daybreak || minsung

Chapter 10

It was a new dream.

I was in an old-fashioned office. I recognized it from Charlie's dumb movie; it was the scientist's study, with the stuffed moose on the wall and papers scattered across the floor.

Any detail of the scene left my mind when I saw Jisung Han on the other side of the room, staring at me. His clothes were worn and his expression was wary. His soft brown skin seemed to shine every colour on the wheel, despite the dream being in black and white.

I marched toward him. I didn't even stop to think. I wanted to touch him, I needed to know he was real — not a hologram or a hallucination or a ghost. Maybe if I reached him in time, I could finally know for certain he was—

Real. I touched his shoulder, felt his undeniable flesh and bone. I was stunned for a moment, trading glances between his face and where we were touching.

"Jisung," I said blankly.

I looked at him when he didn't answer. He was still staring at me — his face unreadable — and his eyes were glowing vibrant gold. Then he smiled, and I could see a row of delicate, pointed teeth just behind his lips.

I catapulted upright in my bed, just as quickly falling back and groaning, cupping my face in my hands. It was still dark, and a glance at my clock told me it was five-thirty.

I sat up again, feeling dizzy and drunk on exhaustion. My mind was going too fast for my body.

First things first, I told myself — happy to procrastinate. Shower.

I made my way to the bathroom and turned the water on. It didn't take as long as I hoped — even with blowdrying my hair, which I didn't do unless I wanted to look nice or kill time. I wandered back to my room and made my bed, staying in my embarrassing bacon-and-pancake patterned pyjamas.

I bit the bullet. I booted up the computer on my desk.

Charlie's internet sucked. It dragged on for so long that I gave up and went to get a bowl of cereal to pass the time. I chewed carefully, staring into space, washed the bowl and spoon, and put them away. I took my time climbing the stairs, stopping halfway to the top to sigh forlornly, and then kept going.

I dropped down into my desk chair — setting my hand on the mouse and wielding it like a sword. A bunch of pop-up ads flew to the foreground, and I closed each one, muttering louder and louder every time it tried to sell me life insurance for my grandchildren.

Finally I made it to the search engine, and I typed in one word.

Vampire.

It took a frustrating amount of time to load, of course. I pushed away from the desk and spun in my chair. When the results came up, there was a lot to go through. Everything from Bram Stoker's Dracula to Underworld to Blade to Charlie's movie were right there in the top spots, as well as some gothic cosmetics and LARP community group-chats, heavy metal bands and Hot Topic.

Then I saw a promising site. Vampires A-Z. When the screen loaded, it had a simple white background with black text. Seemed legit — except it was a vampire website and I was literally losing my marbles.

I scrolled down the page, reading the description of each entry. Most seemed like characters from old novels, the novels that depicted women as helpless dolls who only existed to submit to the abusive will of men — even men who weren't technically human. I kept scrolling.

None caught my eye. They were all either undead beasts or smooth-talking players, and I don't know which I hated more. A lot of them included superhuman strength, many mentioned beauty and cold skin — but they all clashed with what I knew of Jisung. Not one single entry said that a vampire could be kind. Could be soft spoken and funny and careful and... human.