Don't go in there! IC

“Don’t go in there!”

The crowd inside of the movie theater laughed. The curly-haired girl slumped down in her seat, clearly embarrassed. It wasn’t her fault she was afraid of a silly horror movie. Vampires, ghosts, the Bogey-man; they weren’t real. So why be afraid of a movie? The truth was, the girl actually lived through a horror tale. And she was still living it. Those people were only nervous, laughing at someone else seemed to ease the pain of knowing they were forever stuck in a horror movie.

“I was a twenty-two year old, fresh out of college. The apartment I rented wasn’t in the best of shape, neither was the town I lived in. There were stories about the town that I didn’t care to believe in. They said a coven of Vampires lived in the abandoned warehouse two blocks from the apartment buildings. I laughed. What else was I supposed to do? I also didn’t believe that our apartment building, and about half of the town’s older buildings were haunted by creatures of the ‘unknown.’ Sure, there was the occasional creak on the stairs, the wind howling through cracked windows on my floor. How was I supposed to know that it was all true?”


BOOM!

The thunder outside the apartment building echoed as it struck. Amelia shot up in her bed, obviously startled. Her eyes moved to look at the digital clock on her nightstand. 3:30AM. With a groan, the girl slid out of her bed, her bare feet touching the ice cold wooden floor. She hissed as the cold shot through her body. Another clap of thunder sent her straight back onto her bed, and the lightning knocked out the power. That was typical. Storms always seemed to knock out every inch of power there was in the town, save for the ones who were rich enough for generators.

She felt around for the drawer of her nightstand, and pulled it open, feeling for a familiar object. “Aha!” It was a small flashlight. She turned it on, thankful it worked, and she climbed out of bed again. Stumbling in the semi-darkness, she headed for the living room, hoping to reach the closet that held the circuit breaker for her apartment. As she reached it, she caught a glimpse of the world outside of the window, thinking she saw a person standing there. She blinked, and with the next strike of lightning, it was gone. “I’m just seeing stuff, that’s all. Silly storm…” She opened the closet, and tried to flip the breaker. No luck.

Without any power, and with the storm going on outside, she doubted she could get back to sleep. The wind sure didn’t help the noises inside of the building. Creaks and moans… Even though Amelia told herself a dozen times that it was just old, she still couldn’t convince herself it wasn’t haunted. She went back to the window, looking down at the pitch dark ground. The lightning struck again, and she jumped back from the window, not caring to see if that figure would show up again. Yawning, she turned, heading for her couch. There was nothing she could do but to sit there, hoping to fall back asleep. But the way the storm was, she’d have better luck staying up all night and sleeping the next day. It was a surprise she had fallen asleep when the storm began.

A cold chill filled the room. She grabbed the blanket off of the couch, wrapping it around her body. The flashlight had been left on, and placed on the coffee table. “I wish the power would come back on… I would feel much better.”

This was, by far, the most reckless thing he'd done in the past hundred years. Before coming here, Derek had assured himself he'd get caught; judging by the impressive collection of books this woman owned, she clearly wasn't an idiot. Nothing profitable could come from this venture; he'd simply grown bored of sitting around his own home. These days, there was nothing worth doing. He'd sworn against terrifying the living; he still had no idea how others his kind enjoyed it. And, some of the books this girl owned were impressive. So, what was wrong with a little adventure? When thunder boomed and lightning struck, Derek froze on instinct. As every second passed, he began to fear that he was pushing his luck. Any moment now she'd come down the halls and lay eyes on him. What then? He shuddered as he thought of that definite possibility.

He froze, like a statue when he heard a voice coming from the room down the hall. She was awake. Derek eyed the ceiling when he realized the power had been knocked out. Now that this girl was awake, the deceiving youth only prayed she'd stay in her room. When the storm outside boomed again, he began to take a few, slow, silent steps backwards. A few minutes passed and he let out a quiet sigh of relief. She didn't seem to be coming down the halls; also, she probably didn't know he was here. Trying to expel his looming paranoia, Derek held the book in his hands up to his face and continued reading. He stood still, as if unliving, trying his best to read the book in the dark. Finally, he concluded that reading like this was useless! The wise thing to do would be to take a few books and return them later, perhaps when she was out. Yet, that was risky too. What if she noticed them missing?

The best thing to do was to place the book where he'd found it and just leave. What if she felt suspicious or scared because of the storm? Derek really didn't want to frighten her; that would just complicate his damned eternal life even moreso. He wasn't necessarily haunting her; he just wanted to take a quick peak at the collection of books she had. Finally making up his mind, Derek turned around and began heading down the hall, towards the room in the apartment where he'd first found the book.

The storm's thunder echoed again and after the outside seemingly calmed, the night creature took another step forward, this time, a loud, eerie creak was heard as his foot met the floorboard. As if an alive hand had reached into a fireplace, Derek recoiled. Of course, he hadn't meant to do that, but still, the creak was loud and ominous. Unless the girl was alseep, which he doubted, she'd probably heard that. Stopping for a moment, he turned his head to look back towards the direction he came, to the door that led to the young woman's room. Maybe if he hurried...his foot landed on the same spot, only to be meant be another annoying creak. "Dammit," Derek cried, truly frustrated. It wasn't until after the curse left his mouth that he realized he'd spoken much stronger than a mere whisper. If, for some reason, this girl was clueless to his presence before, she probably knew he was here now. Lightning sturck outside, the light coming in through a window, illuminating the hallway for a quick moment. Only for that quick second was his nervous expression visible.

