Chapter 1, Just a better hallucination.
It was a cold, dark evening. No stars, just the streetlights and Jake to guide me to my way home. I was walking home with my boyfriend Jake. Jake the jock. Every time I look at him I sense something is wrong. I don't know why. He has neck length platinum blonde hair with front bangs, deep ocean blue eyes and a 6 pack. He and I just came back from a nice evening walk down at the park. I can't help, but I sigh as I walk and make a little bit of a sound with my high highs on the sidewalk. "Something wrong baby?" Jake asks me. His face has hardened from the cold. "No, nothing. Just that it's so cold out." I smoothly lie. "Would you like my coat?" He asks, smiling. "I'm alright, thank you though." I smile back sweetly. For a second he looks at me coldly, his eyes flickering almost like a flame, but then they sweeten softly again. He nods and we continue walking. There's my house, I live with my 18 year old sister, yet I'm only 15. We used to live with our parents, but she decided to move out and I wanted to explore the big world with her. That certainly didn't happen. One, she's emo with black scene hair and toxic green highlights. Her eyes are a cat shade of green, her body is slim and her hair flows down her back. Her name is Selena. She drinks red wine a lot and parties every night, yet sometimes she has the nerve to give me a certain time for my curfew. If I get late, she often sneers at me, but if I'm lucky she acts like she never noticed. Now if you've seen my house, your jaw just might drop off. It's huge, a mansion. Since my parents are extremely wealthy, we got half the share of the money too, and Selena works as a fulltime doctor, her shift ends at 7:30 though. Our mansion has about 6 floors. The first floor is a huge living room, with TV's, video game consoles, couches, stuff like that. The second floor are the bathrooms and little spa's we have. We do our nails, and hair there. The third floor is Selena's full floor. It's hers, with her bedroom and all the crap she likes. The fourth floor is mine, with my bedroom and everything. The fifth floor is the kitchen; even from down here I can smell anything cooking. The kitchen is a pretty big place. The sixth floor is the library, mixed with the attic and basement. Big place. Black bricks looking haunted, yet beautiful with elegant windows. A large pool in the huge backyard. Following our backyard is a deep forest with graceful animals like deer. I head up the steps, only a few lights light the way and my heels clack on the pavement. "You gonna be okay tonight?" Jake asks me. Sometimes Jake stays over with me, if I'm feeling too lonely. "I think I can manage it." I say as we stop and smile at each other. "If you need me, you call me. Alright?" He smiles back. I nod. "Now, can I get a goodbye kiss?" He asks. I giggle softly and gently kiss his lips for 8 seconds. Then I pull back. Jake gives me a tight warm hug, then releases me. I wave shyly and open the door, then walk in. We wave at each other once more and then he steps down and heads home. I close the door behind me and take off my shoes on a lovely dark purple velvet carpet. The house is warm and smells like turkey, chicken, and all the delicious kinds of meats. Did Selena cook something? I can hear Ozzy Osbourne music and I know right on she's playing Modern Warfare 3. I put my silk jacket on the coat hanger and head into the living room. Yep, she's playing Modern Warfare alright. She's just lying there, wearing black tights, a black T-shirt that reads: I'm emo, what are you? And black ballet slippers with lace black gloves. She's shooting violently in the game, grinning. "I'm home." I say. She quickly nods at me and returns to her game. "Any dinner?" I ask, crossing my arms, but I can't help to smile. "Yeah, in the kitchen." She replies quickly. I head to my floor and open the door to my room. The wall is painted a blood shade of red, with heart shaped things everywhere. Even my bed is heart shaped. Most of the things I have are red or white, sometimes even black. I take off my skinny jeans and tank top and put on comfortable silk white pajamas and white socks. I head up to the kitchen and find on the large wooden dining table, a delicious meal has been prepared. "Do you like it?" Selena asks. She's already there. "You never cease to amaze." I say and sit down. Non alcoholic red wine with cheesecakes, tiny brownies, roast chicken and turkey, mashed potatoes, steak on my plate with a bed of rice. I salt my food carefully, and eat my steak and rice. The steak oozes with spices and juices that look like pomegranate juice. Selena eats her dinner too. Next I head onto a large plate of mashed potatoes. I have half a plate of that, eat down 2 brownies, 1 small raspberry cheesecake, and eat the legs of the turkey and chicken. After I'm finished, I'm totally full. "I see you can't eat anymore." Selena says, drinking her wine. I nod and let out a small burp. Selena laughs and I giggle. "So…do you have