I almost ran straight home after I saw that boy staring at me from inside of his car. I walked a little more down the street doing my very best to control my breath and my heartbeat but as soon as the car disappeared in the distance I stopped and considered just going home to have a complete meltdown. Would he follow me? Would Marcelo be upset with me for missing my shift? I didn't want to take too long to decide as I felt stupid standing alone in the dark in the middle of the street, but I also couldn't think straight and there was a lot to consider.
I have always believed in monsters and that earned me a lot of mocking from family and friends throughout my life, but I had never really seen one before. That was the fundamental difference between believing and knowing after all: if you have any proof then you know something, it's not simply believing anymore. Since I was a small child I always believed in fairy tale monsters to some extent but I knew nothing. I never had any proof. When that car passed by me and I looked at that boy as he watched me drop my food I got it. I got proof.
Because his eyes were red.
I know he saw me, there was no doubt about that. He looked directly at me. Did he realise I saw the colour of his eyes? Did he think I would convince myself they were any other colour? I probably would have done just that if I were anyone else. If I happened to be a more regular person, the type that doesn't believe in that sort of thing, but by lack of luck or by chance I was not. I was exactly the type of person that would see something like that and do the opposite of brushing it off.
The type to see it and become obsessed with it.
I decided to go home. They could handle one night without me, especially in June. Most of the town's residents were college students that had already gone home for the winter break anyway, the bar had nearly no customers at that time of the year. I came to the conclusion that I felt too unsafe to be out and turned on my heels to head home.
As I made my way back home I saw a firetruck rushing in the direction I was going before and wondered if there was a fire near the bar. I thought of looking up the news online after calling Marcelo to tell him I would have to miss work that night.
I couldn't hold the heavy sigh of relief that left me as soon as I closed the door of my house. I had no idea of what was true or myth regarding supernatural creatures or even of what kind of creature that boy was, but if he was a vampire I prayed to God that it was true that he would need an invitation to step inside. My housemates were mostly out, either partying or back to their hometowns, but luckily one of them was home that night so I wouldn't have to be alone. I saw her on the couch in the living room as soon as I arrived.
"Hey" she said when she saw me "thought you were working tonight. Was it your bar that burnt down?"
"Uhm, I'm not sure. I felt sick before getting there so I came back, just saw the firetruck. It was a bar then?" I became a little worried that it was really the bar where I worked that caught on fire but there were a dozen bars at each corner of our town, it could have been anywhere.
"They just mentioned it on the news a few minutes ago" Vitoria informed me, zapping through the channels, probably looking for more information "but there was no one there to report live yet so I'm not totally sure where it was, just that it was in that neighbourhood."
I murmured a thank you for the news and went to my room a little distressed. The fire distracted me for a while and I still had to call Marcelo but the red-eyed boy was coming back to my mind. Did he follow me? Would he come for me for any reason? I felt unreasonable but it was not completely impossible that he would consider me a loose end if he suspected I knew something, which I barely did to be honest.
I tried to push all of that to the back of my mind to deal with more immediate matters. After splashing some water on my face in the conjoined bathroom I shared with another housemate I threw myself in my bed and reached for my cell phone.
I called Marcelo's number and let it ring until it lost connection. I then tried Lucia's, a coworker that was supposed to share that night's shift with me, and the same thing happened. I tried the landline and it did not even ring. The anxiousness I felt when I heard that a bar caught on fire in the same neighbourhood I worked in came back ten times worse.
"Marina!" I heard Vitoria call me from the living room "They have some reporter there now, come see!"
I ran back to the living room and looked at the TV screen.
It was really my bar they were showing being swallowed by flames.
"Oh God. No, no, no, no ."
Vitoria looked at me sympathetically.
"Jesus Christ. It is yours, isn't it? Fuck, I'm so sorry, girl."
She really meant it, when she hugged me I could tell she was on the verge of tears.
"Damn, if there is anything I can do for you..."
