Author's Note: Hello people of the world! =)

I'm so sorry for not updating for so long, but school hasn't been giving me much free time, and I had a few technical difficulties with this chapter (and by that I mean that when I was almost done writing this, I lost everything I had written so far =/), so... yeah XP

Anyway, there's one more thing about the vampires in this fic that I need to tell you about. When they are thirsty, the veins under their eyes come out (just like on The Vampire Diaries).

I think this is all for now XP

Disclaimer: I don't own iCarly or The Vampire Diaries or Twilight!

And now... enjoy!

:D

EDIT (07/22/12): I'm finally done rewriting the ten first chapters of this story (yeah, I know, took me long enough XD), but I'm still going to edit the other ones, since I'm pretty sure there are a few mistakes in those as well. The mistakes aren't so terrible like the ones in the ten first ones, so the next chapters will only need to be edited, not rewritten, but I'm still going to mark them as edited like I did with the first ones. Thank you for you patience! =)

Chapter 10: Back to the Camp

Freddie's POV

I had never felt so nervous in my whole life.

But, well, I was about to go back to the camp with no idea if I could actually control myself around humans, so how could it be any different?

I still hadn't fully gotten used to all of this. I had to admit that I was still expecting to just suddenly wake up and find out that this whole vampire thing had been a dream, and that I was still human, preferably at home. My life had changed completely so abruptly that it was probably understandable for me to feel like that. About a week ago, I had been human, but now, just look at where I was. I was a vampire, which was something I had never believed could be real. It was all still pretty unreal to be honest.

As David and I made our way to the camp, I couldn't help but wonder what I'd do if things went badly. According to David, it would probably be more difficult for me to control myself around people I knew than around total strangers, so if I wasn't able to keep myself under control in the camp, going back home was definitely not an option. The life I'd have after today depended completely on how well I could suppress my instincts at the camp. The problem was that I had no idea what to expect of it. Sure, David had explained to me what it would feel like to want to kill someone so badly it hurt, but according to what he told me, there wasn't much I could do to resist the urges apart from relying on my own self-control.

That last part didn't make me feel even the slightest bit better.

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" David asked me after a while, breaking the silence. I could tell we were getting close to the camp, because I recognized the path we were walking along as the one we had taken when we had gone hiking about a week ago.

I hesitated for a moment before responding. "Yeah, I guess so," I replied, trying not to let my nervousness show.

David nodded in response, before gradually coming to a stop. I stopped as well, pausing when I was standing right next to him. "Wait here," he told me, and when I nodded in response, he vanished from sight in a blur.

He wasn't gone for long, though. In a matter of a few minutes, he was back, carrying a small box and a hand mirror.

"What's that for?" I asked, gesturing to the two items he had brought with him.

"Well, I figured you'd like to take a look at yourself before going back," he replied, handing me the mirror. "I got that from the cabin next to mine. I'll give it back before any of the girls there realizes it's missing."

It was just when I held the mirror in front of my eyes that I understood what he had meant by that. I didn't look any different from how I had before, maybe just a little paler, but what surprised me was the color of my eyes. My irises weren't golden like David's; they were a dark, crimson color, just like the eyes of the vampire who had turned me. I had already seen my reflection on the lake just a few miles away from the camp, but the water there wasn't exactly crystal clear, and I wasn't able to see just how intense the tone of red in my eyes was.

"Wow," I said, examining my eyes. "They're really red."

"Yeah, but the color will fade eventually," David told me. "As long as you don't drink human blood, in about six months, your eyes will be the same color as mine."

I nodded in response. "What's in the box?" I asked, handing David back the mirror.

"Contact lenses," he told me, handing me the box. "Your eyes were almost the same color as mine when I was human, so I'm pretty sure no one will notice the difference."

David then showed me how to put the lenses on, and when I looked at myself on the mirror one more time, I realized that he had been right. The contacts were a slightly lighter shade of brown than my eyes used to be, but the difference was so minimal that I was sure no one would notice it.

I put the small box in the inside pocket of my jacket as we resumed making our way to the camp, and in no time at all, I found myself stepping out of the woods and into the enormous clearing where the camp was.

The camp was completely deserted, which wasn't a surprise, since it must have been around three in the morning or something, which meant that everyone was probably asleep inside their cabins. There was this sweet scent in the air, which I could only assume was from the humans, and I couldn't help but catch the sound of someone's heartbeat coming from the closest cabin. All that made me suddenly feel anxious, but I tried to ignore the feeling as we made our way through the cabins.

"You feel okay?" David asked me, and I nodded in response.

"Yeah," I replied. "Just a little anxious."

"That's normal," he told me. "Trust me, the fact that you haven't taken off in a killing spree the moment we got here is already a really good sign."

I didn't respond; I simply kept walking in silence as I tried to ignore the weird burning feeling that had started to build up in my throat. And soon enough, we reached my cabin.

"Well, I guess this is it, then," David said when we came to a stop just in front of my cabin. "You okay from here?"

"Yeah, I think so," I replied, nodding lightly, even though I wasn't exactly sure about that.

