Scarred for life

Chapter 4

Four out of five of them leave the room again. River stays with me. I look them in the eyes. "Why?"

That's literally my only question. Why. Why all this? Why kill people?

"We want to live", River says.

"By killing others?", I ask straight up. River's face shows shock and astonishment. Oops, probably a little bit too straightforward. "You didn't change one bit", they say.

"I can explain. But it's not a happy story.

Once realising that you are a vampire, you also realise that it's a hard life. No one likes you and especially all humans see you as monsters. But that's not the worst. The worst is that we are slowly removed from this world. In the basics, vampires don't want to do anything wrong. The only thing is that they need some human blood from time to time. Like mosquitos. This was accepted for hundreds of years, but lately, false rumours were spread. The vampires 'would kill for fun' and 'take way too much blood'. So the government of this country poisoned the water wells. They put silver into the water, which normal humans don't notice, but we do, and we get very sick after a while. There are already dozens of sick vampires and there is no cure. We went to ask the government to stop, but they didn't listen at all, called us monsters and forced us out. Now, we need to take it a different way."

A cloud covers the sun outside. The sky gets darker when more clouds appear.

Silence fills the room. I really don't know how to respond to all of this. I understand what they are doing, but this is not the way. I know that vampires get very old... "This is maybe a random question, but did any of you live already when this all happened?" River nods. "Damon did. I didn't believe it when I first met him either, but he is 168 years old. Vampires can live for around 350 years. And there was this switch of the government when it all changed. He told us that at some point, the king died and there was not one to fill the gap but the government at the time. Under the king's reign, the vampires were protected. But when the government, mostly youngsters who grew up with weird myths about bloodsucking monsters, came into action, it didn't go long and vampires were banned from public places. The climate here is one of the only ones vampires can live in and that's why it was such a big deal. In other countries, there weren't as many vampires as there are here. Vampires can't really have much sunlight, and this is a rainy climate. Other countries already banned vampires earlier, like the countries around the equator or in the south, but that wasn't the biggest problem because they couldn't survive there anyway. Now that it's happening here, it gets really hard for the vampires to survive."

I sighed. "I understand your frustration and despair", I answer softly. I see the look in River's eyes. They are absolutely exhausted. Slowly, they walk to the other side of the room to look out the window. I am really sorry for them, and I understand why these people do this, but...

Callum walks in. He looks at me. "You good? Need any water?", he asks. I shake my head. "Why do you all even care? You hold me hostage anyways, why not kill me?"

Callum looks in my eyes. Oof, I hurt him. There's a moving muscle on his cheek. Why do I still remember every single detail about his expression? "Sorry", I mumble.

"You are, or were, our friend", comes River's voice softly from the side of the room. Callum nods. "We are no monsters." I nod. "I know." It's silent. "I just feel like this is all me being a burden to you all. I am not of any good use."

While talking, the others came in too.
"Of course you are not", Falya says. But she doesn't give a reason why. Callum looks at me, that look in his eyes which I remember from years ago. He is worried. But I can care about myself. I...

What is he looking at? His eyes go to my shirt and hands. I clasp my hands even more on the rope which is still kind of loose, but he doesn't notice. Then I realise he is looking at my necklace. Callum swallows one, two times. What the- "You okay?", I ask. "Yes", he answers, his voice a little rough. Yea. Sure, everything is fine. But I know better. Something is up. But why does it have something to do with my necklace?

"What comes next?", Luna asks Damon. "We have two people left, but everyone is trying to evacuate or locked up in a classroom", Damon answers. "We need to act like we are gone, so this is a perfect place. We just lock the door and no one will suspect a thing. Classrooms will eventually be empty and in a few days, we can go on." River nods.

"Why do you need blood?", I ask. Damon looks at me. "Not that you don't know, but fine. We need extra blood to survive the silver sickness. The blood we get helps the others too and we will be better for at least a century." Ah. That sounds kind of logical. "And we need to give the government a sign that we will care for ourselves", Falya adds. "But this is establishing the rumours about evil vampires even more", I call out. Why doing this while talking will work too? Luna nods, a sad look in her eyes. "We know, but what should we do else?"

I look at Callum. His face is white as a sheet of paper.

Outside it became even more dark and a thunder roars in the distance. The atmosphere in the room is almost spooky.

"We need to do something about Iris", Falya says. "We can't take her with us". "We need only two people...", Damon starts, but Luna cuts him off. "No way I am hurting Iris, and no one should think about that here. Are you crazy?"

Rude, I am sitting there, folks!

Finally, Callum opens his mouth...