#ruqayyah pickel

[pbpress]

Midnight Coma

By Ruqayyah Pickel

My parents always said I was a resilient child. 

So they weren’t surprised when I took a bowling ball to the head when a fight broke out at our local arcade a couple of months ago--and seemed to be just fine, save for the massive bruise that formed on my head. 

I did still end up in the hospital for about a week, but other than that I was fine. I still felt lightheaded at times, and I passed out quite a bit, so my parents decided to homeschool me to limit the risk of my head trauma getting worse. There were too many things at school that would pose as a hazard to me...especially the stairs. 

Being an only child, spending a lot of time at home was…rather boring. Sure, there were the huge stacks of RPGs and fighting games I got for Christmas, but the bright lights and flashing would probably make my frequent headaches even worse. So I mostly took to reading mystery novels and drawing when I wasn’t doing schoolwork. Most days, though, I preferred to read. Drawing was fun too, of course--I used to love to come up with strange characters, or just drawing cool landscapes I found online when I was out of ideas, but the last thing I needed was for my parents to come and check on me and see the more recent pages of my sketchbook.

Anyone who looked at my sketchbook nowadays would think something was wrong with me. They wouldn’t exactly be lying, though: recently, my pages were filled with stuff that had been happening in my dreams. Shadowy figures standing over my bed, running down dark alleyways, fearing for my life, drawings of me being chained to my bed by spectral shackles…drawing these for the first time used to unnerve me, and I barely ever finished the first ones. However, I gradually came to find it more therapeutic, like I could put a face to the otherwise enigmatic forces that haunted me each night. 

Getting a good night’s rest was nearly impossible nowadays; I was tormented endlessly by sleep paralysis and recurring dreams. I couldn’t go a single night without dealing with either of them, or both. Some nights, I’d find myself frozen in bed, trying to will myself to move with no avail. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t cry out for help, but I just struggled endlessly to free myself from whatever was holding me down, feeling the warm tears falling down my face as I wept in silence. Sometimes my sleep paralysis lasted for over an hour. Before my parents homeschooled me, I ended up missing the bus because of it. 

Other nights, I actually could move...and I kind of had to. I’d find myself in that same dark alleyway, knowing what was to come and dreading it every time. I would walk around aimlessly, waiting, until *he* finally showed up. 

Those heavy footsteps, the chill in the air that my dream tormentor always carried with him. Those black, tattered clothes, his black gloves, his huge hood that held an empty void where his face was supposed to be. He would just stay there for about a minute or so—I counted—before bursting into a sprint towards me. I couldn’t fight him, I couldn’t reason with him, all I could do was run as fast as I could and scream, hoping some dream god could hear me. This faceless killer always carried with him a razor edged knife that was curved just slightly, and though I’ve yet to feel it pierce my skin, just thinking about how it would feel sent shivers down my spine. 

Before long, I started seeing this maniac in real life, too. No, not on the street wandering the waking world, luring other innocent victims to their death. I started seeing him in my room, while I lay there, motionless, helpless. He stood over my bed, the knife in hand at his side. I saw it, he knew I saw it. But he did nothing. Not for a while, at least. 

Then, he started to take action. 

He would raise the knife up, slowly; sometimes it wouldn’t even fully reach the top before I had managed to blink him out of existence. Sometimes, though, the knife would go higher, sometimes reaching the very top. Some nights, the knife would already be fully raised when he showed up. Then, like a roller coaster car at the top of the hill, it would plunge straight down. Only then was I finally jolted out of my sleep paralysis.

Too many times have I seen his nonexistent face.

Too many times have I pleaded with him to leave me alone.

Too many times have I screamed in silence, felt my heart thunder against my chest in real life as I tried to outrun this shadowy killer. 

Too many times have I laid in my bed, frozen, my face drenched with cold sweat as I woke up with a comatose start after my relentless tormentor was inches away, always just inches away from finishing the job. 

And too many times have I broken free from his chase, thinking I was safe, only to find him just inches away in the real world. 

When I did eventually wake up, I found myself in tears. I just wanted it to be over. I just wanted to go to sleep. Whenever I asked my parents for help, they just told me to “look up a solution, ”or “just try to sleep.”

And I did.

I always did.

I never stopped trying.

And I never stopped failing.

But I had enough. There had to be something I could do. Fortunately, I did have one person to confide in: my good friend Quinn, who claimed to be a witch. One morning, after yet another run-in with the shadowy killer, I sent him a text:

“Can you come over?” 

Immediately, I saw that he read my message. And so I waited. Two minutes later, I heard a knocking on my window. I turned to see the wild-haired, freckled witch boy crouched on my windowsill. He had on his signature necklace with a metallic feather on it. His brown shirt was torn a bit, creating a slight v-neck, and his “lucky witch hat” was tied on his back with the string. He stumbled through the window as I opened it, and he landed on my floor.

“I see you’ve called on my services once again,” the witch boy said, putting his hat on as he sat cross-legged. 

I nodded. “It’s gotten worse. He’s started showing up in real life, too.” 

“Like, you’ve seen him around?” Quinn asked. 

“No. He’s shown up right beside my bed, sometimes even stabbing me.” 

“Well, not really stabbing you, now, right?” 

“No…at least I don’t think so.” My hand instinctively moved toward my abdomen, where I would often find the blade just inches from me before I woke up. “But during these nights, when I woke up…I could feel a slight stinging sensation right here.” I gestured toward my abdomen. “I...also found a bruise there earlier today.”

“How strange…” Quinn said. “I suppose he’s finally caught up to you.” 

“Caught up to me? How?” I asked, worried.

He gave me a solemn smile. 

“It’s as I suspected. He’s a dream demon.” He opened his purse and flipped open to a page in his homemade spell book, then showed it to me. “Creatures of the night that only attack a victim while they’re sleeping. Yours just happened to be strong enough to reach the waking world…and I can only think of a few that can do that.”

I felt the color drain from my face. Did I really have a dream demon?

“Is there any way to get rid of one?” I asked Quinn. 

He thought for a second, examining his book, then looked up at me. 

“Standard exorcism—though not like you’re any good at that—won’t work on this particular nasty,” he explained. 

Ignoring his hurtful comment, I urged him to go on. 

“Fighting a dream demon,” he continued, “requires one to arm themselves mentally, and, to an extent, physically. The way I see it, you’re at an advantage and disadvantage simultaneously. Your greatest weakness is your greatest strength. And you may fear it, but the truth is, you will have to accept it eventually. Especially in a case like this, you don’t have much of a choice.”

I felt my face contort into an expression of confusion. As always, Quinn’s riddles had caught me off guard. I read his own expression, hoping he would give me some kind of clue, but that slight smile stayed on his face. 

Finally, I had come to realize what he meant. Quinn and I had talked for so long that I was somewhat accustomed to the kind of magic that he gets up to. I was then, at least, familiar with the “solution” he had in mind.   

Astral projection…

Quinn first told me about it a little while ago. I won’t lie, the ability to project one’s soul out of their body sounded awesome...except it required the body being completely still in order to pull it off. 

In other words, I would have to enter sleep paralysis. 

In other words, I had to do the exact thing that led me straight to my supposed dream demon. 

“If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting…” I said, “Then absolutely not. Astral projection is way too risky for me. Look what damage he’s done to me already! I might as well just slap a sign on me that says ‘hey! I’m helpless! Come kill me!’ This plan is completely counterproductive! Are you out of your mind?!” 

Quinn let out an exasperated sigh. 

“Oh come on,” he said. “I promise you, it won’t be so bad. You just have to trust me. Besides, I’ve been doing this longer than you have. Your whole sleep paralysis problem is going to make astral projection a lot easier. Like I said--your greatest weakness is your greatest strength.”

It was my turn to let out a shaky sigh, one heavy with anxiety. 

“Very well.” I sat on the floor in front of him, legs crossed, ready to listen, like a kindergartener. “What do I need to do?” 

“Finally come to your senses, hm?” Quinn gave me another sly smile. “Lovely. Now, listen closely. I don’t have much time, so I can only say this once. The instructions are as follows...”

—————

Quinn’s instructions stuck with me that whole night.

Step 1. 

I got in bed, lying flat on my back and throwing my covers over me to where only my head was exposed. I stared at the dreamcatcher on my ceiling; more specifically, the very center of it. I focused on my breathing, and tried to clear my mind of everything. Slowly, the thoughts of everything, save for Quinn’s instructions, slipped out of my mind…that fateful day at the arcade…the shadow killer that pursued me every night…the adrenaline from the other night as he chased me down in the dreamworld…

Step 2. 

That’s when I began to feel…strange. Like my body was shaking, vibrating, but as far as I was aware I wasn’t moving a muscle. As Quinn had instructed, I was to leave these feelings alone and stay completely still. 

Step 3. 

I thought about moving my right hand, but kept it still. Then I moved up my arm, willing myself to move it up and fight against the physical restrictions I had placed on it. This went on for several, unsuccessful minutes, until finally…I felt my arm move, as if it actually was. But my physical arm lay still. Then, I moved on to my left hand and repeated the process. Then my head, both legs, and gradually…I lifted myself up from my bed, leaving my body behind. 

For a moment, it felt like I was still in bed, then I looked back—or down, rather—to find myself lying in bed, eyes shut. It reminded me all too much of an open casket funeral, and my stomach dropped just looking at me.

My stomach dropped even further when I realized I was floating.

The very air around me felt like an ocean, and I frantically flailed around trying to find any sort of ground. When I tried to hang onto the edge of my bed, my hand phased right through. 

Just fly over to the ground! I thought to myself. This should be easy!

But it wasn’t. The weightlessness was jarring; I flailed around desperately in the darkness looking for something to cling onto. It didn’t help that I felt so vulnerable without the fleshy cocoon that was my body. The sensation of someone—something—trying to pull me away, was ceaseless. The room around me felt larger as I continued my desperate flailing, like any sort of anchor I could use—my bookshelves, the foot of my bed, my chair, the windowsill—just got further and further away. 

I kicked my legs out, trying to force my body to go upright, until I finally managed to jerk myself upright. Confident in my position, I landed my feet on the ground, praying I wouldn’t slip under the floor. 

To my surprise, my feet landed on the floor without slipping through. 

I didn’t begin to question how I managed to stay on the second floor; I was too busy reeling from the probably-too-long process of trying to steady myself. Now all I had to do was wait and see if that faceless terror decided to come for me again. 

And so I waited.

And waited. 

And waited. 

It’s been several minutes and nothing was happening. Surely some outside force was causing my sleep paralysis…right? So where was it? If I had managed to pull off a feat like, oh, I dunno, forcing my spirit out of my body, then nothing was impossible at this point…

Right? 

Finally, I gave up and decided that I was probably better off getting myself out of this state of paralysis. I stood on the edge of the bed, right where my feet were, turned around, and fell back on top of my body, hoping to be jolted awake by the sudden return of my spirit—

And fell through the bed instead, stopping myself just in time before I fell through the first floor, too. I looked around and, after taking a minute to process everything in the dark, came to the conclusion that I was in my living room. Annoyed, I drifted back towards my staircase, intending to go back and try again—when I felt something grab me as I turned the corner. I was pulled back into the living room, and found myself face-to-face with an eerily familiar figure…

…the same black-clad, faceless, knife-wielding killer from my dreams. Grabbing my wrist, he held the knife behind my neck, as if to draw me closer. I was almost forced to look at the empty void where his face should have been. 

You know how some people say that if you stare into the void long enough, the void stares back at you? That’s kind of what happened to me…but worse.

No, the void didn’t just stare back at me. It smiled at me, a cruel, triumphant smile that only grew as it saw the absolute terror on my face as I felt the cold steel against my neck; as if it could just feel the overwhelming despair within me that only continued to eat at any hope of me getting out of this situation alive. 

“Who...are you?” I whimpered. “What the hell do you want from me?”

My dream demon gave no response. It didn’t do anything, in fact. As panicked as I was, I started to at least regain my senses when I noticed that this thing was almost completely still. It didn’t even look like it was breathing. 

Was it actually frozen? Or was it toying with me?

Either way, I wouldn’t let this be the end. 

One last chase, I decided. One last chase. I’ve already outran it several times. What was one more?

I immediately broke off into a sprint, pushing my hooded tormentor’s arm that held the knife away as I stumbled on my way out the door. Being incorporeal, I at least had the advantage of being able to phase through the locked door instead of opening it. The feeling of phasing through solid was much more jarring than I could handle, and I continued to stumble a bit as I ran far, far away from the house. I could barely feel my transparent feet hitting the concrete, or the tree branch that would’ve smacked me right in the face after I ran into it. I couldn’t even feel the wind on my face, though I’m not sure if this came from being too overwhelmed with terror or a side effect of being incorporeal. 

The only thing I did feel, however, was the constant, incessant dread of my accursed stalker barely even a foot away from me. I didn’t want to turn around, I begged myself not to look, trying and failing to comfort myself with the lie that the killer wasn’t as close as I thought it was, there was no way, no human can run that fast. The even more obvious lie, of course, was that this was another dream, and even if it does catch up and strike me, I would wake up back in my bed, back in my body.

Finally, I caved and turned around, only to find myself facing that sinister void once more. I screamed, tripping and collapsing to the floor face-down. I turned back up to face my attacker, who was innocently holding its knife behind its back--no, that wasn’t a knife anymore, I noted. It had somehow grown longer than the razor-edged knife it had before, and I could now see the end of the blade from behind the void-faced freak’s back. It had now reached the length of a dagger, or maybe just bordering on the edge of being the length of a shortsword. 

