Who's to judge?

Chapter III

I tried shaking off this uneasiness, to ignore it, but no matter what I did, nothing seemed to work. The conversation between the two men replayed on loop in my head.

"Has the vampire from cell 1 showed up?"

"Nope, but the annoying thing is that I can't reach his tracker"

"Do you think he took it off?"

"No, someone has to input a code to take the tracker off"

"Well, if we're lucky, he'll come back"

"If I know him well enough, it's more likely that we find him dead then him coming back"

I was sitting in my cell, thinking about what I should do. I couldn't look away, I knew him, he wasn't a random vampire. Should I had offered to go look for him? They could decline, because they were scared that I would disappear too. Not because they would be worried, but because it wouldn't look good to lose two vampires in a row. I had to go look for him, that's why I did something that I only dreamed about.

As soon as the night came and everyone had left, I left my cell. Just like the fairy tales and horror stories would tell, the night became the day for the creatures, whose sight terrified humans. That meant that we woke up and took over the station.

I opened my cell and stepped foot into the dark hall. I wasn't the only one. The vampire from cell 3 came slowly out of his prison. He was as tall as I was and thin. His white hair was glowing in this dark night. His yellow eyes met mine and he smiled.

"That's the first time I see you outside" he said calmly. I nodded. He was right, I never liked being outside in the night, because the darkness made the loneliness grow. But this was about something serious, something important.

"How come?" he asked, walking towards me. He smelled like vanilla.

"Did you hear what happened to Derrick?" I asked him. He scratched his head pensively and said: "He didn't come back, right?" I nodded. I needed more information from him, that's why I asked him: "Do you think he ran away?"

He smirked and said: "Of course, who wouldn't."

"But he had a tracker. Running away would be pointless." I was confused. He gave a short laugh and said very convincingly: "You can take the tracker off, no problem. That doesn't stop him." He then walked past me to the cafeteria. I followed.

It wasn't a big cafeteria, it could probably fit around twenty people. There was a long glass display case with food, which the officers would eat daily. It had some long tables with many chairs. The windows were big and the moon illuminated the entire room.

The vampire sauntered through the cafeteria, directly to the display case. It had a lock. I kept going with my questions: "But you need a code to take off the tracker."

he nodded as he elongated one of his nails to pick the lock.

"Humans need the code to take it off. One of us only needs a little courage to rip it off. It only burns a bit, but then it's off." He then proceeds to open the display and to collect all the food. He grabbed sandwiches, pizza pieces and donuts.

"But if the tracker gets taken off without the code, doesn't an alarm go off?" I asked.

He laughed loudly and walked with his bounty to the window. He also picked that lock. My curiosity rose.

"What are you doing?"

He opened the window and started to whistle. There were some bushes on the other side, probably to make the station look prettier. Those bushes started to rustle as some stray dogs approached with wagging tails. The vampire turned to me with a mischievous grin.