Chapter One
Vlad was in a room—a girl's room; he was sure of it.
How did I get here?
When Vlad emerged in the room, he was facing a corner in the wall next to the flat screen that sat on top of a dark mahogany table to the right of the room. What is this place? The walls of the room were the color of a pale orange peel. As he turned around to examine the room, he saw girlish things of dressy clothes strung all over, flowered notebooks on the desk in the left corner that were most likely full of girlish thoughts, and just felt the essence of…girl.
Even the pull-out couch across the television was covered in hippie flowers. The most endurable pieces of furniture of the room were the dark mahogany desk and four chairs on the left side of the room, the same-wooded coffee table bordering the couch and television, the off-white, shaggy carpet, and the tall, thin, black lamp in the farthest right corner which was on even though the window next to it portrayed daytime.
Looking to his left, he saw a door that seemed to lead to nowhere. Before he could fully think about entering through it, the room shifted on its own.
Whoa! How did that just happen? It was a different room. Still, he knew, it was owned by a girl. This time the walls were the color of French rose. It had all the same accessories as the last room, but now the window on the right side of the room betrayed its previous show. Now it claimed to be nighttime.
Before Vlad was able to fully access the new room, he froze. The reason was, because now, where the pull-out couch should have been was a giant, black—not to mention fearsome—laistrygonian.
The laistrygonian's body resembled that of a dragon—gargantuan and scaly. Its bottom sat on top of everything where it started at the back wall and was wide enough to come across the entire width of the room. As it progressed towards its head, its figure slimmed with its neck stretched as far across the room where Vlad was against the opposite wall. Its head was that of a snake with a spikey mane; its hot breath huffed right into Vlad's face.
Holy fucking shit.
The thought was hardly able to fully register in Vlad's mind before the laistrygonian roared with all its might in front of him. The monster's hot breath shot out a horridly, indescribable stench and multiple specks of phlegm and saliva. Need a quick escape! It was a quick, subconscious thought. In a scurry, Vlad had forgotten of the door he had entered through that was on his right flank. With a quick head turn to his left, Vlad hurried out the door he hadn't realized in the other room.
Before he even made it fully out the door, the room shifted again! The laistrygonian was hot on his heels—its feet tromping, its claws attaching to the carpet, trying to make it across to Vlad with its neck outstretched.
Vlad hardly had time to notice with this thing chasing after him, but it seemed that every time he ran, the same door was always in the same place, and the rooms shifted between the two he was in. At times it was orange-walled and day, others it was French rose and night. Just as they did the first time, before he could even fully enter and exit through the same door, the room shifted on its own. Between the two rooms it stayed, and in every one he entered, the monster was still on his heels; its jaw ready to clomp on him, the roaring shaking the ground they ran on. It was a fleeting curiosity how the monster's mass was able to fit through the doors.
Suddenly, Vlad stopped in the bright, orange room.
The door was gone.
Where did it go?
He had no escape.
As he turned to look at the laistrygonian that had followed him, he saw his fate once the monster had caught up to him with its jaw wide enough for it to fit Vlad's mass. As he cringed in anticipation, the monster came closer and—
Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!
Saved by the alarm.
Vladimir sat up with a start. His heart racing, he reached across his bedpost to dismiss his alarm that read 6:15AM.
He looked around in relief with the comfort of his own room. Oh good, it was just a dream. The walls were striped in black and red with posters of heavy metal bands and hot female celebrities. Clothes were strewn across everywhere so that he could hardly see the black carpet that floored his room.
Vlad walked, groggily, all over his clothes to get to the bathroom that was attached to his bedroom.
On with the routine he went. Brush teeth, wash face, comb hair, put on clothes, grab knife. Vladimir always made sure he had his knife with him. When you have a mysterious, almost alluring, scent as Vlad did, you made sure you had protection from monsters at all times.
Vlad was…unique. He wasn't normal, that's for sure.
It was only when he was ten did Vlad's parents tell him that, not only was he adopted of some sort, but was a creature of Greek mythology.