"Well, good luck then," he said.

"Thanks," I replied.

And with that, he was gone.

I hesitated for a moment outside the cabin, trying to calm myself down. I knew there was no turning back now, but I couldn't help feeling nervous about what I was about to do. I took a deep breath in a last effort to try to calm myself down before making my way over to the cabin, pausing when I was standing on the front porch. From there, I could hear Mike's calm heartbeat and breathing, which made me assume that he was asleep. I held up my hand and knocked on the door before I had the chance to chicken out of this. In response, I heard Mike grumbling something incoherent in his sleep, and I could only guess that hadn't been enough to wake him up. I knocked again, this times a little louder than before, and then I finally heard Mike getting up from his bed and making his way over to the door.

The door was swung open abruptly, allowing me to catch sight of Mike standing in the doorway. The burning feeling in my throat got a little more intense, but it wasn't something unbearable, especially if I tried to ignore the sound of his heartbeat ringing in my ears.

Mike stared at me for a moment, until his eyes suddenly went wide, which could only mean that he had recognized me.

"Freddie? Is that you?" Mike asked me, sounding shocked.

"Of course," I told him. "Who else could it be?"

"But I thought you were dead!" he said, eyeing me like he couldn't believe I was really there.

"Do I look dead?" I asked, and then mentally chuckled to myself at the irony of what I had just said.

"Well, no, but..." He shook his head, as if trying to clear up his thoughts. "I'm sorry, I'm just... shocked to see you here. I thought that the vampire and the wolf had killed you!"

I frowned at him. "What are you talking about?" I asked, pretending to be confused.

"What do you mean?" he asked, sounding confused as well. "We were attacked, remember? A vampire was about to kill us, but a huge wolf came out of nowhere and attacked him. The vampire knocked the wolf unconscious and carried you away from there to kill you, but the wolf went after him." He must have noticed my amused expression, because he quickly went on. "Don't you remember any of that?"

I let out a light laugh. "Dude, what the hell are you talking about?" I asked him, but I didn't give him time to respond. "We stopped to rest a little and I went for a walk to look for more wood for the campfire while you were asleep, but I got lost and couldn't find the way back."

"But..." He didn't seem to know how to end that.

"I already told you that vampires don't exist," I said, doing my best to sound convincing. "You probably dreamed about all that."

Mike eyed me for a moment, as if debating something inside his head, but fortunately, he soon gave in with a sigh.

"I guess you're right," he said finally. "I'm just glad that I didn't tell anyone about all that, because I thought they'd think I was crazy or something," he told me as he stepped aside, allowing me inside the cabin.

When I walked inside, I looked around, realizing that everything was exactly how it had been before we had left for the hiking trip, including my laptop lying right under my pillow.

"So, how did you survive all these days out there in the forest?" Mike asked me after closing the cabin door shut.

"Oh, I... I found a lake not really far from here for water, and there are several berry bushes around here," I answered. "But I spent most of my time looking for the way back to the camp."

"Well, that must have been hard," Mike commented, and I simply nodded in response. "Well, I'd love to keep talking, but I'm really tired, and I'm dying to go back to bed."

"Yeah, me too," I lied.

Soon enough, Mike was snoring on his bed, so I decided to go out a little bit, since staying in that room doing nothing at all apart from trying to ignore my roommate's heartbeat didn't seem like a good way to spend the rest of the night.

I soundlessly sneaked out the window and made my way out of the camp and back into the forest, headed to the meadow where the lake I had mentioned earlier was. It was a really peaceful place, and it was beautiful as well, especially under the dim moonlight that covered everything in sight. I sat down on a big rock by the lake, looking up at the moon as I thought back at everything that had happened to me this past week.

I was still having a hard time believing just how drastically my life had changed in such a short period of time, but there was nothing I could do about that. There was no way for me to become human again, so that meant that I'd have to learn to deal with all this and get used to it, and the sooner that happened, the better.

I'd obviously not tell anyone in Seattle about all this, since I was sure that no one would take it well if they ever found out about me. I knew that I was risking a lot by deciding to try to go back to my old life, but I also knew that I wouldn't be able to leave, even if I wanted to. I'd just have to do my best to keep this whole vampire thing a secret and hope that no one ever found out about it. But how long would it take for someone to realize the fact that I wasn't aging? And what if I somehow got hurt and the wound healed immediately? I didn't have the answers to those questions, or at least not yet, but I knew that simply worrying about them wouldn't do any good, so I decided to simply let things be and see how everything turned out before I began to worry about those things.

I stayed in the meadow for a while, but I began making my way back to the camp before sunrise, since I knew that I had to be back before anyone was up.

Author's Note: So, Freddie is back to the camp! But how will people react? And what surprises await him? You'll find out in the next chapter! ;D

And now, I think you should hit that beautiful button down there that used to be green, but is not anymore! (Or am I just hallucinating? XDD)

Oh, and one more thing! I decided to change the summary of this fic. There was something in the old one that just didn't sound right to me XP But don't worry, it won't change anything at all in the story! ;)

xxiCarlyFanxx

:D