The Relentless Past

Ch. Five

Ch. Five

William let his head fall on the table with a little thud. His curls fell out in all directions, creating a show. He groaned, rolled his eyes and sat up straight again.  He took some sandwich from the tray and began eating it ferociously. The people around him seemed weirded out.

" Stop that now, will you?" A boy across him said. William glanced at him.

He held a slight frown on his face, with brown bangs nearly covering out his whole forehead. He wore black Square rimmed glasses and looked everything like the nerd he was.

" you don't understand!" William groaned again.

" it wasn't even that bad!" The guy said.

" I blurted that out like some creepy bastard! Which I'm not!" William leaned against his chair. Through the corner of his eyes, he caught a blonde haired girl making her way towards their table. His sister, Amber.

She smiled as she reached their table, holding her own food tray. They were currently having their lunch at the canteen, after their third period.

" Good Afternoon William! Good afternoon Cody!" His sister chirped, cheerful as always. She received a "Good noon" in return from Cody while William looked lost and annoyed.

Noticing the confused look from Amber, Cody spoke up, " He's been like that since the second class. He went ahead and told some girl 'beautiful'".

Amber laughed at that, loud and hearty, eyes crinkled and body quivering. William knew she would react that way, nobody here was taking this seriously! What is wrong with everybody?

" That's not funny, Amber! I was completely dumbfounded when somebody bumped into me out of nowhere! I thought they had found me-" William was interrupted

" Why are you so scared of the girls here?" His sister asked, currently sipping her tea in a leisure manner like her step-brother wasn't facing an  existential crisis here.

" They don't give him privacy" Cody chimed in.

" Agreed. But! That's not the point here. She bumped into me and lost her footing and and and! I caught her wrist out of reflex, her wrist was way too tiny I have to say...and then she looked at me!" William was rambling right now. He had long forgotten to eat his lunch, he was throwing his hands dramatically in the air as he explained the wrist size of the girl he just embarrassed himself to.

" Who doesn't look at you?" Cody said. Shaking his head and making his bangs messier.

"No!" William looked like he'd pass out any moment, he had been trying to explain himself for the past 30 minutes, even right now.  His sister looked amused and all smiles. 

" She looked at me! With grey eyes. And they were so unimaginably beautiful. It's not like those lifeless gray eyes, it's like ...like...um...they kind of held a sparkle behind them you know? You could look at them all day and still not get tired. And they just appeared so bold! Plus her hair! They were red and her skin was so so so pale.  She had such strange contrasts. But they didn't look weird, they made her seem so goddess like and beautiful!" William completed his sentence with an exasperated sigh.

" He's exaggerating. " Cody said, earning a smack on the shoulders.

" So you just voiced out your thoughts?" Amber asked. She held a strange glint behind her eyes.

" yes! But it probably made me seem like a creep!" William groaned.

Cody smiled and laughed, this scene appeared to him as a really adorable sibling moment. The one where the older sibling coaxes the younger, to tell them the details thoroughly.  It was an endearing sight.

" No, what makes you think you seemed a creep?" Amber asked, lowering one of her eyesbrows.

" Well, she said, 'excuse me?' And looked terribly confused!" William frowned. His sister shoved a tray near him, ordering him to eat.

" I mean, if you knock against somebody they don't expect you to call them beautiful. But that doesn't make you a creep. Why don't you think about it this way? Being called beautiful by a boy like my brother might have just made their day!" Amber exclaimed.

That sounds nice, William thought. And thought about it for the rest of day.

    It was a quarter past 4 when Audrey and Maddie sneaked out the school property. The gate had a huge sign that said, " Vanderbilt College" in bold. It was probably the oldest college out here in Nashville.

The streets, the houses, they were all styled in old Victorian. Everything about this place looked fairy-like. And they couldn't help but snap a few pictures. They weren't going to miss out this opportunity!

Audrey was still clicking a few pictures of the beautiful gardens located around here, when Maddie grasped her arm and pulled her along the way, complaining that they had other important jobs to attend to.

The streets ended and then spread out in long muddy grounds. They were at the local forest, which was out of bounds at this time of the day.  The locals had already returned homes as it was getting dark.

Audrey and Maddie walked and walked till they reached a dense part of the forest.

Audrey clacked her boots, that had been soiled from the sticky mud. Maddie grimaced at that and set down her backpack at one of the stones on the forest floor.

" Do it fast, twilights approaching." Maddie whispered, though there was no reason to whisper out here.

" I will I will. Just give me the bow." Audrey raised up her hands.

Maddie took out a flexible bow from her bag. It looked rusted and worn out, but it would do. She then pulled out two arrows. The arrows had a blue ribbon attached to them, indicating it belonged to a noble vampire.

She handed them to Audrey and watched as Audrey slung the bow around her shoulder, the two arrows in her left hand and then turned as she said, " Don't watch. I'll be quick" then she ran into the forest.

It had been more than a week since Audrey fed. She never liked feeding, it was a disgrace. But they had to keep feeding, to atleast survive.

She was quite a 100 meters away from Maddie. She didn't like anybody watching her while she fed. She closed her eyes and all she could hear was the slight rustling of the leaves around her, her own breathing, the wind that blew.

All of a sudden, she heard a small, very small, voice of a bird not too far away from her. She opened her eyes, cast the bow in the air. As soon as she did so, she heard another voice of a different bird.

She took both the two arrows in her hand and fired. Two arrows in two different directions.

She jumped and walked to the direction of both the  arrows. First east then west.

" Thank god!" She exclaimed, she was worried her arrow skills might have detoriated. But they were fine. Good.

She walked to a nearby stone with two dead birds. Feeding was such a disgrace. She hated it.

She drank a little blood from both the two birds. Then not having enough, since she hadn't been fed from a week ago, emptied them whole. Leaving the flesh out.

By the time she was done, her fangs were covered in blood. She put them in for now, she would brush them later. Audrey felt a little bad for the birds and buried them in the ground with a small 'sorry'.

That would do for one another  one week.