I could only crawl away from my tormentor as I struggled to stand back up. As I pushed myself off the ground and back on my feet, my stomach dropped when I realized my feet were no longer touching the floor. Though I tried desperately to get myself back on the ground, remembering how jarring the feeling of floating had been the first time, I realized that my would-be killer was only a few feet away from me at best, and I should take advantage of this new ability. I willed myself forward, pushing through the air like a swimmer pushes through water, and then did the same going upwards, up past a nearby three-story house. 

I was flying, I realized with awe and wonder, which was quickly cut short when I saw my tormentor climbing up the same house. Part of me wanted to warn the neighbors inside, but every other bit of me just wanted to make sure I actually survived this nightmare. 

I flew back to my house, phasing through trees and powerlines and a bit of scaffolding, until at last I nearly missed my own home. Spotting my room on the second story, I phased through the window and back into my bedroom. It was still dark in my room, but I made out the shape of a body in the darkness. 

But...it wasn’t my body. 

At least, I didn’t think it was. It looked too weak; some bits of hair had fallen out, I looked like I lost a small, yet noticeable amount of weight, and when I looked closer at my face, it didn’t look like me at all. I looked much more pale, my lips were extremely dry, and I could make out the color of an old and large bruise that covered over a third of my forehead. Suddenly, I felt my stomach drop when I realized what was so familiar about how I looked.

I looked dead. 

That’s when I felt a cold breeze come in through the same window, and turned around to find my void-faced, black-clad killer raising a giant onyx scythe towards me. I found myself unable to move, unable to fly away. I just stood there, paralyzed with terror, looking dead in the eyes at the same monster that faced every soul at the end of their lives, no matter how much they begged for mercy.

Its giant scythe, its black clothing…this wasn’t a demon, was it? 

No. It was something worse. People dealt with this thing more frequently than demons, yet this walking void carried with it more terror, more despair, more ruin than any demonic creature could even dream of. My parents always said I was a resilient child, yet my resolve shattered in the face of this monster. I stood in front of it, weeping silently as the sheer dread of my tormentor filled me from head to toe. 

“Please,” I begged. “I held on for so long…please don’t take me away.” 

But it didn’t listen. It never listened. My “resilience” may have made me feel special, but right now I was no different from everyone else—standing in front of this monster, pleading for their lives, never receiving an answer.

And so, like everyone else, all I did was stand there as its onyx scythe tore through my soul, letting out one final silent scream as I felt my very being, and the remnants of my resolve, fall apart. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[pbpress]

Blood Candy: Chapter 2

By Ruqayyah Pickel

This is the second chapter of a longer piece of writing.  Chapters will be posted here as they are finished.  Stay tuned for the continuation of the story.

I walked down the ancient-looking stairwell to the basement. What appeared to be dark, dried red paint smeared the walls, as if someone had made some semblance of an attempt to renovate the old stairwell but somehow fainted or otherwise was forced to cut their work short. Then again, with the odd scent that filled the air, I would faint, too.

Finally, I got downstairs to the much cleaner looking, obviously renovated bottom floors. I walked down the hallway, observing the white painted walls lined with all kinds of fliers encouraging habits for better health. Some blotches of red paint stained some parts of the walls and floor, I noticed. Finally, I arrived at room 0134, where I was supposed to meet Dr. Kermit. I sat down, waiting, wondering why a doctor didn’t guide me there themselves. 

The room was small and rather messy. Files were stuffed in overflowing drawers and shelves, pretty easy for the taking. The floor was lined with long scuff marks leading to the door, and there were very little pieces of doctors’ equipment in sight, save for a blood pressure monitor, a vital signs monitor (what?), and a syringe kit.

Must’ve forgot to move that vital signs monitor someplace, I thought. 

“Sorry I’m late,” a male voice suddenly spoke. I jumped slightly as I looked up, startled from the abrupt entrance. 

A young man who appeared to be only a few years older than me was suddenly in the doorway. He had black hair that covered one of his maroon-colored eyes. Aside from the distinctly maroon eyes, not many other features stood out to me. He wore the standard white coat and a black shirt and jeans. 

“Oh! Hey,” I said. “You must be Jasper Kermit.”

“The one and only.” The young doctor smiled. “And no, before you ask, I cannot do a Kermit impression.”

“I’m guessing a lot of people ask you that?” 

An exasperated look crossed Jasper’s face as he sighed.

“It’s a family curse,” he said. “Literally can’t go a day without someone making a Kermit joke. That’s why I say my last name is Kody. Was gonna do that here, too, but my little troll of a brother ratted me out.” 

I chuckled. 

“That’s rough, buddy,” I said. 

“Yep,” Jasper sighed. “So, what grade you in…Dakota, was it? You don’t look that much younger than me.”

“Yep,” I said. “Nearly wrapping up junior year,” I said. 

“Sweet. That was my toughest year…how’s it going?”

“Got an essay due in 2 days, but my parents practically begged me to get my blood drawn first. They want to know if I’m still allergic to eggs so my aunt Natalie won’t have to waste her time preparing her famous end-of-junior-year cake.”

“You’re telling me junior year is so rough that you guys need a full blown party to commemorate the end to this hellish year?” Jasper laughed. “Dang. If only I were that lucky.”

“Sorta. Normally it’s at the end of every year, but they stopped that tradition when they realized I was mildly allergic to eggs.”

“Wish my parents threw me a party with cake when I graduated from medical school,” he said. “But nope! They were so eager to kick me out of the house. What school do you go to?” 

“North Clueham High.”  

Jasper paused, and nodded. 

“I see.” He seemed shocked by my answer, but I figured it was nothing.

I smiled.

“Glad I got a doctor that actually treats me like a human being instead of a child or a freakin’ lab rat,” I said. 

“‘Bout time, huh?” Jasper said, grabbing an empty syringe from the cabinet. “I try not to patronize too much. Believe me, I know that feeling all too well. Besides,” he continued, looking back at me with a slightly unnerving look, “I gotta make sure my patients are all nice and cozy before I suck the blood right out of ‘em.” 

I gave a nervous laugh. Maybe Seb was onto something, I thought amusingly to myself.

“Funny you mention that,” I said. “My friend Sebastian runs a conspiracy blog with my friend Akira. It’s called AkiSeb, and right now he’s all over this theory that people who do bloodwork and blood drives are secretly vampires who use humans to gain enough blood to fuel their evil agenda.” 

“Your friends seem smart.” Jasper grinned. 

“More like crazy,” I retorted. “Too many horror movies.” 

“Probably.” 

“Well, when you and your little legion of vampire doctors and nurses finally get enough blood to awaken Dracula or whatever and you guys finally enslave the human race,” I joked, “at least spare my life and everyone else who’s given you blood. You oughta thank us for helping you out, even if unwillingly.”

Jasper laughed.

“Will do,” he said, sitting down in a chair across from me. “But humans suck, no pun intended. You oughta thank us for getting you hooligans under control. Alright, let’s get started.” 

We went through the usual procedure, with me clenching my fists so he gets a good idea of where my veins are and where best to extract blood from. Finally, he chose my arm. 

“Normally I would’ve gone for the neck,” he joked, “but you know how it goes.”

 “Can’t give it away?” I laughed. “Smart.”

Jasper grinned as the needle pierced through my skin and into my vein, leaving a sharp, stinging feeling that lingered for what felt like ages. Normally blood drawings only took a few seconds, but it felt like I had been in that chair for almost a minute. 

“Jasper,” a female voice called while I was still getting blood drawn. A nurse who looked about his age with brown, curly hair appeared in the doorway. “You better shut up with all this vampire nonsense. You’re gonna scare your little brother.” 

“Serves him right for revealing my real surname to the whole freakin’ office,” he retorted. “Shouldn’t you be babysitting the little twerp, anyhow?”

The nurse glared daggers at him and disappeared back into the doorway. 

“It’s not babysitting, by the way, he’s 15!” she called. 

“Still a baby!” Jasper yelled back before turning back to me. “That’s Harriet, my co-worker. Major buzzkill. She babysits my little brother since our parents are at work, like, all the time, and I can’t expose the little twerp to stuff like syringes. Dude might stab my eyes out for teasin’ him so much.” 

“My older sister was annoying,” I said, “so I can’t blame you. Good thing she’s married now so she can go bother her husband instead of me.” 

Finally, the blood drawing was finished. 

“There we go,” Jasper said, applying the wad of cotton and the bandages over it. “You good?” 

“Yeah…” I said, still slightly nervous. “That felt pretty long, though. How much did you take?”

“Enough. It may have felt long, but I assure you it was only a few seconds.”

“Really? I’m positive I was there for almost a minute.” I checked my watch. “Yep. Definitely a minute, give or take.”

“Strange.” Jasper secured the syringe with my blood in it. “Maybe I’m just so used to this that it feels much shorter to me.”

I stood up, but Jasper gestured for me to sit back down.

“I’m gonna go put this in the lab so I can get the results,” he said. “Can I trust you to wait here ‘till I get back?”

I nodded. 

Jasper gave me a smile as he left the room with the blood-filled syringe in hand. I went on my phone while I waited, calling Seb and telling him to get ready to pick me up.

“Oh hey! You’re alive!” Seb teased over the phone. He then said in a monotone voice, like an automated phone call, “Thank you for donating to the Clueham Charity for Vampires in Need. Your contribution to the future enslavement of the human race is very much appreciated, ya filthy mortal.” 

“Oh, shut it,” I laughed. “Turns out the doctor has a sense of humor after all. He was on that whole vampire junk, too. Told him about you while he was at it.” 

“Really? What’d he say?” 

“He said you were smart,” I answered, “and I said you were a buffoon who watches too many horror movies.” 

“I like him,” Seb said. “What’s his name?”

“Uhh…” I contemplated which of Jasper’s last names to use. “Jasper Kody.” 

“Sweet. I’ll be sure to get an appointment with him next time I need one,” he said. “Hopefully he doesn’t have a stake through his heart by that point.” 

I rolled my eyes. We proceeded to talk about whatever was on our minds for about the next ten minutes while I waited for Jasper to get back. 

“This dude’s taking forever,” I groaned, interrupting our mini-debate/scenario on whether or not we would survive a slasher movie. “He better have my results back--and I swear if you mention anything about how he’s secretly a vampire, I will personally bash that big head of yours in and drive home myself.”

“You can’t even drive, ya killjoy,” Seb taunted. “But you know me so well. I’m almost flattered. Emphasis on ‘almost.’”

I checked the battery on my phone. Only 5%?! I swear I remember charging this thing, I thought.

“Shoot, I gotta hang up,” I said. “Remember to actually pick me up this time?”

“Fine, if I must,” Seb laughed. “We don’t want a repeat of the mall incident; Akira might actually murder me if I leave you again. See ya.” 

As if on cue, Jasper finally came back. The blood-filled syringe was swapped out for a red ball in plastic wrapping that he held in his hand.

“Now, I know this seems childish,” he admitted bashfully, “but believe me, I do this to all my patients. Besides, it’s good to keep your energy up after a blood drawing.”

It was a piece of candy. A small, translucent red, probably strawberry or cherry flavored ball of hard candy. It almost looked like a cat’s eye marble. 

“O-oh, thanks…!” I said. “…but I really don’t do sweets.”

Jasper raised an eyebrow, a bit of a disapproving look on his face. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that...I thought, silently cursing myself for being so rude. He didn’t have to give me the candy...so I might as well take it, right? 

“B-but I can give it to my friend Seb!” I said suddenly. “Y’know, conspiracy blog guy? Yeah, he’s got a crazy sweet tooth. One time I gave him most of my Halloween candy when we went trick-or-treating...and he downed the entire thing in, like, half a day.”

The smile returned to Jasper’s face as I took the candy. 

“Nice,” he said. “Have a good day!” 

“You too!” I said, still slightly embarrassed that I hurt the young doctor’s feelings.

After quickly walking back upstairs, I looked around for a nearby seat while I waited for Seb. The only one nearby was taken by a kid in a dark green jacket with messy brown hair. I decided to stand. The kid, who looked rather nervous, looked at me almost pleadingly.

“You alright?” I asked the kid. He nodded. He only looked a few years younger than me. 

“You got Jasper, right?” he asked me. I nodded. 

“Why’d you ask?” I said. 

“That’s my brother. I’m Oliver, but you can call me Oli.” 

“Ah. Nice to meet you. I’m—“

“Dakota? Yeah. I overheard that whole conversation while he was stealing your blood.”

I sighed. If I hear anything related to vampires one more time—

“Your brother got you on this whole vampire mess, too?” I said. “Geez, what is it with everyone and vampires, today? First my friend, now my doctor, now his kid brother…” 

“He likes to chase me around the house with syringes he brings home,” Oli admitted bitterly. 

“Oof…that’s gotta be scarring.” I leaned against the wall next to the seat Oli was in. “Did he ever…?”

“Stick me with one? No,” Oli answered, then quickly added. “Only because I knocked it away from him in time.” 

I froze. Now, I used to lie to my mom all the time whenever my sister and I were play-fighting, insisting that she always hurt me more than she was supposed to. So, Oli could easily be getting revenge on Jasper “stereotypical annoying older brother” Kermit by making me believe he was much more cruel than he seemed.

Or he wasn’t. 

“Oh…” was all I managed to say before I got a text from Seb.

“I’m outside.”

“Shoot, I gotta go,” I told Oliver. “See ya around!” I walked off, quickening my pace so as not to deal with more of this vampire nonsense from anyone else.

“No you won’t,” the boy said bluntly. I stopped in my tracks and turned around.

“If you know what’s good for you,” Oliver said, looking me dead in the eyes, “you won’t come back here again.”

[pbpress]

Blood Candy: Chapter 1

Ruqayyah Pickel

This is the first chapter of a longer piece of writing.  Chapters will be posted here as they are finished.  Stay tuned for the continuation of the story.

My alarm went off at around 3pm that afternoon. I had taken a nap, just as I always do, as soon as I got home from school. Thing is, I hadn’t acknowledged the alarm until much later—a rather hypnotic dream trapped me in the dreamworld for about half an hour.

