Night's New Moon: Chapter 4

Chapter Four



Hurrying down the street I quickly took in my surroundings, trying to gauge where exactly I was at the moment.

The street I was walking down was empty except for a dirty homeless man who was lying by the gutters. I was a mess of emotions right now - angry, pissed off that this was happening to me of all people, sad, confused but also relieved. I was alive. I'd thought for sure I'd been dead. Something in my pocket started vibrating, startling me out of my thoughts. I'd forgotten all about my cell phone.

It was a text message from my sister, demanding to know where I was and that she was tired of covering for my 'ass'. I texted back that I'd meet her at the bakery in an hour, immediately regretting it afterwards. How the hell was I supposed to figure things out in just an hour?! Too late, I tried to focus on what I had to do now. When I glanced at the built in digital clock I was surprised by the time - it was only three in the afternoon. It'd only been two hours since the whole vampire incident, to me it'd felt as if a whole day had gone by to me.


Sticking to the shadows I came across a shady looking bar. The windows were so dirty they were almost opaque, and it was so dark inside I would have thought it closed had it not been for the open sign hanging on the door. Inside it was actually pretty crowded with dozens of loud, burly looking men. The stench of sweat and alcohol mixed with the acrid smell of burning tobacco was thick in the air. Thankfully everyone seemed too busy with the football game on TV to notice my entry.

I slipped unnoticed towards the back following the bathroom signs. Once inside I slammed the door shut, locking it, jiggling the handle for assurance. That's when everything came crashing down. I had a horrible head ache, my body felt as if I'd just rolled down a thousand flights of stairs and I had no idea what was going to happen to me. I bawled my eyes out for a while just sitting there on the dirty bathroom floor, in probably what must have been my third or fourth mental breakdown of the day. That is until I remembered that I couldn't stay here. I had to hurry up, I'd told Hina that I'd be meeting up with her in about an hour, and now it was more like half an hour.

I got up and went to the sink and washed my hands, watching the blood tinted water swirl down the drain. I splashed cold water on my face (thank god I'd been in such a hurry that morning I hadn't put any make-up on that morning - funny how annoyed I would have been about that in any other situation). Finally I glanced up at the grimy, cracked mirror and saw my reflection. My wet face was so pale. Maybe it was just the awful glare of the florescent lights... I don't know, but I didn't look right. Like I was really sick or something. I shook my head, I had to stay focused on cleaning myself up, nobody could know.

I noticed my yellow sweater was splattered with stiff, dried blood. Thankfully it had been zipped all the way up at the time. The T-shirt underneath was salvaged. I peeled off my ruined sweater and threw it into the trash can. My pants were black, so what little stains they did have mostly just blended in. I combed through my knotted hair with my fingers, trying desperately to make it appear more normal. As if I hadn't just survived a vampire attack. Yes, no one could find out. No one would find out - I tried to assure myself.

Giving up on the hair I gave my face another dose of ice cold water to try to minimize the swollen look of my face the tears had caused. I turned to leave when I spotted a rubber band on the ground. I picked it up, it was better than nothing. I pulled my hair into a ponytail, it would at least look neater from the front at the very least.

I stared out from the shadow of the alley, out to where my sister was standing, out in front of the bakery. I stared because everything looked so normal! Nothing had changed, every single person in this city had just carried on with their day, as if nothing had happened. I gave myself a one over, trying to blindly smooth over any fly away hairs, checking the parts of me I could for any overlooked traces of evidence. Taking a deep breath I took a step out into the sun and started making my way through the crowd.

“Hey.” Someone was calling out – to whom I wasn’t too sure.
I kept going, dismissing the familiar voice.

“Hey Yuna!” I stopped. It was Nate.

“Happy Birthday! I was looking for you. Kain told me you were around here somewhere.” On any other day, hearing him admit he’d been looking for me would have sent butterflies swooping through my belly. But now, I felt myself wishing Nate would just go away and disappear. This was the last thing I wanted.

“Hey… um is everything ok?”
He looked worried and it would have been flattering in any other circumstances, but instead his concern was like a warning beacon screaming through my mind that turned every muscle in my body to ice. He knows! He must’ve noticed something was wrong and now he’s going to figure it out. Just any second now it’s going to come to him. He’s going to realize what I’ve become – a freak – he’ll run from me and tell everyone. I’m finished. Thoughts of panic flooded my mind.

Then it donned on me that I hadn’t said a single word to him since our encounter, not even a simple hello. My face burned with the embarrassment of it all. I was such an idiot.

“Did something happen?”

“Oh no, nothing… I just… I just was –“

“Yuna! Where the hell have you been!” Hina came running forward, cutting through an annoyed couple. “You were supposed to meet mom and dad at the café like an hour ago. I had to come up with all kinds of lame excuses. Where were you?!”

“I was...” I looked at Nate who looked back at me with look of utter confusion on his face. “I was with Nate.” I threw him a meaningful glance.
Catching my eye, he answered slowly, “Uh yea. She was with me the whole time.” Hina was seething at this answer, but I knew she’d buy it.

“You know, you are such a hypocrite,” Hina said, exasperated. With that she took my arm and started to drag me away leaving poor Nate alone and confused in the crowd. Once we were more alone and Hina got a chance to take in my appearance, her reaction surprised me. She started to laugh. Not a, oh yea so funny, kind of laugh. But more of a sarcastic, I can’t believe this, type of a laugh. She smirked at me.

“You of all people… Oh my god. I can’t believe this.” She gave me a knowing look that I didn’t quite get the drift of.

“What?”

“Oh my God,” she said, again with that stupid grin. “So you and Nate, huh?”

“What?!”

“I never thought I’d live to see you of all people… of all girls, to be the one to sneak off with her beau and you know…” She breaks off to make an exaggerated smooching noise to further make her point. “Hah, you really have grown up.”

My jaw dropped, not literally.

“Ok, where is this even coming from? Since when was I – “

“Since when did you come home from a guy with rumpled hair and an even more rumpled shirt?” She quirks me an eyebrow. She had to be joking, of all things to accuse me off. This was way off target and it was a relief. Yet it still bothered me, I didn’t like discussing such things so openly, especially when these ‘such things’ weren’t even real. I was the one who was supposed to have the clear head, the one too classy to drool over every single guy I met. Hina was the flirty one, the brawns of the family – I was the brains. The blush was hot on my face, and the red flush only egged her on.

“And you’re the one always telling me that they’re better things to do then chase after boys? Well now. Look who’s talking,” she says, her voice so smug I almost considered just telling her what really happened. Almost.

“I didn’t – “

“I’m not hearing it,” she said, cutting me off before I could further explain myself. All I could do was sigh and let it go. If this was what she wanted to believe I’d been doing for the past four hours, fine let her think it. “Come on we gotta go meet mom and dad.” She turned to continue walking down the street. I followed slowly behind. It was a relief, this conversation I’d just had. Like nothing had changed, we were both sisters and we were both still human. I’d momentarily forgotten the trauma of the day.




::Note from the Author::

Please read&review :)