DEAD SEED (AKA "Vampires Don't Exist")

TWO: Suicide

A few nights after her birthday Aralyn was in her car (an old Chevy Cavalier), driving too fast with the radio blaring an angry, girl rock song. The windows were rolled down, adding to the noise as the wind whipped through, sending her hair dancing madly in front of her eyes.

She drove alongside the cliffs. The angry black ocean crashed against the rock wall below. It was dark. Thick fog rose from the ground and a light drizzle dripped from the clouds, mimicking that horrible night as if mocking her. Tears filled Aralyn's eyes, blurring her vision. She had tried for so long to move on. She tried to be okay. She couldn't. She would never be okay and she was sick of fighting.

While her foot was on the accelerator she hoped she would lose control of the car and veer off the road so she could join her mother and sister in the afterlife, if there was such a thing. She whisked along the curves, hoping she would take one too sharply. She thought about letting go of the wheel, but couldn't bring herself to do it.

Instead, she stopped the car when she came to a cliff walk. For a moment, she sat in the driver's seat, contemplating her decision for what seemed like the thousandth time that night. Her father would be devastated, but it wasn't like he was moving on either. The way they lived wasn't living; they were both pathetic, stuck in the past, and not moving forward. Perhaps he would follow shortly after.

She turned off the car and started walking, following the ancient path of the cliff walk; the ocean crashed below. Drops of cold water collected on the metal railing of the walking path. She ran her hands on it, allowing the moisture to collect on her fingers before wiping them off on her jeans. Shivering, she pulled her jacket tightly around her.

All was quiet except the roar of the ocean and the tapping of the rain. Her hair was damp and stuck to the sides of her face. Her fingers were numb from the cold, but she didn't care; she knew her discomfort would soon be over.

She came to a point where the drop was near a hundred feet, blocked off by only the guardrail. She looked over the side before hiking one leg and then the other over the slick metal. This was the only way to guarantee her death — a swift fall to the rocks below. It would be quick. Wrecking her car wasn't guaranteed to kill her (and it put others in danger) — this was. It would be over quickly; she didn't want to suffer, only to die.

The ravenous ocean seemed to taunt her as she stood on the edge of the cliff, gazing below. The dark water egged her on. Come on, jump into my cold grasp ... into your watery grave.

She held her arms out as if they were wings. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath before stepping forward.

In one quick breath she started to fall, but something grabbed her and shoved her backwards, throwing her back over the rail and on to the cold ground.

Hot blood flooded her face. She narrowed her eyes, briefly glimpsing at the dark ground beneath her before turning her head to see who'd had the nerve to pull her over to the other side. Had it not been for the interruption she would be dead (free) right now.

No one was there. Pulling herself up so she sat on her knees, Aralyn searched all around, trying to cut through the fog with her eyes. The wetness from the ground seeped through her jeans, making her knees cold. She stood and continued to search.

Finally, she saw someone: a young man standing at the rail a few feet down the walk from her, staring into the depths below and pretending to be unaware of anything around him.

Nice cover.

Whatever.

"Why the hell did you do that?" Aralyn demanded.

The man turned, looking startled at first, as if seeing her there for the first time. "I'm sorry?"

"You know what I'm talking about. Why did you pull me from the edge?"