Momentun

Silence befell them both as the clerk was trying to wrap his head around everything happening.

The young man was flustered by how close the young woman was.

“I’m Ingrid von Anfang by the way,” she introduced. “One-hundred and twenty-sixth Descendant of Lord Jure von Anfang—the first vampire to exist.”

Rohit continued to stand there frozen as a statue, while continuing to be boxed in by her slender, yet powerful arms.

“And you are?” Ingrid asked, tilting her head, with a soft smile.

He anxiously swallowed, before finally replying with, “Oh, I’m Rohit Surya… uh, university student, part-time worker at Royal Hens convenience store, and Wirbelhaus Candies… uh, first… first author in the Surya Family.”

Ingrid giggled beneath her breath. “How amusing.”

“What is?” he replied, scratching his face.

“I’ve decided to stick around you,” she declared again.

“What do you mean by that?” he asked, blushing past his mocha skin tone.

Ingrid cupped his face in her nimble hands, continuing to admire everything about this human who helped her. “Yes…” she replied. “I believe you’re the one whom I’ve been searching for…”

Rohit blinked a few times at her cryptic words, before taking hold of her wrists gently and lowering them, as he was starting to feel uncomfortable. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I don’t want any part of this, okay?”

She crossed her arms and puffed her cheeks, disappointed, but nodded in understanding.

“Besides,” the young man continued, “aren’t you being pursued by those cloaked people?” He looked to the right, towards the main road again, hoping they wouldn’t show up, because even though they didn’t seem to pose any harm to him, a part of him was worried they’d inflict harm upon the young woman if they found her. “Are they warrior clerics or something?” he asked, stereotyping the lore he knew about vampires. “Was that why you were running?”

Ingrid frowned, slowly shaking her head. “Not quite… In fact, one’s faith and semiotics have no effect on vampires, especially ones like me,” she clarified. “Those were just placebos put in place by those wanting to push their beliefs on others.”

He nodded, understanding that the mythos behind what popular culture fed him over the years was completely saturated from the reality that was the vampires.

Ingrid turned to the parking lot behind the convenience store and asked about the only car present, “That’s your vehicle right? Let’s go there.”

As she proceeded towards the car, Rohit was startled. ‘I’m not gonna ask how you know that—maybe you have a heightened sense of smell or something—but I guess I’ll find out more…’ he thought, trailing behind her. In his musings, he’d done this much for her, so why not just give her a little more time, before returning to work? Ingrid most definitely caught his attention.

Ingrid wiped herself of the smell and clinging debris as best as she could in the rain.

In the meantime, Rohit lined the backseats with trash bags for them to sit on.

The seats were a little drenched from the trash bags, the young man pocketed, and had to unfurl in the downpour, but it was better than being completely enveloped with a trashy smell and trail.

Rohit decided to sit on the backseats, because at least he could just lay the bags much easier on them than having to do the two front seats.

Plus, by the time work was over, both of their outfits would be dry enough to sit up front too.

Ingrid then told her story, while the surprised young man tried understanding everything in her world, and realized his was going to be part of that very soon.

“All the way from the Valkyrjan Parliament, huh?” Rohit replied, stroking his beard, and admiring the journey it took to travel from that continent. “How’d you make it to the Independent Union? You had to have gotten on a plane to cross the Aethiopian Ocean… unless you can shapeshift?”

“Both actually,” Ingrid noted. “I hitched a ride on a plane as a bat so my position wasn’t completely given away.”

“And these Vampire Hunters even have a branch facility set up here like the rest of the world… That’s wild…”

She nodded. “It was always this violent between us and them, but since we’ve been able to retreat to the parallel world, some of us have at least been able to live peacefully, just not with humans.” Ingrid paused out of consideration for Rohit to absorb this information. “Though more often than naught, vampires still live independently in the human world as concealed as they can be, because human blood is more attractive than livestock.”

“But I don’t get it.” The young man crinkled his forehead. “If you were living peacefully alongside your people, why leave the sanctuary to be hunted here?”

Ingrid fell silent, as she hung her head, trying to find the words to explain.

Rohit pursed his lips, wondering if what he said was too harsh, but the young woman reminded him that he had to get back to work.

“We’ll pick this up afterwards,” she assured him. “But I don’t want you to get in trouble right now.”

She was right, Rohit had spent another prolonged period outside again, and his coworker might get suspicious. In addition, his boss could be showing up at any moment, so for the time being, he had to leave her alone.