something to tell me?" Selena's yellow eye shadow, eye liner and mascara flicker at me. I stay silent, staring at my plate and sigh. "It's about Jake, isn't it?" She whispers. I nod, grimly. "Ah. What's going on? You can obviously tell me. I'm not your cousin, I'm your sister." She pours herself another cup of wine. "Things don't seem right, Selena." I say. "What do you mean?" She asks eating a brownie. "Jake doesn't seem right to me anymore. Every time I look at him, this relationship doesn't seem like it was meant to be." "Are you saying it's time to break up?" She raises a brow at me. "I don't know. I'm so confused. It's not like I can hit a pause button." "But you know you can, in your relationship. Privacy and all." She cocks her head, making her point. I sigh miserably. "Is he doing something which just doesn't seem good enough for you?" She asks. Now she thinks I'm desperate for something from a boy! But I have to admit, I sort of am. "He doesn't seem like the 'right' guy for me. Does that make sense?" I ask. Selena nods, she wants to know more. "I told him I was cold when we were on our walk tonight. He asked me if I wanted to wear his coat, I declined and told him I was alright." "So he's pissed for that?" She scoffs. "No, not that. When I smiled back sweetly after declining, I think I saw his eyes flicker or something. Maybe it's time to really end this. Nothing has been going right for 3 months with us anyways." I stand up, wash my hands and take out my iPhone 4. "You go girl." Selena says, drinking down her wine. I dial Jake's number. First I listen to the phone ringing, and then Jake picks it up. "Valentina? Hey, do you need me to come over or something? Are you ok?" "I'm fine Jake. I don't need you to come over." I laugh a bit. "But I'm not okay." I say in a serious tone. He's silent for a bit. "What happened?" He asks. "More like what's happening." I correct. "Uh huh." He says. "Look Jake, I know we've known each other for 1 year and all, started out as good friends, became best friends and then girlfriend and boyfriend..Every time we do something it doesn't feel right. I don't think we were meant to be. Maybe we should be with someone else, we don't seem in love like we once used to be. Get what I mean?" He's silent again, but I can hear a worried whimper. "So, you're saying it's over because I did something you didn't like?" "I'm saying you're just not my type anymore. Want to be just friends?" I suggest. "Alright. Count of 3 we're single. Count for me." He says in a sad tone. "One." I say. "Two." "Three." We're now single. He sighs. "Anything else you need to tell me in order to break my heart?" Now I feel totally furious. "I haven't broken your heart, and as a matter of fact, I don't. Good night." I hang up, shoving down the phone. Selena breaks into laugher. "I heard the whole conversation. Get someone to beat his ass next week." Next week, it's just Monday on March Break. "Did he even hear what I said? I said it to him nicely and he even agreed! Now he says I broke his heart." I roll my eyes. Selena and I clean up the dining table and she heads downstairs to play video games. I take a warm shower, it feels like a fresh summer rain. "Val.." I hear a whisper. "Selena?" I call. No answer. "Right.." I mutter and wash my hair. "Val..Val.." I hear a voice. "What?" I snap. "Selena that isn't funny!" I yell. "I'm not doing anything!" "Yes you are! I don't find that funny!" I yell back. "Sorry! I didn't mean to shoot Bob!" "No! Not Modern Warfare! Stop whispering my name." "I'm not! What the heck is wrong with you? I'm floors down and you think I'm whispering to you." "Sorry, whatever." "You're hearing things! It's your ears! Happens to me all the time!" That relaxes me. There are no windows or coolers or heaters in the bathroom. You can't talk through the walls with all the high tech plumbing. After I take a shower, I dress back in my pajamas, take a nice cold glass of lemonade and head outside. Its dark out, but I don't care. I stand there, sniffing the fresh pine woods air and sipping my drink. Finally, my curiosity gets the better of me. I head into the woods. I walk in the eerie woods and hear an occasional hoot and squirrels fighting over nuts. Nothing out of the ordinary. I venture farther and take different paths. There's a small flowing river with 2 mossy huge trunks of trees layed across it. This must be a path. This must be the way for me. I think to myself and carefully step across the soft warm moss. As I venture forward, everything gets more beautiful, in a haunted way. I see a nice raw steaks near a tree. What's that doing there? As I bend over to get a closer look, I hear a low growl. I gasp and look around. Nothing but the flow of the river and this whispering of the wind. I must have imagined it, like Selena said. I try to calm myself down. I pick up the meat and the growling gets louder. I quickly put it down. Must belong to some animal. The growling continues, so I take a step back. It gets so loud, it