She trailed off and dried her tears with the back of her sleeve and her reaction to the information that it was indeed my workplace turning to ashes just told me there was more to it.
"There were people inside?"
She got really quiet then and looked down before answering.
"They can't get inside yet but it seems like it, yeah."
I didn't even know how to process it. I thought about my parents and my boyfriend and other people that knew I was supposed to go to work that night and wondered if they knew about the fire, if they were worried about me. I took my phone again and noticed in the short time I stood in front of the TV since leaving my room Luke had called me eleven times and I did not pick up once. I cursed and immediately dialled his number with a sudden new hope. If I was alive and missed all of those calls then Marcelo and Lucia were probably alive too and the fact they didn't answer their phones probably just meant they were busy with the whole mess.
"Fuck, Ma, you scared me shitless. Where were you?"
"Sorry, babe. I was watching the news and my phone was on silent."
"You're home?"
"Yes. I felt sick on my way there and I was already late, so it seemed better to come back."
The bar was already on fire when I saw the strange boy passing by in the car and decided to come back, I realised. If I wasn't late to my shift I wouldn't have seen him when I did, I would have been at the bar, working, when the fire started.
What an awfully weird evening.
"Damn, that was lucky. Are you okay? Should I come over?"
I couldn't say for sure it was luck just yet, but it definitely spared me from being in a building that burnt to the ground.
"If that is Lucas tell him to come stay with you, I don't mind him sleeping over" Vitoria offered. We had a very strict rule of no boys spending the night during the semester or visiting unannounced since there were only girls living in the house.
"Yeah, actually that would be nice if you don't mind" I told him when Vitoria gave me permission.
"I'll be there in a minute, just gonna grab some things."
I thanked him and hung up. I felt even better than when I saw Vitoria and knew I wouldn't be completely alone at night, I felt safer. I shouldn't be so concerned about the red-eyed boy after the bar accident but one thing just piled on top of another. There was nothing I could do about either but wait and see what happened and it felt suffocating.
I called my parents to assure them I was fine before the news even reached them and then I kept calling my boss and my coworker until Lucas arrived. My mother answered almost right away and put me on speaker when I told her about the bar so my father could hear it too. We didn't speak for long because I wanted to keep trying to reach Lucia and Marcelo.
They never picked up. Their phones would not even ring after a while, just like the landline.
I was filled up with dread by the time Luke arrived.
"No news from the folks from work?"
I just shook my head no and he hugged me really tight. Even though I was not incredibly close to them we saw each other quite regularly and had a nice relationship. I couldn't believe they were suddenly dead.
Just then it really hit me that I almost died alongside them. I was there mourning them instead of burning with them by mere luck. As Luke hugged me the realisation of how close I was to dying that night hit me like a train.
I started crying really hard. I sobbed so much I started to choke on air.
"Hey, it's alright. You're alright." He whispered against my hair to soothe me but I couldn't stop, it was like a dam broke and all the dirt came rushing down through the walls.
Both him and Vitoria urged me to go shower and then to sleep, but I couldn't bring myself to step away from the TV until it was all over. I wanted to see the firemen put the flames out and get inside. I wanted to see if they would rescue anyone or just dig up some burnt bodies. I stayed there in the living room with Vitoria and Lucas until there was nothing else to see, until the cameras were turned off and the reporters went away.
When it was confirmed that there were people inside and none of them made it out alive I cried some more and Lucas comforted me again as Vitoria made us dinner. I told them I couldn't stomach anything but they were very insistent, talking about how it got so late and I hadn't eaten anything in hours. I barely noticed so much time had passed. I managed to eat some pasta with them, though not much. When we finished Vitoria told Luke to get me to my room and took the dishes to the kitchen to wash them.
He then took me back to my room and helped me shower. He washed my hair and then dried it, he dressed me in one of my favourite pyjamas and held me as I fell asleep. I did fall asleep eventually, actually rather quickly, with his arms around me and him telling me everything was fine, he was there and so was Vi. They were there for me.
I felt so lucky.