They told him of how he had come into their lives. One dark, rainy night, a hooded figure came to their doorstep with a baby in a blanket. The figure practically shoved the baby into his mom's arms and gave them a message before he disappeared into the rain once more: Shield him from the dangers that wait in the near future. Make sure he fulfills his destiny.
His parents had wanted a baby, but his mom, Melina, could not conceive, so they weren't entirely reluctant to take him in. Not knowing what else to do, they brought their new baby in to what would be his home. His dad, Tomas, brought his finger a little too close to the baby's mouth. The one tooth the baby had was sharp enough to cut through his dad's skin. It reminded them of Dracula, so they cleverly named him Vladimir.
As Vlad's parents came to know and love him, not even they could deny his peculiar odor. No matter how many times they bathed him, the smell would not go away. Not that it was entirely horrible, but it was certainly overwhelming. People, more like things, followed them and their baby, and they feared it was due to his scent.
When he was three, Vladimir's mom, Melina, had allowed him to play in the park one afternoon. He got to play; she got to relax—of course she still kept an eye on him. Melina was sitting on a bench only a few feet from the jungle Jim, watching Vladimir play in the sandbox when she saw a strange, cloaked figure going closer to him. The figure was abnormally shaped; its head was just a bulky, fuzzy mass with what could only be described as horns on top of its head. To say it was buff would be an understatement. It was unhealthily beyond the size of a professional body-builder and towered the entire jungle Jim by a few inches.
Before Melina ran over to go get her baby, she looked around to see if anyone else was noticing this bulk of a man—if it even was man. She saw that no one else had noticed anything odd about this figure. Once the figure saw her approaching Vladimir, who was obliviously playing in the sandbox, it retreated back into the trees of the park it seemed to have come from.
Vlad was wailing as Melina carried him away from his oh so glorious sandbox.
"But I didn't finish building my castle, Mommy!" Vlad cried.
"Calm down, sweetie. You'll get to build your castle some other time," but Melina wasn't so sure she was going to take Vlad to that park again.
Melina's husband was in a situation similar to hers. Tomas was on his way to drive eight-year-old Vlad to meet the son of Tomas's friend, Henry. Before they got there, Tomas needed to buy gas for his car. They stopped at a gas station that had only a few people in it. Rolling down the windows, Tomas told Vladimir that he'd be right back so he could go inside the 7-11 to pay for the gas. When Tomas came out, he saw a short, old woman wearing a leather jacket pressed up against the backseat window of his car. Her hands were laid against the window she stared intently through. It might have been his imagination, but Tomas could have sworn he saw claws where her fingernails should have been. More so, when she smiled, he thought he saw razor sharp teeth like a shark's attached to her gums. Shocked in place, he looked inside the car to see that Vlad was sitting right next to the car window the woman pressed against, looking up at her with earnest curiosity and not the fear Tomas thought he might portray.
Vladimir's odd expression is what zapped Tomas back to reality as he ran to his car to confront the old lady.
"Hey!" Tomas yelled to the woman as he ran towards her. Her hands came away from the window as she slowly retreated to the other side of the gas post. As he came closer, he scoped the other side of the gas post, but the woman seemed to have disappeared. He thought it nothing to mention, but he thought he saw a figure flying off high into the sky. Simply dismissing it as a large bird, he filled his tank as quickly as possible and got into the car.
He looked in the backseat at Vlad and asked, "Are you okay?" When Vlad nodded, Tomas was only slightly relieved as he turned the car around and out of the gas station. Their resolve was palpable, for neither of them wanted to speak about whatever had just occurred; it would only make it all the more real.
There were many more unusual occurrences like those. After researching what they could mean, Vlad's parents concluded that Vlad was somehow related to the Greek myths with gods and monsters. They didn't know how to help that much besides having him bathe in sunscreen every morning before leaving the house. It covered his smell and protected his skin from the sun—double whammy.
Once Vlad made sure he had all his wits about him, he went downstairs to eat cereal for his breakfast. When he was done, he was set to have his mom drive him to school where his torture for the day began.