Our Secret

Chapter 4

More Secrets Revealed

Nozomi actively tried to avoid Eli after their little incursion. That final question she asked of her and her sudden response to it made her feel horrible about it all. Nico couldn't really intervene in this whole thing since Nozomi also tried to avoid her as well. This was strange behavior for her since she's always known for being the one who was out there and always wanting to be with others. This was just strange. Unfortunately, this behavior didn't last long. Being in the student council, Eli had her ways of finding Nozomi.

One day when she walked into her classroom, there was a note on her table. She looked around, but no one was affiliating themselves with the note. She dropped her things and sat down quietly. For a few seconds, she simply stared at the note. No thoughts in mind; she was just befuddled that something like this was waiting for her. With one deep breath, she reached out for the note and opened it up.

You left so abruptly the other day that I didn't get to finish out conversation. Also, I did hear what you said when you ran out of the room. To continue with where we were, I'm inviting you to my house this weekend. The address is down below. I do hope I can see there. ~Eli

Nozomi's face was bright red as her eyes finished up those last few words.

"Hey Nozomi, what's up?" Nico came up behind her and gripped her by the shoulder. She nearly jumped out of her chair. "What's that?"

"Don't worry about it." Nozomi fell out of her chair and ran out of the room.

"Jeez! What is going on with that girl?" At that moment, Nico saw a beautiful, red head girl pass by the room who immediately caught her attention. "Wow. She's a sight for sore eyes."

…

When the weekend came around, Nozomi was constantly stressing over whether she should go to Eli's house or not. The time for her to show up was approaching, but she couldn't focus. Go, don't go; these two options were having an all-out war inside of her head that she couldn't control. What else was there to be said in that conversation? She got everything off her chest so there was no concern. However, Nozomi thought about the other side of the conversation. There was a possibility that Eli wanted to say more. She looked up at the clock and saw that there was 10 minutes left until time ran out. She screamed and ran out of her house.

She urgently looked around and asked everyone she could to help her with directions to Eli's house. Thankfully, there were nice enough people to help her out and she eventually got there with a minute left to spare. When she got there, she stood in front of a huge house with an even more threatening looking door. She took a big gulp and went to knock on the door.

The sound of her knock echoed throughout the house. At that moment, she wondered if Eli wasn't home. She waited a few more seconds and knocked a few more times, but there was no response. She turned around and immediately became disappointed.

"Hm, I guess she's not home today." Right as she went to walk off, the door creaked open which caused her to turn back around. When she did, she saw a pair of bright red eyes looking up at her. "Eli?" Out of nowhere, that pair of eyes jumped at her and tackled her to the ground.

"Perfect. Fresh blood. I've been waiting." The girl on top of her opened her mouth and unveiled her fangs. Nozomi's eyes widened as she tried to escape, but surprisingly, this girl was a lot stronger than she looked.

"Please, let me go."

"Never. You smell like your blood will taste incredible." She lowered her head and attempted to bite her throat, but she was suddenly picked off of Nozomi's body and thrown back into the house.

"What have I told you about trying to suck other people's blood?"

"Who cares? We're vampires. It's part of us."

"I don't care. You need to learn some respect." Eli turned around with her normal radiance. "I'm so sorry about my little sister. She's still young so she doesn't really understand." She stuck out her hand to Nozomi. "Come on in." Nozomi was still a little stressed about what could have happened to her if Eli wasn't there. However, she mustered up the courage to take Eli's hand and be guided inside of her house. "You know, I'm really glad you decided to come."

"Yeah, well, I realized that there was more to talk to you about," she said as she looked around. Nothing really looked weird. The only noticeable thing was that the place was extremely cold. Nozomi could barely stand it. Eli guided her up to her room and closed the door behind her.

"Would you like something to drink?"

"Um, water would be fine."

"Alright, I'll be back in a flash." Eli left the room, leaving Nozomi alone. Of course, curiosity overruled her normal mental state. She wandered the room and examined that she saw.

Most of the things in her room resembled a normal high school girl. She had a dresser, a normal bed, a desk, and a closet full of normal clothes. At that moment, she couldn't but wonder if this girl was really a vampire. But then, something caught her attention. There was a picture on the wall with Eli and another girl in it. That wasn't it though. The other girl looked exactly like Nozomi. The only difference was that she was wearing clothes that looked entirely foreign to Nozomi.

"What the heck?"

"Sorry, that took so long. My sister is being a butthead and asking all kinds of questions." When Eli got in the room, she saw Nozomi staring at that picture. "Interesting picture, huh?" Nozomi immediately jumped. She turned back around and sat down on the floor with her looking at the ground.

"I wasn't snooping."

"Of course you weren't. You were just being a normal human being." She set the drinks on her small table and sat across from Nozomi.

"Shall we continue with where left off?" Nozomi nodded silently. "Actually, where did we leave off?" Eli took a few seconds to think about that. "Ah right, you said that you wanted to see me more." Nozomi's face was nearly about to explode. "What did you mean by that? Do you still carry feelings for me?" This girl was too much for her.

"I've been thinking about what you said. I've been thinking about everything that has happened to me and I just can't get over it. I've liked you ever since I first saw you at school. Now that I know that you're a… a vampire, it still doesn't change my feelings towards you."

"Hm, I see. Well, it's true that I don't dislike you. I'm just surprised that you're not frightened by me. You've seen what I can do to people and yet, you don't show that fear towards me."

"Trust me. I'm scared beyond belief. I just don't think it's right to treat someone differently because they're different." At that moment, Eli's eyes grew bigger as she finally backed off of Nozomi. "You're still a girl, aren't you?"

"Haha, I guess you're right. It's just that I've never heard someone say that about me before. I hope you know that I don't have a lot of friends." Nozomi finally looked at Eli.

"But what about the girls on the student council?"

"They're just members of the council. I know nothing about them. For a person in my position, it's hard to make friends. We all lose them in the end."

"That's a pretty pessimistic way of looking at things."

"Yeah, vampires have become accustomed to thinking like that since immortality is a curse and humans see us as monsters." Eli sighed and drank some water. "I'm sorry for putting this all on you. You must think I'm weirder than I truly am."

"No, no. I find this quite intriguing."

"How?"

"You haven't tried to kill me yet… well, sort of not killed me yet." Eli bowed her head and sighed once again.

"Would you like to know more about vampires?"

"What do you mean?"

"You're keeping my secret and in return, I'm not killing you. However, I think it's only fair that I tell you what we truly are."

"Oh, you don't have to if you don't want to."

"I want to. I think you'll understand after learning more about us." Eli set her drink down and proceeded with her story. "Believe it or not, vampires are actually a pretty recent creation. We are a creation of God to help him with his work. He created Man to live here and care for this planet. However, things got out of hand to where crime and population are off the charts. That's when he created us. We were created with the responsibility to limit the acts of humanity with the judgement of balance and safety. In the beginning, that's what we did and it was working. As things went on, others started to go rogue. They found sport in killing people. God tried to rid us of this world, but with our responsibility still to be completed, we were left as is." She looked up at Nozomi and her face was completely blank. Um, Nozomi?"

"Sorry, that was just a lot to take in." Nozomi went silent again to try and fully understand everything she told her.

"I know I said a lot, but there's still more that I haven't told you."

"Huh?"

End of Chapter 4