Showing posts with label Supernaturally Insane [SI] (Novel). Show all posts
Showing posts with label Supernaturally Insane [SI] (Novel). Show all posts

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Supernaturally Insane #2

Chapter 2 of The Supernaturally Insane! Enjoy!
Reviews are welcomed!

#2
Dex was going to feel my wrath. And trust me when I say that I had a lot of it.
It had been merely five minutes since the call came in and I rushed over to Dex's house not to see if he was okay, though I did secretly want to make sure that he was even if I'd never tell him that, but only to punch him in the face and call him a fucking idiot in front of the whole God damn neighborhood. Now why would I want to do that again? Well, it's simple. Dex is a dick. And he always will be.
I parked my car - which I had gotten back from the shop only a few days ago - and glared at Dex as I walked over to him. He was sitting in the back of an ambulance, wrapped in a blanket, looking completely fine with the exception of all the ash smudged onto his face. I folded my arms as I stopped a few feet in front of him. He sported the most stupid look. And by "look" I mean the expression of his stupid little face. A smile. A smile. And who's house had he lit on fire, again? It sure as hell wasn't a neighbor's.
"Hey..." He muttered almost embarrassingly. "I didn't expect you to get here so... quick." I just stared at him, arms folded, eyes narrowed. "You, uh, wanna go get dinner after this?"
"What the hell were you doing, Dex? I told you to knock that shit off already."
"What... shit?"
"You know damn well what I'm talking about. Those stupid experiments you just had to indulge in." I lowered my voice into a whisper as I walked closer to him, leaning my face towards his to try to intimidate him. It worked. It always would. "The Germans can do their own God damn experiments. I told you that. They have the tools, they have the correct surroundings, but you didn't listen to me did you? You just had to let curiosity get the best of you, and look what you did. You practically burned down your own God damn house. How stupid can you be Dex?"
I turned around and shook my head at his own stupidity. How had he not seen this coming? How had I not seen this coming?
"Get in." I said in a low voice as I pointed to the passengers seat of my car. Dex frowned upon my command.
"But the police where about to ask me-"
"Get in. Now." I was cold about it, and Dex froze due to the tone of my voice. He got up, leaving the blanket behind and hopping into the seat next to me. "With you're luck, you won't be thought to be dead like you should've done during the fire. The worse case scenario, you're parents file in a missing child report and your face will be on every billboard in the city."
"Great. So now where are we going? To the woods so you can murder me in cold blood?"
"Now why would I do that?" I asked innocently.
"I don't know, you tell me." I shook my head at Dex and made a right turn.
"We're going to Michele's."
"Wait, the diner?"
"Yeah, the diner. What did you think? I'd take you to someone named Michele for some crazy ass reason?"
"Well..."
"Don't go there. At all. Ever."
"Fine. But I am not prepared to go in to eat. Can't we like just go through a drive-through and then head to the hills?"
"Why you shut up and stop your bitching, already? We're not going in to eat. I'm only picking up my order. But while you're at it with your self-consciousness, find my makeup bag and wipe off your face. You look like you've been wrestling with flames. And also take off that ugly ass vest of yours. It should've burned with the rest of your house."
Dex said nothing as he searched my backpack for my makeup, wiping off his face when he found the makeup remover wipes. Sure the ash wasn't makeup, but it was the best thing I had, and the only thing. I could only imagine what had actually happened at Dex's house as he experimented. I had only talked to him over the phone, but in words - and yells and screams - it was hard not to imagine a hell worth a million words.
. . . . . . .
"How about we go out tonight before meeting you-know-who?" Dex asked as I watched carefully from my window upstairs as Lenny and my mother left for the weekend. It was a Friday, which meant Dylan had football game at six, which also meant, I was going to a football game at six.
"It depends what time. Dylan has his stupid game tonight, and you know how that is..."
"Yeah. He's going to drag your ass to the game and you're going to pretend you didn't love it, when in reality you were drooling the whole time over the head cheerleader."
"I call 'bullshit.'"
