Dead But Breathing

When Alex woke up he could hear voices; voices that weren’t Matts. At first he thought they were from the TV, but they were too clear, there were other people in the apartment. Alex suddenly panicked, even though he didn’t know why, they were just people, probably friends with Matt. What if they were other vampires? Alex took a deep breath in through his nose, using his newly heightened sense of smell to decipher whether the people in the apartment were human or not. He felt a bit stupid, like a sniffer dog or something, but it worked. The people smelled like blood, and he knew that smell, it was a good smell. They were human. This didn’t stop Alex panicking though, he was thirsty, and he needed some of that hospital blood desperately, he needed to talk to Matt, but he couldn’t if there were people around, and he couldn’t stay in his room much longer. He pulled himself out of bed and decided to take a shower, stripping down to his boxers he grabbed a towel from the wardrobe beside his bed and headed into his en-suit, not bothering to shut the door behind him; his bedroom door was locked anyway. He showered quickly, the longer he was in there the more uncomfortable he got. He got dressed into a pair of jogging bottoms and a white v-kneck t-shirt that Matt had bought him yesterday and reluctantly left his bedroom, shaking his head slightly in an attempt to dry his hair a bit. He walked through the lounge, trying to act casual as he made his way towards Matt, ignoring the glares from the boys that were sat on one of the sofa’s playing some shooting game on the X-box.

“Morning Alex, nice of you to join us” Matt said sarcastically, and Alex glanced at the clock, noticing it was half 11 already.

“I didn’t mean to sleep in” Alex shrugged, “You didn’t tell me you were having friends over” he mumbled, the boys had gone back to arguing over their game.

“Maybe if you had gotten up earlier I could have told you, your problem.” Matt said, looking over to watch the game that was going on. Alex tugged on Matt’s arm, pulling him into the kitchen and out of earshot of the others.

“Hey, I was going to introduce you!” Matt complained.

“Can you introduce me in a minute? I need, you know, food” Alex hinted.

“Blood?” Matt asked, and Alex nodded. Matt reached behind him and opened the cupboard, pulling out one blood bag and unscrewing the top. He pulled out a mug from the shelf, and poured the blood into it, handing it to Alex. Alex wasted no time, snatching the cup from Matt and drinking the liquid quickly; almost desperately. He hated how reliant he was becoming of it. When he was done he handed the cup back to Matt who threw it into the sink before tugging Alex back into the main part of the apartment and coughing, getting the attention of the other people in the room.

“Guys, this is Alex, my cousin I was telling you about” Matt said, and Alex decided it would be a good idea to go along with the lie. “This is Rian, Evan and Jack, friends from school.”

“Hey” Alex said.

“Hey” They said, almost in unison before turning back to their game, starting a full on argument about who had the best gun or something.

“They’re nice dudes Alex” Matt shrugged, “You’re 16, right?” Alex nodded, “Then they’re a year above you, same age as me, well, mentally anyway.”

“You’re 17?” Alex asked, only just occurring to him that he didn’t actually know how old Matt was.

“18, but if you wanted to be more accurate, 124.” Matt smiled at the look of shock on Alex’s face.

“Wha-“

“Vampire’s don’t age, stupid” Matt whispered, and Alex nodded, he’d forgotten about that.

“Are they all 18 as well?” Alex decided to ask, he felt pretty stupid for not understanding Matt.

“Evan and Rian are, Jack’s still 17 I think. Rian’s the one on the end with hardly any hair, Evan’s in the middle and Jack’s the lanky one.” Matt explained.

“Right” Alex nodded, even though he would probably forget their names by tomorrow.

“I’m inviting more people over tonight, a kind of party you could say” Alex widened his eyes.

“You really think that’s a good idea?” Alex muttered, still not trusting himself, especially as he knew there would be alcohol at this party and he would probably be the youngest one there.

“Its fine Alex, you can lock yourself in your room or something, or just stick with me. I’ve been gone from here for a while, and I have friends that I’ve missed, and it would probably be good for you to make friends if you want to fit in and be normal around here.”

Alex knew he had no choice about whether this party would go ahead or not, so he decided he would just steal Matt’s laptop and lock himself in his room all evening. It would be for the best anyway.
“Whatever” Alex shrugged and Matt sighed, before walking away from Alex and throwing himself onto the sofa next to Rian, joining in the fight that had started between them. Alex felt incredibly awkward, and he kind of wanted to just go back to sleep or something, but he knew Matt would probably get mad at him for not making an effort, so he sat down on the empty sofa instead, trying to look like his was paying attention to what was happening on the screen. Games like this bored Alex, he didn’t see the appeal of random killing, and it was so unrealistic aswell, so he moved his gaze onto the boys on the sofa. His eyes fell on Jack first for some reason. Jack was slightly tanned, with big almond shaped eyes and a weird bit on blonde in his fringe, and he didn’t look like he was enjoying the game on the TV much either, and then Alex realised that Jack was staring back at Alex with one eyebrow raised.
“You staring at me?” He said, smirking slightly.

“No” Alex said, quickly moving his gaze back to the TV.

“Yeah you were” Jack laughed slightly, before getting up and sitting next to Alex on the other sofa, leaving the other 3 boys with more space to play their stupid game.

“I want just staring at YOU, I was kind of staring at everyone” Alex tried to argue.

“Creepy” Jack said jokingly, “This game’s stupid” He added.

“Agreed.”

“I’m Jack by the way” Jack said, holding out a hand for Alex, He took it, and shook it slightly before returning his hand to his lap.

“I’m Alex”

“I know, Matt just introduced you” Jack laughed.

“Oh, yeah” Alex had never been great at holding down conversations, and they fell into silence, jack fiddling with his long fingers and Alex just staring at his lap.

“You uh, gunna be around at Matt’s party tonight?” Jack finally said, breaking the silence.

“I guess so, was planning on just locking myself in my room though, partys aren’t really my thing” And he didn’t want to end up killing anybody.

“Oh, they’re not really my thing either, but Matt’s forcing me to go, I’d much rather stay at home and play guitar or something.” Jack shrugged.

“You play guitar?” Alex’s eyes lit up and Jack grinned.

“Yeah, badly” Jack laughed, “You play?”

“Yeah, but I don’t actually have a guitar right now” Alex shrugged, eyes dropping back to his lap. Alex wished he could have his guitar, he was too scared to ask Matt for one, why should he buy him one anyway, he hadn’t exactly done anything to deserve one.

“Hey, maybe I could bring my guitar round later and we could play?” Jack suggested, and Alex looked up and grinned.

“Really?”

“Yeah, if you want.”

“That would be amazing, Jack” Alex smiled, the thought of playing guitar suddenly exciting him. If anything had stayed the same about Alex, it was his love of music. Maybe playing would help him forget about stuff, it always had done in the past.

“Right, you lot, out” Matt’s voice suddenly rang out over the noise of the game and the boys arguing, “I need to get this house ready for later.” The boys stood up and made their way to the door, saying bye to Alex as the left. Jack waited until everyone else was saying their goodbyes to Matt before he spoke again.

“I’ll see you later then” He smiled at Alex.

“Yeah” Alex smiled back, and they stayed there, smiling at each other for a few seconds before Jack pulled himself together and walked out the door, waving slightly as he left.