All Over Again (A Young Dracula Fan-Fiction)

Chapter Sixteen: Blood

A/N: We have finally reached the 16th chapter of All Over Again... You know what that means! 4.5K+ reads on my Young Dracula fan-fiction! I am so happy that you are enjoying my book; don't forget to comment and like after you finish reading a chapter you like. 

~ Wishi

Chapter Sixteen

Ingrid's POV

Ugh.

I hate it.

The smell of happiness was overpowering when I neared Riley's room. I could smell it lingering off her jacket and dress every time I stroll pass her. It is honestly repulsive. 

But, striking out the fact that her happiness makes me sick to my stomach, it makes my black, unwelcoming heart have a pulse and glow with warmth out of pure jealousy. She doesn't even deserve it, I bet. Happiness is something that cannot be produced with money or materialistic items, but out of true joyousness and glee. Like the glee I will feel once I get myself on the Vampire HIgh Council. I am sure of it.

"She should stay longer," Vlad argued. 

"There is absolutely no way that I am allowing someone, let alone a breather, to live in my house!" I bellowed. I could see the anger in Vlad's eyes. There was no way that I could convince him that Riley was indeed Erin. I didn't know how.

Shapeshifting?

That's my only theory. But, I don't understand why Erin would shapeshift into another girl called Riley (I mean-- Riley is a horrible choice of name) and virtually repeat her life with Vlad. It just doesn't make sense to me.

I rubbed the glass bottle I had stolen from Riley's room in my hands-- careful not to reveal it to my little brother, in case he had seen it before and would recognize that I had committed theft.

"INGRID DRACULA! Do not forget that I am the owner of this house and Riley Johnson is my guest so if you would like to control that disease- ridden heart of yours--"

Vlad was cut off at his sentence. Renfield walked in with a steel trolley of what smelled like decaying fish and poorly oven-baked cockroach intestines. His expression was obviously startled as he walked in our argument. Vlad took a deep sigh.

"I'm going to see what my guest," he applied verbal pressure to the word, 'my', "is doing."

Renfield was wearing a ridiculous apron covered in absurdly disproportioned mice wearing cerise bows. Across the top of his dirty apron was a label that read 'HELLO KITTY'. "Take that completely hysterical dress off, you snot-picking, rat muching, weasel," I insulted.

I saw the amethyst liquid in the bottles fight against the absorption in the cork seals as I tossed it and spun it within the area of my palms.

I witnessed Renfield struggling to pull the correct string on his backside to easily release them from linking to form an apron. "Pathetic," I said. 

'Where'd Vlad go?' I thought, 'EAVESDROPPING mode initiated.'

***

"I'm guessing it's about your family or something," I heard Vlad say, a caring tone in his voice.

I could smell the 'happiness' I said I could always smell, but I'm not so sure it was the happiness in the first place. Maybe it was just cheap peasant perfume that she stole from a poor, beggar of a child.

Instead, I smelt (other than the knock-off perfume) sadness. It was acrid yet depressing-- like the smell you could imagine if a home was burning down in flame, and the smoke that you inhales scraped your throat. It was strong.

The air felt... what I could merely describe as heavy.

It was a feeling you would feel when you hear about a slayer who had slain several vampires in the district and only the fear of prosecution and death flew across your mind.

An emotion you feel when or an ambition was crushed in front of you. or a loved one was no longer alive. 

"What would happen if I drank a bottle?" 

I ever-so-slowly peeked my head in through the dusty door frame to watch what 'bottle' he was talking about. It was the same. Well, similar, but the same also.

The liquid was a striking purple; the liquid in the bottle I had stolen was a dull violet; and the glass seemed polish without a scratch. It was different-- yet all the same to mine.

My bottle had POWER written on it. But, the words were scarred. Almost like someone was trying to cover up a word that was written underneath. I tried to see what Vlad's bottle said, but his body was completely covering his facial expressions, body language and pretty much his entire front side.

"Nothing. Unicorns aren't real remember?"

'Unicorns? What is that supposed to mean?' I thought to myself. I uncorked the bottle almost immediately. 'Whatever it is-- it's bound to do only good.' 

I counted down from 'three' in my head and gulped the liquid.

It burned my throat. My sense of the 'sadness' I smelt was heightened. I was suffocating in what felt like thick, charcoal smoke that was so potent that I felt like I was about to choke. 

I was going to die. A forced flashback slide-show appeared in front of my eyes. The smoke felt like acid now. The acid-like drink refused to slide peacefully down into my stomach. I could hear my esophagus screaming. It was loud. Deafening. Ear-piercing. 

I choked. 

I collapsed to the ground.

Black. It was black blood. Not taupe. Not dim grey. Jet black.

"Ingrid?" I heard my little brother calling my name. I could only stare at who I was sure to be Riley's shoes. They were unlike any of mine. They were ballerina flats; studded with small diamonties like the blackness of the night sky at midnight.

The black blood only kept falling out of my mouth like a never-ending waterfall. A waterfall of despair. That's how I saw it.

"Ingrid, what are you doing here?!" Vlad was almost at a crying state. Riley was already crying. I could hear it clearly through her tone when she mentioned the 'unicorn blood'. 

"You drank it, didn't you?" Riley asked, not surprised. I nodded slightly. 

"Aren't you going to help her?!" Vlad yelled, forcing his crush to aid him to babysit me. (I suppose it was more 'helping me from dying' than 'babysit'.) He completely ignored Riley's previous question.

"She's going to keep ejecting that black fluid until she..." Riley didn't complete her sentence. She bent over and picked up the bottle I dropped onto the floor before I collapsed. "...until she becomes powerful."

Riley looked annoyed. I saw the expression on her face once the blood flow (or whatever the matter was) had decreased.

"What?" Vlad looked bewildered, "You said and I quote, 'unicorns aren't real'."

Riley looked at Vlad with hidden puppy dog eyes. My throat began to feel cold. Really cold. Like frozen fire. So cold and so painful. The blood-vomiting ceased. I used my remaining energy to stand up. I was shivering. Not from the natural freezer in my stomach, but from the terrifying experience I had just faced.

"Welcome back Miss Oh-So-Powerful Ingrid Dracula," Riley introduced.

I was just as confused as Vlad was. My head was aching. Vlad looked like he was about to explode.

"Loosen up little brother," I started, "you're girlfriend is a weirdo. How did I not see that coming?"

My sarcasm boiled Vlad's blood and pricked at Riley's skin.

"You've got some serious explaining to do."