Dead But Breathing

When Alex woke up, his head hurt like fuck, like a really bad hangover, he groaned, and tried to move his hand up to massage his aching head, but for some reason, he couldn’t. His eyes widened in shock as he looked down and realised both of his hands, and his ankles were tied to a chair. Where the fuck was he? All Alex could remember was lying on the floor on the side of a path, and there had been a man. Alex snapped his head up so he was looking straight ahead, and sure enough, said man was sat on a chair about a meter away from Alex, staring at him again. Alex wanted to scream for help, this man had kidnapped him and tied him to a chair, what kind of person does that? Alex opened his mouth to scream but before he could let any noise out, a hand clasped over his mouth and there was a voice whispering in his ear.

“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you Alex,” The man whispered to him, “I just want to talk to you, don’t make this difficult for yourself, do you promise not to scream?” Alex didn’t respond, he just shut his eyes and willed his tears that were about to spill over the edge to go away, he didn’t want to look like a coward. “Please Alex, I don’t want to hurt you” The man said, and he was almost pleading. Alex nodded slowly, and the man removed his hand from Alex’s mouth, eyeing him warily.

“Who are you?” Alex choked out, keeping his voice quiet. The other man seemed to relax when he realised that Alex had no intention to make any sudden loud noise.

“My name’s Matt,” The man, Matt, Replied.

“O-okay, and why have you kidnapped me?” Alex asked again, not sure if he really wanted to know the answer to his question.

“I haven’t kidnapped you Alex, “Matt laughed softly, “I just need to talk to you, but I was scared you would try and run away so I tied you to a chair, I swear I don’t make a habit of kidnapping people, I don’t have any intention to hurt you Alex, you just need to co-operate” Alex nodded, and bit his lip before he asked the next question.

“And what do you want to speak to me about?” Alex asked nervously. “I’m a kid in a care home, what’s so special that you need to talk to me about?”

“Oh Alex, you’re so much more than a kid in a care home” Matt laughed again, which was actually creeping Alex out, a lot. Alex still had the same confused expression on his face, and Matt sighed, sitting back in his chair. “You honestly have no idea, do you?”

“No idea about what?” Alex asked, he was getting more and more confused as this strange conversation went on.

“Do you know how your parents died Alex?” Matt asked, bluntly. Alex shut his eyes, the though of his parents upset him more than anything else. He nodded slowly before replying.

“They were murdered.” He said softly, it still didn’t really feel real to Alex, 5 years after it had happened.

“Do you know why they were murdered, Alex?” Matt asked again, the question shocked Alex. In all honesty, he had never really thought about why his parents might have been murdered, it never really occurred to him. Alex shook his head keeping his gaze fixed on Matt.

“They were murdered” Matt started, picking his words carefully, “Because they were vampire hunters”
What Matt had just said took a while to sink in. Alex was going to ask him to repeat himself, but he didn’t want to sound like an idiot. Matt was crazy, Alex decided. He was obviously fucked in the head, because no way was that true. Vampires didn’t fucking exist anyway, this wasn’t fucking twilight, Alex hadn’t seen many sparkly people wandering around recently. But still, Matt seemed to know a lot about Alex, and unless he had been following Alex around for a few months, which Alex surely would have noticed, there wasn’t really any explanation.

“What?” Alex ended up saying. Matt laughed slightly again, and pulled his chair a little closer to Alex, who was still tied to his.

“I knew this wouldn’t be easy to explain, but honestly, I’m not some crazy person Alex, Vampires are real, and they killed your parents.” Matt explained.

“Vampires aren’t real Matt, I think if they were, I would have noticed by now.” Alex argued, still not believing Matt’s crazy story.

“Alex please-“ Matt tried to explain but he was cut off by Alex.

“No Matt, seriously get me the fuck out of this chair because I need to go home. I don’t know who the fuck you are and why the fuck you would think up something like this but-“ Alex was cut off in the middle of his sentence as Matt threw himself at Alex, knocking his chair backwards so Alex was lying back on the floor. It happened so fast that Alex didn’t really understand what was going on, until he looked up to see Matt hovered over him, one arm each side of Alex’s head and his dark eyes boring into Alex’s skull. But it wasn’t that that was scaring Alex, it was the fact that Matt’s mouth was open, and he was bearing to, bright white, sharp fangs at Alex, a slow hissing noise escaping from his mouth. Alex felt all the blood draining from the top of his head and he felt as if he was about to faint, but he pulled himself together when he realised that Matt was no longer on top of him, he was no knelt by Alex, un doing the knots in the rope that tied him to his chair. When he was done, Alex stood up and shook himself off, trying his hardest not to look Matt in the eye.

“Now please, Alex, can we talk?”