

“Sor–”

“Let’s go!” My sister snatched my hand up and threw me over her shoulder and on to her back. She could outrun whatever we were fleeing from; I can’t. I tried to peek over my shoulder before Sorcha warned, “Don’t look back! Just look forward!” I was puzzled as to why it mattered that I looked back at our burning town. Raided by monsters, savages, and incomprehensible anger.

Howls invaded my thoughts.

“Sorcha, what’s going on? Why are we heading south? We should be going North like the others!” I whispered in the roaring silence of the forest. So quick, I hadn’t noticed we were a good 30 miles away. Sorcha hadn’t even broken a sweat, but I had, more out of confusion and fear. My hands were clammy and my fingers were twitching while holding on to Sorcha’s shoulders.

“We can’t go with the others. We have to go south. We have to stay far away from the others!” She growled and continued to sprint effortlessly.

Small creatures of the night and forest watched us with large eyes as we sped past them. Leaves were crushed under my sister’s feet, and a stream was west of us, just flowing gently.

Here it was so quiet, compared to the fiery blaze of homes, screaming, fighting, and howling. So much howling. And with my simple glance at it all, kids who had taunted me and bullied me were all scattering like ants. While I’d like to think that I was glad we were heading south instead of north, I wasn’t so convinced.

I wanted to know what we were running from exactly, that was, until it struck me. In my back.

“Ooof,” came from both of our mouths, while someone had pushed us down and sent us tumbling through the dirt and fallen leaves and weeds of the forest. I rolled off of Sorcha to look up at Garnet. My lip trembled a bit when my sister attacked her own fiancé.

“Sorcha!” I shouted, but my voice seemed to escape with the subtle wind as they fought. “Stop!” I tried again to make my voice heard, yet when it was no use, I did what any normal vampire would do. Be an idiot and join the fight.

I clawed to remove Sorcha off of my future brother-in-law, because even now, Garnet had refused to strike back at her, only blocking as she scratched him fiercely and kicked him. “Stop,” I hissed again and finally she had calmed, seeing the harm she had caused her lover. “What’s going on?” I added quickly before she could do something stupid.

“The town is being attacked by werewolves. And we need to head north to the other city. There are even more in the South, and you’re choosing to head there?” Garnet barked at Sorcha, as she stood in front of me, a protective arm lying across my chest.

“Then go north! I will meet you there, but…” My sister paused and took a glimpse in the direction of our town. “But I must take care of Charlotte first.” She turned to me and put her hands on my shoulders. “Lottie… do not trust Garnet. Do not trust him until he has my mark.” Garnet and I both jerked our heads back in surprise.

Garnet wore a frown so soft it was sad. “L-let me help. Sorcha… I’m practically family,” Garnet muttered and my sister shook her head.

“I can’t.”

“Why?” I screamed, ripping myself from her hands and standing in front of Garnet. “All of the sudden, because the town get’s attacked, you’re going to start being… being… illogical?!” I hissed and clenched my fists, causing my sticky hands to turn bloody by my nails.

It didn’t make sense. It all happened in the blink of an eye. All of the sudden, I realized, everything was changing. The werewolves have attacked before but… nothing with fire. Nothing with such passionate anger and so many fleeing. And now my sister, denying her own lover her and my trust before us. It was a blow to the stomach, and to my own sanity.

It didn’t make sense.

“Because,” Sorcha’s words snapped me out of contemplating, “we are not sisters.” I choked, for a second. How could she say such a thing? I was not the strongest or fastest vampire, far from it actually. I was something to be ashamed of, however, not to be disowned. “We are cousins, Lottie. And I’m going to give you this,” she sighed and ripped her necklace off of herself and dropped it in my shirt. “Only until I give Garnet my mark, do not listen to him, do not trust him.”

“Sorcha,” Garnet murmured, and I had mouthed her name as well.

It didn’t make sense.

“Now run. I... I promise I will explain this to you soon. Just not now, there’s no time. Keep running south. There’s a city; stay near there. I’m sorry, Lottie, but for now, you are alone. You are a stray, and you must go,” Sorcha gave me one last hug which I refused to return. I inhaled deeply and began to run. I refused to look back. To look back would destroy me. Garnet’s horrified face. Sorcha’s guiltlessness. My own family to turn me away. My own family admitting who I am and am not… who the fuck am I? Am I not Charlotte Clease?

