My dearest readers, smack me upside the head, please! I had this uploaded to the Archive at Marked By The Boys (A site you should really visit) forever ago and totally forgot to upload it here. . So if I kept you waiting because of that, I'm so sorry! The third sign that life was changing was the night everything became broken.
The day had started off normal enough. Dwayne had two shifts: one in the morning and then the swing shift, starting at midnight and ending at eight. Though he had not yet been paid, he had earned just enough to pay the owed portion. For another moth, he owned his house. All he would have to do is visit the bank the next day after getting paid.
He liked the swing shift For one, the sun was only up for the latter half and the job at that hour was mostly just sitting there and pretending to look busy. As long as one looked like he was deep in documents, they could take a nap, propped up on their elbow. If they didn't snore, they were golden. He was pretty much getting paid to sleep!
What Dwayne didn't like was the havoc double shifts played on his sleep. Several times during his morning shift he had dozed in a very light sleep, only to be waken by a passing bellhop. He had agreed to not tell Mr. Hargreaves-if Dwayne paid him off. By pure luck there was just enough in his uniform's pocket to satisfy the bellhop. Something else he hated were the occasionally bossy customers.
The woman's eyes settled on his hair. The poorly disguised disgust told Dwayne quite clearly that that she disliked him and his appearance. He didn't have to be a genius to figure it out. He looked at her with his head lowered to the desk, masking his observations as she approached and slipped a letter across the desk.
"I would this mailed to San Francisco, please."
Dwayne took the letter and placed it in a basket to be mailed off with the rest of the mail. "Yes ma'm, it will be my pleasure," he responded, the oft-repeated phrase slipping off his tongue with ease. "Is that all you require?"
She replied that no, she wanted to book a tennis court for the afternoon.
He retrieved the tennis schedule from under the desk and looked over it. "I'm sorry, but the courts are booked for today. Would tomorrow be fine?"
"No, it would not be. Good day."
The woman left him to be in peace and he returned to the dreary world of the files in front of him.
"…Lucky, isn't it?" A voice said, attracting Dwayne's attention. A young man, his age, was speaking to the bossy woman he had just dealt with.
They conversed for another few minutes before the woman left. Dwayne continued to watch, once more appearing as if he was looking at his paperwork. What the guests did was of no consequence to him. If they wanted to speak, so be it. If it was ten feet from where he worked, fine.
The man turned to Dwayne and flashed a smile before leaving himself. He couldn't help but return it, wishing the man luck in whatever it was that he found lucky. In the few minutes that he had spoken to the woman, she nearly sent shivers down his spine.
At four that afternoon his shift ended and he returned to his house to eat and get some sleep, before returning for his next shift. The hotel was dark and quiet by then, and the clerk coming off duty greeted him with a large yawn.
There was a candle on the desk giving off a warm glow, the lights on the walls were dimmed, and the whole atmosphere was very peaceful, making it so easy to nod off. The cup of tea that one of the two bellhops on duty passed him didn't help much, since it was warm and relaxing. Dwayne stifled a yawn and tapped a finger on the desk as he propped his head up with a hand, feeling his eyelids getting heavy. Surely no one would know if he put his head down for a minute and dozed…
He never noticed the minute waves forming in his cup. There was no time to, since the serene quiet shattered when a tremor shook the hotel.
The candle fell to the floor and tea sloshed all over the desk. Dwayne tried to stand but stumbled over his feet, one hand on the wall to keep himself from falling all the way to the floor. He took a deep breath when it stopped shaking, for just a moment before checking on the guests and general condition of the hotel.
Then the earth really let it rip.
The second tremor was worse than the first. This time it sent him sprawling over the floor. Overhead woken guests stormed the elevator and stairs, and there was nothing he could do to get up or move until the quake stopped.
When it finally did, there was silence, for a moment, then the screams became audible even in the lobby. Dwayne started to pick himself up off the ground, when there was a rumbling and a crack as the hotel began to move. The guests were running through the lobby now, pulling open the doors forced open by those in front. Before he could move for them himself, a high-pitched screech made him hesitate for just a brief second. By then, it was too late for him to escape.
