Immortal Love Book #1. Awakening

5. "Stay away"

It should surprise no one that I slept all through the next day, because I didn't feel like going to Lyla's funeral. I woke up at 6.32 pm the day after the incident, and the only reason I woke up was because I had a nightmare I was being drained by a vampire, again. When I went downstairs I found my mother talking to Mrs. Carlyle, Lyla's mother. I gave her my deepest regrets and I told her how sorry I was I'd missed her daughter's funeral. I really did feel horribly for her, but the last funeral I went to was my father's at the age of 5, and since then I couldn't bring myself to go to another.

After that, I went to the kitchen because I hadn't eaten in at least 24 hours, and I made myself a peanut butter sandwich. Eating felt like such a mechanical thing to do when my mind was so busy with horrible images I couldn't delete. I finished my sandwich and then I drank a glass of water to get it down. Then I cleaned up the kitchen a bit, and right when I was done, Merissa walked in the room.

"How are you?" she asked. I hadn't had the opportunity to talk to her after what happened. I leaned over the kitchen counter to answer.

"As good as I can be, I guess." I didn't know how to describe the feeling I had. I knew I felt guilty, like maybe I could've prevented her murder. I also felt like a younger version of myself, maybe because seeing Lyla like that reminded me a bit about what happened to my father. Ether way, I felt horrible.

"I heard they think it's a vampire." Merissa said, as she grabbed a coke from the fridge.

"I think so too, a human couldn't do that without making a racket." she nodded after taking a sip of the coke.

"But why her? She was so harmless." I nodded. "What could she have done to piss off a vampire like that?" she wondered out loud.

"Maybe she was just at the wrong place at the wrong time." I said hopelessly.

"I feel guilty, you know." her words surprised me. She took another sip of the coke and then explained herself. "Remember I told you I had seen a vampire at the bar?" I nodded. "Well, the reason I knew he was a vampire, was because he was wearing one of those red bracelets."

One of the rules humans imposed on vampires when they were exposed to the public was that they couldn't feed on humans. Under no circumstance it was allowed for a vampire to drink from a human, even if the human was willing. The government took it upon themselves to give all vampires safe ways to feed; they had these shots they provided that kept the vampire satiated enough.

The reason they were so strict was "the incident". "The incident" was what exposed vampires; it was a twenty-second video that showed a tall redheaded female vampire feeding on a kid to the point of his dead. The video was so disturbing they couldn't show it on TV, and they threaten to put in jail anyone that shared it. I had never seen it, and I didn't plan to ever see it. But it became very popular really quickly and it forced vampires to come out of their hiding places. In order to avoid something like that happening again, the United Nations decided to forbid vampires to feed on humans worldwide.

The first time I heard about the whole thing, it made me laugh. What made me laugh was the fact that the people of the United Nations thought they could stop vampires from doing what they do; feeding. But not long after the video blew up, and the United Nations came forward, The Academy came out as cruelty-free organization of vampires that wanted nothing but peace, and they shared a statement saying they would obey our commands, as long as they were treated with the same respect any human was. They also said they spoke on behalf of every vampire of the world.

So, the government provided two shots of blood a day -that came from willing donors and were completely free- to every vampire The Academy had record of, and the vampires agreed not to kill us. The red bracelet was an indestructible bracelet they gave vampires that had been arrested for feeding on a human. It was supposed to help humans stay safe, but it seemed a bit radical to me.