Garrett / Reader
The same distressing dream again, the one that you had had many times before. It felt so real… but also… not; it was like an echo, distorted and haunting yet still vivid and lifelike, making you confused and troubled when you woke up, gasping and covered with cold sweat. You weren’t sure if it actually was a memory, something from your past that you had already forgotten. Events long ago, events not to be remembered. A dark, tall stranger surrounded by an aura of danger. A mystery, a puzzling riddle... and an escape from an imminent death.
You opened your eyes and stared ceiling for a moment, focusing your mind at the flashing neon lights of the bar next door that colored your cheap hostel room green and pink. When you had finally convinced yourself that you were fully awake, you sat up, threw your feet over the edge of the bed and felt the cold floor with your bare toes. There was no carpet, only a stained wooden surface that had gotten badly scratched and damaged when the guests from the previous years had forcefully moved the furniture or had fights in that very same room. To escape the harshness of your current environment you quickly put on your socks and walked on your tippy-toes into the shared bathroom that was located in the corridor.
There was mold in the bathroom corner and the water pipes were rusty, the bathmat on the floor was soaked because some of the guest had not bothered to remove it before taking a shower earlier tonight and therefore the sock of your left foot was now wet. You cursed in your native language, walked in front of the partially shattered mirror and filled the sink with slightly rust-colored water. Then you washed your face and after staring at your pale, exhausted –looking reflection for many minutes you returned to your room. Perhaps you could sleep a little before checking out and continuing your journey forward.
However sleep did not come anymore and therefore you packed your few belongings, finished a packet of snacks and left the hostel. You had stayed there for a week or so and now it was the time to move on because you didn’t want to risk growing roots anywhere, to any specific place. The thing was that you had never felt like you belonged somewhere and therefore after your family had been killed by a group of vampires, you had packed your rucksack and left without telling anyone where you were going.
You blamed yourself for their deaths and you blamed yourself for not saving them; you had basically led the danger to their doorstep by failing to be careful enough. It was the only thing that your parents had demanded you to be, careful enough, so the monsters that you hunted during the dark hours of the night wouldn’t follow you home and put your family into serious, life-threatening danger. That however had happened and therefore you were now a fugitive, running away from the police who had named you as their prime suspect because during your nightly patrols you had gotten in trouble with law more than once or twice.
You had decided to become a vampire hunter after witnessing a vampire feeding on your English teacher and then killing her by snapping her neck effortlessly, just to make sure that she was dead. You had been playing out with your friends after sunset even though your parents had told you to get home before the sun went down. Your friends had left and you had stayed in the park because the snowman that you had been building had not been quite finished yet. You had seen your English teacher getting out from the building nearby where she had been teaching an evening class, a group of adults who wanted to become fluent in English and have better career possibilities. However there had been a tall man, dressed in a dark, long coat, stalking and waiting for the last person to come out from the building.
You had gotten behind the snowman and witnessed the horrific event from a close distance, which had included hearing the woman begging for her life until the very last moment. Then the man had thrown her lifeless body into the ditch and turned to look at you. Oh, he had known that you had been there, frozen still from a shock, not able to scream for help or runaway. The man had walked to you with assertive yet light steps and smirked at you while he had offered his hand to you. He had looked like a pirate with the chains hanging loosely around his neck and his brown hair messed up in a rebellious way.
- Come-come little child. he had spoken with a soft voice as he had squatted down in front of you and stared deep into your eyes. He had had deep brown eyes but there had been a hint of red in them which had made the stranger look dangerous as well as mysterious. He had looked like an unnaturally handsome monster, a demon from another dimension… a hauntingly beautiful predator that was trying to trick you to trust him, to take his hand so he could lead you into your death.
At this point you had finally managed to get up, thrown a snowball at his face and stormed away as fast as you had been able to. You had heard the man laughing and stating in an assertive way that one day he would find you and that day he wouldn’t let you runaway so easily. You had hurried home, skipped the dinner and headed straight to bed, where you had shaken from fear until the sun had risen the next morning. You had hoped that all it had been was just a gruesome nightmare but at the school it had gotten pretty obvious that it wasn’t the case; the English teacher had been found dead with a broken neck and two tiny stab-wounds on her throat right next to the public playground.