It didn’t make sense. And it wouldn’t. Not any time soon, no. I wouldn’t have time to think up an answer. Because my mind was ravaged by the dearest object to all vampires.

Blood.

I want it. I crave it. I have to have it. I need it.

If only it was something the world could bare to live without, a liquid colored like wine and roses, the great juice, the immortal drink. My mind would not be clear until I had it.

My steps were heavy and slow on the pavement; I had gotten out of the forest and into the streets of the city Sorcha spoke of. Sunrise, though two hours away (I knew from instinct), was breathing down my neck, taunting me. I wasn’t concerned at the time because of bloodlust. It makes you lose focus. It makes you sloppy, indecent, and most importantly, it causes you to succumb to the sun.

Blood. If I didn’t get it now, I’d probably go on a killing spree. This was only the early stage too.

I passed neighborhoods, shopping plazas, somewhere with people. But the universe and this city seemed already dead, even claimed by other vampires. Sorcha’s words seemed to be eating away at my sanity. “I’m sorry, Lottie, but for now, you are alo–”

I smell it.

My feet were light and gliding and my fangs were growing longer. A mixed aroma of chocolate, alcohol, and peppermint filled my nostrils and made everything… sharper. My hearing, my eyesight, my every sense was going wild and pain even wrapped itself around me when everything was too sharp and too intense. Closer. Closer. Closer.

My breath was getting heavier, and my clothes were getting tighter. The chase, the search, that was half the fun. Half the excitement. The over use of cologne and perfume made my nose bleed, the neon lights made me close my eyes at the sting, and I had to plug my ears. I didn’t quite know where I was going within the club, and I didn’t understand how I had managed to get in, but I didn’t waste time.

Finally, I was in the bathroom, were the sounds were muted and the lights were dull. The scent had only gotten worse, however. “Come on.” I snatched a wrist and dragged its owner out the bathroom door and out of the back doors of the club. Again, the odors had not lightened any, especially with the rotting unconscious (living, yet unconscious) drunk bodies lying around.

She didn’t fight or argue or even asked where we were going which aroused suspicion within me, but I didn’t mind. It was easier for her not to scream for help and only attract attention. She glazed over me and muttered with a faint smile, “It’s cool, I dig girls too.”

With my last bit of humanity, I grabbed her head and snapped her neck with a move I had learned in a karate class. She didn’t need to witness, feel, or live what was going to happen to her. That faint smile still remained.

Once she was dead, it was only downhill from there in terms of humanity.

-

I blacked out at my first kiss with the blood, but the bloodlust which ravaged my world was finally gone. I could finally think clearly. I could see better, as well, and stared down at the wrinkled, pale flesh with a hole in her chest. I had ripped her heart right out.

It was time to focus. Food? Check. Shelter? Blank.

The world was silent again, but this time the thrashing of my heart didn’t overshadow it. Dawn was around the corner, again creeping like a reaper on a dying soul. It almost seemed as if I would never get the chance to sit down and find out what Sorcha meant.

With only minutes, I nabbed a jacket from a stranger to cover the blood on my shirt, and soon I was on the steps of a high school. No one would find it out of the ordinary, right? I look like any other human teenager, right?

Well, I happened to be wrong. My first steps into the halls, a janitor stared me straight in the eyes. But he wasn’t your regular old janitor. He was a werewolf. Fan-fucking-tastic.

“What are you doing here?” He growled and quickly straightened his hunched back, towering over me, and the hair of his body seemed ready to grow into a monster. I could only panic, for the sun was reaching this corner of the earth.

“P-please, I don’t want to die, I promise I won’t hurt anyone I just want a place to sleep. Please,” I whimpered, feeling the warmth of the sun, despite it was not hitting me. Yet. “You can’t spare a poor girl her life? My town was just destroyed, and they wouldn’t let me join them, they forced me south, I swear,” I whined, and yes, I was partially doing it for manipulation. I was just hoping that werewolves, unlike some vampires I know, have a heart. But I wouldn’t really blame him if he left me outside to die.

He groaned and dragged me around the corner, all the way to an elevator, using his special keys to force the elevator to the basement of the school. Over in the corner was a large gated area, and he pushed me inside without regard, and locked me in. I sighed as he left me in the dark, murky, and dusty place, but I was safe at last.

I wanted to stay awake and further figure out what Sorcha meant, yet sleep had taken control.