It was a dream of red.

Red and white, filling my entire vision.

Like a peppermint, almost.

Just a swirling peppermint, right before my eyes.

Now, I’ve seen hypnotism at work before—while I, myself, was never the subject, I’ve had a few friends and acquaintances who’ve went to magic shows and been the subject of hypnosis. To my surprise, it actually worked...but never for a long time. That was stage hypnosis. That was for show. And shows are always temporary.

But this?

This was pure, raw hypnosis.

A hypnosis trick set up by some unknown, disembodied mastermind, silently instructing me to do nothing—forcing me to do nothing. This swirling peppermint pattern was practically sleep paralysis itself; chaining me to my bed and draining me of all brainpower and willpower to fight against it.

So I stayed there.

My alarm went off at 3pm. It was beeping for fifteen minutes before I actually woke up.

Well, I was awake the whole time. I heard the alarm. I knew I had to get up. But I didn’t care. I bet the noise would’ve drove me insane had I not been fully focused on that swirling peppermint pattern. It was slightly terrifying, if anything—the fact that something so simple and nonsensical can have such a tight grip on the mind—it even transcended reality, inhibiting me from what I was supposed to be doing.

If I’m being honest, I don’t even remember what had broken me free of this dream in the first place. And you know what the scary part is?

I wouldn’t be surprised if I never even got up in the first place.

Here’s the thing: I wasn't exactly a fan of sweets. I didn't exactly hate them, either. But if someone gave me a piece of candy, there's about a 68% chance that I would turn it down. They just weren't my thing.

So this peppermint dream was rather strange to me, though not exactly the strangest thing I've encountered. My mind is constantly filled with strange things, though not necessarily by choice. My friend Sebastian, or Seb/Sebs for short, runs a conspiracy blog called AkiSeb Theories alongside my friend/classmate Akira, and constantly drills just the strangest ideas into my head, the majority of which seem to run around the supernatural: How the zombie apocalypse has already started, how schools can actually steal our souls, how my own mother is a witch, you name it. Seb comes up with the theories and writes the overdramatized articles for the blog, and Akira, alongside occasionally writing some articles and theories, does the research. Please don’t ask me how and why she did the research for the ‘my mother is a witch’ theory.

“Dakota!” my mom yelled. “You up?? Your alarm has been going off for fifteen minutes! Sebastian said he’s coming to pick you up at four!”

I was scheduled to get a blood drawing at exactly 4:15pm at North Clueham Health Center. Appointments, they say, are easy to get. Despite it being one of the few health centers in Clueham--which, in a city rumored to be filled to the brim with supernatural creatures, is a very, very bad thing--people rarely go there.

“Coming!” I shouted. I went into the bathroom and quickly combed my dark brown hair, making sure to take care of the bangs over my forehead. Seb teased me enough about my ‘giant forehead’ and I didn’t feel like giving him more of a reason to do so.

I headed downstairs to wait for Seb.

“You really should stop taking those after school naps, you know,” my mom said.

“Well, maybe if the school system stopped throwing mountains of homework at us,” I argued, “then maybe I could get some sleep.”

“Maybe if you stopped procrastinating and building yourself mountains of homework,” my mom retorted with a smile, “then maybe you could get some sleep.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Fine. You win.” I stood up after getting a message from Seb that he was outside waiting for me. “I’ll see ya later?”

“Nope,” she said. “Night school again, remember?”

I sighed.

“Right. What time will you be home?” I asked.

“If I’m lucky, things’ll wrap up at about eleven?” she answered. “I have a lotta papers to grade.”

“See you tomorrow then,” I said, giving her a kiss on the cheek and a hug before leaving.

I walked outside to find Seb in his car. If I’m being honest, I was never 100% comfortable riding with him. I don’t trust anyone who gets their license before the age of 18.  Granted, Sebs was only six months from the trust zone, but that’s still six months too early.

“Hi, welcome to your Uber!” he greeted me cheerfully. “How may I be of assistance?”

“You know where I’m going, dweeb,” I joked before getting in the passenger seat next to him.

“Ah, yes, the evil lair of the vampires.”

“...come again?”

“You’re getting blood work, right?” he asked me. “Where’s the only possible place where people just take your blood? A vampire’s evil lair.”

I couldn’t resist the urge to laugh.

“I swear, you watch too many movies,” I said. “Would a vampire give you a legitimate results and information about your health?”

“You know anyone could fake blood test results, right?” Seb pointed out, confident in this refutation.

“I think I’d be able to tell,” I replied.

Seb rolled his eyes. Whether or not he was admitting defeat, or finally decided that I wasn’t worth drilling unfounded conspiracies into, was beyond me.

“One of these days,” he said, “You’re gonna find out that I was right. And when the apocalypse inevitably comes, you’ll have no pity from me when you turn into a mutant or a vampire.”

“You’re lucky that you’ve got someone as smart as Akira backing your ideas,” I replied. “I’m sure you’d look crazy without her.”

“Buddy,” he laughed, “I’m crazy regardless. But...I seriously don’t get it...why do they need your blood to determine all this?”

“That’s where, like, everything is, dude,” I explained. “The nutrients, the cells, etc. It’s the only way to determine if I’m still allergic to eggs. Didn’t you pay attention during science class?”

I knew the answer to this question, of course. Seb got a 58 in science last year. He claimed he was too busy making articles for AkiSeb Theories, but Akira got an 83--and she does most of the heavy lifting for the website, anyway.

“I’m telling you, man,” Seb said. “They’re probably just vampires. Same goes for the freakazoids who run those blood drives.”

“You idiot, they run blood drives for people who need transfusions,” I sighed. “If someone’s, like, bleeding out and no one goes to the blood drive because oh no it’s run by vampires, we’re gonna give them strength to take over the world then tough luck! That person’s gonna die because everyone’s a bunch of bloody cowards.”

“Relax. I know why blood drives are made! Lighten up, man.”

I let out another exasperated sigh. I didn’t really mean to sound so bitter--he truly was my best friend, and one of the few idiots in school I can put up with without pulling my hair out--but the least he could do is sound like a legitimate reporter instead of a paranoid doomsayer.

“Sorry, man,” I said. “Past few days have been kind of...stressful, and the last thing I want is to have to do this.”

Seb looked at me with a cheerful grin.

“Don’t worry about it!” he reassured me. “I get it. It’s almost the end of junior year, everyone’s just about done with everything. In my defense, though, it’s either you ride with me and let me drive you insane, or you take the subway and deal with hobos, angry pedestrians, and plague rats.

“Yeah…wait there are no plague ra—eyes on the road, Sebs!” I cried.

“Oh! Right.” Seb just missed a black Sudan before parking in the lot of the doctor’s office. “Good luck,” he joked as I got out of the car.

“Oh, can it,” I retorted playfully. I walked inside and checked into the doctor’s office. I was told by the receptionist to head to the basement levels for the bloodworks, and that I would be with Dr. Jasper Kermit. I nodded and went on my way.

[pbpress]

Blood Candy: Chapter 11 and 12 --Conclusion

By Ruqayyah Pickel

[Chapter 11]

But first, both of us had to tend to our wounds.

Raiding the closets for bandages of any kind, I wrapped them around my injured shoulder as I kept walking, in search of Jasper’s office. Kaveri seemed a little more than annoyed that I didn’t stop to help her, but I didn’t care. I just kept counting the room numbers as I went along.

0129, 0130, 0131, 0132, 0133--

0134. Jasper’s office. This was it. I quietly motioned for Kaveri to pick up the pace. 

I then rammed into the door, ignoring the pain in my arms and shoulders as I pressed my full body weight onto the door. I heard Oliver scream and Akira cry for help, their fear only fueling me to ram even harder.

“JASPER!” I shouted. “Let them go NOW!” 

I kicked at the door. Suddenly, Jasper slammed hard on the other side, causing me to fall on the floor. 

“You’ve been enough of a nuisance!” Jasper cried. “Just sit tight for once!”

“You want me to just sit here and watch you murder my friends?! I’ve already lost one friend because of you!” 

Kaveri pulled a knife out of her sheath. 

“This will be a lot less painful if you just open the door--” she started. 

Jasper growled and slammed the door open, his own knife in hand. Akira and Oliver were tied up in two chairs back-to-back, tape over their mouths. 

“I’ve had enough of you, y’know…” he hissed. “Especially you, Vigil. This is your last chance--get out of here now while you still have every ounce of blood in you, and don’t say a word to anyone else about what happened, or I will kill them both right before your eyes.”

“Neither of them had anything to do with this!” Kaveri cried. “They’re innocent people. To think you vampires would go as low as to rope in just anyone into your schemes--”

“Innocent?” Jasper laughed mirthlessly. “Really now? Then why did they even come here in the first place? Why did they break into my lab looking for a plan to stop me from saving my entire species? And don’t even get me started on all the fledgling vamps that your kind has killed--”  

“I had nothing to do with that, human leech,” Kaveri hissed with just as much venom in her voice as Akira had when they met earlier today. “I don’t know about those other hunters, but I am here to save my kind from people like you who take advantage of us and act like you’re above consequences! I don’t care about your experiments, or your grand scheme to ‘save your entire species.’ I’m sure there are other ways to fix your little starvation problem than experimenting on your sick patients, kidnapping a random student and your BROTHER, or tricking another random kid into eating his best friend’s blood!” 

I froze. 

“What are you talking about, Kaveri?” I asked, my voice shaking. 

“That candy Jasper gave you?” she said. “When he finished your blood drawing, your blood went straight into that piece of candy. When you gave it to Seb, he basically ate your blood, and whatever other chemicals that altered Seb’s mind to give him bloodlust.”

I...had no clue how to process this information. 

That candy...it was made out of my BLOOD?!

I felt myself going nauseous at the thought. That, at least, explained why his teeth and tongue were dark red after eating it…

“You…” I said to Jasper, “you REVOLTING piece of trash!”

Jasper stayed silent, with nothing but a glare to defend himself against our words.

“Got that out of your system?” He folded his arms. “Congrats. You found me out. But that changes nothing. Fact of the matter is, your best friend is still staked through the heart for the crime of simply being a vampire. And a fledgling, at that.” 

Kaveri’s knife shook a little in her hand. 

“Well, if it makes you feel any better,” Jasper said, giving a small smile, “there are still some fledgling vampires that your kind hasn’t gone after yet...though you may find that to be a mistake.”

“We can deal with them later,” Kaveri said, still determined on killing Jasper. 

“Really?” He gestured to me. “Take a look at your friend’s neck. Notice anything...different?” 

To my surprise, Kaveri listened to him, and her eyes were fixated on the bite wounds on my neck from Seb. Her eyes widened with horror. 

“Seb passed on the vampire virus from himself to Dakota before you staked him,” he explained, then turned to me. “Just look at her face, kid,” he said. “She’s terrified. Of you. You think that stake isn’t gonna turn on you the second she yanks it out of my heart? Well…y’know, if you guys ‘win.’ You should probably save yourself now while you still can.” He held out his bandaged hand to me. “I can help you. I can train you to control your bloodlust, use it to help your kind, save you from these merciless hunters…you won’t have to worry about being in any sort of danger ever again.”  

If I’m being honest, Kaveri was probably gonna come for me once--if--she was done with Jasper. But she’s human, with a...decent...moral compass. Seb did try to kill me. She had a good motive for staking him. That being said, what would stop me from doing the same to her? After all, I had a motive too; she killed my best friend. 

Maybe...I could join him...just play along for a bit...get some intel...work as a double agent…

I found myself slowly reaching out for his hand as a smug grin crossed his face. 

With my other hand, I aimed a punch at his face. 

He blocked it with the same hand he had held out, letting out another joyless laugh. 

“I will never stoop so low as to associate myself with living scum like you,” I hissed. 

“Figured as much,” he said simply.

His smug facade quickly gave way to raw fury as he aimed a strike at my neck with his other hand, still holding the knife. Kaveri grabbed his hand just before the knife reached my neck, pulling him away from me and onto the floor. He kicked at Kaveri’s ankles, sending her on the floor as he got up to go after me. Pocketing the knife, he landed several punches on me, the side of my face and chest stinging with pain. I backed against the wall, praying for any remaining strength that the fight against Seb robbed me of. 

When I came to, I watched as he and Kaveri fought. It was clear that Kaveri was much more experienced in fighting than me; her movements were more coordinated and graceful--or as graceful as a fight for one’s life can get--and she handled her knife with ease. She blocked each of Jasper’s hits, blow for blow, and if she didn’t, she took them like a champ. All the while, an expression of focused tranquility stayed on her face, not even remotely phased by the events that transpired, nor by the immortal human leech who hissed and raged as he tried to strike her down. It was here, of course, that I realized the now-obvious truth. 

The reason she even bothered to associate with us this morning, the reason she was so willing to help with our supernatural problem, the reason that she remained cool under all this pressure…

...was likely because she’s been doing this for a long time.

Unfortunately, even years of combat experience likely didn’t prepare her for what Jasper was going to do next. 

He looked up at Kaveri with a furious look in his eyes, his red eyes appearing to glow in the dim hallway, and I silently commended Kaveri’s insane resolve to not quake in the presence of such a terrifying glare. 

“You…” he hissed at the young vampire hunter as he unwrapped the bloodied bandage. “You’ve bothered my clan, FOR THE LAST TIME!”

Suddenly, he pulled out a syringe filled with a strange red liquid--fortunately, it didn’t look thick enough to be blood--and plunged it into his left arm. 

