Mythical Guardians

◇13. Dealing with dysphoria ◇

  To be honest, Johnathan hated travelling by night.

  He was so repulsed that he wanted so badly to travel in the sun. Unfortunately, given his current situation, considering he had just drunk blood close to just three hours ago, he would burn to a crisp within minutes, so he was forced to take to the shadows.

  He found a small patch of wilderness, where there was a small cave he could seek refuge in until the sun went down. He groaned as his exposed skin burned against the sun that penetrated the canopy. His eyes were narrow slits against the blinding light, cursing silently as he made his way into the cave.

  His body relished the darkness that was in that very cave, while his brain, on the contrary, was complaining and yelling loudly in frustration.

  "Stupid vampire weaknesses," he muttered angrily as he checked his sunburnt arms, which stung, like thousands of needles were poking into it. He tried to touch the tender flesh, and immediately yelped like a puppy, before withdrawing his hand.

  Luckily, his vampiric powers made sure his wounds healed fast, and in a few minutes, his skin was smooth and was reverted to a disgusting pale colour once again, the searing pain replaced by a dull thob, until it was completely gone. It was like nothing had ever happened to it.

  He then proceeded deeper into his cave, his sensitive eyes picking up the slightest bits of light in the darkness, as he scanned for any potential danger.

  He found a snake coiled up in one of the corners, which hissed warningly as he came close. He ignored the noisy reptile since it wouldn't have the balls to really attack him, and ventured deeper.

  No bats hung from the ceiling of the cave, which he took as a good sign. He hated sleeping in bat caves, they were smelly with bat dung, and the constant chittering of bats made it impossible for him to fall asleep. Again, he cursed himself for not being old enough to earn money. That way, he wouldn't need to sleep rough, and would at least have a bed to sleep on in a hotel. Since teenage or children vampire stop aging until they were eighteen, and age slowly before that, aging one for around three fricking years while also gradually slowing down, Johnathan still had six years, if not more, to wait before he could actually earn money to make a living. And of course, he didn't look anywhere near sixteen.

  He finally found a comfortable spot that he liked, and immediately lay down and dozed off, letting his instincts wake him up as soon as the sun went down.

  As soon as his eyelids were closed, he found himself back into the village where he used to live in, playing ball with his friends.

  " C'mon, catch!" One of his friends yelled at him, before another could snatch the ball.

  His lips curled into a smirk as he caught the ball quickly, with his swift reflexes. To a normal human eye, it would had seemed that he and the ball had disappeared, before reappearing on the ground, the ball held in his hands.

  His friends watched, their jaws dropping all the way to the ground at his astonishing display of speed and precision, then one of his friends finally yelled," Awesome!"

  He then continued playing the game, not letting anyone of the opposite team snatch the ball with his enhanced reflexes. He heard the footsteps, dodged every attempt to steal or grab his ball, and passed perfect shots.

  He was at the top of his game, feeling that nobody could ever beat him, nothing could ever go wrong, like he was sitting on top of the world, and that was when a small itch started at his forearm.

  He ignored it, of course. What was a little itch?

  One member of the opposite team managed to snatch the ball, and was about to pass it to another boy, when Johnathan lunged to intercept it, and that was when the prickling pain started.