becomes a roar and right out of the river comes a huge pouncing animal and throws its 2 front paws onto my chest and shoves me down on the ground. It's baring its teeth at me, and I see it's a cougar. I'm screaming: "Get off me! Help! Somebody help!" And then I hear a whistle and a boy's voice: "Get off of her Clyde." The cougar, that must be named Clyde, put its ears down flat and looked sad. It obeyed its master and jumped off of me, and went to cuddle the steak. "Ugh." I say dusting the smudged mud on my pajamas. I look behind me and see a boy. He's looking at me in total surprise, as if he was expecting me, but I never showed up until now. He had a perfect shade of pale skin. Not too light and not too dark. His hair was down his neck, not touching his back and it was jet black with blood red streaks through his hair. He had side bangs on his right forehead, with streaks the same color too. Weird how I have the same black hair with streaks, but mine is flowing down my back. Right now mine was just in a messed ponytail due to the Clyde cougar. His hair looked shiny. His eyes were covered by black shades. My eyes are blue, but I can change their color. Maybe he can too. He didn't look any older than me. Probably the same age. 15. He's tall, but not too tall, just high school tall. He's wearing a black tuxedo with a red button shirt over it on his torso. The buttons were silver and sparkling. He also had a puffy white tie and on the edges of his black tuxedo's sleeves, I could see a white shirt which explains the little puffy shirt. There are sparkling roses on his sleeves, near his wrists, on the bottom and on the top. Both sleeves. He also has a sparkling rose on his chest on his left side of the torso. He smelt sweet, like a fresh scent or roses. His pants were shiny, long and black. His shoes are black boots, freckled with shimmering diamonds. "What's cooool?" I heard a high pitched voice. I saw from behind the handsome boy came out this floating smoke thing with 2 little blue eyes. "Not now." The boy snapped at the smoke thing. The smoke thing gasped and poofed away. Now he and I were making full eye contact. "Um, look..I'm sorry if I touched your pet's steak, I was just curious." "An honest mistake." The boy nods. He has a bit of a Southern accent, I understood he did when he said 'mistake.' "I won't do it again, sir." I say. He grins in amusement. "You don't have to call me sir, darlin'." He leans his head over a bit, and lowers his shades to his nose. The southern accent came around on the world 'darling.' He says 'darlin', not darling. He's starting to attract me. Both the way he speaks, his words and his sexy looks. "My name's…Valentina." I squeak. "Pleased to meet you darlin', I'm Valentine." I see his eyes are bright pink, and glowing softly. He removes his shades and puts them in his tuxedo jacket, and he takes out these Harry Potter glasses, except a bit bigger. He looks sooo cute! "Do you need glasses?" I ask him quietly. He shakes his head, "I think it makes me cute." "I think you do, too." I say. "Thank you, darlin'. It's such a coincidence that our names are so alike. Almost the same, don't you say? Mine just ends with an E." He chuckles. I blush. "Yeah..look, I'm sorry about you having to get your pet cougar into trouble." "Oh don't worry about him. Clyde does that to everyone. I accept your apology, Valentina." "Do you own these woods or something?" I ask shyly. "I don't own them, but I do wander around in them quite often. I have my own mansion." "Oh, same here! I would have been dead meat if it wasn't for you." I say. He smiles at me. The cougar growls at me, and I don't even notice the tears down my face. I was that scared. In 1 second I was against a large tree and Valentine was extremely close to me. I was staring wide into this strangers face and I saw his eyes turn blue, flicker red, then turn bright pink again, flicker crimson, glow pink and turned crimson red. I gasped, but he looked at me deep in the eye and I felt relaxed all of a sudden. He moved his head closer to my throat, I could feel him breathing on my neck. It sent shivers down my back. I wanted to move away, but my body refused. My body wanted to stay. "You smell delicate, darlin'." He said seductively. "Valentina.." He said to himself. "Ah, it looks like you made me cause a mess of Clyde and his steak here, doesn't it? I would have usually let him attack people, but girls are a different story. You were just too desirable, I couldn't do it." I think I might have hallucinated, or went to La La Land, but I swear I felt his smooth tongue going from the bottom of my neck to the top and plant a kiss on my chin. Then he moaned, took a small breath and moaned again. "Are you going to do something to me for bothering Clyde's steak?" I choke out. Valentine seems like the guy you shouldn't mess with. "No, but I won't say we won't meet again…because you know we will." His crimson eyes flickered madly like fire, and before I knew it, I was devoured by darkness.