What was happening…? I thought. I tried to regain my strength; I had to stop him before whatever weird vampire-voodoo magic was finished. I stood up, balling up my fist as I ran over to Jasper, trying to ram him into the wall. I realized I was too late when his entire left forearm transformed into a dark red claw. I was only inches away when he sucker-punched Kaveri with his new arm upgrade and sent her flying down the hallway. He then turned around and grabbed my neck with the same arm, slamming me against the wall. His claws dug into my neck, and I noticed that there seemed to be blood flowing into the claw the longer he held on. 

“The reason I’m doing this are far beyond your feeble understanding,” Jasper said in a low, furious voice. “Your measly human existence means nothing compared to our immortal legacy. That’s just how things are here--the weak serve as stepping stones for the strong. You humans are our prey. Now act like it.” 

“Shut up,” I snapped, kicking him in the stomach just I had done to Seb. “I don’t care what you vampires think of us humans. Our existence is just as important as yours, be it limited or not. You’re all a bunch of parasites that feed on those you think are inferior!” 

“What other choice do we have, Dakota?! Feast on animal blood? What happens when they revolt, huh?! How are we going to survive then? Do you want us to just die? Do you think you mortals are above us, after we’ve lasted for thousands of years? We are the superior species, and we are the ones that deserve to LIVE!”

Just then I saw Kaveri ram into Jasper. His grip was iron, though, and I fell to the floor right alongside him, my scarred neck still in his mutated arm. The two of them struggled on the floor for a while, though Jasper only fought with his other hand. 

Kaveri then let out a cry of pure fury, and stabbed him through the heart with the stake. 

Jasper gave a weak laugh as he stared at the stake. He looked up at Kaveri, who now had at least two vampire kills I had witnessed under her belt. 

“Okay…” Jasper said wearily. “Maybe...maybe I...was wrong…” 

“About what?” Kaveri snapped. 

“You humans…” he chuckled, “aren’t...j-just some...worthless prey…” 

Kaveri knelt down to his level. 

“I don’t care what you think of our species,” she said. “I just care if you leave us alone.”

Jasper only continued to laugh.

“That’s the thing, see?” he said with a sly grin on his face. “You can...take out one of us...but our number...remains the same…”

His dying eyes looked directly at me. 

“Vampires...are immortal…” he said, “be it...the individual...the clan...or the c-curse…” 

Kaveri simply scoffed and stood up, walking over to Akira and Oliver to cut them loose. 

I wanted to be relieved that the man who took away my sense of security and my best friend finally got what he deserved. 

At the same time, I wanted to break down into tears, as this was the second casualty I was forced to witness. 

“Dakota!” Akira cried, now free. “I...oh my god, I have so much to tell you…”

Oliver, after greeting the rest of us, walked over to his older brother’s body, just barely clinging to life. 

“Come...to say goodbye?” Jasper asked weakly.

I expected Oliver to break down and cry at the sight of his dying brother. The two probably spent at least some time together, and I figured that there had to be at least one point in time where Oliver actually cared for Jasper...and hopefully Jasper, at some point, felt the same way.

However, that theory shattered into pieces as I watched Oli look down at him with an expression of pure contempt, and spit in his brother’s face.

Jasper only gave a somber smile in response.

“Th-that’s fair, I guess…” he said, his voice trailing off. “I...I’d hate me, too…”

And with that, the once-immortal Jasper Kermit went limp on the floor before me. 

“Serves him right,” Akira hissed. “Now with that out of the way...how did things with Seb go, Dakota?” 

Tears began to fill my eyes. I dropped to my knees. 

“...what happened?” she asked. “Where’s Seb?”

I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. 

“Dakota! Answer me!” she yelled. “Where is he?!” 

“...she killed him…” I mumbled. 

“Who killed…?” Akira turned to the only other female in the room.

“Listen, I didn’t want to do it,” Kaveri snapped. “Seb seemed like a nice kid. I didn’t want to kill him. But it was either that, or Dakota becomes a vampire...well...I suppose he already is…”

“I don’t care what my friends are!” Akira cried. “I just wanted Sebs back! That’s how it was supposed to be! You promised to help us!” 

“Akira, please! I swear, I didn’t want to hurt anyone! I never meant to hurt any of you! I didn’t mean for any of this to happen! I didn’t even want to get you involved, but...it appears I had no other choice. I...just wanted to keep you safe.” Kaveri sighed. “But it seems I can’t even do that anymore.” 

“Kaveri…”

“Just...just go,” Kaveri ordered. “Take Dakota, get out of here. I’m finishing what I started. Just know...I really am sorry. For everything.” 

Kaveri gave Akira a quick, tight, hug that was never returned. She pulled the stake out of her sheath and stormed down the hall quickly. 

My eyes immediately focused on the stake. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t look away. I ran towards her, and grabbed the stake, but Kaveri refused to let go. The stake slid out of my hands, leaving Seb’s blood on my hands. 

I stared at my bloodstained hands.

It shouldn’t have ended like this.

She lied to me. 

His blood is on--m̷̥̩̭͗́̍ý̶̜̪̊́ --her hands. 

She promised to save him. 

My attention turned to a bandage on her arm—no; the red seeping through the bandage. An odd red hue seemed to fill the room gradually, like a camera filter. 

She lied to me, I thought, trying to focus on what was really important here. She had betrayed me, she’d killed Seb. She was a liar, and that’s what really mattered. Not whatever stupid apology she was trying to give me now, not the wound on her arm, not the wound that I knew was underneath her bandage. Kaveri murdered Seb, his blood was on her hands, and that’s what was important.

His blood is on her hands, I reminded myself. But then I looked at my own hands, stained from the blood on her stake. I felt my heart race, and my mouth go dry.

His blood is on my hands. 

I looked up at Kaveri, toward the bandage on her arm. I suddenly felt a pain in my mouth, like something just bit me from the inside. I put my hand to my mouth and felt my teeth--and noticed that fangs had been growing.

Her blood is on her arm. 

Kaveri pushed me back, trying to get me to leave her alone, and I fell to the floor. My head started to ache as the red light in the room became more vibrant. As I stood up and brought my hands up from the floor, I saw red handprints where my hands had been.

His blood is on my hands. 

Her blood is on her arm. 

There was red leaking under the doors, stained on the walls. 

Her blood is on her arm. 

I took one step forward. Then two. Then three. I shot forward towards Kaveri—towards the red on her arm. 

Then the world went black. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Chapter 12]

I don’t know how long I was out for. 

But when I woke up, I found myself lying on an old bed, surrounded by what looked to be a garage of some sorts. There were shelves full of what looked to be tools--some of which I never recognized, and did not appear to be for any sort of construction--several bookshelves, and a mother computer with at least six screens. 

“Wh-where am I…?” I asked Akira when I woke up. “What happened?”

“Well, let’s see…” Akira explained, “you tried to attack Kaveri, she knocked you out, and told me to take you far, far away. So now we’re in some old warehouse my dad used to work in.” She turned away from me and towards her desk, appearing to be working on or reading something. “My dad was a paranormal investigator, and this is where he and his team would work. Why else do you think I agreed to work with Seb so quickly?” 

I...attacked Kaveri?

“Why did I attack her?” I asked. 

She shrugged, and I suddenly felt like I was missing something important--very important. But I couldn’t figure out what...it felt like it had been at least a day since I last spoke to Seb. I pulled out my phone and tried to call him. 

“Hello?” I cried into the phone. “Seb? Where are you?”

No answer.

Akira whirled around. 

“What are you doing?” she asked me.

“What does it look like?!” I snapped. “I’m trying to call Seb!” 

She stood up and walked over to me, a solemn look on her face.

“How much do you remember from last night?” she asked me. 

“U-uh…” I struggled to recall. “Not much. Why? What’s wrong?”

Her eyes shifted elsewhere. 

“I...um...I’m gonna go try to find us a place to eat,” she said. “I-if you don’t remember anything by the time I’m finished, I’ll explain over lunch, okay?” 

I shrugged, and desperately searched my memory for what happened--and where Seb could possibly be. All I remembered was taking care of him when he was sick and working on my essay…

And Seb attacking me…twice.

And fighting Jasper. 

Suddenly, everything came back to me in a flood of information. I remembered my heart pounding in my chest as Seb’s maniacal giggling rang throughout my house that first night. I remembered hauling his unconscious body into the closet and locking him in. I remembered the coarse, thick rope constricting around my neck when Seb jumped me the next day. But those only came to me in blips. What stood out the most was...red. 

The red on Seb’s and Jasper’s shirts and the stake through their hearts. 

The red light that filled the medical center suddenly. 

The red on Kaveri’s arm.

I suddenly started to feel parched, like I haven’t had water in ages. My mind raced and raved, trying to process everything that happened as one, final memory slithered its way into the timeline of events I was repairing. In fact, I could almost feel Seb’s fangs sinking into my neck as I finally remembered his parting “gift.” 

I turned to Akira, choking back tears. I had a million questions, but only worked up the courage to ask one.

“Am…am I a vampire?” 

Akira paused whatever she was working on, but still didn’t face me. 

“Yes.” She opened up a drawer, took something out of it quickly, and turned to face me with a smile on her face. “But it’s okay. I’ll keep you safe. We can live here until the coast is clear and we can move you to somewhere safer. I heard there’s a city where the living and the dead can coexist. I believe it was called...Vita...Vitamorta! Yep...it was...one of the articles that Seb and I wrote together…”

I felt the area on my neck where he bit me. It still stung a little, though it may have just been the memory.

“Akira,” I said, “are you okay?” 

She gave an empty chuckle.

“Okay as I can be, I guess,” she replied with a somber smile. “But…please don’t worry about me.” 

She pulled me into a tight hug with her free arm. I hugged her back—and then froze. 

Behind Akira’s back, in her other hand, was a stake. 

The same stake, in fact, that took the life of my best friend. 

[pbpress]

Blood Candy: Chapters 9 and 10

By Ruqayyah Pickel

Blood Candy Chapter 9: 

I have to admit I was a bit worried about Dakota. Seb was...a bit of a weakling, but now that he was a vampire I feared that Dakota may be at a disadvantage. 

I wasn’t really sure what Seb’s next plan was after he was finished with him--I assumed he would just follow Jasper’s orders--but something tells me I wasn’t entirely safe either. We were close, yes, but so were Seb and Dakota, yet here we were. 

Oliver took me downstairs to a computer lab, turning on the light. 

“Akira, look,” he said to me. “This is where all the files are kept.” 

“How do you know all this?” I asked the younger Kermit sibling.

“I spy on Jasper. A lot.” 

I shrugged.

“With a brother like that, I can’t blame you.” 

Oli sat down at one of the computers and logged into Jasper’s account. I decided not to ask how he knew his password, as I already probably knew the answer. He spent the next few minutes rummaging through his computer, looking for anything on ‘candy.’ 

“So,” I said, “When did you find out your brother was a vampire?” 

“Only recently, actually,” Oli said. “Like a month ago. He doesn’t know yet.”

“He doesn’t know that you know?” 

Oli nodded. 

Suddenly, I heard the door swing open, and a battle-scarred Kaveri entered the room. She had bruises on her arms, one around her eye, a few tears in her jacket and several scratches on her face and on her arms. 

“Oh my God, are you alright?!” I asked her. “You look terrible.” 

“Is Jasper dead?!” Oli cried.

“I’m surprised you care, Akira,” Kaveri snapped. “I thought I was dead to you.”

I froze. She thought she was dead to me…but that just wasn’t true. She wasn’t...okay, that was a lie. She was dead to me, but the fact that she was willing to go out of her way and risk her own life for us...

“I...I wouldn’t say that...” I told her.

“Well, you did a year ago,” she reminded me.

I stayed silent. 

“And no, Oliver,” Kaveri continued, turning to our adversary’s younger brother. “He’s not dead, but I knocked him out briefly. I’ll be alright though.” 

Oli’s expression was unreadable.

“How’s the search going, Oli?” I asked him.

“O-oh, right…” he said, perking up. 

He entered ‘candy’ into the search bar, causing only one folder to pop up:

‘Project:Blood_Candy.pdf’.

He clicked on it. 

About ten or so documents were in the folder, but we only had access to four: ‘Entry 1,’ ‘Failure,’ ‘Success’ and ‘Dakota.’

-------

file_Entry 1: 

*We’ve lost far too many units to monster and vampire hunters across the country. Just recently, an X-Caliber hunter took down one of our best vampires yet—Morgan ‘Morgue’ Caligari. Without her guidance, many of the younger vamps have been unable to last a day without a hunter—or worse, nature—getting to them. Thorne says we gotta purge the city of these hunters, but we can’t afford to sacrifice more units.*

*I proposed a solution. What if we could somehow control humans to get all the blood for us, then we can drain them once their work is complete? This would not only exponentially increase our blood collection, but also keep our top vampires safe. Harriet, being a skeptic, as per usual, asked me how in the world I’d be able to come up with this. Fortunately, I did come up with a plan later that evening: if I could infuse some sort of substance into candy that would brainwash my patients after I gave it to them, then I could have an entire army in no time.*

*Project Blood Candy commences tomorrow night.* 

-------

“So they used this ‘blood candy’ to get humans to do the dirty work for them…” Kaveri said. “How disgusting.”

“Wait,” Oliver said. “Let’s check the next one.” 

file_Failure:

*I’m at a loss.*

*This project is going to be a failure.*

*I tried everything to make it work. But the results from every single one of my test subjects failed.* 

*The first time, nothing happened, and my patient that day said that she could clearly taste blood, as she slowly pulled out something—a phone, maybe—from her pocket.*

*I had to get rid of her quickly.*

*The second time, after a modification to hide the taste of blood, the patient threw up. Unfortunately I had to get rid of him, too.* 

*The third time, I had to modify the formula and substitute what I had used to hide the taste of blood. But the substitute was even worse. The next patient doubled over, clutching his stomach as he violently coughed. His eyes were bloodshot, and his tears were...red. It took a while, but I quickly—and painlessly—got rid of him, too.* 

*Somehow, modification after modification, it kept getting worse and worse. Patients violently falling ill, their symptoms worse than the person before them, and several patients even dying before I could get rid of them myself.*

*The others were right. I am too ambitious for my own good.* 

-----

Kaveri looked at the file in disgust.

