Chapter 5: Take a Seat and Rest
At a bar, somewhere in the city...
It seems that both of them choose to not visit the bar tonight. They could have an interesting conversation if they proceed with the discussion of yesterday.
As much as he like to hear these two regulars talking with each other, he had enough other guests to serve tonight. Normally, he wouldn't say it, but the business was going well.
The poor drank their worries and negative thoughts away, while the rich drank almost literally their money with a mood of unhappiness, due to not knowing where to spend it on. With such a cliff in inequality between these two groups, it appeared that alcohol united them with peace in the most pacifistic definition of the word.
Sometimes the two groups clashed with each other, giving the other the fault of their own misery. Otherwise, while the colourful and taming liquid was flowing, they started to agree with each other on topics that were less grounded in reality. Both groups got their ideas about how to live, but in the end, they agreed that you must make the most out of it.
While his last guest was leaving the place, which was remarkable with the alcohol consumption, a new pair hurried into the bar.
"I hope we don't annoy you with our request, but please let us sleep here for tonight," the seductive lady asked to him.
Wait, isn't that our Kroegtijger? She looked worrisome, what is happened to her. What is she thinking?
It took for him a whole minute to get used to her new appearance, the femme fatal impression was much stronger than last time, but was feeling off due to absent of the long sharp nails that almost defined the type.
"Uhm, why do you say us?", he questioned her in a confused matter. However, it became clear when he met the appearance of a tired teenager. He looked her in the eyes, like he always did with new visitors. He must admit that first impressions weren't always right and that it didn't completely categorize everyone in a specific box, but the first impressions, especially of a stranger's eye, were good enough to get a genuine grasp of them.
Her eyes were as a clear blue sky, though, but bad weather was going to replace the scenery soon.
She's looking frightened, what is going on with her?
"I don't have two extra beds, I always live all by myself," he explained to her. He doesn't want to refuse her, but he spoke the truth about his situation.
"That doesn't matter, for my part we can sleep on the couch and the floor." Her counter argument was cold and seriously, the melodramatic speech that she normally used when she was ranting about the miserable state of the world, was completely gone in her comment.
"Are you sure about it, I haven't cleaned it for almost two weeks, so I don't know if it's healthy," he replied in all his honesty, though, her face started to shift to a more expressive one.
The sweat started to come out of his skin, when she turned a knife close to his chin, while his face remained calm and natural.
"There are more troublesome things in life than hygiene," was her short answer. He saw how she held the blade, it appeared almost natural to her. The fast reaction after his comment, the way how she wielded it, the strained muscle that could act in less than a second, it felt in place with the image of her in his mind. However, there was something off.
"You look afraid," he remarked, the feeling of infinite silence was present in his whole body.
"Yes, of course, we are afraid. Members of The Rotters are searching for us, so who wouldn't be," she stated with a desperate voice, where after she pushed the girl upside the stairs, behind the workplace.
"I will pay you back, but not today," she promised and disappeared to the first floor too.
She was lucky, because the next second, the door of the bar flew was getting opened and a group of five men, who looked like henchmen, stepped inside the building. They were dressed up as burglars, almost completely in black, but he noticed the many pockets on their trousers, which indicate work clothing.
There you have them, just an inch too late.
"Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I am cleaning the glasses now, so you can't order a drink anymore," he stated calm and polite. Every new guest for his bar, was a welcome one to him, even henchmen and scumbags.
He looks like a rebel, but his eyes are more serious than others of his kind. It seemed that he only borrows the look of his earlier stage of life.
"We don't want to drink, we are looking for a woman, that's all. Can we look around here?", one of them replied. Normal bosses of his kind would demand it, or asking it with an intimidate voice, however, his men were surprised by the calmness of his request.
"Well, as long as you aren't breaking or damaging anything, I am fine with it," he spoke and putted his last dried glass in the display case.
"Well, you have heard him, but don't break anything," the rebel leader said and while the rest was searching for the woman, he started a conversation with the bartender.
"Can I ask you what's up above you?", he started with a question. He was pointing towards the ceiling.
