A Sanguinary Rose

Bloodless

WHEN I WOKE UP, tears were rolling down my cheeks and dribbling on my clavicle.

Why am I crying?

A deep sense of loss made my stomach churn, and a lump in my throat to form. Something dear was lost to me. I propped myself against my pillow and watched beams of sunlight slant through my shutters, blurry from the flow of regretful tears.

I looked in the mirror, trying to delve deeper into my mind. Had it been it real? But like all dreams, the more I tried to remember, the more it seemed to slip away. Details washed away in the tide of time with each passing second until even the bigger picture was nothing but a fuzzy mess. There was a sudden flash of revelation in my mind, and I ran my thumb over my upper row of teeth. Nothing out of the ordinary. I remembered having pointed fangs.

The dream was fading, the image dissolving, the names falling out of memory, and my heart was broken. But I couldn't put my finger on why. The tears still flowed. As I wiped my face clean, I looked at my red, puffy eyes and vowed to not forget the dream. But how could I keep such a promise?

There was something I remembered about sunlight being harmful to my body. I ran to the window and drew wide open the shutters to stand under its warm light. Nothing happened. The heat caressed my skin like the touch of a mother. It was the worst thing that could've happened at that moment.

Days melted into each other and became unrecognizable from one another. Nothing ever stood out. Like the rapid flipping of a book's pages, I felt my life pass me by. I sat at breakfast, remembering the day I woke up from that fever dream, but how long had it been since then? A year? Three? More?

School resumed being the same monotonous process every day of the year. Teachers droned on for hours until the end of their lecture. The students' faces I passed in the hallways between classes became blurs and indistinguishable from all the others. Mr. Howard berated me for staring out the window throughout history class. He did that every day. In chemistry, Mr. Langdon gave me an F on the quiz. I may have spent the entire lesson gawking at the first question.

"———————?" "——— like to talk after class?" Mr. Langdon said, crouching beside my desk.

"Hm. I didn't catch that."

He arched his eyebrows with concern, and I thought he repeated himself. "————————————?"

"I'm missing something. I don't know. What am I doing here? I shouldn't be here."

"———————?"

I yanked my bag from the floor. "What's the point of all of this?" Rows and columns of faceless students drew their judgment in a wave of snickering. I stormed out of the class.

At lunch I sat with my friends. At least I thought that's what they were. Their daily banter sometimes included me, sometimes it didn't. I couldn't care less. Why am I here?

"————," Rick said, raising his hands over his head, laughing all the while. "————————————!"

"———!" Jason burst out in laughter, hands on his stomach. "——————."

"——lett. Hey, can't you hear me?" Amanda said, waving her hand at me. "You okay?"

"Are we friends?"

"Of course, silly." But her cloy smile made me more distrustful. "Why do you say that?"

Tiffany bobbed her head lazily in agreement. Lying bitch. She'll cut ties for no reason.

Biting down on my lip, I tasted blood. "You're not them." Peering around me, I tried to find them. Who's them?

"Who's them?" Amanda asked, frowning. I couldn't tell whether she was mocking me. I wanted to yell at her. "Are you sure you're okay? Where's that coming from?"