"You always call 'bullshit' when you don't get your way."
"Bullshit."
"So... Dinner?"
"Did you miss the part where Dylan has his game?"
"An early dinner then? Like a lunch, but considered a dinner? I bet he'll be able to meet us at an earlier time, either way."
"Only if you can guarantee that, then I'll go out to dinner with you. If not, you're all alone. With him."
"You'd love that, wouldn't you?"
"Maybe."
"Yeah, yeah. Either way, I'm not going without you."
"Why? Because you know I'll ask you all sorts of questions and make fun of you and call you names because you met a guy in the woods in private?"
"That's half of it. But also because he likes you more than me. If you're there, we have more leisure. You can work like a non-lesbian, right?"
"Every day."
"So it'll be much easier if you came with."
"Easier?"
"Easier... and more likely to get what we want."
"Whatever..."
There was a silence as I logged onto my computer to check the status of our blog. There were so many comments on our latest update. Ever since the incident, Dex and I had felt the need to tell the world that the supernatural was in fact NOT real. Why were we lying? Well, simple. It was to maintain balance. If people believed our lies, they'd be safer from everything, and the world would be more balanced with human being not trying to break in and find ghosts and goblins and whatever the hell the rest of the things were.
"Oh, shit!" Dex yelled into the phone. I jumped at the loudness of his voice and stopped typing.
"What's wrong?"
"Uh, Emelija, I'll call you back in a few minutes." Dex ended the call abruptly and I was left to my imagination. Again.
. . . . . . .
"What the hell is going on, Dex? What happened?"
"Um... Em, you should probably come over. It's not good."
"What's not good? What happened, Dex?"
"I didn't listen to you."
"Oh, God, what did you do?"
"Em... I think I just burned my house to the ground.
. . . . . . .
"I wonder how they make their fries. How they cut them, I mean..." Dex went on as we sat in my car at the top of a hill. I had to admit, I wasn't one for scenery of any kind, but with the sun falling down onto the horizon and the lights of the city turning on, it looked beautiful. Gorgeous almost.
"Can we not talk about the fucking fries for once?" I asked Dex a little too harshly as I tapped my nails on the leather steering wheel. Dex sighed and leaned back in his seat, quiet as ever.
"What the hell do you want to talk about then? The fact that I made a mistake, and paid the price? Em, we all pay prices, we all make mistakes. I'm not a robot. Or a supernatural being."
I looked at my watch and stopped my tapping. Where the hell was he? It was already half past and we had yet to hear from him.
"Get out."
"What?"
"I said get out." Dex followed my command and got out, trailing behind me as I walked out into the woods.
"Em. This isn't a good-"
"Shut up."
"Em...
"I said shut up."
"Em, we could killed out here. Why don't we just-"
I cut him off by placing a hand to his mouth and pushing him into a tree. My eyes were like slits - or at least they felt like it - as I looked at him. My heart was racing. My head was pounding. My life was at stake. But so was Jerry's. His life was hanging by a thread, a thread that was only Dex and I. I swallowed.
I avoided the dead branches and twigs that could break under my weight. One wrong move, I was dead. I could almost guarantee that.
How? Simple. Jerry was stealthy. I couldn't deny that. But he was never late, either. He was always right on time, no matter the traffic, the weather, he always seemed to be there right on time.
My breath caught in my throat as I stared at him.
No blood. Wrinkled skin. Sharp edges. Shrunk body. No fluids. All descriptions of the young man Dex and I had used as bait. And we hadn't even known that.
Jerry.
"Em?" Dex said behind me. He had noticed I had stopped cold, whether my body or breathe, it didn't matter. I looked away from the now empty body to see a pair of orange eyes looking back at me. If one hadn't known better, he'd be thought to be a cat. But he wasn't. He was a monster. A monster who was about to mar the balance between the plains of the supernatural and the living. I swallowed.
"When I say 'go...'" I started as I felt Dex come closer to me. "Run!"
Neither of us could afford confusion, so I grabbed Dex's hand and held it tightly as I dragged him behind me. I was panting not only with the physical activity, but out of pure fear.