"That's my apartment, if I am honest, I also want a lady to company me, because I am single, but I prefer that she would find me, instead of the reverse. However, there are man who want to find their true love, so personally I don't mind."
He himself, Edwin Göterson, wasn't an active type, he would only give Yvan his glass before he ordered it. For the rest of the visitors, he would wait for their orders.
"Please don't tell the police of our visit, we don't like their involvement in our business," the leader requested to him.
"You don't have to worry about, this place itself isn't legal either, so I won't contact them. The only thing that the government knows about me, is the fact that I am here in the Netherlands, if I want better public security, then I would go to my homeland," he confessed to the boss.
"You know, I like you, I didn't expect that from a formal guy like yourself. I don't have a close bond with them either, they can be dicks, so we are standing on the same side of the society."
"I am not sure about that, I won't ask you about your business, but I have a bad feeling about it," Edwin's voice held a hint of suspicion, which felt more like a joke then a true statement.
"Well, there are worse jobs to do, even dirtier ones than ours," the leader said, before he got the report of his staff that they couldn't find her.
"Well, it was fine to meet you, we are done for today, so enjoy your night, because we are going further with the search."
The door was closed carefully, which after he looked upstairs.
What have she done to them, what is the reason of looking for her?
He locked the door and cleaned the floor in his calmness and headed upstairs after the clean-up.
- At Edwins living space above the bar…
This is all my fault, that's the truth of the situation.
She offered herself to sleep on the ground, where there was no mattress and only a blanket and a poorly stuffed pillow.
"No, you will sleep on the bench, even when you have dragged me into this, it would be inevitable for me on a later point."
She watched how the woman was preparing the mattress for herself. The teenager looked to the improvised sleeping place and imagined a bed of a prisoner, which should be her place after the thing that she had done.
They wanted me, they are searching for me, not you. You couldn't do anything about the situation, because I have dragged you down with me.
In everyone's life, there will be a point where you figure things about yourself that you would never notice otherwise. Life is a constant traffic of situations, which will bounce off of your personality and circumstances.
For her, it was a month ago, when she figured out what it was for herself.
I am not wise or completely white like in the myths and I am not a witch either. I might be not the choice for this type of creature.
It was evening, when she first started to notice it. It had rained the last couple of days and as a result, there were a lot of pools on the street, formed by the inequal surface of the sidewalks. She had walked through some unavoidable water pools to discover later at home that her shoes weren't wet, like how they were supposed to.
The curiosity and a specific desire drove her to the web, the web that was called Internet, an seemingly infinite source of information, grouped together by people with interest in all kind of matters: science, public news, economic developments, media and entertainment or the more obscure parts of life, like myths and supernatural phenomenon. A simple and short phrase on a searching engine revealed a lot information about different folklore and mythical creatures in the Netherlands.
When she specified her research and started to type in more detailed terms, she found out that she was one of them, she was one of the creatures that you would only hear in fairy tales and horror stories, she was a Witte Wieve.
A Witte Wieve, translated to a white and or wise woman, was a figure in Dutch folklore who haunted brave men when they are in the wood while there was thick fog hanging over the place. The lectures on the Internet about this figure, described them as herbalists, who had wisdom and knowledge.
It had everything that she needed, everything that she craved, everything that she wanted, everything to be not counted as normal or worse, average.
Normal clothes, normal parents, normal family and friends and like everyone, a normal boring life. The discovery of this supernatural part of her changed her ordinary mundane life to an extraordinary one, the endless repeating cycle of normal boring will still go on, but it was now more bearable now she has found that abnormal part of herself.
It's my fault that I have been spotted, it's my fault that they are chasing us, it's my fault for putting you both in danger due to my actions.
She did what most curious people will do when they find out that they are supernatural, they want to know what their limits are and so did she. She had simple grasp of what kind of abilities she had by reading the folklore on the Internet and she wanted to try them out, to test if they were really real, terrified by the idea that she may turn out to be just a normal person.
