Guys Like You

It was the sound of birds chirping that finally woke me up for what felt like the hundredth time, it seemed all I'd been doing lately was sleeping or falling into comas. My hearing was focused solely on the sounds of the birds tweeting beautifully just outside my window and it wasn't something that I had done myself, it was like my brain had finally settled into its new enhanced powers and was allowing me to wake up not in pain for once.

I flickered my eyes open slowly, testing them to make sure I wasn't about to get accosted by blinding lights again. Thankfully they too seemed to have calmed down so now everything was normal coloured, the only difference being the clarity. I could see every single detail like I was looking through magnifying glass. It was amazing.

Sitting up was a whole other ordeal though; my limbs still ached with every single movement. I'd obviously been lying in the same position for a while, my bones clicking and protesting as I stretched them.

When I'd finally nursed all the worst of the cramps out of my body I took the time to look around the room. It seemed to be an apartment, almost completely bare of most furnishing apart from the necessities; my little room only had a bed in it.

I stood up and walked over to the door, cautiously venturing outside and into the cramped hallway. It wasn't a very long hallway, to my right was a door and to the left it opened out to an open plan living room. The smell of cooking wafted down to me from left caused my stomach to grumble.

Suddenly a guy poked his head around the wall and grinned at me.

"Oh, you're awake! I'm just making some breakfast if you're hungry," he said cheerfully, disappearing back the way he'd come. I narrowed my eyes suspiciously and walked slowly towards the source of that amazing smell.

The guy was standing in the kitchen happily scraping at a pan with a spatula, humming to himself a little bit as he cooked.

"Who are you? And where am I?" I asked slowly, cautiously, standing awkwardly on the other side of the couch, in case he decided to attack or something.

"The name's Chris and you're at my house. You're names Ava right?" he replied, giving me a reassuring smile. He seemed completely at ease with my being there, completely comfortable with everything really.

"Yeah – " I said guardedly, not quite sure how he knew that.

He looked at me when he caught the tone in my voice and quickly tried to reassure me with more then just a smile. "Don't worry, you're completely safe. I brought you here after you decided to go all crazy on us at the hospital. I won't hurt you, I promise."

"I’m completely safe? How can I trust you? You kidnapped me from the hospital, you just told me that. And isn't that what they all say right before you get attacked, ‘there’s nothing to worry about’ and then bam the person gets murdered?" I questioned, a hundred thoughts pouring through my head.

He laughed warmly. "While everything you said is true, you just have to go with it for now. I guess I haven't really given you much reason to trust me yet, but I can reassure you I’m not a murderer," he said coming around the couch with a plate of bacon.

I backed up as he came closer, eyeing him warily. There was part of me that could sense that there was something dangerous about this guy, even though he was putting across a friendly demeanor I could feel the uncoiled anger in him, like a jack in the box just waiting to pounce.

He didn't necessarily look like the kind of guy who wanted to kill me, everything about his appearance radiated "nice guy" from the friendly, innocent look in his brown eyes to his warm, inviting smile but it was still there. There was this lingering, uncomfortable tension that seemed to project from him without him even noticing.

But as he came closer the smell of the bacon became overpowering, clouding out the feelings of unease. I realized suddenly how hungry I was and the food did look really good. He caught me looking and smirked slightly.

"Here," he offered the plate to me. "It's for you anyway. You've got to get your strength back, especially before we carry on with where this conversation is heading. Don't want you fainting on me again," he grinned, practically shoving the food into my hands when I didn't move to take it off him straight away.

I snatched it off him quickly, moving across the other side of the room in what felt like one step, causing me to stumble slightly as I arrived at my destination. I wavered a second, still off guard about my enhanced senses and shot him a quick glance before digging into the food.

He watched me as I ate, leaning on the arm of the couch. There was something about him that just seemed so odd, but right then all that mattered was the food.

When I finished we both just stood there awkwardly. "So uh, I guess you want to know what's wrong with you, right?" he asked after a few seconds, rubbing the back of his head as he spoke. I nodded my reply.

"Ok, well I really do suggest you sit down. You're not exactly going to like everything I have to tell you," he said, gesturing to the armchair furthest away from him obviously guessing I didn't want to be too close to him.

I lowered myself into the seat slowly, sitting right on the edge just in case of any emergencies.

He stared at me for a few seconds before rising slowly and walking back over to the kitchen counter, leaning down on his elbows and dragging his hands across his face and neck before turning back to look at me.

"I've never had to do this before, so I apologize now if I don't explain things very well, or just if I completely suck at it," he said, offering me a sad, twisted kind of smile. "Ava, you're – um, well – you're technically, a – vampire – " he managed to stumble out, obviously struggling to find the right words. He stopped abruptly and looked at me.

A vampire. The words rebounded around in my head for a few seconds as they slowly sunk in. I stared at him in complete shock. He stared back at me expectantly, waiting for my response. I guess he was just a little bit more then surprised when I suddenly burst out laughing, because he was by my side in seconds, thinking that I’d just burst into tears or that I was going completely crazy.

A vampire? What kind of fool did he take me for? I'd been sitting there waiting for him to say I'd been infected by some horrible disease, or that I was dying and he decided to come out with some bullshit story about fairytale creatures.

"A – a vampire?" I choked out through my laughter; not even caring that he was kneeling only inches away from me now. He was just some crazy guy who obviously got kicks out of telling mentally ill young girls that they were turning into vampires.

"Well, yeah, you're not actually completely a vampire though – " he started but was interrupted by my laughing again. His expression clouded over slightly, but I was too busy laughing to notice the suddenly change in his demeanor or that the feeling of unexpressed rage I'd felt earlier was slowly building and becoming more and more visible. "It's hardly something to laugh about, Ava," he said through gritted teeth.

"Do you think I'm completely crazy or something? Who in their right mind would believe that kind of story?" I laughed.

"Alright you explain to me what you saw in the mirror?" he said angrily.

"Oh I don't know, hallucinations or something. There's obviously something wrong with me, but I hardly think that being a vampire is the explanation. I mean come on? You actually expect me to believe that?” I gave a short laugh then got out of my seat, knocking him back slightly. “I’m going to go now, thanks very much for the food and the cute little story but –” I was suddenly cut off as feral snarl cut through the tension in the room and my body was jerked round viciously and shoved against the wall behind me.

I found myself staring into the face of the monster I saw at the hospital, only this time it was mixed with Chris’s features instead of my own. The friendly looking face I’d seen only seconds before was now masked with anger, his skin deathly white, the veins below his blood red eyes and his lips drawn revealed needle sharp fangs only inches from my face.

“You really don’t want to do that,” he growled as I half gasped, half choked on the scream that stuck in my throat.

“Oh my god,” I managed to whisper, feeling the tears start coursing down my cheeks. Either I was having hallucination again or he was telling the truth and I really was a vampire, and he was one too.