The Missing Boy

Chapter 8 - The 4 Years

"You die."

••••••••••

Axel didn't wake up in an ambulance or even in a hospital bed, but then again Axel wasn't supposed to wake up at all. Because when you get into a car crash that brutal you don't come out of it whole. Richard didn't. He lost his right leg. Axel lost something else. Something more. Yet miraculously Axel was laying in a king sized bed, perfectly fine, with no injuries except for the two puncture holes in his neck.

The first thing Axel noticed was this void inside of him. This emptiness he couldn't quite describe until he realised it was absence. He knew he died. The feeling was unforgettable. It was unmistakable.

Axel felt the life draining from his body like an overused battery. And he kept thinking where is this life that was in him going. He felt like an energy source and the law of the conservation of energy kept playing over in his head. He had learnt it in Physics and in Chemistry - 'Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred' and so Axel kept wondering where is his life being transferred to.

No matter how much he snuggled into the blankets or rubbed his arms, Axel felt cold.
And he wondered if that's what absence felt like. A constant winter. A constant longing for warmth, for something, anything to make him feel again. But he felt nothing. Nothing except the cold.

There was only a bed in the centre, a window to Axel's right and a bed side table with a glass of red liquid in the spacious room. Axel hadn't realised he was thirsty until he saw the full glass. He hadn't realised how thirsty until he took a sip. Immediately he tasted blood and hated that it tasted good. No, not good. Amazing.

He held the glass upside when he was done and begged for the droplets to fall on his impatient tongue.

After what felt like hours, someone finally came into the room. They held another glass of the thick red liquid in their hands. They had a smile on their face.

The man gave the glass over to Axel who didn't hesitate to drink it dry.

"Woah, easy there boy. You might get sick."
There was something about the way the man said boy. As if boy was his name.

Axel licked his lips, putting the glass down on the beside table next to the other empty glass. He looked at the white bed sheets, spotted a drop of blood on them and wondered why they even chose the colour white.

"Where am I?" He asked the man. "Where's my dad? Why am I here?"

Understandably the 13 year old boy had a lot of questions to ask. The man with the long black hair and green eyes answered.

"You, boy, are here for a reason. You died."

"I know." Axel whispered. He couldn't misinterpret the feeling. He knew in that moment what death felt like.

"There was a crash."

"I remember that." Axel remembers how weightless he felt in those timeless moments when the car spun in the air. And how a fatal bang to the head ended his life. He remembers falling out of the car somehow, laying in the middle of the road, the life slipping out of his body and him wondering where it goes.

"But I brought you back. I saved you and the only way to do that was to turn you into a vampire."

Vampire?!

"But my dad. He was in the crash. Where is he? Did you turn him too?"

"Your dad didn't die in the crash. We can only turn those who die."

Axel didn't know how to react.

"Does my dad know I'm here?"

"No."

"Why not?" Axel asked.

"Because no one can know about vampires. If news of our existence spreads, our entire race would be targeted and possibly eradicated. We can't risk anyone finding out. That's why you have to stay with us."

"Stay? For how long?" Axel was never entirely close to his parents but the thought of not being with them scared him.

"As long as it takes."

Axel hadn't realised 'As long as it takes' would be 4 years. He lived in a mansion in the middle of nowhere with other vampire trainees. It wasn't as glamorous as it sounded. The large house was where newborn vampires stayed to train so they could be put back into civilisation. It's where vampires learn to be human again.

Or as human as they can be.

Axel never really spoke to the others. There were people of all ages living in the accommodation. He felt like he was in an ongoing summer camp. Elias, the man who turned him, was his personal trainer. In his first year Axel would ask Elias if he could go home repeatedly but Elias kept telling him that he "wasn't ready" or "still has a lot to learn". Usually people leave after their first year there and if they have no where else to go, they stay and join the clan. Eventually Axel gave up on the idea of home.

Axel hated being a vampire. He hates being a vampire. And the worst thing about it isn't that he's dead or the unwanted immortality, it's the dangerous yearning for blood whenever someone gets too close. It's the unstoppable extension of his canines whenever he smells the sweet stench of fresh blood.

That's why Axel stayed as long as he did. He didn't want to go back into the world and not have control. He didn't want to be reckless or be another one of those rogue vampires he was taught about. He couldn't endanger the people he cared about and although that list was short, the risk was too great. Those extra 3 years of training meant that Axel was particularly 'gifted' as Elias liked to put it. But 'gifted' didn't seem like the right word.

Somehow during the majority of those 4 years, Axel managed to miss the news broadcasts. He never saw his face on the TV screens or the missing posters planted on every wall. He didn't see his parents crying on the news or his dad's limp and metal leg. He missed it all. Except for that one night.

It was a month ago. Axel found a newspaper with his old 13 year old self on the front cover, the headline read 'Four years later, this is what missing boy Axel Jacobson would look like now." The illustrated drawing of him looked similar to his 17 year old self except his cheeks in the image were rounder and his hair shorter. Axel was shocked that his story was on the news and it dawned on him that his parents, no his whole town, thought he was missing. And maybe even thought he was dead. He was. And it's debatable whether he still is, but that's when Axel decided that enough was enough. That's when Axel went home.