Back when I was nine, I always dreamt of being someone greater than who I really was: a superhero; a being who could somehow, someway, save the day. Have a happy ending.
That dream led me to be someone who was understanding to others. Empathetic. Caring. All of the words were things people described me with when I was growing up.
That was until a certain event happened that made all of those compliments disappear. A simple, yet life changing something.
My fangs.
My fangs growing in made people skeptical of me. They called me a weirdo. They ridiculed me for my canines. Mocked me for being different.
It wasn't until my sixteenth birthday when I found out what these accursed fangs meant.
I was a Vampire.
Those mythological creatures in books and movies. The "blood-suckers". A freak.
It wasn't soon later that I found out that my teeth weren't the only things changing. With puberty, almost everything I knew about myself had changed. My appetite. My body. I felt like I wasn't myself.
At first, I thought it was the end of the world. That I was somehow, someway, dying for some unknown reason.
One significant thing that stuck out to me was how I began to view my peers. They looked brittle and unappealing. I didn't feel the need to try and be nice to everybody. I didn't feel the need to try and appeal to some other imaginary expectations of me that would always bring me down to my lowest. Girlfriends? Sports? Hell, I'd be lucky if I was even interested in playing them.
When I got kidnapped by Count Valerius, I felt kind of relieved to be surrounded by people like me.
And now, there I was, staring at the door that so many nights I came to with an open mind. Now, with a somber nostalgia.
"Fancy, isn't it?" I got tapped on the shoulder. I turned to see Count Valerius looking at me with his lips curved into a smirk. "I'm lucky I put a tracking device on you, huh?"
"Tracking device?" I said, scrounging through my wrinkled clothes. I could not find anything that seemed to resemble anything of the sort. "Where is it?"
"It's in your neck. I have an innate sense that tells me the location of said tracking device."
In my neck? What the actual hell?
"You gotta be joking, right?"
"Nope… You are not the only one, don't worry. Every student with the capabilities of teleportation has it chipped in them," he said with a gentle shrug. "Better to have security than lose a teenager indefinitely."
I was at a lack of words. "I…wow."
My attention turned back to the door. It was simple, yet effective at giving a welcoming environment.
"Why am I here?"
"This is where you imagined when you said the chant… Can't say I didn't expect it to be here, though," Count Valerius said with a sigh.
Imagined? Now that he said it, that made so much sense. I'd been missing this house since I vanished. And now, I have a chance to enter it again.
"Don't." He grabbed my wrist with a fiery intensity. His eyes were highlighted in red, with wrinkles against his eyebrows. "Once you do it, I will not like what I have to do next."
"Do next"? What is that supposed to imply?
"Okay," I said as I let go of my urges. Whatever he meant, I did not want to find out. "Do you know anything about the world outside Umbra?"
"Of course, Mr. Lavua," Count Valerius said, his face getting less tense. "I know countless past Presidents of the United States, kings of various counties…I could name more, but I won't."
"If I gained more understanding of my powers, would I become as powerful and known as you?"
"To be honest…I do not know. Strength is objective when it comes to our kind. You can't just use brute strength to win. You need to be smarter than your opponent… That, itself, is the difference between life and death."
"Awh…" I looked down at my palms, my veins shining a dark blue. "If I drank human blood, would that help any?"
"Technically, yes. You would be tried under a court of law, however…Trust me, you do not want to go through that, especially at your age."
I let out a sigh. "Can I chant the 'Translocate' again? I really want to leave…"
Count Valerius gave a nod before I chanted the word. I imagined my dorm room, the room where Daniel had charged at me not even twenty-four hours prior.
My vision went a familiar white, and when my vision cleared, I was back in the room, standing at the foot of my bed.
"Dude…where the hell were you?" Ivan said from behind, startling me.
"Oh my God, don't do that again!" It took several seconds before my pulse slowed, "I thought I was a goner…"
"God?" His face scrunched in a cringe. "Just to warn you, you should probably say Typhon instead of God. Trust me, it'll help you out in the long run."
"What does Typhon even mean?" I heard people continuously say Oh my Typhon, instead of the usual phrase that I'd heard all my life. I tried to ignore it, but if it's a serious problem…
"Typhon is the God we follow—she's the one who gave us this land." He sat down on his bed, staring straight ahead at me. I followed his lead and sat, a yawn escaping from my mouth. "Just…put some respect on her, even if it isn't to your belief."
"Okay, I will."
"So…you're gonna tell me where you went, right?" Ivan said as he stretched his arms outward.
"I was with Count Valerius. It was an…eventful day."
With Daniel fighting me, finding out the truth about my biological parents, and translocating to my childhood home, I was at a loss for words for it all.
"I'm gonna go to sleep. I'm very, very sleepy." I laid down flat on my bed, completely covered in the clothes I'd been wearing all day. I was too exhausted to change them. "Night."
"Mmhm."
I closed my eyes, allowing myself to drift in the darkness of the back of my eyelids. I fell closer and closer to drowsiness until eventually…it was morning.