“I’ll try and catch some winks until you return…” Ingrid concluded, just before he stepped out.

“What about the Vampire Hunters?” he recalled.

“I’ve masked my trail,” she assured, waving her hand and laying down on the seat. “Don’t worry about the details for now.”

The young man nodded, and headed back out.

Ingrid sat up and peeped out the car window, watching Rohit return to the convenience store. After laying back down, she thought to herself, ‘This power… Could he really be the one?’

Rohit came back inside the store to the same sight as always, as he saw his coworker leaning on the back counter this time, as he was printing out expiration dates for the thawed pastries he had yet to put out.

It seemed like he was doing more than he normally did at night anyway, so when Rohit returned, James didn’t pay him any mind, as he was now focusing on completing his side of the nightly duties before the manager came in.

In the meantime, Rohit wrapped up his side of the work, finishing the mopping of the kitchen and back corridors, in addition to preparing breakfast sandwiches to be placed into the warmer for easy access. He didn’t make much this time, as no customer came in still in the midst of the rain. Since he finished that early, he decided to put together a submarine sandwich for himself and made another for Ingrid. He couldn’t just procure chicken bags that easily at this point, so he wondered if something similar to blood would be able to sustain her.

He ended up making her a meatball sub, equipped with tomatoes, hots, meatballs, provolone cheese, and a lot of pasta sauce. Rohit even prepped some cups of the red sauce on the side. He hoped the red coloring most ingredients possessed was enough to satisfy her, while also making sure they didn’t have tracings of garlic as well. When he was going to pay for the food, the manager walked in and was skeptical about the amount of food he was taking.

“All that, huh? That’s a feast,” he joked.

“Don’t worry,” Rohit reassured, “I’m paying for it all.”

The manager gave him the thumbs up and proceeded to his office past the kitchen, as he commented on how good everything in the deli looked.

Rohit was a hard worker, and a good worker. When he came to work, he did what he was supposed to do and left.

That’s all.

He didn’t have time to get into altercations with petty customers and their unreasonable demands sometimes, and he didn’t want any trouble with anybody. Before meeting Ingrid, his life was pretty stagnant, but it was the good kind of stagnant he thoroughly enjoyed. Rohit had dreams of becoming a published author, and was actually working on some minor contracts in the midst of finishing his creative writing degree. He couldn’t take on more volume with his contracts, as he was trying to finish his Bachelor’s, while also holding down his two part-time jobs. It was quite stressful, but the young man was pretty nonchalant about it, and took everything life had to throw at him in strides. He knew what he wanted to do, and carried it out accordingly.

As the time was approaching for Rohit and James to leave, more workers showed up for their shift, making them feel good about leaving on time.

‘Sweet,’ Rohit thought, ‘and the amount of customers coming in now is modest too… Just as long as they don’t order a bunch of chicken, I’m good.’ He was diligently making breakfast sandwich orders, as they came through the terminal, but continued to glance over at the chicken, which took time to cook, since he had to bread it and fry, as opposed to the sandwich ingredients he could just retrieve from the fridge.

When Rohit looked at his phone, he realized it was a few minutes shy of leaving, but remembered he had to tell James that he couldn’t drive him home today like he normally would on the one day that he worked with him. ‘Crap…’ he thought. ‘This is last minute, but I’ve got bigger things to worry about.’ He exhaled and approached his coworker, who was monitoring the coffee to make it look like he was doing something important, while the manager finished up his paperwork.

“Dang, are you serious?” James replied, disappointed, after hearing the sudden news.

“Yeah, sorry I didn’t tell you earlier. I forgot to mention it…” Rohit casually apologized, trying not to lie, but knew his coworker was going to probe him for a reason, which he did, and the young man replied that his brother needed to take the car for work. “Sometimes he picks up Saturday mornings if they’re doing overtime,” he lied.

James sighed, but nodded in understanding, because now he was going to have to pay for a rideshare service again, like he normally would on the other days he doesn’t work with Rohit. The other nightshift workers offered to take James home as well, so it’s not like Rohit was the only one driving him.

Fortunately he sometimes paid for gas or bought something from the store in exchange, but that was only sometimes. James never really took the initiative to actively and consistently pay his coworkers for the thirty minutes it took to drive him home and back, especially Rohit, who lived a block over from the commercial road the pair worked at.

Since he was cutting James from his drive time this morning, Rohit was going to be home in a matter of five minutes or less.