Dead But Breathing

When Alex woke up, he found himself lying on the grass, shivering in the cold. He was slightly confused at why exactly he was asleep in the street, but as the events of last night came back to him and reality sunk in he groaned and rolled over. His whole body was stiff, and his head was throbbing. He attempted to sit up, but it suddenly felt like his body weighed a ton. He finally managed to pull himself up into a sitting position, palms on the ground either side of him to steady himself. He felt dizzy and sick, but he wasn’t surprised. He ran his hand up the left side of his kneck, feeling the two round scabs that had formed over the wound. It still didn’t feel real, nothing that had happened last night felt real, and Alex had absolutely no clue what to do. He guessed the sensible thing would be to go back to the children’s home, he didn’t particularly want to, but he needed to check that Max was okay. He stood up slowly, holding onto a tree to steady himself. He felt lightheaded, and he felt a slight burning sensation running up and down his throat, but he shrugged it off. The biggest problem he had right at that moment was to get somewhere warm and have something to eat. He pulled his hood up over his head and started to walk in the direction of the childrens home, wiping dry mud from his jeans as he walked. It only took him about 10 minutes to get home, and he was surprised, he hadn’t realised how close he had been. He hesitated outside the door, he knew that people would ask questions about where he had been, but he would ignore them, he would go straight upstairs and lock himself in the bathroom to shower, he decided. Reluctantly, he pushed the heavy oak door open and stepped inside, grateful for the warmth. Immediatley, Mrs Jenner apperared from around the corner, eyes open wide.

“Alex,” She said, sounding shocked, “Where were you last night? We called the police and everything, are you okay?” She said, rushing up to him and giving him the once over.

“Im fine” Alex croaked, his throat was dry. He coughed slightly before continuing. “Im going upstairs for a shower” He pushed past Mrs Jenner and jogged up the stairs, her gaze staying fixed on him until he turned the corner into his room. Alex was relieved to see that Josh wasn’t in the room when he entered, so he stripped down to his boxers, grabbed a towel from the wardrobe next to his bed and stepped inside the small bathroom, locking the door behind him. Once he was inside, he took off his boxers so he was completely naked and stepped into the shower. He turned it on, and winced as the ice cold water hit his shoulders and back, but he relaxed as the water slowly heated up. He ran his hands through his now completely wet and leant back against the wall, the hot water still falling heavily onto his body. He closed his eyes, enjoying the shower. He had never been so releaved to be in a hot shower in his life, after last nights events it was what he needed. He groaned when he thought about what happened last night. He didn’t feel any different at since Matt had bitten him. Maybe it hadn’t worked? Alex could hope, but he doubted it. Maybe it just took a while for him to fully turn into a vampire. He didn’t know, and he didn’t really have anyone he could ask, as he had no intentions to go back to Matt any time soon. Whatever happened, Alex could deal with it. He was in control of his own body, he could get through this. After what felt like an eternity, Alex finally turned off the shower; it was starting to get cold anyway. He steppend out and shivered as the cold air hit him. He quickly grabbed the towel and wrapped it around him for extra warmth, before starting to dry himself and pull on his clean clothes. He shook his head slightly in an attempt to dry his hair a bit and glanced at himself in the mirror. His hair looked terrible, he ran his hands through it trying to put the stray hair back in place but gave up; he could sort it out when it was dry, he thought. He grabbed the towel that he had thrown over the toilet and unlocked the bathroom. He opened the door and stepped out, but immediately wished he hadn’t when he noticed Josh sat in his bed on his laptop again. Alex shut the bathroom door and made his way over to his bed, throwing the wet towel into the washing basket on his way. Josh looked up at Alex, noticing his arrival. He actually looked shocked to see Alex, and Alex laughed inside slightly; maybe Josh had thought he had finally gotten rid of him.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Josh questioned him, pulling out his headphones, narrowing his eyes and shutting the lid of his laptop slightly.

“Nothing to do with you” Alex replied bluntly as he started to pretend to be looking for something in the cupboard above his bed so he didn’t have to look at Josh.

“Tell me Alex, I want to know” Josh insisted, anger present in his voice.

“Why do you even care, Josh?” Alex sighed, turning around to face josh and frowning slightly.

“Because you had the whole place up in arms, they called the police and everything” Josh raised his voice slightly, “all the attention was on you Alex, and I don’t appreciate it when the attention is on anyone else but me.” Alex laughed at that, which made Josh even angrier.

“You think I ran away to get attention?” Alex said through his coughs of laughter. Josh didn’t laugh, he just continued frowning up at Alex.

“Why else would you run away?” Josh asked, raising an eyebrow slightly.

“I didn’t run away, you really have no idea Josh” Alex said, shaking his head as he got up to leave the room.

“I’ll find out where and what you were doing last night, Gaskarth” Josh threatened before Alex left the room, surprised with himself at his sudden burst of confidence he had had while speaking to josh, and made his way towards Max’s door, hoping he would be in his room. Alex was relieved to see that the boy was sat cross legged on his bedroom floor, strumming his guitar softly with his eyes closed. Alex stood at the door watching him for a few minutes, for some reason he found watching Max to be fascinating, the way his fingers moved quickly over the strings of his guitar, and the way he nodded his head slightly as he played. Alex snapped himself out of his gaze, realising that it was probably weird to be watching Max without him knowing. Alex coughed slightly and Max looked up. When Max saw him, he smiled, and not a little smile, a proper smile that reached his eyes. The way Max’s face lit up made Alex smile too, and blush a little.

