"Dearest Lillith. Though I may not be exactly alive, the flicker of my heart when you enter the room suggests otherwise. You are the blood in my veins, something I don't possess, but so desperately need." Olivia blinked her eyes open, the faint smell of dead cow suffocating her nose. The only reason she knew that was because she'd driven past many a slaughterhouse on a road trip, and it wasn't pretty.
"Ew, no, that's too creepy. What am I supposed to say without throwing her off?" She heard an overdramatic sigh, and groaned internally. "How did that Twilight lady do it?" Nothing had really pieced together in her befuddled brain yet, all she knew was that a grasshopper just jumped on her back, and that she was listening to some edgy weirdo's poetry session. Not exactly the best thing to wake up to, but at least he wasn't a Vogon.
Eventually she knew she would have to at least sit up, but considering she had no clue how she got in this situation in the first place, she elected to just lie on the cool, but scratchy dirt and wait it out. If the poetry guy didn't notice she was awake...
"Oh, shit. Are you kidding?" Great, she'd failed at that venture. "What are you doing here?" He didn't sound too angry, just more confused.
Accepting defeat, she reluctantly pushed herself off the ground, and saw exactly what she expected, which at the same time, wasn't what she expected at all. A teenage boy was sitting on a rather intricately carved stone bench, a cup of suspiciously red liquid by his side. He was wearing a sweat-stained, dark red suit, for some peculiar reason. It wasn't like he was going to prom anytime soon.
It was more of the smaller details that Oliva picked up on. How he would flinch slightly at the smallest of noises, how in the pale moonlight, his eyes glinted an anxious maroon, how various scars lined his body, most of them fresh, but the most noticeable were two, barely visible pinpricks on his neck, only healed recently, though something told her they'd existed for much longer. His appearance was tantalizingly familiar, but Olivia just couldn't put her finger on his identity. She had already drawn her conclusion about what he was, but when he opened his mouth, and two fangs, sharpened to a point were visible, she knew it was all over. Now, she was a stuttering mess. Amazing. "Um- I dunno, Ha. Please don't kill me, I mean, if you were planning to kill me, which you probably weren't-"
The vampire raised an eyebrow, and took a sip from the what now was obviously blood-filled glass. "Why would I want to do that? That's just cruel. You literally appeared out of nowhere. I operate on a consent-based killing status, which quite frankly, is a lot better than others in this neck of the woods. Even then, I haven't really been here for too long..." He now avoided Olivia's gaze, biting his lip. The resemblance was uncanny, but to which person was the hard part. She had definitely seen him before-
Suddenly, an idea burst into her head. "Recite some Shakespeare for me." Olivia demanded, the vampire looking up with what could be interpreted as either confusion or hope.
"Finally, someone appreciates my talent." He stood up, straightened his back, and declared, "Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more, men were deceivers ever. One foot in sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never." His voice gave a soft echo throughout the woods, and was met with the croak of a frog in the distance. "Is that good?" Olivia knew that voice. She'd heard that voice a dozen times, rehearsing backstage for a play he didn't even star in, if you didn't count working backstage as starring. He was notorious for memorizing all the lines of every production he worked on, just in case someone got sick, and they had no understudy. That never happened, at least not while he was in school.
He'd vanished before Much Ado About Nothing even premiered at James K Polk High School, and his case was mostly abandoned, due to overwhelming evidence that he ran away, and simply didn't want to be found. Some freshman replaced him, making backgrounds, and nothing was said about it. The scandal rocked the town, but there was nothing that could be done.
Now, Olivia was starting to come to other conclusions.
"You're Ransom Meyer." Olivia stated with utmost certainty, and judging from the way that he cringed at the name, she knew she was spot on. "Oh my god, what happened? Everyone said you ran away!"
"Ran away?" His confidence faded, and now if Olivia couldn't see that this was Ransom before, she sure could now. "Why the hell would I run away? Things were going perfect, and then it all got screwed up by me randomly appearing in these woods, waking up to some guy sucking all the blood out of my body. You can't really go back from that, you know. I've desperately been trying to find a way out, but I swear to god, these woods never end. I don't even know if we're in town anymore. We could be in Yugoslavia for all I know!"
A chill ran down Olivia's spine. "Wait, so you're telling me there's more vampires in these woods?" It was an obvious conclusion once she thought about it, but the idea terrified her all the same. It was only just dawning that she got extremely lucky that Ransom was the one sitting on that bench. It could've been anyone, anything. Someone who would be totally willing to kill her.
"Obviously. Plus the occasional werewolf, mischievous spirit, magical doe, and maybe a fairy or two." Olivia's jaw dropped, and Ransom gave a mischievous grin. "That's who I was writing the poem for. She's a fairy princess twice removed or something. I thought if I sucked up to her enough, she could help me find a way out. Unfortunately, I've never been the guy for romance."
"That's-"
"Impossible?" He snatched the words right from her mouth, taking a sip from the bloody cup. He then continued, "Yeah, for the first few days I thought that this was some fucked up acid trip or something. Eventually though, I accepted that I wasn't going to wake up. And that I've never touched any drug in my life, except for medication. I knew this forest was massive, and that the odds of me getting out were slim. So I just rolled with it, and here we are."
Another concept caught Olivia's attention. He'd been missing for two years, without even coming close to escaping. Essentially, she was in the same situation as him, probably trapped here forever. And she didn't even have a chance to say goodbye to her cats.
No. She wasn't going to accept that.
After Ransom sat down on the bench again, waiting for a response, Olivia announced, "Well, do you want some help with the poem or not? I got an A in English, plus I'm pretty sure I know what girls go nuts for, being that I am one. It shouldn't be too different for fairies, right?"
Ransom perked up slightly, tapping his foot in the dirt. "You would? I mean, we never really talked before, then again, I never talked to anyone-"
"Obviously. I think the only hope we have of going home is if we work together." It was true. Olivia had no intention of having her throat ripped out by a blood-thirsty vampire, and Ransom was really the only hope she had of that not happening.
"Alright, that's fine by me." He stood up once more, dusting off his suit. It's purpose now was much more apparent. If his desire was to seduce a fairy, he was certainly going to do an excellent job in that. "Here, we can talk while we walk."
As he took her hand, squeezing it lightly, Olivia's heart surged with a feeling she hadn't experienced since she'd awoken in these woods. Hope. Maybe we can beat this.
Maybe this doesn't have to be the end.
A howl was heard in the distance. "So, does this sound like rubbish?" Ransom took a deep breath, cheeks flushed, and said, way too seriously, "Though I may be dead inside, my heart still beats for you."
"Nah, too Lemony Snickety." Then, a pause. "Don't worry, we have time."