An extreme pain tore through his chest as he was crushed. There was no feeling below his neck and though his eyes were open, everything was very fuzzy and indistinct.
With a scream silently tearing through his fevered mind, he dropped into unconsciousness.
The pain in his chest was unbearable, like fire was ripping through him. Sparks seemed to run almost lazily through his veins. Unaware of his surroundings, Dwayne managed to groan, despite the intense pain it caused, and attempted to look to see where he was. But everything was black, without even the slightest light visible. It felt like he was lying down in a bed, but he was at the hotel still, wasn't he? Employees didn't sleep in the hotel. Not ever. It wasn't allowed.
It hurt even more to try and speak than it did to groan, but he was desperate to know where he was. "Where am I?" He would have winced if it wouldn't hurt so much. The pain to speak made him want to scream in agony.
There was no response. Dwayne began psyching himself up to speak again when someone actually responded. "You're with me."
He stopped his mental efforts when the person spoke. For a moment he couldn't place it, but then he did. The boy who had spoken to the bossy woman. That was it, though he couldn't picture him. "Who are you?" he whispered in a barely audible voice to make it hurt less, which it didn't.
"David. And you are?"
"Dwayne."
Faint footsteps became louder before a second voice poke. "Ah, good! You're awake." Someone patted Dwayne on the shoulder and he stiffened, resisting the urge to scream. "Would you like to feel better? I can give you something that will make you feel better. You'll never age and you'll never be hurt. But if you don't take it, you'll surely die. Do you want it?"
The man said he would die. Despite missing Isabelle and the burning pain, he had no desire to die. If he never got old and felt the pain of aging, even better. The choice was so easy. Not wanting to speak again, Dwayne gave the tiniest nod possible.
"Excellent," the second voice said. He could practically feel the happiness radiating from the general direction of the voice. "You won't regret it…Dwayne, was it? You won't regret it, Dwayne."
He could hear the clink of thick glass on metal before a cool solid was pressed to his lips. Dwayne assumed it was a glass or cup of some sort, since he could feel the curved edge and a liquid brushing his lips. Obligingly he opened his mouth as little as he could to avoid pain, but managed to swallow the thick liquid. It was unlike anything he had ever tasted before. Despite its coolness, it seemed to dim a miniscule fraction of the pain, though the overall sting and immense agony was still there. It both warmed and froze him, the sparks that were small aches melting away.
Almost immediately he felt marginally better, even as the cool substance was removed from his mouth. Overcome by a sharp shiver, he didn't listen to or notice any sound from the other two voices in the room, presumably two different people. It was only when he pulled out of it to lie still on the surface did he realize that they were speaking the whole while. He noticed the second voice saying, "…back to work. Lucky I could close it after the earthquake."
There was a repetitive thumping that grew softer as Dwayne attempted to turn his head without moving it. "There was an earthquake?" he said, once more trying to talk as quietly as possible without it hurting. And still without any luck.
"Yeah. Max picked us up after it. Now-don't talk. You've got to heal. I won't tell you about the earthquake unless you keep quiet."
David's voice was clearer now; and louder. There was a low, rich smell in the air, as wonderful as the substance he had drunk just a few moments ago, almost salty and metallic but absolutely incredible. Bizarre. Dwayne nodded in response to David's words. Regardless of whatever came from David's mouth, he felt a little stronger than he had before and wanted to know what had happened.
"Well, there was an earthquake a few nights ago and we got trapped in the hotel. I know I was in bad shape, because I still can't walk, and I assume you were in worse shape because you've got a blindfold over your eyes and you're pretty dinged up everywhere else. He rescued us from the hotel, took us to his house, and fed us blood from a wine bottle. So, now you and I are, well, half-vampires."
David called them vampires. Never mind the half part, all that filtered into his thoughts was the word vampire. It had to be a joke. There was no way he could have drunk someone's blood without realizing, was there? Blood was red and smelled coppery…just like the smell in the air. Coppery and warm and thick and salty…maybe it wasn't such a joke afterall.