“So many casualties…” Oliver said, equally as horrified. “So many casualties, just for a botched experiment…” Tears filled his eyes as he balled up his fists in anger. “My brother is a horrible person.”

“Well, clearly,” I said. “How did he even manage to complete this in the first place?” 

——

file_Success:

*After countless days and countless appointments and countless modifications….I did it.* 

*I finally created the Blood Candy.* 

*Turns out, the first few ingredients I had substituted just needed to be combined. Though, now I’m kind of annoyed that we lost around forty potential meals because I didn’t think of that the first time. But that’s not my concern. Forty lost meals will be nothing in comparison to what this new invention will bring us. We’ll make all of it up and then some.*

*Now, to test it out.*

------

We were out of words at this point, staring at the computer in horror. I’m not sure what it was or how it happened or why I was only just now realizing what was happening, but then it dawned on me the situation I was truly in.

I was facing a real vampire, an actual person that literally consumes blood for a living. This man was nothing more than a demon that dared to wrap itself in human skin. 

And now my best friend had just been turned into one. 

My best friend, my conspiracy partner-in-crime willingly turned himself into a bloodsucking demon to feed an ambition he was forced into. 

But it wasn’t fear I felt...if I just play my cards right, I could avoid any real danger. Hell, I took a reflex hammer to Jasper’s head. That alone gave me enough confidence to face whatever I had to in order to save my friends. 

Whatever fear I felt was immediately overtaken by anger. This monster had made a monster out of my friend, and I was getting sick of seeing people get screwed over by Jasper. 

We just skipped straight to Dakota’s file. 

——

file_Dakota:

*A kid came into my office today. His name was Dakota Foster, and he goes to North Clueham High—the same school Kaveri goes to.*

*With Dakota under my control, I could easily have him find Kaveri and bring her to Thorne, who’s absolutely hellbent on seeing her dead. Every time I tried to ask him why, he shot me a bone-chilling glare...though I think it may have something to do with his younger brother, Wendigo--again.*

*Some days, I envy Thorne and the lengths he will go to defend his younger brother.*

*I wish that I could feel the same way about my own.* 

*Unfortunately, when I offered Dakota the candy…he didn’t take it. At least, not at first. Apparently he ‘hates sweets’ or whatever, which sounds like total bull, but I guess that’s the case for some people. But who wouldn’t willingly take candy, and free candy at that? No matter…the kid said he’d give it to his friend Sebastian, who likes sweets more than he does.*

*Hopefully this ‘Sebastian’ character will be useful to us.*

*For the sake of Thorne not killing me on sight, he better be.*

----

“Funny,” I said, “at the end of the day, this is just about protecting their own kind.”

“That doesn’t make it right!” Kaveri cried. “They’re still hurting people! 

“They’re hurting me!” Oli cried. “They’re hurting Seb! They’re hurting Dakota! They even hurt Kaveri! And they might hurt you, too!” 

“I told you, kid, I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“You clearly aren’t!” I cried. “Why are you putting yourself at risk for us? For me?”

Kaveri sighed.

“Because I have to,” she said. “You and Dakota wouldn’t be able to last without me, no matter how many conspiracies you and your now-bloodthirsty friend crank out.”

I turned away from her. Not that I didn’t appreciate her help, but I knew this was probably going to be the last time we ever talked. Like she said, she was going to go back to shutting herself out once this was all over. This was out of obligation, and that was it. 

But then I realized...what made her more qualified than us to deal with Jasper and Seb? 

“Kaveri,” I said. “Why did you leave? Tell me the truth.”

“Why does it matter?” she asked. “We need to stay focused on the task at hand.”

“If...if this doesn’t go as planned...I just wanna know. Why did you leave?”

Kaveri tried to ignore me, but I knew her better than that.

“Family emergency,” she lied. “I already told you.” 

“But there’s more. What happened? Did someone die?!” I cried. 

“Just can it already!” she finally shouted. “I can’t tell you...I can’t get you involved.”

“If it’s about...this,” I said, shaking with rage, “then I’m already involved.”

“Can’t we just talk later?!”

“There probably won’t be a later!”

“I told you, we’re gonna be fine! I can take him!”

“How do I even know I can trust you?! How do I know I can count on you to keep us safe?!”

“Because I spent a year learning to defend the human race!” she finally admitted.

I stood in stunned silence. I almost forgot Oli was with us, only remembering when I turned to find him equally as shocked, yet...hopeful. 

“Kaveri--” I started, before she cut me off.

“Don’t.” She didn’t face me.

“Let’s be honest,” I said. “I was gonna find out anyways. Kaveri, you can’t keep hiding from me. I’m…or…I was…your friend. Whatever this is, I’m willing to go through it with you. Especially if it means saving my friends. So please. Stop pushing me away.” 

I swear that I saw tears well up in her eyes, but she wiped them off. 

“I shouldn’t have let you come with me,” she sighed. “I should’ve just did this myself. Arthur Thorne is...a very powerful person. My family’s been trying to hunt down him and his younger brother Wendigo for ages. And now I’m next in line to do what they failed to do for generations. That’s why I had to leave school, though it’s also because they found out I went to North Clueham. This entire project...I think they’ve been aiming to kill me, and take whoever they can in the school.” 

Again, I found myself in stunned silence, tears forming in my eyes, too. All this time, I resented Kaveri for leaving me. Truth be told, she just wanted to protect me. 

I owed her big-time. 

“Kaveri, this is my friend--no--my friends we’re talking about. If they’re in danger, I’m getting myself involved, and I don’t care what anyone else has to say about it. I can help you! Seb and I can use our skills to blow the lid off this entire Blood Candy project!”

“I’ve been fighting these things for around a year,” she retorted, “I think I know what I’m talking about when I say you should’ve stayed back.” 

“Well, sucks to be you...no pun intended...Because here I am.” 

I turned to Oliver, ignoring whatever hateful look she shot at me. 

“So, what now?” he asked me.

Suddenly, we heard a banging on the door. 

“They’re in here!” an older woman said. 

“There’s more?!” a male voice complained.

“Probably!” a younger male voice said, “unless Vigil is a really good voice actress.”

“Shut up and open the door!” the woman yelled. 

“Hide!” Kaveri whispered, and slipped into a nearby closet with a much faster speed than normal. 

Unfortunately, Oliver and I weren’t so lucky. In our panic, we spent far too much time searching for a hiding spot. Kaveri had taken the only good one in sight.

A trio of hooded vampires barged in and immediately caught sight of us. They had mysterious tattoos on their palm, and it looked like it was supposed to be the fangs of a beast. They went behind us and placed their marked palms on our necks, sending a sharp pain through me that soon subsided as the world around me turned black. 

[Chapter 10]

I walked down the empty, dim hall, catching my breath as I silently thanked Kaveri for saving my life. Akira and Oliver should be okay, I figured, but then I remembered something...

“This hospital is one of the main headquarters of Clueham’s top vampire guild,” Kaveri explained earlier. How did she know all of this? If I hadn’t known any better, I would’ve said she was a conspiracy theorist, too, and that’s the real reason Akira and Kaveri stopped talking. Rival conspiracy theorists were a thing, right?

Focus, Dakota! I thought to myself. You have a raging redhead vampire to find. But...where even was Seb?

The video Oli showed us had Seb in Jasper’s office...but I didn’t know where that was. 

As I ran down the hall looking for Seb, I saw two “doctors” wearing surgical masks wheeling two patients on stretchers past me on both sides. Though the patients’ bodies were mostly covered, I still had enough information as to just how screwed I actually was. 

In the precious few seconds I had to look at the two patients, I noticed only two things—the bite marks on their sickly pale necks, and the police caps resting over their faces. For a moment I was confused--then I drew my attention back to the police caps as the “patients” were wheeled away. 

It can’t be...I thought. I wasn’t certain, but I did have a very bad feeling as to who those cops were. 

“I called the police station for updates on the investigation,” my mom messaged me earlier. “They said that they’re gonna have to put it on hold for right now; they haven’t heard back from the officers that came by the house last night, so they’re trying to get in touch with them.”

Of course it was, I thought. It had to be. Like Jasper said, he couldn’t let anything happen to his new ‘colleague.’ 

This can’t go on like this. I have to snap Sebs out of this...trance...as soon as possible.

Against my better judgement, I aimed for the risky--yet probably more efficient--solution:

“SEBS!” I yelled, my voice bouncing off the walls. “WHERE ARE YOU?!” 

I peered inside the glass windows of some of the rooms, thinking Seb must be hiding in there. Finally, I came to one of the rooms towards the end of the hall. The lights were shut off, but there appeared to be a figure sitting down--presumably dead or asleep--in one of the chairs. I narrowed my eyes, trying to see into the dark past my own reflection...when a blade was suddenly held to my throat. 

I froze. 

I turned around slowly, to find Seb with his black jacket, spiraling eyes, and the most malicious grin I have ever seen on his face.

“Look, buddy,” I said with feigned confidence, “you really don’t have to do this. I’m your friend. We know how this goes, we’ve both seen movies--you actually do try to kill me, then some rousing heartfelt speech or lovely memories of the time we spent together suddenly pops into your head and then you revert back to normal, then we can all go home and--”

Seb buried the knife into my shoulder. I cried out in pain, clutching my shoulder as I fell on my knees.

“...guess that’s out of the question…” I said. I watched in disgust as he went to lick the knife again, looking me square in the eyes as if to say, “this is who I am now.” 

Then he stopped himself, shaking his head, and pocketing the knife into a sheath. The sheath had red, glowing markings when the knife was inserted in, and when he pulled it back out, the markings faded and the blades were completely clean.

What weird alien technology were these vampires using? I thought. If all of us manage to live through this experience somehow, then AkiSeb is gonna have one hell of a conspiracy.

I stood up, holding onto my bleeding shoulder.

“Why are you doing this, dude?” I asked. “You don’t have to listen to them. We’ve been friends for ages.”

Seb just gave me a blank stare, then smiled. He started to giggle, then gave me a chilling answer—or a question, rather:

“You believe me now...don’t you?”

And with that, he struck me with the blade again.

Or he would have, had I not grabbed the blade with my hand itself. 

Counterproductive, yes, and my hand hurt like the devil, but it was either this or the blade goes into my neck. 

“You know what?” I hissed, “fine. If you don’t want to listen, then I’ll make you listen.” 

I punched Seb across the face. He let go of the knife and held on to his face. I took this opportunity to go for the knife--but Seb stomped on my hand without looking, bruising my ring and pinky fingers. 

Fortunately, that wasn’t even my good hand. 

As I recoiled away from the blow, Seb grabbed the knife. I rammed him into the opposite wall, but he kicked me backwards. My head banged into the glass, leaving cracks in it. He then threw the knife at me, but I managed to move out of the way in time, just as the knife landed right in the center of where I had banged my head on the glass. I stared at the knife in horror, thanking every god in the pantheon that I was even alive right now.

My prayers were interrupted when Seb grabbed my neck and threw me to the floor, pressing my head against the ground as he prepared to sink his small fangs in the exposed area of my neck. I kicked at Seb, punched him with my good arm, spat in his face, whatever I could do to get him off of me. But he was relentless. His bloodlust had consumed him completely. And with each time I tried to resist, his small grew closer and closer to my neck.

I almost wanted to give in. I almost wanted him to just get it over with already. I was human; he was a vampire. I was weaker than him. 

Suddenly, I heard footsteps storming down the hall. I fought against Seb harder, but he seemed to gain a sudden boost in strength. He even risked a temporary glance in the direction of the storming footsteps--which I could only pray belonged to a potential savior. 

Finally, he head-butted me, then took the opening I had left to sink his fangs into my neck. I screamed in pain, pushing Seb backwards—and into a sharp, wooden rod. 

Kaveri had just come up behind him and staked him through the heart. 

“SEBASTIAN!” I cried as he rolled off of me. “Kaveri, what the hell?!” 

Kaveri looked up at me with furious eyes. 

“He was trying to hurt you,” she said in a broken voice. “I had to.”

I had so many words I wanted to say to her…to Seb…but my words got caught in my throat. I collapsed to my knees near Seb, searching in his eyes for any signs of life. The peppermint swirl in his eyes slowed to a halt. His mouth gaped open slightly, just wide enough so I could see that his fangs had retracted. 

His vampire side was gone. 

But so was his human side. 

I only came to this realization after spending who-knows-how-long screaming and crying and shaking my friend’s lifeless body, begging for him to wake up. Kaveri pulled me upwards, telling me to let go, he was gone, there’s nothing we can do, I had to, I’m sorry, please forgive me…

But I couldn’t. I had to, but I couldn’t. She saved me...and ruined my life. I turned around to face her, still on my knees. 

Through my clouded vision, I could see nothing but the indigo mass of Kaveri’s sweater and the blood stained on her stake.

Seb’s blood. 

I wiped my eyes, looking back at my fallen friend’s body. I stared into his lifeless eyes, the peppermint spiral fading. My breath quickened, my heart raced, as I realized…

“You lied to me,” I said, looking up at my best friend’s murderer.

“How?” she asked. 

“You said you would help me.” 

“I also said that if you didn’t want him to be a vampire, you’d have to kill him. Pretty sure the first thing you’d wish for in that kind of situation is for him not to be a vampire.”

“I don’t care if he’s a vampire,” I hissed, standing up. “I care if he’s my friend.”

“He tried to kill you!” Kaveri cried. 

“You said you would save him!” 

“I had no CHOICE, Dakota!”

