Vampire Wanted

Chapter One | In For A Hurting

Ophelia was on her stomach, scrolling absent-mindedly through the catering websites that Sacha had bookmarked, mouth watering at the depicted food. "And your parents are really going to pay for all this?" 

Sacha bumped the rusting metal cart with his hip, shelving a book in the non-fiction section with disinterest. "They better. All the shit they've given me about grades, I deserve one nice party." He replied, continuing to unload the cart, not mindful of his volume in the empty library. His supervisor was elderly and hard-of-hearing. If she wasn't in the room, any language was permitted, as long as there were no patrons in the building. 

Ophelia continued to scroll through the websites, conscious of the mounting feeling of dread in her stomach as she processed that in a few short months, Sacha would be leaving for college, a five hour plane ride away, tucked in a dorm-building nearly on the opposite coast. She was happy that he'd found success, but was it selfish that she wanted him a little closer?

He noticed her sudden quieting, and at first he didn't comment on it, and shelved books diligently, allowing the old cart to rest just a foot to her left, looking over at his friend with a hint of understanding. "Are you going to be alright, O?" 

The softness in his voice gave her a shimmer of hope for the future. "I don't know yet. Talking about it... makes it a little more real." Moving to sit back on her heels, she slowly closed the laptop, and handed it up to him. "We'll get there when we get there." She flashed what she hoped was a comforting smile, only allowing it to drop as he turned away to replace the cart, moving a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "I'm going to head home soon, I think my folks are expecting me." 

His face twisted at the obvious lie, but he pushed the cart against the wall, calling back over his shoulder. "Alright. If you want to meet up later, shoot me a text." He knew she wouldn't. When she got melancholic, she was quick to isolate herself, and he'd weathered the storm a few times this year already. She was a purist of their group dynamic, and in her mind, she didn't need more than one friend, because for the past two years, it had been the two of them against the world. That was good then, but now things were changing, and she needed to change alongside them. 

The walk home from the library was one over cracked sidewalks, with shopping centers passing on either side, large fluorescent signs just beginning to flicker to life as the sun began its decline. 

Ophelia reached her home uneventfully, climbing the three stone steps and pulling open her door before unceremoniously dumping herself onto the couch. 

Her mother leaned into the room, opening her mouth, but thinking better of it and retreating back into her office. The door clicked shut shortly after. 

It wasn't long after before she was charging up the stairs to her bedroom, rifling through her bag to find her latest pick, cracking the spine as she opened it and finding her place and reading from there. 

"-I can't," she protested, pulling back from his embrace, "The bite would ruin me, I could never be a monster like you."

He was quicker than she'd anticipated, but he made no move to grab her, simply keeping close enough to make her decision fluctuate for a moment as he fixed her with that same dark gaze that had satisfied her so many times before. "It's not a curse, it's a gift. I'm giving you the gift of starting over, of rebuilding from this moment, continuing your life with assured love. Have you never wanted a soulmate?"

She seemed to hesitate. "Starting over?" 

He took her warm hand in his cold one and began to plead. "I want you by my side... forever." 

Ophelia watched a teardrop land in the center of the page and stopped, lifting a hand to touch her cheek and wipe away the wetness, closing the book around her thumb. Her breathing was erratic, and her heartbeat bounced quickly as she soaked in the words. "Giving you the gift of starting over..." she let the words wash over her, before folding a corner of the page and moving towards her laptop, pulling it open and typing in the name of the website she'd heard her mother mention once in passing. It took a few moments to get the wording right, but eventually, she'd typed up a decent ad.

VAMPIRE NEEDED- MUST BE ABLE TO PROVIDE PROOF OF VAMPIRISM- $3000 REWARD- APPLY BELOW

After screaming into what she assumed was the abyss, she closed her laptop, set it tenderly beside her bed, and tossed the book towards the opposite wall, landing with a 'thud' next to her backpack, and curled up atop her sheets, burying her head in the pillows and nodding off in an emotion-induced slumber.