Sorry You Had To Bleed

Chapter 4 - The Squatters

          Have you ever laid on your back, saying nothing, thinking nothing, and just looked at the stars? Have you ever looked up at the sky, and when the light pollution was gone you'd think to yourself "I can see the Milky Way." I do this almost every single night. For as long as I've known Daniel, he's been dead set on astrology and finding out what the stars mean. Do I think that it's real? I mean, not really. Who doesn't like pretending though? Even if being a Scorpio has nothing to do with who I am as a person, it's still a fun thing to think about. 

          I'm lying next to Daniel in the grass just outside of town. He needed a breather after watching that clip of Kate. I don't blame him, with all that has been happening this week, I'm surprised that he even wanted to leave my dorm. I'm looking up at the stars with him, and I notice how the big dipper and the little dipper are connected. It's cute in a sense. It's like, the little dipper needs its big dipper. Though, the big dipper can't be on its own either. Because without the little dipper, then it would be incomplete. I smile, and I chuckle at the thought. I wonder if I'll ever find my little dipper. 

          I turn my head to look at Daniel, and he's just staring blankly into the sky. He's yawning, of course. Sometimes, I forget that people have to sleep. I shake him awake and he jolts his eyes open even more. "Sorry," he said. "The sounds of the night are really making me sleepy."

          "It's probably because you have your white noise as "Forests of the Night." We both laugh and smile. We continue looking at the stars.

          I feel his heart rate get faster, and I'm wondering why. I'm prepared to get up and fight whatever is coming close to us. If it's that thing, then we're getting out of here. My mind races, thinking of all the bad possibilities until I finally hear something come out of his mouth. "Matt," he says. "Yes, Danny?" I ask. 

          "What's different?" He asks me that question like it was nothing. Like he had been waiting to ask that for days now. "What do you mean, 'What's different'?". 

          "That night we saw that movie, you changed. You acted so strangely, and you tried to stab me. Now, the thing that happened at lunch hour? Something's up, and I don't think you're letting on about it." He says this with worry, and I can feel his heart rate decrease. I guess since he got the question off of his chest, that it gave him a sense of relief. Like a weight being lifted off your shoulders.

          I sit up, and he follows my lead. What am I supposed to say to him? I haven't told him who Fang is or anything. I feel like I'm keeping secrets that I have no reason to be keeping, well from Daniel at least.

          "I don't know how else to explain it, really. Though, here it goes." I say. I take a deep breath and he watches my chest go up slowly, and then down again slowly. "A few weeks before the movie, I've felt really strange. Like, I've been hungrier than I should. I've had the urge to just kill people. You know that isn't me. I know it isn't me." 

          I can tell that his heart rate increases again. I'd expect that if I was just told the person I'm sitting next to said they fantasized about murder.

          "Well, that night I felt like I wasn't in control. It turns out, I wasn't. It sounds crazy, but I think there's something... inside of me." I see his eyes get bigger with curiosity, but not in fear. "Inside of you?" He asks me. I place my hands on my knees. "I think when a vampire bites a human, a curse is transferred to that human. They become a vampire, and then they gain a vampire spirit. I can't wrap my head around it all, and he won't tell me all the details."

          He looks at me and studies my body language. I'm not moving. "He? So, that person who tried to kill me was someone else?" He asks me. "Well, in a sense, yes." I look down at the ground and I see that his hands are tensing up. He crouches forward and rests his chin on his knees. The cars driving by shine rays of light in his eyes, and make it look like they're shiny. "Why did it take you so long to tell me?" He asked.