"Get in." This time Dex did nothing to disobey me as he and I jumped into my car and began to drive off. Dex was more tense than he had been in his entire life. And I had to say the same thing about myself. It was almost an instant reaction to loosen up when hitting the main road.
"What...was that?" Dex said between breaths. I looked over at him and couldn't help but smile at our new discovery.
"That's our new project..." I stated. Dex looked at me wearily. "Vampires."

"Okay, so what if this... thing that killed Jerry was actually a vampire? Do you really expect the internet to help you trap and kill it?"
"First of all," I spoke as I continued typing on my laptop, "I'm not going to 'trap and kill it.' That would just fuck up the balance between the supernatural and human planes even more than this vampire is doing. Second of all, I'm not searching anything on the internet. I'm searching on the German database. The doctor's in the security center have a blind site. There's only one way to see it. Searching the passcode."
"Then what's stopping regular people from guessing it?" Dex asked. I smiled and held up a badge.
"They aren't specified VIP members." Dex rose his brow and took the badge from my hand, looking at it as if to study it.
"Where the hell did you get this?"
"Sabia gave it to me. She cares more for me than I feel my mother does. Despite the fact that she almost killed me." Dex didn't say anything, which was a sign that he was sympathizing with me. Ever since Friedrich's death, Sabia had slowly, but surely, fallen apart. Dex and I were the only ones keeping her alive. That was until she found Marie, also known as her best friend, and basically had a happily ever after. Almost.
"So, what do the doctor's tell you about vampires?"
"Like usual, they suck blood. But they can only survive off of human blood, that we know of, and their lifespan without it lasts for only a few weeks. A month at the most. Uh... according to most of these cases, they suck out all the blood of their victim to leave them in a heaping dry pile, just like Jerry. But they also differ between locations."
"What do you mean 'differ?'" Dex asked. I took a breath.
"Each... pack, as they're called here, has certain traits to help them survive in their area. It says here that vampires native to desert areas have the ability to reflect light, blinding victims, keeping the water inside of their bodies, and keeping out the heat."
"So they don't burn in light like the movies?"
"None of them do. Except for the Island Vampires."
"Island Vampires?"
"Yeah. Vampires native to a certain islands in the Pacific."
"Why the Pacific?" Dex asked, leaning over my shoulder to see the screen. I shrugged.
"It doesn't say. The only thing it does say is that almost everyone who has encountered them hasn't made it out alive."
Dex sighed and walked away to sit on the edge of my bed. He ran a hand through his messy hair and put his elbow on his knee.
"What does it say about humidity and forests?" I looked back at the screen and searched for it.
"Uh... vampires located in humid locations feed more off of lust than they do blood. On the other hand, the ones located in forests are well-adapted to climb trees and break the laws of gravity."
"So basically, we're dealing with a vampire that feeds off of lust and blood, and can climb trees and walk up walls." It wasn't a question. "Isn't there some list of weaknesses?"
I looked back to the screen to only be rewarded with a pain in my chest. I turned around in the swirling chair and swallowed, shaking my head when Dex looked up at me. He clenched his fists tightly, obviously wanting to punch something, but luckily refrained. He lied back on my bed, his feet still on the floor, but his eyes targeted at my light fixture, which was currently off while the lamp at my desk was on.
My bedroom door began to open, almost in slow motion, and I could've sworn that my heart stopped as I threw my body in awkward directions to close my laptop. I did not want whoever was at my door to see what Dex and I were doing. Or for anyone to think I was more unstable than they already thought. Vampires weren't exactly on my family's list of sane things.
"Dex..." My mother spoke, peeking in. "Thank God. Your mother just called me. Your house got set on fire earlier today, she couldn't find you. Thank God you're here. Dylan!" My mother turned back and called for my "brother." She smiled brightly at the brunette as he walked in. I glared at him after my mother left.
"Emelija. Dex."