“You did and you chose to KILL HIM.” I found myself storming towards her. 

“Get a hold of yourself,” Kaveri said, pointing the bloody stake at me. 

I knocked the stake out of her hand. 

“I’m gonna need that, y’know,” she said. She picked it up and put it in her sheath. “Please...I know you hate me right now, but you unfortunately kind of need me to defeat Jasper.” She gestured to the bloody stake. “Unless you want it, of course.”

I shot a glare at her. 

“Fine,” I said. “After this, I never want to see you again.” 

Kaveri just shrugged. 

“Deal,” she said. “Let’s just get this over with.” 

[pbpress]

Blood Candy: Chapters 7 and 8

by Ruqayyah Pickel

Lunch time arrived, and I found a note in the spot I usually sat at. 

“Change of plans,” it said. “Meet me in the back of the school. Forget your lunch; we’ll get food before we go. -A” 

Assuming that “A” was Akira, I headed out to the back of the school building. I honestly never liked coming back here; it’s where all the…shady things happened. It always smelled faintly of drugs, and cigarette remains were littered across the floor. It also didn’t help that there was a long, dark, recessed area where I suspected the shadiest of the shady things happened. I heard several people had been beaten up in this area. One person was even murdered, according to rumors—but Akira and Seb insisted that they weren’t dead…or at least not forever. (You’d think they’d use their skills to figure out who had murdered that poor kid and why instead of whether or not they were actually alive...but considering what Seb almost did to me last night, I really was in no position to make fun of him anymore.)

I felt a vibration in my pocket, and took out my phone to see a message from my mom. 

“Hey there,” it read, “I know you’re at school right now, and again, I don’t mean to alarm you, but I called the police station for updates on the investigation. They said that they’re gonna have to put it on hold for right now; they haven’t heard back from the officers that came by the house last night, so they’re trying to get in touch with them. That’s all. We’ll talk more when you come home. Love you, stay safe.” 

I let out a nervous sigh. In all honesty, I was rather nervous about going into this myself, so I was kind of counting on the police to find Seb and figure out just what had gotten into him. That being said, the police force was kind of unreliable, so confronting Seb myself could be a good thing...but the last time I saw him, he literally tried to kill me. 

I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Jasper would do once I saw him again. 

Suddenly, I heard an odd sound. It sounded like…something opening. A bag, probably. Had it not been for the faint, muffled giggling that accompanied that sound, then my heart would not have been racing as much. I turned the corner and found…nothing.

So what was that—

The tight feeling around my neck and the prickly feeling of a rope around it quickly answered my question. 

I found myself struggling to breathe, forcing in and out every breath, trying my hardest not to suffocate. The thick, prickly rope had already been tied quickly around my neck. I was on one knee as I tried to stop myself from getting dragged back by whoever had bound me. I struggled to turn around, but by the time I did, my heart sank.

It was Seb. 

A demented smile crossed his face as his peppermint pattern in his eyes continued to swirl. I could barely see the bloodstains on his baseball tee covered by his new black long coat. 

“S-Sebs…” I choked out, “wh-what’re y-you…” 

Once Seb realized he had me bound, he tied the other end of the rope to a nearby dumpster. I made one last feeble attempt to escape, but the world was already going dark. Though I was already blacking out, Seb made sure to finish the job by taking out the baseball bat I had used to knock him out the night before, and bringing it down hard on my head. The last thing I felt was my head hitting the hard concrete before everything went black. 

          ———————

[Chapter 8]

When I came to, I found myself in a sickeningly familiar office. 

I was bound to the same chair I was in yesterday using the same thick rope Seb used to choke me. 

“Hope the ride wasn’t too bumpy,” Jasper Kermit’s voice said. He entered the room and crouched down to my level with an arrogant smile. “Took you long enough. Though…” He frowned. “You’re not nearly as bloody as I expected you to be.” Jasper’s smile suddenly returned, only more cheerful this time. “Good! Means your little friend Sebs is actually marginally obedient and isn’t a greedy little leech.”

“Let me go!” I demanded as Jasper got up to go to his syringe cabinet. “I’ve done nothing to you!”

“I don’t exactly care,” he said, “but thanks for reminding me.” 

“I hope you realize I only took your stupid vampire candy just to be polite,” I snapped at him. “I should’ve just turned it down and saved myself the trouble.” 

Jasper laughed, a cruel and condescending sound. He crouched down to my level, syringe in hand. 

“You really think I would’ve given you that choice?” he taunted. “God, you are so naive. It’s embarrassing, really.” 

My heart was thundering. I was gonna die here, I thought. I’ve been kidnapped, I can’t call anyone for help, he’s gonna drain all of my blood and feed it to his army of vampires, he’s gonna—

Suddenly, Jasper started poking needles in the back of both hands, then in both wrists, and in both arms. Though the pain of blood works didn’t affect me as much anymore, having six needles stuck in my veins at once, plus the knowledge that these six needles were going to drain me of all my blood and kill me, made the entire process much more painful. 

Finally, he hooked all six needles up to one longer-than-normal syringe, with several others on the sidelines. 

“Oh…hold on,” Jasper said with a smirk. “Before we start, there’s one last thing I need to do.” 

He grabbed a nearby roll of duct tape, ripped off a piece, and taped it over my mouth. 

“Wouldn’t want a noise complaint, now, would we?” Jasper taunted. He wore a sadistic grin on his face...revealing fangs in his mouth and confirming any remaining suspicions. “Now we can get started…” 

Suddenly, a fire alarm went off in the building. 

“Wh-what the hell…?” he said, then turned to me, an annoyed look on his face. “I’m gonna go check out the alarm. Fortunately, you can’t really escape, so I guess enjoy the last minutes of your life.” He stood up and walked out the door. 

I tried to ignore the pain in my arms and wrists as I tried to figure out a way out of the situation. 

Chances are, I thought to myself, that I wouldn’t be able to escape before Jasper gets back. And if he sees that I tried to, then he’s probably gonna kill me even faster. I could sit here and die, and if/whenever Sebs snaps outta this, then he’ll have to live with the knowledge that he’s the reason his ‘best friend in the whole wide world since kindergarten’ is now six feet under with empty blood vessels and ghostly white skin. And you know what? I’m okay with that. I hope Seb feels like the scum of the earth for this—

Wait. No. Why am I blaming him? This is Jasper’s fault. He was the one who spiked the candy—with what?—he probably enlisted Seb to choke the consciousness outta me, and he is the person draining my blood. Not Seb. He didn’t want this. He wants me alive, and every remaining conscious part of him is probably screaming at himself mentally for putting me in harm’s way—

“Dakota!” a familiar voice called. I looked up to find Akira, Kaveri, and the kid from the other day, Oliver. He had a bandage wrapped around his shoulder with a bloody spot in the middle. 

“Hey! Finally!” I cheered. “GET THESE THINGS OUTTA ME NOW.”

“Alright, alright, geez,” Akira said. “You act like you’re dying.” She and Oliver began gently taking the needles out of my veins. The two of them raided the desk for bandages, and put them on my wrists and arms. 

“How did you guys find me?” I asked. 

“This hospital is one of the main headquarters of Clueham’s top vampire guild,” Kaveri explained as she was cutting me loose. “It’s also the only local hospital--because the Clueham officials all share a single brain cell--so I figured you’d be trapped here.”

“Oliver—or Oli, for short—is Jasper’s younger brother,” Akira said. “He was in the waiting room crying, and I asked him what was up. He told me about his brother who caused both the small bleeding hole in his shoulder and Seb’s newfound insanity. I triggered the fire alarm to cause a distraction, and boom!” She pulled out the last needle as Kaveri finished freeing me. “Here we are.”

“Akira, you genius,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s,” Oliver said, “before Jasper gets back. Exit’s just upstairs—“

“No,” I said. “I need to face Jasper.”

Oliver’s eyes widened with fear. 

“A-are you crazy?!” he cried. “He’ll kill you! And if he doesn’t, then Sebastian will!” 

“Seb wouldn’t kill me,” I said with a smile. “Hurt me, probably, but he could never bring himself to actually kill me.”

“I’m not so sure about that.” He pulled out his phone. “Can you set up some barricades?” he asked Akira and Kaveri.

He closed and locked the door, then opened up a video. Both girls nodded as they pushed the two chairs in the room in front of the door. Then, Oliver pressed play. 

The video showed Jasper in his office, experimenting with what I assumed to be blood and a variety of chemicals. The camera was positions a little higher up, but not high enough to be security footage.

“All the vampires in the facility—Jasper included—busted the security cameras,” Oli explained, “so I set one up behind the books in his office.

“What if he pulled out a book from that shelf?” Akira asked. 

“Well, he didn’t. He doesn’t read anymore; they’re just for show.”

Suddenly, Seb stormed into the office in the video. Jasper whirled his head around, a confused expression on his face. However, it quickly turned into a smile. 

“Oh, you must be Sebastian Briggs,” Jasper said. “Yeah, you definitely came here before. I recognize you from our database. How’s it going?” 

Silence. We could only see the back view of Seb, so if he was smiling, we couldn’t tell. 

Seb pointed to his neck with a shaky finger. “…m-make me…one of you…”

“Ohhhh…” Jasper said, nodding. “I see.” Suddenly, he gave Seb a slight glare. “Wait…no, no no no. I just…I can’t really do that, see. I don’t exactly know if I trust you to not be a filthy leech like some of the other greedy…subjects from before.” Jasper stood up. “See, you’re just the errand boy. You get Dakota for me, and once you do, then you get to start your real job. Got it?

Seb nodded.

“…b-but…I must…feed…like you…” 

Jasper sighed.

“You made a candy that gives people bloodlust,” Jasper murmured to himself. “Of course this was gonna happen.” He let out a sigh, and leaned back in his chair. 

“You know what?” Jasper said. “Sure. I’m gonna have to convert you anyways.” He stood up and grabbed something from his drawer. “But biting’s just…so informal, y’know? You’re my colleague now, I can’t just bite you on the neck like you’re some random on the street. Don’t worry. I got just the thing for that.” 

Jasper pulled out a small dagger-like device. The blade resembled that of the tooth of a wild beast, and the metal handle had dark red markings on it. 

“This little thingy allows me to give people the vampiric curse without biting them. Originally made for a vampire who got her teeth knocked out. Gimme your neck.”

Seb did, obeying Jasper with such blindness that it caused my blood to boil. I watched as Jasper held the other side of his errand boy’s neck as he made a decent-sized slit along his throat. As he did, the dagger’s markings lit up. When he was done, Seb was on his knees, holding the area where he was cut. Finally, he stood up, as Jasper gave a triumphant smile.

“Perfect,” he said. “Sebastian, you work for me from now on.” He took out a black long coat from his closet. “Put this on. There’s a small mirror over there if you wanna check yourself out.”

Seb put on the coat, and went over to a nearby mirror—which just happened to be on the bookshelf. That’s when Seb noticed the camera. 

The video cut off just after he looked at it. 

“I was controlling the camera from my phone,” Oliver explained. “So I turned it off right as I saw Sebastian looking at me.” 

“…so, he’s a vampire now?” I said. 

Kaveri nodded solemnly. I looked over at her.

“Can we cure him?” I asked. 

“We can probably cure his bloodlust,” she said, “but if you want him to, well, not be a vampire…you’re gonna have to kill him.”

I sighed. 

“Guess I’ll just have a vampire for a friend,” I said.

“Once this is over,” Akira said, “I want at least 90% of the credit for this conspiracy.”

“You’re still gonna make a post about this?!” Kaveri cried. “This isn’t a game, y’know. This is an actual threat.”

Akira just shrugged. 

“Gotta keep the hustle goin’,” she replied simply. “Besides...best to keep the people informed, right? They might take it a bit less seriously since it’s a ‘conspiracy,’ but they’ll believe us. They always do.” 

“Let’s actually get this done first,” I reminded her. “But yeah, I can respect that. Don’t want anyone else going through what we’ve been through.”

Suddenly, a loud BANG came from outside the door. 

“DAKOTA!” Jasper yelled from the other side of the door. “I better not find you untied in there, or I will MURDER YOU.” 

Akira rummaged through the drawers and shelves, then finally found and grabbed a reflex hammer. She motioned for Oliver and I to open the door. Reluctantly, we both stood on the other side of the door, out of sight, and pulled down the barricades. Jasper stormed into the room, just as Akira threw the reflex hammer at his head with a sickening thud. Jasper stumbled backward as Kaveri rammed into him, shoving him out of the threshold and trying to stick a dagger in his arm. However, Jasper kicked her out of the way.

“You three go on ahead!” Kaveri yelled. “I’ll deal with this vampire.” 

“Can you handle him?” I asked. “You just have a knife; is that gonna--” 

That’s when I noticed the other sheath on her belt. It was shorter than a full sword, but longer than her knife. The hilt appeared to be dark and wooden, and I could only pray that it was a stake.

“Yes,” Kaveri called, holding Jasper back. “Yes it will.”

I nodded, and took off down the hallway with my friends.

“Alright,” Akira said as we ran down the hallway. “Here’s the plan: Oli knows where the secret files are...don’t ask me how, he just does. I was confused too. Anyway, he’ll take us there and we’ll figure out what this whole candy situation is about.”

“You guys do that,” I replied. “I’m gonna try and subdue Seb, then you guys come back up when you have a cure.” 

“You’ll be okay, right?” she asked. “Can you take Seb by yourself?”

“He and I used to play fight when we were younger,” I explained. “If I could take him then, I certainly can now.” 

Akira sighed. 

“Fine,” she said. “If there’s any trouble, find a hiding spot and text me ASAP. Worst comes to worst, we can abandon ship and find Seb another day. He’ll likely come to us, anyhow.”

“No. I’m ending this now.” We stopped at a stairwell.

