Beyond This Life

Beyond This Life (Pt 1)

As I stared out of the classroom's bay windows into the courtyard, the loud hum of a leaf blower lulling me into a daydream, I thought of the day I'd come out of my coma.

A day I couldn't remember.

That day, a year ago, was a complete blur. My only memory was of a male's voice. "All right, Mistress. You'll feel a sharp pinch...." It sounded as if the male was crying, or about to cry. I'd always wondered what made this guy so sad, but then I'd get this pain in my head, so I never thought too long on that. Or anything.

"Cherry."

The people that took me home after I woke up say they're my parents, but my memories just don't match up. They say my parents before couldn't handle a daughter in a coma and dropped me back into the system.

Well, that hurt.

So these new parents, the people that own me now, were my third set of adoptive parents. I feel like I should love them, for they were the warm hands I felt while I slept apparently, but I can't say I feel anything really. It's like my emotions have nothing to hang on to when they come to me so they just blow away in the wind.

"Cherry?"

Sometimes, I wonder what I missed while I was asleep. What stars got married, who had a baby, did somebody die? I missed a whole three years of my life to that coma. I wondered if my friends ever came to visit me, if maybe someone other then my new owners cared for me. Did anyone really care? And sometimes I wondered how I slept through three years of school, but didn't miss a thing. Who taught the semi-dead chick to do calculus, or the history of everything medieval, or what an Oxford comma is? I knew so much that when I woke up, I was really only a year behind.

Sometimes I wondered if I was ever really in a coma.

"Cherry!"

"Whaaaaaaatt do you want?"

"Lose the 'tude, please, miss. And answer my question while you're at it," Ms. Lavine said.

I sighed. "Sorry. What's the question?"

"We're reviewing the quadratic formula. Since you all can't seem to remember it. Do you know it, Cherry?"

I looked at my fingernails, ugly and chewed on. "X equals negative-B plus or minus the square root of B squared minus four-a-c, divided by two-a."

"Correct. No more daydreaming. Be here in---"

The glass vibrated as the lawn care man beat on it for dear life. Another man---no not a man, a male---had him pinned against the glass, the male's head buried in the lawn care man's neck.

This sight, that hair, a dirty-blond mess, triggered something in my head. Images of a male with perfect teeth, a curved nose, bright amber-shining eyes, lean and muscly arms, and a mess of dirty-blond hair flooded my brain. And my heart.

Before I even knew what I was doing, my feet stopped on the sidewalk just before my classroom.

"Beau! What are you doing! You're killing him!"

The head snapped up, eyes shining a bright yellow color, red-tinted fangs slowly shrinking to a normal size. The male twisted the man's head until the neck snapped and as the body fell to the ground it turned to ash.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Why I wasn't hysterical and nuts right now was a mystery but I went with it.
The male crumpled to his knees and hung his head. "Mistress." His voice was raspy and filled with sadness. "My mistress." No, maybe it was.....happiness? "Mistress?"

"Oh, Beau. What have you done?"

"Mistress," he sighed, as if hearing my voice relieved him of stress. "Mistress, I---"

"Are you hungry? God, Beau, you didn't have to kill him. You could have come to me." I knelt down in front of him and pushed up my sleeve. When he didn't move I said, "C'mon, you're a vampire right? And I can feel that you're hungry. So hurry before I remember that I'm s'pose to be screaming my head off."

Beau raised his head, a confused look on his face. "Vampire? Mistress, your memories...." He ran a hand through his hair. "No, Mistress, I cannot. To take from you would---you'd return to---the life before."

My heart randomly started to ache and tears formed in my eyes. I... missed the life I had before? But my life before was just sleep and before that was nothing worth repeating, nothing special. The tears fell and a golf ball grew in my throat. "Why am I crying?" I whispered.

Cool hands came around my wrist, Beau's thumb rubbing my pulse point. "Mistress." And then he bit me. Just sank his teeth into my skin and started sucking.

The pain was excruciating. My nervous system didn't know what to do with all that feeling, some of the pain shooting to my brain. An image, maybe a memory, blew through my mind. A group of males and females wearing old-fashioned armor stood in rows that went on forever. And then a strong, powerful, female voice shouted, "To serve and protect. And to conquer! We are the Troop!" The rows of people all raised their swords and cheered, "Captain Cherina!!!" And through the eyes of many, I saw myself, standing high above them all, grinning like mad, sharp fangs glistening in the light.