"Dylan..." Dex and I spoke in completely sync. Dylan had definitely gotten used to Dex and I and our crazy twin-like attitude. But this speaking in sync thing when he was around, he'd never get used to. It was written all over his poor, teenage face.
"What are you doing here, Dylan?" I asked coldly. He smiled and walked to my window and sat down on the bench that framed it from the inside.
"Nothing much. Just following Mom's order's." He smirked. I rose my brow.
"And what was Carol's orders, now?"
"To watch you two. To make sure you two didn't, you know, get too close for comfort. Since Dex is staying the night and you're both under aged."
Dex, who had been lazily lying on my bed, jolted up to glared at Dylan.
"Really? Is that what Carol thinks is going to happen?" I spoke up. Dex didn't move a muscle as he continued to glare at Dylan, who promptly showed him the same expression.
"Well you are good a sneaking him into your room at odd hours." Dylan said, pointing to Dex, who continued still to glare at him.
"What would you know about 'odd hours?'"
"Last week. Thursday. Ten o'clock."
"And what do think I was doing at ten o'clock last Thursday?"
"I think that you know what I think. You did go to Dex's house last Thursday, didn't you? Around... ten at night."
"So. Maybe I did. That doesn't mean anything."
"Oh, really? Because what I remember in seventh grade was that when a man and a woman get together and-"
"Okay, seriously. Leave. Like now."
"Did I offend you?"
"No, you offended my friendship with Dex. So why don't you get the hell out now?"
Dylan sported a smirk as he looked at me. "Wow. Sex really shouldn't be embarrassing, Emelija. It's natural for all things to do it." I glared at him.
"The door's right there."
"You know, if we weren't siblings by marriage, you'd be all over me." I cringed at the thought.
"In your dreams." I said as he got up. "Alchie."
"Pill Popper."
"Dipsomaniac."
"Virgin."
"Prostitute."
"Liar."
"Cheat."
"Fake."
"Plastic."
Dylan leaned in close to me and smiled. "Sorry, Emmy. But I'm not going anywhere. Why would I turn down an offer like this? Especially when I'm being paid?"

It was by far the most awkward moment of my life. With Dex's family staying for the week, Carol and Jessica - mine and Dex's mothers - were more paranoid than a fly in a spider's web. Why the hell did my own mother think for a second that I'd have sex with Dex? First of all, he was my best friend. Second, we were literally in the same house with both of our family's. Maybe I was a little off my rockers, but I wasn't that crazy. If I was going to have sex with someone - not even necessarily Dex - wouldn't I at least be smart enough to somewhere else? Even if it was my car?
Third was pretty obvious. Dylan. Who while Dex and I sat on my bed and watched a movie off of my laptop, he texted his friends lamely to tell them all about how he was going to win the fucking game that night. Yes, game. I still had to go to it. And now, with Dex living with me for the week, he was being dragged to it also.
"Hey, do you want to piss your brother off?" Dex suddenly asked in the middle of the movie. He must've noticed that I was bored with the plot.
"He's not my brother." I whispered through my teeth.
"I know, but do you want to?" I wasn't sure what the hell Dex was planning, but it had to be good.
"What the hell? You only live life once, right?" Dex grinned at me, then looked over at Dylan. I turned my head to see Dylan still on his phone, completely ignoring us and our conversation - which he didn't hear either way.
I turned back right as Dex basically got on top of me. I gasped at Dex's action. I had not expected... that.
Dylan jumped at the sight, which was basically my mother's worst nightmare. Dex was on top of me, his hands pressing against my hips and his mouth kissing my jawline.
"What the hell are you doing!" He screamed, and Dex stopped, moving away from me and laughing. I quickly followed his lead, despite feeling my heart pumping quickly and my cheeks turning flaming red. Dylan's face was priceless, and all I could do was high-five Dex to not make it seem like I was as embarrassed as my sixth grade orientation.
"Your... face..." Dex could barely make out between laughs. Dylan's cheeks were red. And I mean red. Both Dex and I could see it, despite the blinds being shut tight.
