Monday II

A young, gaunt man with shoulder-length silver hair and a crimson gaze stared at us. Eyes sunken, mouth agape, looking more as if they were looking past us, than at us.

Jordan, in response, took several steps back, repeating to my back while Violet looked at the man excitedly, approaching like she were approaching a small frightened animal. "H-Hey~! You..." She froze up, not knowing what to say to the man. "I am Violet!"

"Don't tell it your name," I interjected, smacking her shoulder.

She looked at me for a moment, then back at the man. "Uh... I am... a ghost hunter! Nice to meet you! Are you a spirit of some sort? Mayhaps a Vampire!?"

No response. "Great talkin' there, Violet."

Violet hissed at me in response before inching a bit closer, forcing me to move up with her. "Hello!? Can you understand me?" The chat was encouraging her to either run away or get closer, but the majority wanted her to ditch us. I narrowed my eyes, confused as to why they specifically wanted to ditch us, assholes.

The man slowly turned toward us, their dress shirt open, revealing their exposed chest, ribcage exposed from under the skin that tightly clung to their skeleton. I moved myself to the front of the group, motioning for Jordan to stay behind Violet. The man slowly began their approach. I spoke up, "Hey, are you gonna answer our questions, or...?" I swallowed hard as their feet slapping against the hard floor below echoed out in ill omen, rhythmically following each other similarly to a ticking clock. "If you keep approaching..." I pointed, "I'll have to assume that you're approaching with ill intent. You don't mind if I interpret it as such, right? That you're approaching with violence in mind."

Violet began to look nervous for the first time since getting here. "H-Hey... that's gonna be a violation if I get that, y'know, try not to fight the guy."

"Just give a relay to the audience, then. You don't have to show this." Time to act as the guardian.

The man stopped a meter away from me. "You children shouldn't be here..."

"Sorry, man. Curiosity, y'know?"

"Why have you come? Have you come to be perfected?"

"What?"

"Have you come to take on the blessing?" His smile was empty, a black abyss, pupils dilated.

"Nah, I'd rather not. I don't even know what the hell this blessing is."

"The blessing of immortality~!"

I looked at the other two and back at the guy, taking a step back. "Nah, I'm good."

His frown almost appeared cartoonish, distraught eyes gazing at me. "Why? Why don't you want my gift?"

"Imma be honest, dude. You're scaring me."

"It's not scary... it isn't..."

"You're makin' it pretty scary, man." It happened so quickly that I could barely process it at the time, by I instinctively threw my body back as his arm swung at me faster than the eye could see, body outstretched to its limits. I placed my arrows onto my primary leg, flung straight into the body of the man, sending him into the ceiling. His eyes widened in surprise for the split second he was up there, and as I backed up, he fell back to the ground.

"You... you have something similar to my blessing~!"

Violet was astounded. "How did you do that, Gael!? That was wild!"

I sighed, "Violet, we're gonna run soon, okay!?"

"Wait, huh!? Why!?"

"What do you mean, why!? I'm telling you now, I can't handle this!" And I couldn't. I felt it when I kicked them, but the impact was negligible. I don't think they took any damage from that attack, the impact was just enough to send them up high at most. The fact that something with that much of an impact didn't do jackshit says something. They're clumsy, though, inexperienced in combat. This isn't something we can fight, but something we can run from.

I needed to find a way to keep it at bay temporarily. Violet whipped her head around, and Jordan was gone. "Jordan ran!"

"Good on her." I'll focus on keeping this Vampire Guy occupied in that case, at least for now.

For a moment, his eyes drifted to Jordan as she ran before lunging out a nearby window and into the courtyard outside. They were trying to corner Jordan.

I grabbed the nearest thing I could find, in this case, a chunk of rubble, placing an arrow onto it and chucking it toward the Vampire, cutting him off mid pursuit, causing him to spiral into the ground, the impact slamming into them hard enough to hurt this time. I jumped out the window to follow them, watching as they pulled themselves off the Earth below, their eyes wandering curiously toward the improvised weapon.

I took a deep breath as I chased after the man, turning toward Violet, "Get the car!" I gave her a pointed look before refocusing myself on the conflict at hand.

Violet jumped, finally getting out of there before things got worse. Now all I had to do was to get out as well. I opted to begin creating distance between my assailant. Once again, in a flash, they sprang forward, slashing at my body with enough force to rend steel. I couldn't react in time, their claws digging into my arm violently, sending me straight to the ground. They knocked the wind out of my body, writhing in pain below the looming creature of the night. I let out a gurgled gasp, looking at my punctured arm, my red uniform stained in an even deeper shade of crimson.

I attempted to push myself away from the creature, my hand sliding across the rubble I had thrown at it previously, the object flying into its body once more, an audible pop being heard as its shoulder misaligned itself. I removed the arrow, in that moment, slapping them all onto myself to send me flying into a wall. The instant I made contact, I grabbed onto one of the open window seals, pulling myself out of the abandoned courtyard, back inside the main school building.

I re-aligned the arrows to my hands and feet to use for mobility, skating across the ground, attempting to reach the entrance of the building as quickly as I could, as the Vampire chased me throughout the complex, its feet beating against the ground in a violent crescendo.