“Alex” Max almost squealed, putting his guitar down on the floor next to him and gesturing for Alex to come in. Alex moved into the room slowly, sitting down on the floor opposite Max.

“Hey” He said softly, still smiling.

“Where have you been Alex, I thought you had died or something!” Max exclaimed, his gaze fixed on Alex as he spoke.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine” Alex reassured Max, “All that matters is that im here now, and that im okay.”

“I guess” Max shrugged, obviously disappointed that Alex wasn’t going to tell him where he had been.

“Are you okay though, Max?” Alex asked, sounding concerned. Max shrugged and started picking at his nails as he answered Alex’s question.

“I guess, I mean the guys won’t really leave me alone, they kept sliding notes into my room last night and throwing things at my door” Max started to explain, his voice was suddenly sad, “I didn’t go to breakfast, I actually haven’t been downstairs yet today, Mrs Jenner came up to check on me about half an hour ago and I just said I was ill and she left me alone.”

“You need to stick up for yourself Max” Alex suggested, moving his hand over to squeeze Max’s arm reassuringly.

“It’s hard though Alex, I’m not very good at defending myself” Max sighed, “Thanks for helping me yesterday though, they probably would have beat me up if you hadn’t helped”

“Hey no problem, its friends are for right?” Alex smiled, and Max returned it.

“Yeah” He smiled, looking down at his hands.

“We should really go down and get something to eat now though, you look hungry” Alex suggested, pulling on Max’s arm, gesturing to him to get up. Max nodded, and got up slowly. They were standing face to face, both pretty much the same height, which was surprising because Alex had always been shorter than most guys his age. As Alex looked at Max, he started to notice things about him, how his pale skin was so perfectly smooth, and his face was so symmetrical, each eye the exact same shape and size. It was weird; Alex had never seen things like that in people before. H averted his gaze quickly when he realised he was staring at Max, who was looking at him with a confused expression on his face.

“Let’s go” Alex said awkwardly before leaving the room, Max following close behind. When they reached the bottom of the stairs they turned left into the kitchen, noticing that Jane, a care worker, was busy preparing sandwiched. She turned round to face the boys when she heard them enter.

“Alex” She said, shocked. “I didn’t know you were back.” Alex shrugged and sat down at the table and started to eat grapes from the bowel in the centre. Max sat down opposite him and smiled, but he looked slightly nervous.

“Mr Reed will want to see you, Alex.” Jane said, before placing two plates of cheese and cucumber sandwiches down on the table and leaving the room to tell the rest of the kids that lunch was ready. Alex picked up a sandwich from the plate and started to eat it, taking small bites because his mouth ached slightly, he didn’t know why.

“Are you going to go and see Mr Reed?” Max asked Alex before taking a bite from his own sandwich. Alex shook his head and swallowed his food before answering.

“I wouldn’t have anything to say.” He shrugged, He was sure that soon enough Mr Reed and Mrs Jenner would come chasing after him, demanding to know where he was. He would avoid them until he could think up a believable lie. Max shrugged before taking a bite from his sandwhich. Alex felt his pocked vibrate, and reached down to get his phone out, to see he had a text from Lisa. Shit, he had kind of forgotten he was supposed to be seeing her today. The text read;

Hey, wat time u coming up 2 c me?? Cant wait btw, miss u xxx

Alex sighed before typing his reply;

Ill get a bus around 1ish?? Miss u too xx

He didn’t even know if there were any buses at one, he just hoped there were. Alex looked over at Max just in time to see his eyes widen, and as Alex followed his gaze he saw that everyone else was now entering the room and sitting down at the table. Danielle was talking to some blonde girl, and shot him a dirty look before sitting down, and Josh’s gaze was permanently stuck on Alex. Alex looked down at his sandwich before taking another bite.

“Oi, Gaskarth, you ready to tell me where you were last night?” Josh shouted across the table, and Alex inwardly groaned and shook his head, still looking at his sandwich held between his hands. He looked up when he felt something hard hit his arm, and realised that Josh had just thrown an apple and him. He leant down and picked the apple up off the floor and placing it on the table, trying not to rise to Josh’s bait. Josh laughed loudly before sliding his chair out and standing up, making his way over to where Alex was sat. He reached down and grabbed the collar of Alex’s tshirt, pulling him up so they were standing opposite each other.

“Fucking tell me where you were last night” Josh snarled in Alex’s face, clenching his hand into a fist by his side. Everyone who was sat around the table was looking at them now.

“No.” Alex said bluntly, shaking his head. Josh scrunched up his head, angry and Alex’s answer, and swung his arm back to hit Alex. He threw his fist forwards attempting to hit Alex in the side of the head, but his fist never made contact, because Alex had lifted up his own hand and was now holding Josh’s fist about an inch away from his face. Josh was staring at him, his face full of shock, he hadn’t expected that, he had no idea how Alex had managed to block his punch. Before Josh could register what was going on, Alex had thrown him backwards into the nearest wall, and Josh was slumped on the floor.

“What the fuck was that, Gaskarth” He said, his voice was shocked, and slightly scared. It the hit Alex what he had done. How the fuck had he done that? How had he blocked that punch and how had he managed to throw Josh backwards so effortlessly? Alex began to back slowly towards the door, hands reaching up to touch either side of his head.

“I-I don’t know” He stuttered, shaking his head quickly, “I-I need to go” He muttered, before backing out of the room and towards the front door. He heard a voice shouting after him and he recognised it as Max’s.

“Alex wait!” Max shouted as he reached Alex. Alex didn’t turn around, he just swung the front door open and left the house, leaving Max to slam the door behind them as he made his way down the street, Max following silently behind.