Amelia knew the noises she heard weren’t just silly creaks and moans of the building. Someone was definitely inside of her apartment! Of course, she didn’t carry around any sort of weapons, which was an idiot move on her behalf. There was a baseball bat in her hallway closet, but she had no idea where the person, or creature, was inside of her apartment. Standing up and grabbing the flashlight, she crept toward the noises. Every few steps she would stop, listening for any breathing, or movement.

“W-whoever is in my apartment, b-better leave right now!” She felt braver than she sounded. The girl never experienced an intruder in her home before, even growing up. There would be no telling what sort of thing she would come face to face with in the hallway. It could easily be a creature, a human, or just her imagination. But why on earth would anyone bother her? She didn’t have any enemies as far as she was concerned.

The girl always hated walking in the dark. The flashlight wasn’t helping any, and the battery seemed to be dying. “Oh come on,” she whispered. “Don’t die on me now!” Forgetting about the sharp edge on the wall, she brushed up against it, cutting her hand. She had to bite on her bottom lip to prevent herself from yelling in pain. It seemed to be the millionth time that she had done that. “I really need to get that fixed…”

She ignored the bleeding, and she rounded the corner. Her flashlight moved around the room before landing on a figure standing at the end of the hallway. The flashlight died as it fell to the floor, and she was frozen in place. It felt like her breath was caught inside of her throat, and she couldn’t speak.

Days, hours, months, years, regardless of how much time passed, Derek never felt its impact. A century merely felt like a few days time in his world, but this moment was much different than anything. The next frightening moments felt like an eternity; standing still as a statue, praying he wouldn’t be caught made every second a nightmare. Did all humans experience this when scared? The human’s steps as she entered the hall made him feel like prey about to be killed. But of course, in this situation, it was quite the opposite. The human’s voice echoed over the thunder in his mind, and just their brave threat towards him was hypnotizing. She was a girl and suddenly, he felt his mouth dry and his thirst more powerful than ever. Then, a most familiar smell began circling around him. Had she cut herself? Yes, and she was bleeding. This situation wasn’t improving. His desire to taste this human’s blood was overcoming his self control; the increased thirst left him frozen in place.

As he fought to gain control over his limbs, he felt a light shine on him for a quick second. Next, he heard the flashlight fall to the ground and die, leaving the two enveloped in darkness. The thunder booming outside felt distant and silent now. Derek silently cursed himself under his breath. The young man was frightened about the near future; what would happen now that she’d seen him? Though his thirst for blood was fighting strongly to over take him, he couldn’t harm her. When the flashlight lit the hallway, he’d taken a quick glimpse at the girl. Only now did he register how beautiful she was. Long ago, he’d sworn to never harm a human; and most certainly, he couldn’t break that promise now.

The minutes passed awkwardly as he didn’t dare say anything and judging by her silence, she was the same. The blood on her hand was screaming in his ears, though. As sick and inhumane as it sounded, he wanted to clean the wound for her, but he knew he couldn’t. This moment was a trial of his self control. Derek knew though that this girl didn’t deserve to have him here, disturbing her sleep and frightening her. It was selfish coming here in the first place; he’d taken into account the risk he was taking for not only him, but her as well, and unfortunately, he’d decided that he didn’t care. Now he knew that he should’ve thought this decision over more maturely. Were books worth endangering the life of a human? Truthfully, they weren’t. The monster wished he could turn and make his leave, but, he still felt trapped, frozen in place. So, he shut his eyes, hoping in vain that, that could stop his thirst.

“C-could you cover up your hand?” Derek finally asked, breaking the silence in the hall. Thunder boomed and lightning struck outside which gave him another brief look at the young woman standing at the other end of the hall. Not only was she beautiful, but he assumed she was very intelligent as well. Judging by all these books she owned, it seemed that she enjoyed reading. Well, those were two things they had in common. Perhaps if fate had been kinder to him, they could be friends. But, a monster kindly associating with a human? That just wasn’t meant to be. If anything, this girl should be his prey. Years of exercising self control seemed to be paying off, luckily. And, if she covered up her wound like he requested, then maybe the smell of blood wouldn’t be as intoxicating. Hopefully.

If minutes were months, then it felt like a year had passed by as the two stood there in the silence. She could feel, and hear her heart pounding loudly in her chest. She was scared to death of this intruder, and she wasn't sure how to take to his presence. A lump formed inside of her throat. She couldn't move, she couldn't speak. She was most definitely still frozen in place. Why couldn't she move? Was it fear? Something else, perhaps? It was the first time she had a stranger in her apartment, and never had she dealt with something like this.

When he spoke, she felt like her heart would explode inside of her chest. His voice was calm; relaxing, even. But his words finally registered inside of her head. "My hand? What on earth for?" She could tell by the tone of his voice that he was nervous about something. Her eyes flickered to her bleeding hand, and she could see the blood still dripping onto the floor in a small puddle. Wrapping her hand inside of her shirt, she pressed down on the wound, hoping it would stop the flow of blood.

"There. Now would you tell me how the hell you got into my house? I surely don't remember answering the door and allowing you inside of my home." She felt braver now that someone had broken the silence. But from the looks of him (or what she had seen) he looked strong and very powerful. He could easily overtake her in a struggle. Since both of her hands were occupied, she couldn't pick up her flashlight to see if it still worked, even a little bit. She could throw it at him, but he'd probably stop it before it reached him.

Charlotte wasn't exactly the strongest person in the world. She couldn't even win a play fight with her brother. She thought it would be a good idea to enroll in the local gym.