I flew out from the building, stumbling to my feet, removing one arrow from my hand to glide across the ground, spotting Violet and Jordan waiting by the car, visibly worried. I clutched my injured arm closely, staining my hand with the blood spilling out from my open wound. I reached the car, throwing myself into the back seat. The other two jumped into the car with me as we witnessed the undead man slamming into the ground in front of the school's complex.

Violet started the car, Jordan leaning back in her seat to look at me. "Oh my god! Are you okay!?"

Violet immediately started driving away, providing passing glances at my ragged body as I steadied my breaths to keep myself conscious. I've never seen her so distraught, skin pale as she nervously white knuckling the steering wheel like her life depended on it, a wake-up call is all I could call this. But I couldn't help but feel this gut-wrenching feeling, as this overly enthusiastic friend of mine had been reduced to such a state. I've never seen her get shaken up by anything, and here we are. Guess this was what would push her over the edge.

"Gael! You're bleeding a lot, oh my god."

"I'm fine. I'll be fine. Just... pay attention. Is he chasing us?"

Jordan shifted her gaze. "No... he's just watching."

"Good to know that that superhuman strength is within reason. I was scared they would be able to catch up or something."

Jordan looked pale as well, looking at my bleeding arm with concern. "A-Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine. Uh... Violet." I paused, "Try to bring us to Naomi. We need her."

"W-" She hesitated to speak up. "I-I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't think it would get this bad, I... I just thought it'd be another dud or something, I..."

"Stop, you didn't know. Calm down. Can you bring us to Naomi's?"

"I-I dunno where she lives."

I took out my phone, calling Naomi. After a moment, she answered. "Gael?"

I took in a long breath, straightening myself into my seat. "W-I need an address. Where do you live?"

"Why do you need to know?"

"W-We need your help. We encountered something a bit outside of town. I'm bleeding."

"What? Was it a user like us?"

"I have no clue. Some Vampire guy or something. Could you give me an address?"

"You need a hospital."

"No... no, they might find us there otherwise."

"If I come, you'll be fine, go to the hospital. I'll see you there."

"Okay." I put away my phone, turning to Violet. "Bring us to a hospital. Naomi is meeting us there."

"O-Okay."

I was dragged into the ER. Luckily, they were able to work on me quickly, stitching up my wound and letting me rest in a more closed-off area of the hospital that allowed Violet and Jordan to accompany me. Violet was antsy, bouncing her foot impatiently, staring off into space. Jordan looked at Violet with concern before looking back at me.

"Are you alright?" She asked, looking at my exposed shoulder.

"I'm better. Didn't expect to see that much blood outside of my body ever in my life, but I'm feeling okay."

Jordan sighed, running both hands across her hair. "Jesus... this was the scariest day of my life. Holy shit."

I chuckled, honestly, today was a bit of a joke compared to getting swarmed at school by zombies. "Yeah..."

Violet took some breaths by herself in the corner before turning to me. "I'm sorry... I dragged you both into this, and I'm especially sorry to you, Gael."

I looked at her with a quizzical expression. "Hey, you couldn't have known. Take a moment and sit down. I know this was stressful. This is hittin' ya pretty hard, are you good?"

Violet slumped into one of the chairs set out within the room, holding her face with one of her hands. "I-I just need to think. God..."

After some touch-ups on my treatment, I was sent out into the hospital's lobby, crossing to the entrance of the building to make our leave. It was then that we crossed paths with Naomi. "There you are." She walked over to me, scanning my body. "Are you alright? What happened?" She looked at the other two.

Jordan shrugged. "I don't have a clue."

Violet kept herself low, looking away from the group, so I spoke up instead. "Uh... Violet brought us to an abandoned place 10 miles out from Inastro. We hung out for a while before finding some skinny-looking guy with silver hair and red eyes. They attacked us, I got hurt, but we managed to escape."

"Well, it's good that you're all alright." Naomi looked at her phone. "Let's all get you situated. It's late, I'm close to the hospital, so you can stay at my father's estate."

"Oh, so we're going to your place like I planned?"

"Yes, anyway, let's go."

Violet stepped up, "We can take my car."

"Fair, lead the way."

We all get into Violet's car, and Naomi leads us to her mansion, which overlooks he entirety of Inastro. I was excited, it would be the first time I'd been in a rich person's house. I wanted to rely on Naomi since she was strong, but I'd be lying that, when I was injured, I also really wanted to just explore the estate.

Naomi invited us into the building, and we were greeted by a massive open area at the front entrance, long paned windows covered in a variety of decorated curtains. I sat myself down in the living room, sinking into the couch and immediately losing all of my strength.

The others followed, giving in to their exhaustion the instant they made contact with their seats. Naomi observed us, circling into a kitchen that sat on the other side of what looked to be some layered wooden wall sat between the entrance and the kitchen itself.

After an hour, I had begun dozing off, slowly drifting into sleep before being woken up by a sudden knock at the front door.

Naomi made her way out of her room, glancing over to the door and back at me.

I stood up, crossing over to her, looking to the door as well. The other slowly getting up, suddenly alert. I made my way to the door, opening it for them, and was greeted by a familiar yet haunting face.