Sarah: MUAHAHAHAHAH!

(c) Sarah Goebel 2010

I sat in my room, staring off into space, unconsciously stroking my braid. I stared up at the ceiling, watching the barley-there light dance. It looked pretty.

Something hit my window. I sat up and watched as another stone hit the glass, causing it to shake. When I opened the window and looked down, I didn’t see anything. I looked all around, but there was nothing.

That’s when it happened. Something in the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I spun my head that way. Under the streetlight, I saw a figure standing there, watching me. I couldn’t see much, except that it seemed to be a man about six feet high, well built. It was just a shadow really.

“Ethan?” I whispered. No answer. I called once again, this time louder, but the figure just stood there, face upturned.

I jumped at the sound of the phone ringing. Strange, for someone to call this late at night. Or, rather, this early in the morning. I ran to it quickly, picking it up.

“Hello?”

“Zoe? Zoe, are you all right?” It was Ethan, sounding very, very worried. Why on earth would he use a phone? Why didn’t he just pop in, like he always did.

“I’m fine,” I picked up the phone cradle and walked back to the window, looking out again. The figure was gone. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” He said the word too quickly; obviously he was hiding something. “Nothing…weird has happened since I dropped you off?”

I licked my lips, contemplating on how much to tell him. On one hand, something was obviously going on. Was it weird? Yes. It had me a little spooked. But on the other, more reasonable hand, telling Ethan there was a weird shadow figure outside my window would only earn me a night of his constant questions.

“Well…” I finally said, twirling the phone cord around my fingers. “Not really.”

“Not really?” He obviously didn’t believe me. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I insisted, staring into the darkness again. No one was there. “Just…well…I found some stuff out about my family.”

“Oh.”

A horrible feeling suddenly rose in my stomach, the source unknown. Dread, icy and fearful, creeped up into my body and shot up my veins. I instantly became freezing cold. “Ethan?” I asked. “Were…were you here?”

“What do you mean?” I could see his face in my mind, looking frustrated since he didn’t understand what I was trying to ask.

“I…I thought I saw something.”

There was a pause. A pause that seemed to last for days, months, and years. The silence on the other end of the phone was so deafening I thought I might lose my hearing.

“I’ll be over in a few minutes,” he said quickly. “Don’t leave the Institute.”

I still held the phone in my hands as it went dead. I stared at it for a moment, wondering what Ethan had been doing and why he had felt the urge to call me. Worried, I put the phone on the cradle and set it back on my desk.

When I turned around, I screamed. Standing directly behind me was the figure. Except now, I saw it was definitely a man. He looked in his early twenties, with a shock of curly red hair. His skin was very pale. Much too pale.

He slapped a hand over my mouth, cutting of my shriek. He then pulled me close to him, wrapping his other arm around my waist. I tried to get away, squirm out of his grasp, but his arms were like vices.

He held me a little bit away and I saw his eyes. Soft blue—too watery to be human eyes. The exact color of periwinkle. Instantly, the dread I had been feeling all fell into place.

A freaking vampire was in my room.

I could see under his glamour now. He wasn’t exactly beautiful. In fact, he looked like a rotted corpse that had decided to take stroll around town.

Biting back the urge to vomit, I worked through ways to escape. He was clearly too strong for me to get out of his hold and my Azele was nowhere to be seen. My best bet would be to play innocent and hope to God he didn’t kill me.

I wasn’t exactly fond of that plan.

He ran his fingers over my hair, stroking it. Before I knew what he was doing, he leaned down and pressed his icy cold lips to mine. I didn’t have time to react, save for feeling acid ride to the back of my throat.

After a few moments, he pulled back, a small smile on his lips. Then, he cocked his head, listening. He put a finger to his lips in a “don’t tell” way, then slinked back over to the window, jumping out.

“Zoe?” Jude’s Irish accent could be heard from the other side of the door. “Zoe, what happened?”When I didn’t answer, he started beating on the thick wood. “Blast, Liam. Get through the damned door!”

Gently, I pressed my fingers to my lips, still able to feel the kiss lingering there. My entire body felt cold and violated, as if I had been sexually assaulted instead of kissed.

The door burst open, revealing Jude, Raven, Gwen, Liam, and Jason. Raven’s nightgown was twisted around her small body in a way that was clearly uncomfortable. Gwen’s hair was falling out of its dark braid. Liam was holding a large circle of keys, his pajama pants and t-shirt clearly wrinkled. Jude, clad in only a pair of boxers, was staring at me with worry evident on his features.

I had a hand over my mouth in horror, pointing at the window. All that came out was muffles and half-words, none of which made any sense. I couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

“What’s wrong with her?” Gwen demanded, scanning the room for something out of place. When her eyes came to rest on me, I felt a whole new wave of shock. “What happened, Zoe?”

I worked through my vocabulary, trying to calm down. My heart was pounding wildly in my chest, as if it might burst through at any moment. A word rose to my lips, a word that caused my blood to run cold.

“Vampire.”