“This is it,” Oli said, holding my hand. “Be safe, Dakota.”

“I will,” I said. “I have to be.” With that, we went our separate ways.

[pbpress]

Blood Candy: Chapters 5 and 6

By Ruqayyah Pickel

[Chapter 5]

The night was worse than expected. 

I had gotten started on the essay at around 5pm. 

It was now nearly 1am. 

I had to reread many sections of Dracula in order to finish my notes, and planning took forever. I still had to write the second half of the essay, but I found myself with not even enough energy to do that.

To make matters worse, school would be cancelled on Friday due to an expected hurricane. Because of this, the essay was now due tomorrow--or today, rather.

Why not just make the essay due on Monday? I thought furiously. We did spend quite some time going over the book in class, but in all honesty I had dozed off through many of the discussions. Even for a book about vampires, everything about this unit was boring.

I could barely keep my eyes away as I stared at the computer screen. 

Suddenly, I heard a sharp and forceful *click* as my door slowly creaked open.

My door, in case you forgot, had been locked. 

I turned around.

I just wanna go to sleep… 

There was Seb, peering through the crack in the doorway.

“Seb…” I said drowsily, “It’s 1am. Please, go to bed. I’m so tired.”

Seb closed the door back. I tried locking it again…but for some reason the door still opened. 

Of course he broke the lock… I thought bitterly. But how did he get that strength…? Aren’t sick people normally supposed to be weak from their illness?

I gave up and collapsed on my bed, throwing my covers on top of me lazily. I decided that I had a valid enough excuse to not have my essay done, praying that my English teacher would come through with an extension…

…and that Seb felt better by morning. 

By 3am, I was woken up by heavy breathing and tingling sensation on my wrist. I woke up to find Seb—again—right next to me in bed, focusing on my wrist and caressing the area where my veins were. I woke up with a start, banging my head against the wall beside my bed.

“OW!” I cried. “Seb! What are you—“ I pulled my arm away, but Seb held on tight to my wrist. His breathing had only gotten faster, heavier and more labored, and he stared at me with wide, focused, and…red…eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness. A ravenous smile crept across his face as he suddenly pulled out the small knife that was in his other hand, still grabbing my arm with his other hand. His rapid and heavy breathing had turned into manic giggling as I just barely managed to pull my arm away, unfortunately cutting my finger on the knife Seb wielded. Immediately, Seb’s attention switched to the blood on his knife—my blood—as he tasted it.

You read that correctly. My best friend had just tasted my blood.

“You…freak…” I muttered. Seb turned to me suddenly, and I burst out of the room and down the dark hallway, desperately fumbling my way through the darkness. 

I turned around as I ran down the hallway, and noticed that Seb had disappeared. I took this opportunity to hide in the closet in my living room, pushing past all of the coats, jeans, and reserved Halloween costumes and hiding in the corner of the closet. I reached over to the door desperately and closed it back as quietly as I could. 

Unfortunately, my closet doors were incredibly creaky.

 My heart rate increased almost exponentially as I heard distant footsteps growing closer. 

He’s gonna check the closet he’s gonna check the closet he’s gonna check the closet-

Of course he will. He’s seen movies. 

Thoughts and questions started spinning through my head endlessly. How did this happen? Why is he doing this? Did I do something wrong?

Seb’s footsteps started to fade off a bit. I checked my pocket for my phone—

Nothing.

Dammit.

I listened out for Seb’s footsteps, slowly cracking the closet door open just wide enough so I could easily sneak out. As the closet door creaked open, the footsteps stopped. 

He knows he knows he knows he knows-

I crawled quickly behind a nearby couch, right before I saw Seb turn around, knife still in hand. He walked toward the closet, swinging it open as he raised his knife. He walked away defeatedly, leaving the doors open. I stayed behind the couch, trying to still my breathing. Suddenly, Seb appeared right beside me—but he wasn’t looking at me. He hadn’t even seen me. He just walked right beside the couch, continuing his search elsewhere. 

Did he know I was here…? 

Even if he was toying with me, I wasn’t about to let this opportunity slip. As soon as he was out of sight, I bolted back into my room to grab my phone, then into the guest room—where Seb often stayed for the night whenever he came over—and hid in the closet there instead. I pondered who to call first—my mom or the police. Then again, my mom was away from the house, so it would probably be safer to text her and call the cops to come to my house. That being said, it would also probably be faster if I just called them immediately, if only by a minute or so. Anything can happen in a minute. 

Unfortunately, the police in my area didn’t have a text-to-911 system, so if I was going to contact them, I would have no choice but to call.

So I texted my mom instead.

“don’t come to the house until i tell you to,” I messaged her, “seb is trying to kill me”

There was no response for about a minute.

“Is this a prank?” she finally responded.

“no i’m serious he has a knife”

“I want to believe you,” she asked, “but he wouldn’t do something like that. He’s not that kind of person, sweetheart.” 

“JUST CALL THE COPS MOM,” I demanded, “YOU KNOW I WOULDN’T LIE ABOUT THIS”

“You’re right. I will,” she said. “Please try to stay calm. I understand this situation may be stressful but you must stay calm. If you allow yourself to panic, you will lose focus, and therefore control, of the situation. Where are you right now?”

“the closet in seb’s room, it’s the last place he would check”

“Good. Stay there. I’m going to call the police in a few minutes. Please try to hold out until then.”  

I put my phone down, tears running down my face. My own best friend was trying to kill me, and there was no way I could stop him. A horrible feeling coursed through me, and at first I couldn’t tell what it was.

But it didn’t take long for me to figure out. The only reason it was so unfamiliar was because I was never in this kind of situation before. 

I knew what this feeling was. 

This was fear. Pure, raw fear. 

I have to hold out for a few minutes until Mom can call 911. I cursed the Clueham Police Department for not having text-to-911 technology. I cursed Seb for even trying to kill me in the first place. I cursed myself for giving Seb that godforsaken candy in the first place. I cursed Jasper for even giving it to me in the first place.

But a piece of candy wouldn’t do this…right?

I picked up my phone and sent one more message to mom.

“i love you”

Suddenly, a kitchen knife shot through the closet door just inches from my face. I dropped my phone, startled, before I could hit the send button. Both doors swung open as Seb removed the knife. A furious grimace crossed his face as he aimed the knife at me once more. 

That’s when I noticed something about his eyes--they had changed again. 

His once red eyes had turned into a red and white spiral akin to the pattern of a peppermint. 

I rammed my knee into his stomach as he doubled over from the shock, and I grabbed the baseball bat by the door. Instantly, I crashed the hard wooden bat into the side of his head with all the force I could muster, knocking him out cold. I dragged him into the closet and placed a padlock on it.

I did it. I had…survived, somehow. But only on my own accord. It’s not a matter of whether or not Seb would actually do it—there was no longer any question about that—but a matter of whether or not I could actually handle his insane bloodlust. If I had faltered, even for a second, there’s a high chance I wouldn’t even be here right now. It would’ve been me on the floor instead of Seb.

At least he would’ve just been unconscious. 

Though I was safe, my heart continued to pound in my chest just as it had been when I was hiding in the closet, so much so that I almost thought it would jump out. I tried to distract myself by checking the text my mom had sent me, informing me that she had called the police and they were on their way to the house. Night school had just finished and there was a good chance she would be home by the time they got there. She knew that I was tired, so she decided to just let me rest while she took care of the legal stuff—I would give my account of what happened to her, which she would then give to the police. As for Seb…well, that remained to be seen.

I almost just wanted to not say anything…I didn’t want my friend to get in trouble. It wasn’t even his fault, or at least I don’t think it is…As I sat on the couch, trying to still my thundering heart, I contemplated which scenario was more likely: that Seb hated me so much that he wanted to kill me and had been harboring it for who-knows-how-long, or that a piece of hard cherry candy turned my best friend for over 11 years into a ruthless killing machine who wanted nothing more than to drain every last ounce of blood out of my system. I didn’t want to admit that either of them could be a possibility…but I knew of no drug that could possibly make people bloodthirsty. 

What I did know, however, was that 4 straight years of your best friend constantly criticizing and berating your ideas could really put a dent in the ego…and in a relationship. Don’t get me wrong, I supported Seb, Akira, and their conspiracy theory website—as any good friend should—but lying right to Seb’s face and saying there weren’t holes in his ideas would be just as bad as not supporting him at all. That being said, Seb was a pretty sensitive kid, for better or worse. I thought I was doing him a favor. Turns out I was just doing this new, bloodthirsty Seb a favor and digging my own grave.

So yeah. The thought of a piece of candy turning him insane—though not necessarily impossible—seemed pretty foreign.

I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to blame him. 

But I had to say something. Even then, I still didn’t blame him.

Exhausted, exasperated, and terrified, I collapsed in Seb’s bed and hoped that I woke up the next morning.

  ——————

  [Chapter 6]

Good news: I did actually wake up that morning.

Bad news: I missed the bus. 

The first thing I did was check my phone. Well, this was standard procedure for me, but instead of checking Twitter, I checked my messages. My mom texted me at around 5am with this message:

“Hey, sweetheart. I know you’re probably asleep right now. I got in the house (I know you told me not to, but the cops said they’d be there around the time I would get back and I wanted to meet them there) and, of course, the first thing I did was check on you. I’m sure the relief I felt when I saw that you were alive is obvious, but that’s not the point of this message. I don’t mean to alarm you, but we got here at about 4:30am-ish and we couldn’t find Seb anywhere in the house. The police launched an investigation throughout the area. 

Before leaving the house, I took one last look around to see where Seb was. 

It was only when I began closing the door to the guest room did I notice that the closet door was cracked open, the padlock released. It wasn’t broken, I noted when I went to examine it, but there was a black key on the floor next to it that I had never seen before. 

I immediately grabbed my stuff, locked the door, and ran to the elevator of the apartment, checking the time. I only had a minute to get to the bus stop, so I opted to take the stairs instead. I ran down all 4 flights of stairs and made a beeline for the bus stop—only to find that it had already taken off. 

I took an Uber to school that day. The entire time, my mind raced with possible theories as to how Seb had gotten out. 

I hated every single one of the conclusions I had managed to come up with.

I arrived in class 10 minutes later. Fortunately study hall was my first class, so I decided I would take that time to get an extra nap in and make up for the lost hours of sleep. To hell with the Dracula essay, I thought. I can make it up later.

I looked around the classroom for a seat and found my friend Akira, the researcher for AkiSeb Theories. She was fairly easy to spot in a crowd; she always wore that same dark gray anorak jacket with a thistle-colored, heart shaped patch that she had woven onto her jacket sleeve after it got torn one day.

Thank God, I thought. I really needed someone to talk to.

I had met Akira in seventh grade. She was surprisingly social, despite having a relatively small amount of friends. We became fast friends, although we never really became too close until freshman year of high school. One day, she suddenly asked to sit with me and Seb at lunch, clearly distressed. Curious, but deciding not to intrude, I said yes. 

Throughout these two and a half years of being close friends with Akira, I had eventually come to the conclusion that she was basically the middle ground for Seb and I. She was analytical, but also imaginative--the mind of an ace detective, and perfect for a conspiracy blog. She wasn’t too idealistic to the point where she would sound like a maniac trying to explain one of Seb’s theories to a normal person, but also not too logical as to rule out Seb’s theories entirely. That’s why I suggested that she join Seb as the researcher for his website when he first started it in eighth grade (my mom helped him set it up when he was over at my house one weekend). 

She was tying her short, black, undercut hair in a ponytail. Her laptop was out, probably writing notes for a new conspiracy for the blog. 

“Akira!” I said. 

Akira turned to me with a tired smile. 

“What’s up, DK?” she teased.

“I told you not to call me that,” I sighed. 

“And I told you to start your essay early,” Akira retorted, finishing the ponytail and going back to her work, “but here we are. I’m assuming you stayed up till 3am working on it again?” 

“For your information, I stayed up until 1am working on it. I ended up actually going to bed at 3:30-ish because Seb tried to kill me last night.”

Much to my annoyance, though I wasn’t surprised in the slightest, Akira laughed. Anyone who knew that me and Seb were incredibly close, which a lot of people did, would never have guessed that he would ever try to kill me for real--not only because he was my best friend, but because the dude couldn’t even lift his own laundry basket.

“You really let a skinny little kid like him get the best of you?” she joked. “Didn’t you tell me you always used to kick his butt when you guys were play fighting when you were, like, 6 years old?”

I shot her a glare. “I’m serious. Plus, he’s seventeen. He’s not so weak anymore.”

Akira froze, the teasing smile dropping from her face.

“Come again?” she said. 

“Okay, it’s a fairly long story but…” I said, taking a deep breath, “y’know how I got my blood drawn yesterday? Yeah, I got this doctor named Jasper Kermit who gave me this red candy thing after the bloodwork to ‘keep my energy up’ but I gave it to Sebs instead because you know I’m not one for sweets but when Sebs ate it he started acting weird and his driving skills seemed impaired and he kept getting into crashes almost so I took an Uber and then he tailed us home and then when we finally got home I yelled at him and--“

“Okay, okay, slow down,” Akira said. “Breathe. Start from the beginning.”

I took another deep breath, retold the first part of the story more slowly, and then continued.

“I came to the conclusion that he may have been sick or something. There was no way he’d get us into a crash on purpose, right? Sure, Seb’s a little bit of a reckless driver, but he’s not that bad. Anyway, I went out for a walk and tried to schedule another appointment—“

“Not at the same doctor’s office though, right?” Akira asked. 

I paused. 

“Uhhhh…” I stammered. Akira facepalmed. 

“Dakota, you know I love you, buddy, but you can be a real moron sometimes.” She sighed. “That candy was probably drugged. Actually…maybe you’re good. As long as you got another doctor.”