Dylan stormed out of the room, leaving Dex and I to, once again, watch the boring movie God knows who picked. Seriously. Neither of us could remember who picked that movie.
As soon as I felt the awkward silence between us, I crawled the end of the bed to press the "Esc" button and see what time it was. 4 o'clock. An hour and a half before the game.
"We should probably get ready. It's going to be pretty cold tonight." Dex said. I could barely make out the stutter at the beginning of his sentences, but it was there. Maybe he had felt the awkwardness too, or maybe it was something else...
"Probably..." But before I could say anything else, Dex was gone, the door wide open. What happened? Did I say something? Did I do something? I shrugged it off like a blanket, but it was still stuck to me as I closed my laptop and changed my clothes.

Dex was right. It was chilly. Not warm, not cold, but just chilly... for us people living in Florida.
Dex's parents were thrilled to go to a game. Thrilled so much that they even tried their luck with convincing Dex to do football in college - since this was senior year and Dex missed the deadline.
The game hadn't even begun when Dex lost it. It was a public matter, but everyone could tell by the way Dex grabbed my wrist and dragged me over behind the booths.
"Why the hell can't they just accept that I don't want to do football? That I'm not a jock and I never will be?" He ranted as he walked back and forth in front of me. I sat down on the table, my feet touching the seats of the school's red, metal picnic tables. I placed my elbow onto my knee and held my head in my hand as I stared off into space. Sure, maybe listening to your best friend rant was what you were supposed to do when you had a best friend, but it didn't mean that I had to like it. Or really pay hard attention to it.
"Are you even listening?" Dex asked me.
"Yeah. Your parents want you to do football in college, but you don't want to. We get it. Everyone does. Especially the Events Committee." I said, nodding to the booths we were next to. A few girls from my class looked at me in envy when they saw Dex. I did nothing but roll my eyes.
"I just don't understand why they keep pushing me..." Dex said as he sat down next to me. We watched as the members of the Events committee filed to their seats to watch the game begin. It was minutes of silence after that. Silence between Dex and I, while loud cheering and grunting played in the background.
"Did you see that?" I asked suddenly, not sure if what I had seen was an illusion or a real thing.
"See what?"
"Orange..." I said breathlessly.
"Orange?"
I turned to face him, my heart beating quickly in my chest. "Glowing orange."
"Wait, as in...?"
Dex didn't even get the chance to finish his sentence before what I had seen through the corner of my eye was unveiled. Dex and I jolted back at the man appeared right in front of us, the man with glowing orange eyes, and teeth like a canines.
"Children, children. Tsk, tsk. Curious little things, aren't you? You do know that curiosity kills the cat, right?"
Claws were the first thing I saw, the first thing I dodged before I ran faster than ever before. All I could think about was that the more people, the less likely it would be for him to get me. That was my goal. And I failed.
I was pinned to the wall within seconds, his eyes blazing and his nails digging into my wrists. I wanted to kick him, but his body was pressed against mine, hard enough to make me gasp for breaths every minute. He smiled, his teeth flashing those same fangs even the movies depicted correctly. I swallowed. My throat was dry, and I couldn't get myself to speak.
"There, there, my darling. No need to worry. It'll only hurt for a second. Just like loosing your virginity. But what would you know about that?"
The wind blew my hair back behind my ear almost like a hand as he whispered in my ear. His lips were soft - almost like Dex's - as they trailed down my jawline and to my neck. But instead of stopping like Dex had ever so quickly, he opened his mouth and I felt his two sharp canine teeth drag against my skin, scratching it ever so slightly. I swallowed.
I felt the tips of his teeth pinch my skin, and for a moment I thought that was the only pain I would feel. But I was wrong. He bit down strongly, making me gasp as his teeth went further into my skin, opening each piercing wider to mold against his teeth. Blood drained out of me - the oddest feeling in the world as he sucked it out of me. Pain. Blood. Weak.
I grabbed his shoulders tightly - a natural instinct to keep myself from falling. I was dizzy. And I was getting weaker with ever second he had his teeth in my neck.