It doesn't have to change my ordinary life, just something that makes me standing out in the crowd, just something that makes me less normal.
That was her point, that was her stance, her point of perspective, though, some people seemed to disagree with her life philosophy.
She kept her identity secret to everyone around her and when she tries something out with her abilities, she would be aware of her surroundings, carefully trying to not attract the wrong kind of people to herself. However, it seems that she has failed in being invisible for others and so, she had piqued interest of some worrisome people.
She didn't know for which reason she was being chased, the only thing she knew definitely was that they came from the grimy side of the society.
"I must admit, you didn't lie," she heard a man talking, while she was laying on the bench.
I don't want to change their lives; they will suffer because of me.
"I have never said that I would lie to you. Whatever, I was guaranteed to meet their kind, these burglars," the lady commented without care as if she accepted a cruel fate.
She knew that she couldn't do it alone, so she begged someone for help, but that person couldn't help her and was dragged into this mess, together and due to her.
"I won't ask what's going on, because I am just weak in fights. I won't tell the police either, I think you have heard my conversation with him.', the man replied
How does he classify himself as weak? How could someone stay that calm in a situation that I have caused? He's definitely strong, which I won't say about myself.
"Can I make use of the bath room, I need to clean something," she requested and without asking any question, like he had said, he gave her the permission to do so.
"A little advice, whatever you're going to clean, do the same with your make-up. If they have seen you, it will be better to look completely different and I bet that's going to happen when you wash your face. Nobody could stay the same with such a filler lay on their face," he added his advice, while he put the radio on. He changed his radio station to the classical one, which will comfort them in their sleep.
"However, you only can stay here for two days. An acquaintance of mine will come by then and I don't like explaining events and stuff that I don't know off."
Even I don't know everything what's going on. Even I don't know why they are searching for me.
She grabbed her cell phone and send a message to her parents that she slept by a friend of her, so that she didn't pull her own parents into her self-made mess.
"I want to apologize to you, because-", she was interrupted by the small adrenaline shot, when she stood in the door post of the bath room. She could see what the lady was cleaning and it didn't comfort her. She saw how the woman was cleaning a knife, the red colored water gave her the hint that she washed the blood of the knife.
"You don't have to, but I appreciate if you don't see what I am doing here right now," the woman's voice was a tired one, like a household mother who also had a job coming home from work. Both of them were exhausted as a resulted of this hectic night for them both.
One of them admitted their fatigue, the other wouldn't confessed to herself that her energy was squeezed out by the event that happened.
That person walked back to the bench, and started to stare mindlessly to the ceiling, before admitting her defeat at the very end of her awakened state.
"She was really spent and I won't deny that it isn't the case with me," the motherly voice said, worried about the condition of the teenager on the bench.
"I will still be awake for like an hour, so you don't have to worry about them now. I hope that they will give up the search," the man responded. From his seat, he watched how the woman laid on the mattress, the last thing she murmured was:
"Hopefully, but their search will get fuelled."
At Emily's home...
"Emily, have you done your homework for tomorrow? Just do something useful," the concerned voice of a mother said from her position in the kitchen.
"Yes mam, of course I have done my homework, there's nothing I can do anymore!", a younger female voice responded from the bench in the living room. If felt comfortable, but it was less luxurious then the bench of one her client's.
I still can't believe that he didn't eat me or bite me in the neck. I would personally prefer the latter option; you could never know what will happen then to me.
Her encounter with the terrifying and charming man was in her eyes a rollercoaster of emotions. The thrills of meeting the pale face, the awkwardness that became their conversation with a lot of stuttering and the relaxed state that he left behind on her body. She wore the same pants as yesterday and so; she picked her unintended memory of their meeting. She got his address, handed to her by the man himself:
Rosenveldtstraat 37
Rotterdam
Apartement 14
Her pose on the bench was like always a bored one, she had tried all kinds of hobbies, from extreme sports to art classes, but she couldn't find her calling. However, she wanted to be fit and active, so she was hanging on a sport that could help her later.