You checked out from the hostel and stepped into the cold night, looked cautiously around as you tried to get a sense of direction. You had to find a kiosk that sold newspapers that you could steal to know where you should go next. You always checked out the news articles about violent, unsolved killings and then hitchhiked rides to those cities. When you got there, you hunted the monsters, killed them and moved on, never making any friends or allowing yourself to experience a sense of belonging somewhere. Besides, you couldn’t stay long in one place anyway because due to your status as a dangerous fugitive and a murder suspect, you were forced to lay low and since you had run out of cash after first eight months, you were now stealing for living and counting on the pity of others.
You glanced through the paper and noticed an article stating that in a city some hundreds of kilometers from your current location there had been an increasing amount of wild animal attacks and the victims had been found with their throats being ripped open. You folded the newspaper and slipped it into your bag when the unsuspecting shopkeeper wasn’t looking, asked her how to get into the specific city and then headed towards the road that led there. The road was empty at the time, it wasn’t even early morning yet but after walking forward for an hour, a man driving a massive truck stopped to pick you up.
The man was nice, almost sixty years old possibly, dressed in plain yet clean clothes. He tried to ask you why you were walking alone in the chilly, humid weather, if you were running away from something and whether everything was alright, but he stopped asking when you kept pretty much changing the subject and avoiding his questions. How could you tell him that you were a wanted fugitive on your way to kill vampires? No, you couldn’t tell him and to be honest you were too tired to lie and therefore you chose to plainly ignore him and to focus on staring at the road in front of you.
You arrived to the city around midday, got off from the truck and thanked the man for the ride. You watched him driving away and turning a corner after which he disappeared from your sight. You found a place to stay, a shelter or some sort, stole a bite to eat and then started to study the map of the city. You took a short nap and when the sun set you grabbed your weapons and headed to the streets. It was an old industrial city that had been partially abandoned when the factories had been shut down and the employees had been left out of work. It was a city of corruption and ruin which made it perfect for the monsters to take over; the people had lost their hope anyway so there wasn’t any resistance.
You wrapped your coat around your body tighter when there was a cold, sinister breeze blowing from the north. You had heard rumors in the shelter; the people had been talking about these humanlike creatures with black eyes, very distinctive facial features and sharp teeth and these creatures hunted in the shadows, growing in numbers and getting bolder and more powerful. You had managed to ask the people where these creatures had been previously seen and you had been warned about the abandoned industrial district. “Going there is a suicide” one woman had told you with a shaky tone.
You took your favorite wooden stake out from your bag and wrapped your fingers tightly around it. You walked slowly forward, found a hole in an old brick wall that was surrounding an empty factory and entered the back yard filled with random junk. You could feel that you were being watched and for the first time you had a feeling that this night might be your last. There were no lights and the only light you had was the pale moon on the sky, illuminating the ground that was covered with a thin layer of frost and snow. However the moonlight was constantly being blocked by clouds that kept sailing across the sky slowly as the wind kept blowing from the north.
Suddenly you saw a man laying on the ground on his stomach right next to a door that led into the factory. You took a look around and after confirming to yourself that you were still alone, you ran as silently as you could to the man. You squatted down, turned the man on his back and checked if he had a pulse. He however didn’t. You cursed silently in your native language and sighed; you were too late, just like you had been when your family had gotten killed. You covered your mouth with your hand and collapsed to sit on the ground next to the body before bursting into silent tears.
However the man groaned from pain and woke you up from your moment of desperation and self pity. You automatically put your weapon into your bag and focused your attention to the injured man. He mumbled with a hoarse, weak voice that you had to get out from there. “They are coming” he repeated and therefore you got up, grabbed his arm firmly and helped him to sit before basically forcing him to stand on his two feet. The man however was very weak and badly injured yet large in size so you had to put every bit of skill, effort and energy to support him while dragging him out from the dangerous situation.
The man pointed at the hole in the outer brick wall and told you that there was a hidden path that you should take to get out from the industrial district safely. You groaned “Alright” and guided the tall man through the hole and into the hidden pathway that was blocked by metal junk, making it very challenging to move without making any noise. Besides now that you had disappeared among the mountains of scrap metal it was almost impossible to see anything since the moonlight was either blocked by the tall buildings or the surrounding junk. The man however seemed to see perfectly in the dark and even though he was on the verge of passing out he managed to be your eyes and guide you through the darkness.