If he was a vampire, was there a way to reverse it? Did he even want it reversed?
The voice-David called him Max-said he would die unless he drank that liquid, which he presumed was blood. If he got the blood out of his body, would he become human again? Or would he die from the injuries that both David and Max called so severe they would kill him?
Had he the strength or ability, he would have put his face in his hands. Oh, God, what have I done?
"What you've done is drink blood. So, like me, you're a half-vampire."
Even though he had come to that conclusion himself, hearing it said aloud like that chilled Dwayne to the core, to the point where he hadn't even noticed David replying to his thoughts. Even so, he kept denying to himself that he had blood. His mind said 'no', while his subconscious kept saying 'yes'. It was too fantastic an idea. I've never drunk blood. What is he talking about?
David spoke again, but this time Dwayne could hear the bitter amusement. "You did drink blood, that was the stuff Max gave you. Don't tell me you can't smell it in the air, I know you can. Because I smell it too."
David was right in that he could smell something, and though he knew guessed it was the blood in the other boy, he resisted the thought that it was. The thought was still so unbelievable, and for that matter, how had he-David-heard his thoughts? He hadn't voiced them, since he wasn't in agonizing pain, but he had thought them. Unless David read minds, it wasn't possible.
Then again, vampires weren't supposed to exist either…
With resigned and grudging belief, Dwayne finally accepted the words for what they were. He had miraculously survived the earthquake, which should have killed him, and if he had refused the blood offered to him by Max he would have died. He didn't trust Max for it-after all, he hadn't told him what it was he had been drinking. Whereas David did tell him, almost right away. It was David he was beginning to trust, not Max.
The sound of bound pages rustling caught his attention. "Max left some stuff for us. Want me to read out loud?"
Dwayne nodded. What Max had left for them, who knew. The pages scratched against one another as David opened the book, then spoke again. "Dracula chapter one. Jonathon Harker's journal."
Dracula. The man had left them Dracula to read. The irony nearly made him chuckle.
The book was actually pretty good, though it made the fact that both he and David were half-vampires loom heavily in his mind. Even so, he did try to push the fact to the side and focus on the story itself. It was easy to like Jonathon and Mina Harker. He disliked the count, but some of the vampire's powers were formidable and ones Dwayne himself wouldn't have minded having to experiment with. If the book was right, and they would be able to do those things when they were fully turned, then he would happily spend a lot of time experimenting.
Eventually he grew weary and it was difficult not to fall asleep. The temptation to-well, not lay back on his pillow and close his eyes, because he was already in that position-but to just slumber for ten or twelve hours was incredibly inviting. He assumed that it was getting late at night, since even when he had dealt with overnight and swing shifts at the hotel, it was always the late night hours that were hardest. Then again, didn't vampires had to avoid the sun? Were their internal clocks already readjusted to that of a vampire? He had no idea.
If he had been able to see, it would have been easy to know. But David claimed that he had a blindfold on and Dwayne translated that to mean his eyes were badly damaged. It scared him-how would he see without functioning eyes? If Dwayne was going to be immortal, he did not want to do it without vision.
He yawned and heard the book close. "We can continue tomorrow night."
Dwayne knew now that David could hear his thoughts, which he was glad of because it meant he didn't have to talk and deal with the pain. He could think and that was pretty much painless. "No, keep going. I can stay awake".
"Oh no, you can't." He could hear the same weariness in David's voice now. It seemed he wasn't the only one finding it harder to stay awake now. "We sleep in the day. Want a drink first?"
His suspicions now confirmed, Dwayne wondered what would happen if he drank more of what he assumed was blood. "I guess it wouldn't hurt. It won't, will it?"
"No". There was the sound of metal hitting glass and then the same cool, round surface he had felt earlier was pressed to his lips. This time Dwayne knew it was blood he was drinking, and though the thought disgusted him somewhat, it was already seemingly normal. Nor could he ignore his pleasure at the taste.
Having lifted himself up a tiny fraction to better reach the blood, he fell back to the pillows with a thump, solidly asleep.