“That’s the thing,” I said, my voice quivering slightly. “It was Jasper that picked up the phone.”

“The one that spiked the candy? Great.”

“I asked him about it and if there were any allergens but he was being all cryptic…” I fidgeted with a pencil on the desk. 

“Did anything else happen?” Akira asked, her once cynical look turning softer.

“Yes.” I continued to fidget the pencil, only faster this time. “That night, I worked on the essay and fell asleep at midnight, and I woke up to find Sebs just…caressing my wrist with a knife in his hand…”

“…oh God…” 

“…he tried to…” I took another deep breath. “…he ended up cutting my finger instead, and he…he licked my blood off of the knife.”

Akira’s dark eyes widened. 

“He ended up cornering me at one point…” I continued, “…but I managed to fend him off. I ended up KO’ing him with a baseball bat, and I trapped him in the closet for the night. I barely managed to get any sleep…I’m so tired, but also still shaken up. I’m drifting between falling asleep and being unable to sleep.” 

Akira stood up and embraced me in a tight hug. 

“You can stay with me and my parents for the time being, if you’d like,” she offered.

I nodded, returning the hug. 

“That doctor told me if I wanted to know about the candy, I’d have to go in and find out myself.” I clutched the pencil tight. “But I don’t want to face that dude again.” 

“You don’t have to, y’know,” another female voice said. “At least, not alone.”

Akira and I let go of each other and turned around to face the famously lavender-clad, infamously enigmatic Kaveri Vigil.

Now, despite being in this school for four years now, she hasn’t managed to make many friends. At least…not any close ones, none except for Akira. I only met Kaveri once, and that was when I ran into her and Akira at the mall in freshman year when Kaveri dyed her hair for the first time. She was...fairly quiet around me, but as the pair of friends left, the raven-haired girl was talking up an absolute storm--though nothing bad about me, I assumed. In all honesty, if I hadn’t had Seb, then I would’ve been rather envious of Akira and Kaveri’s close relationship. 

Rumor has it that she became a lot more anti-social after a ‘family emergency’ that dismissed her from school for the rest of freshman year--around the same time, actually, that Akira started speaking to me more. When Kaveri came back in the middle of sophomore year, she refused to speak to anyone unless she absolutely  had to. She even cut several of her classes. It was a miracle she hadn’t been suspended, or worse, expelled. When I asked Akira about her, she refused to speak on the matter. At one point, when I tried asking her again, she seemed to have no clue who I was talking about. 

To Akira, Kaveri was practically a stranger. Akira was never the type to make enemies, and it didn’t seem as if Kaveri was either--so for Akira to greet her so venomously was...more than just a little jarring. 

“Vigil,” Akira hissed. “I thought you were a recluse. Why come to a pair of unknown loners now?”

Kaveri ignored Akira’s attitude and said, “Don’t get it twisted. I overheard your conversation, and I think it may come in handy for my own theory I’ve been piecing together.” 

“…you think you know what’s going on with Sebs?” I asked.

“Maybe. And if we’re lucky, we may be able to save him. However, I’m going to need some help.”

Akira shot Kaveri a glare. 

“Oh, now you need my help,” she snapped. “What would you know about this kind of stuff, anyways?

“More than you could ever know,” she answered bitterly. 

Akira only shot a glare at her in response, looking like she was biting back the urge to say something else.

“Like I said, don’t get it twisted. I’ll go back to ‘shutting myself out’ once I get to the bottom of this,” Kaveri continued with a rather sarcastic tone toward the end. 

I looked at Akira and Kaveri. What’s their deal? I wondered. 

“I’d be glad to have some help,” I said. “Let’s meet after school, okay?”

Kaveri nodded, and walked away without another word. I turned to Akira, who had an annoyed expression on her face. She looked back at me, softening a little.

“Do yourself a favor,” she said, “and please don’t ask.”

I didn’t. I understood the value of privacy well. 

The rest of the day, I could barely focus in class. If I wasn’t falling asleep, I was doodling stuff from last night—Seb’s spiral eyes, Jasper’s cunning grin, a couple of vampires...

All day, the same question crossed my mind:

If Jasper did, in fact, do this...what in the world did he put in that candy to make Seb want to kill me?

[pbpress]

Blood Candy: Chapter 3 and 4

By Ruqayyah Pickel

Chapter 3

“And that’s why I’m even more sick of this vampire nonsense than usual,” I finished telling Seb. “That Oliver kid was something else. This better be a city-wide April Fool’s joke; if I hear one more thing about vampires, I will push you out of this seat and crash this car.”

“Sure you will, buddy,” Seb laughed. “Actually, no, you probably will…the second you put your hands on the wheel, this car’s gonna be like nope and crash into a building just to put itself out of its misery.” 

“Love it when my friend’s own car hates me; I must be doing something right. Now shut up and eat this candy I got from Jasper,” I sighed, lightly shoving the wrapped candy in Seb’s mouth.

“Hey don’t distract—CANDY!” Seb cried. I kid you not, he literally pulled over in order to open it, then got back on the road once it was in his mouth.

“So?” I asked. “How is it?” 

Seb nodded.

“It’s good!” he said, sucking on the candy. 

“Glad you like it.” I smiled. We sat in silence for a bit. 

“Seriously, this candy is amazing,” Seb said suddenly. His tongue--and even some of his teeth--were stained red. “Even someone who doesn’t have a sweet tooth would enjoy it! Next time you go in for an appointment, you gotta ask Dr. Kermit what’s in these and where he got ‘em.”

“I will, buddy. I will,” I said. I began to doze off as Seb was wrapping up his tangent, still a bit drained from the blood work. My nap was interrupted when I heard a car horn blare as I jolted awake to find a truck swerving out of our path.

“Dude, you good?!” I asked Seb. “You gotta be more careful, man. Geez, I shoulda never given you that candy.”

Seb didn’t say a word. I sighed and went back to my nap.

The same thing happened a few minutes later. 

“Seriously, Sebs, you gotta be careful,” I repeated. “Are you even listening to me? Helloooo?” 

Again, he didn’t speak. Once more, my attempted nap was interrupted by a car horn and a car moving out of our way. The driver in the other car yelled, “watch where you’re going!” I turned to Seb. His expression was blank, and he just kept driving. 

“Dude, you’re gonna get us in a crash!” I cried. “Screw it. Pull over! I’m calling an Uber.” 

To my surprise, he did. I got out of the car and onto the sidewalk. Suddenly, Seb’s car went forward, but I barely managed to get onto the sidewalk in time.

“WATCH IT!!” I yelled. “Are you trying to kill me?! What was in that candy, dude?!” I groaned as I ordered the Uber. Once I did, I turned to Seb, who stared at me blankly…almost longingly, actually. His mouth was open slightly, as if he were in some sort of a daze, revealing his stained teeth. The candy was a vibrant red color, but for some reason, his teeth were stained with a darker red color. It was...off-putting, to say the least, but I was far too angry at Seb to even think of it for more than three seconds. He had no right to look at me so stupidly like that without any sort of apology or explanation. He looked as if he had no clue what I meant or what he was even doing, but Seb, even in all his mindlessly idealistic, failing-at-least-two-classes glory, was much smarter than he seemed. He had to be, if he could weave together elaborate conspiracies by connecting points that were otherwise unrelated. Many of my friends were smart people--to an extent--and I intended on keeping it that way for a while.

I did notice, however, that Seb also looked rather tired all of a sudden. His skin looked just a bit paler than usual, and there were some slight bags under his eyes. It looked like he had been tearing up. This was...strange, to say the least, considering he was just as energetic and cheerful as always a few minutes ago. Why the sudden change?

“Don’t look at me like that, Sebs…” I sighed. “That candy better not be drugged. We’ll talk later…I’ll meet you at home, dude.” 

Seb drove off, but ended up just turning to park not too far from where I was. I rolled my eyes, thinking Seb probably just wanted to follow me home. 

Finally, the driver arrived and I climbed into the back seat as per usual. I greeted him, of course, but aside from that, the two of us didn’t speak to each other. 

The drive was fairly peaceful—in comparison to driving with Seb, at least—until the cab driver looked in his rear view mirror. 

“That car behind us is awfully close…” he commented. I turned around, looking out the back car window to find Seb in his car. I growled in frustration.

“He’s been acting weird today…” I said. “Just keep driving, and be careful. I’ll talk to him at—“ 

Suddenly, Seb’s car pulled up next to us on my side, blocking the entire lane. I was so startled that I nearly jumped out of my seat.

“I haven’t exactly studied the driver’s manual in a bit,” I said, “but I’m pretty sure this is a serious violation of traffic safety.” 

“You wouldn’t be far off,” he said. I looked at Seb, who was staring intently at me. At this point, the two cars were practically clashing. We stayed like this until we finally left the lane, and Seb continued to tail us home. I tried my best to ignore it; if I survived the drive then I could yell at him at home. 

“Sorry for the inconvenience,” I sighed, tipping the driver $20. “Here. For your trouble.” 

The cab driver, who already looked exhausted, gave me a smile. 

“Thanks,” he said. “Have a good day…and please deal with your friend.” 

“I will,” I replied. “You have a good day, too...or at least a better one than mine.”

 Seb got out of his car just as I got out of mine. The two of us walked back to our apartment in silence until we got home.

------------------------------

[Chapter 4]

Once we got inside, the pent-up anger and fear during that Russian Roulette game of a ride home was finally let out. 

“Seb!” I cried. “What the living crud were you thinking?! You almost got us killed several times! Okay maybe it could’ve been a minor injury at best but STILL! What’s wrong with you!? You better at least have some semblance of an explanation or I will freakin’ MURDER—“

“Murder?” Seb asked, looking up at me. His expression was blank.

“Okay, not really…” I reassured him. “You’re my best friend, Seb. It’s been that way for years, man…but I just wanna know what happened—“

That’s when I got a good look at his eyes. 

The whites of his eyes had turned pink, almost as if he had pinkeye—or worse. 

“I…” I was speechless. Maybe he had gotten sick? That would explain why he was acting strange today…perhaps the near-crashes were just him dozing off or being weak from whatever sickness he had. 

“Okay, you look horrible, buddy,” I said. “I’m sure you’re just sick…sorry I yelled at you. I-I’m gonna call the doctor, okay? Stay here. Might also go for a walk, too. Go lie down, Sebs.” 

I grabbed my phone off the table and headed outside, dialing the doctor’s office while wondering what would’ve happened--if anything--if I ate the candy like I was probably supposed to. I remembered Seb saying he wanted to see Dr. Kermit next time he went in to the doctor’s, but I had a slight suspicion that he was not to be trusted. 

“If you know what’s good for you,” Jasper’s younger brother had said, “you won’t come back here.”

That, plus his comment about Jasper chasing him around with a syringe and trying to stick him with it…it gave me a bad feeling about the supposedly charismatic yet eccentric doctor. I wasn’t sure where it came from; there’s a perfectly good explanation for why Seb had gotten sick. He could’ve been allergic to something in the candy and I just didn’t know.

I decided to give Jasper the benefit of the doubt, and called the doctor’s office anyway. The only other one nearby was on the other side of town, and I was fine as long as I didn’t get an appointment with Jasper. 

“Hello?” I said into the phone. 

“Yooo,” a familiar voice said on the other end of the line.

Jasper?!

“O-oh, hi…” I stammered. Just my luck. “D-didn’t expect you to be on the other end of the line…” 

“You sound disappointed, Dakota,” Jasper teased. “So, what’s up? Need another blood drawing? Or did your friend want more candy?”

Why was he so focused on that stupid piece of candy? Then again, now would probably be the best time to ask him about it...

“Well, uh…that’s the thing,” I said. “My friend got sick today…looks like he has pinkeye and his driving skills seemed to be impaired…we almost got into a crash multiple times. Might have been an allergic reaction to whatever was in that candy. I think he may need an appointment…”

“I can come take a look at him,” Jasper offered, almost insistently.

“O-oh, thanks, but, while you’re on the line I was wondering if…maybe you can check the ingredients of that candy? See if there’s any allergens?” 

There was silence for a bit, then Jasper chuckled darkly. 

“Well, there’s no fun if I just tell you,” he said. “You should come down here and figure it out for yourself.”

At that point I had enough. If something in that candy got my friend sick, then there was absolutely no time to be messing around. 

“This is serious!” I shouted at the doctor. “My friend is sick, probably because of something you gave him! Whether it was on purpose or not, you have to fix this! Or at least help to some extent! Tell me what’s in that—“

“If ‘sick’ is what you wanna call it, kid,” Jasper said, “then maybe your friend needs a treatment.”

“What do you think I’ve been asking for this entire time--” 

“Don’t worry. You don’t have to do anything. In fact, it may be better if you don’t.”

“What are you talking about?!” I snapped.

“You’ll figure it out in time.” Jasper chuckled again before hanging up. 

Well, I didn’t have time for this. I was practically seething at this point, so I decided to just go back inside and deal with Seb myself.

“So Jasper was absolutely useless,” I sighed, sitting on the couch next to Seb. I then decided to move to the other end away from where he was sitting. He still appeared to be in a daze.

“Look, buddy,” I sighed. “I’ll look after you for now. I couldn’t get an appointment, and Jasper was too busy being cryptic—something about me doing nothing in order for you to get your treatment—but I think something in that candy made you sick. Just…get some rest, I’ll bring you some water, and I’m gonna go work on my essay for the rest of the day.” 

I grabbed a metal water bottle from the cabinet and filled it almost completely with water. I then got Seb a blanket and put it over him as he begrudgingly laid down on the couch. I set the water bottle on the floor beside him and went back to my room, giving a sad little wave as I closed the door—and locked it. 

It really didn’t help that I had to write an essay on Dracula of all things…in all honesty, I didn’t want to hear anything about vampires ever again.