Finally you got out from the neighborhood and stormed into the first abandoned apartment building that you found. You locked the door behind you, barricaded it and found an empty apartment to hide until the sunrise. You walked the tall man into the bedroom and after helping him to lay down, you ran to the hallway, locked the door and barricaded it with some heavy furniture. Then you closed all the curtains in the apartment and hurried back to the injured man, took a bottle of water out from your bag and poured a generous amount of it on a cloth that you had found in one of the closets.
- Be completely still. you said before you pressed the cloth against the man’s neck that was badly injured. His clothes were covered in blood and it was a miracle that the man was still alive. The wounds that he had were not bleeding anymore so you decided to cover them with bandages and perhaps get some sleep. You were physically exhausted from dragging the guy and mentally exhausted from being so scared and constantly on alert. You made sure that the door had been properly secured and then lay down on the sofa that was by the living room windows, took off your coat and used it as the blanket, leaving you with your t-shirt and jeans.
It was late in the morning when you finally woke up with every muscle in your body aching like never before. You stretched your back and arms, got up and walked into the bedroom to see how the man you had saved was doing. He was laying on his back, just like you had left him, with his eyes closed, completely still. You cursed in your native language because it seemed that the man had died after all, despite all your efforts and struggles to save his life. You placed your hand softly on his neck and shivered a little because his skin was so cold, too cold, besides there was no pulse.
However then the man moved a little as he shifted himself, hoping to find a more comfortable position to sleep in.
You removed your hand from his skin immediately and studied the features of his face carefully now that there was enough light to do so. The man had brown, messy hair, stubble around his mouth and on his jaw with some kind of sideburns and dark, impressive eyebrows. He had long eyelashes, just as dark as his eyebrows and there was something very familiar in his appearance… his strong aura filled with mystery and danger. He was wearing somewhat bohemian clothes and some loose chains hanging from his neck. He looked like a mixture of a pirate and a rock star.
It was him!
You stepped away from the bed and took your weapon out from your bag. The man who had haunted your dreams as well as your nightmares was real, he was here and this was your chance to have revenge for your life and also for your family. Yes, meeting this man almost twenty years ago had changed your life entirely and this change had eventually caused the death of your family. This man was a monster and you had risked your own life for him! Oh no, it was a terrible mistake and you were going to rectify it immediately. You walked back into the bedroom and found the man sitting on the bed, stretching his neck and back. He focused his eyes on you and smirked mischievously.
- So you became a vampire hunter? he asked with a hoarse, somewhat amused tone.
- You ruined my life and now I’m going to kill you. you spoke with a low, threatening voice. The man chuckled a little which pushed you over the edge and therefore you screamed, raised your weapon and attacked. The man however managed to block your attack and this defensive action, which surprised you completely, caused you to fall on the bed on your stomach and to lose your stake among the pillows. The man turned you around because you hectically tried to find your weapon and just as you did, he pinned your hands against the mattress on both sides of your head. You wiggled defiantly, trying to avoid looking into the eyes of the beautiful predator because looking into his eyes had a strange calming, or more like paralyzing effect on you.
- Let me go! you screamed and for your surprise your constant wiggles had managed to loosen the tight grip of the stranger so you eventually pulled your right hand free and grabbed the stake, rolled the man on his back to the bed and raised your hand for an attack.
- Don’t! Please! the man gasped, instantly realizing that he was entirely on your mercy now. He was too weak to fight you and if you wanted to turn him into dust, he wouldn’t be able to stop you.
- Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t! you growled, your eyes scanning the man’s expression and your mind calculating the risk he posed towards you.
- I spared your life! the man gasped and after a tiny pause he continued by stating with a shaky voice “That winter night.” You knew exactly what he meant. Yes, and if you could have decided, you would have forgotten everything about that night. “I could have easily killed you too…” he said and paused. “But I didn’t” he added.
- You didn’t spare my life. You ruined it! you stated and felt your bottled emotions breaking free. You had not allowed yourself to cry after your family had been killed and you had even missed their funeral due to the fact that you had been and still were the only suspect that made any sense in the point of view of the police.