"Don't you have to babysit?", her mother asked her, trying to put some energy in her daughter's body. As long as the mother only talked to her, then the signs of boredom wouldn't disappear.
"No, tomorrow is my next work day, his daughter is nice, cheerful, careless and almost energetic. My job is to keep an eye on her when he isn't home," she replied.
If he had eaten me, would I then be enough for him, or would he also eat Stefana after he had consumed me? Was a really a vampire, what could I have done with the umbrella against a being like him.
As much as she wanted to believe in the fact that he was a vampire, she questioned if it would make a difference for her. Would she get excited about him for a few minutes and then get bored again? Or would it be instantly normal to her? And what if she figures out that he was playing along with her fantasies? Would she really get a passion due to him?
Her mother has advised her many times if she wanted a diary to write her thoughts in, to release parts of the CPU-usage of her brain and mind. If would be a mess, if she hadn't refused her mother's offer, due to that her topics inside the brain were jumping from one point to another and which occurred random.
Both of her parents had noticed her very strong imagination and tried to push her to a direction, where she could make use of that talent. She could remember an old place and immediately knowing where her location was, which indicated that her spatially rendering was one of her strongest points. She wouldn't get herself lost; she could image an almost accurate map of her environment.
What's he doing here, why did he come to Rotterdam to begin with?
Like how many would notice it, she observed his astonished face when she talked almost fluent English to him. As a native, she has easily noticed that he was a native English speaker, due to the funny pronunciation of Dutch street names.
Shall I look for him tomorrow night? It would be an entertaining and refreshing conversation for me.
Language wasn't the issue for here, she had the languages of German, French, Greek and even Latin lesson at her disposal, due to her education on school. The idea of him being a vampire was still in her head and had spread doubt in herself: Is it responsible to engage an entity like him?
His eyes were pretty, I could stare hours to it, imagine the huge space wars that are happening in that universe that was the inside of eyes. Even when his face and expression were eerily, I wasn't scared or bored by them.
She yawned, the mouth widen itself to her maximum extent, which reminded her of the reason why she chose to take a job as a baby sitter. It wasn't a surprising motif; it was just straight out boredom. She could entertain herself easily with another person around her and the child that was her most frequent companion was almost an atomic engine, powered by hyper active radium.
But with this type of reactors comes a back lash, when the child runs out of energy and starts to sleep, then she could barely keep her own eyes open, her energy level drops down to zero. It wasn't due to exhaustion; it was purely that she wasn't built to live alone. She was an extravert after all, people who charge themselves up by interacting with another person.
She checked the chatroom with friends, sending a message so that she could have someone where she could talk with. As she waited for a response, she was feeling how the planet's gravity was pulling her down.
Come on, there must be someone to chat with, they all can't be busy, can't they? Everyone has his own agenda, but they all needed a little bit of spare time, so they can't only do their homework.
She looked mindlessly at the screen while she waited on an answer, a simple fish to pick her bait.
One minute...
Two minutes...
No replies received yet...
Three minutes...
Four minutes...
The chat didn't progress, it couldn't progress with just one person active.
Five minutes and still no message, her mind started to get impatient and was wondering to the realm of imagination.
What kind of powers would he have if we excluded normal vampire powers and abilities? Walking on walls would be a funny one to think about, but it doesn't make sense. Do we count super strength to their basic form or is it an extra feature? And what about healing, would they recover extremely fast?
"Emily!", a voice called her, unable to penetrate her shield of thought.
Do they have multiple forms, like what they do with some game bosses? How do they camouflage themselves, with make-up or do they look normal? He doesn't seem to wear a camouflage.
"Emily!"
She got a shock from the hand that touched her shoulder, with a small jump she encountered the worrisome face of her mother and she knew where she was worrying about.
"It's happening with you again, you were getting dreamy again," the mother said to her daughter.
Silence began to alienate the living room.
"Dinner is ready, so we are asking to joining us at the table and enjoy your meal," her mother explained and due to the interaction, Emily immediately stood on her foot to proceed to the kitchen where the table was.