At that point you couldn’t keep your tears in anymore so you quickly hopped off from the bed and left the bedroom. You stormed into the living room and opened the curtains so the sunlight was able to pour into the apartment forcing the man to stay in the bedroom. You walked nervously around the living room for a moment and then collapsed to sit on the sofa. The tears burned your eyes as they rolled onto your cheeks and there were times when you couldn’t even breathe.
The man got up and sat on the edge of the bed for a moment listening to your helpless sobbing. He removed the bandages from his neck and upper chest because the visible injuries he had gotten during the yesterday evening had already healed. He stood up and walked to the doorway that led out from the bedroom, there he was greeted with a sight that he had not mentally prepared to see; you, his enemy, curled up into a tight ball, shaking violently while gasping for air and crying helplessly against your knees. Your clothes were dirty and partially snagged as well ripped, you had bruises on your arms and there were dark circles around your eyes. He stared at you silently, knowing that if he stepped into the sunlight he would burst into flames and turn eventually into ashes.
Eventually you noticed that the tall vampire was standing in the doorway, stalking at you and most likely waiting for the sun to move which would leave you into a vulnerable situation. You wiped the tears off your cheeks and stared back at the man dressed in dark jeans, a grayish brown shirt that had a very flattering V-neck and a long brown coat made of velvet or suede. He put his hands into his pockets and made a barely audible “Hm” –sound. You shifted your gaze elsewhere and chuckled bitterly because you knew that you should have left the apartment instead of breaking apart like this.
- Are you waiting for the sun to move? you asked, still keeping your eyes fixed somewhere else. “And when it does, you’ll kill me” you mumbled with an exhausted and defeated tone. The man however did not answer.
- You should have killed me. you whispered and then added “…That night.”
- What has happened to you? the man asked with a puzzled voice.
- You said then that we would meet again and then you wouldn’t let me escape. you mumbled with almost no sound at all. “You were right” you continued, gasped and wiped a tear off your cheek. When you shifted a little you accidentally kicked the stake off the sofa and it rolled to the man’s feet. He bent down and grabbed it, took a closer look at the weapon and asked with a puzzled tone
- Why? Why… this?
You chuckled bitterly when you shifted your gaze back to the man and saw him holding the only defense you had, your stake, the weapon that had saved your life many times before. You had made the stake by yourself actually at school when you had attended a class of wooden crafts. You had been on the sixth grade at the time and by that time you had managed to study almost every book there had been in the school library about the old mythologies and urban legends. However you had not yet gone out hunting yet, but you had started training martial arts and self defense.
- You could have become anything… and you chose… this. the man spoke softly, trying to pose as little threat as possible.
- Yes. you sighed and turned your head away. It was too much to handle that a vampire was questioning your life choices, especially when the vampire was the one who had killed your teacher in front of your eyes and therefore given you a nudge to step onto the path that had eventually led you here.
- But… why? he asked again but this time his voice was more demanding.
- My family… you sighed and after inhaling sharply, added “…They were killed.” You rubbed your bare arm nervously, gasped when you rubbed a sore bruise and whimpered reluctantly “I couldn’t stop it and they’re dead because of me.”
- Surely not. the man commented. His response however made you scoff mockingly as you shook your head.
- Seeing you killing my teacher made me what I am today. you spoke with deep anger in your voice, stood up and walked towards the man with threatening, heavy steps. “I saw darkness and I didn’t look away” you stated and then added “And then the darkness followed me home!” The look on the man’s face changed from puzzled to offended but then suddenly there was something else replacing the previous; there was sadness in his eyes now.
- Give me that stake and I will dust you where you stand! you screamed and extended your hand to him demandingly. The man however didn’t do anything but stare down at you with the sad expression decorating his handsome features.
You tried to take the stake away from the man but he kept it easily out of your reach. You hit his chest with your fists and demanded him to fight you, to end your miserable existence if he wasn’t going to let you kill him but the man still did not react. However then he suddenly wrapped his arms around you and hugged you tightly against his chest, keeping you there despite your struggles and best efforts to break free. You felt the man leaning closer and burying his face into your neck…
Was this how it was going to end?