I closed my eyes tightly, not wanting to see the end, but rather feel it. I was going to die. I knew it.
His teeth were yanked out of my skin abruptly, ripping my flesh to make me feel more pain. I was paralyzed in fear. I didn't shout. I didn't scream. I didn't gasp this time.
I felt a pair of hands on my shoulders and I opened my eyes. My vision was blurry and misty, but I could make out the familiar face that was Dex's.
"Come on..." He said softly as he helped me up on my feet. My blurry vision was still there, but with time - and the physical assistance of Dex when we began running - my vision cleared up enough to let me know that I had just walked through the wrong door. Both of us had.
Ever player stared at us, and for once in my life, I was glad that I had worn my hair down.
"Emelija? Is that you? What are you and Dex doing here? Trying to find the storage closet?" Dylan.
"Uh, no, we were actually-" Dex stopped when I began to loose balance. I was not going to faint in the locker room. I refused to faint in the locker room.
I slammed the door open with all my strength - which was barely enough to keep me going for another three feet before I fell to my knees.
"Em." Dex muttered as he rushed over to me. "Don't, Em. Don't!" He started almost chanting as I began to loose sight again. I had used up all my strength with running, and I had lost blood. My heart was pumping, but it felt deprived. Empty. Dead. Was that normal?
I tried to stay awake, but my body was shutting down. Was this death? Or was it just fainting? I didn't know. I didn't care right then. My eyes closed on their own, Dex's voice was muted, and my whole world felt like it had sunk six feet under.

I woke up. Thank God.
I was in my car, alone I had thought at first. But moments later I saw Dex, in the front seat, head in his hands, and breath uneven.
I groaned in slight pain. My head was throbbing. My throat was burning. Everything ached.
"Em?" I heard Dex ask. I began to sit up, despite the pain I felt everywhere. I opened my eyes just as Dex came for me. In a hug.
I gasped as he put his head on the wrong side, irritating the bite mark that was from that stupid ass vampire. Dex let me go quickly, and I realized that he had jumped into the backseat - one foot on the ground, one knee in between my legs - and tears falling down his face.
"Oh my God. Are you okay?"
I let my fingers trail up to the sore, painful spot, only to feel more pain, two gaping holes, blood, and a half-taped bandage - half-taped probably due to Dex's too-eager hug. I looked at my fingers to only see red. I swallowed.
Dex looked so sorry for everything, and I wanted to say that it was okay, but I couldn't speak. I was paralyzed vocally. And I hoped to God it wasn't permanent.
He carefully pulled the rest of the bandage off and I saw for the first time the amount of blood that he had dealt with while I was out. The gauze - the only piece, I might add, that I had in my first aid kit - was cover in blood. Front and back, soaked with my DNA. Dex frowned as he set it aside on the first aid kit.
"There's no disinfectant..." Dex breathed. He looked down and I leaned my head weakly on the window.
"That's okay." I croaked. Dex looked at me, a fresh tear falling down his face. I wasn't going to die, so why did he look so... scared?
"You're bleeding. A lot." He spoke. I didn't say anything as he carefully removed his shirt to dab my neck with.
It was only the second time I had seen him like this. Half-naked that is. It was when Friedrich took us to the safe house with Sabia, when that ghost wanted to kill us both. Or all, in the end. We had to share a room. And a bed. As much as I felt it to be awkward, it had been nice.
He took the cloth off my neck to see that the bleeding had slowed down, but still his shirt was soaked. I could see him physically swallow at the evidence.
"You... You didn't hate me last time..." He spoke, and I immediately grew confused. "So please, don't hate me this time..."
I crunched my eyebrows together as he moved my hair behind my ear on the side where the other guy - who we had yet to find a name for - bit me. Dex swallowed again and looked me in the eyes. I released my eyebrows and just stared at him.
I didn't realize it until I felt his lips touch the area that hurt the most of what he was doing. Disinfecting? It was smart, and probably our only option at the moment.
I gasped at his touch, his hand that moved to touch my waist - to keep me in place - his lips that parted slowly to let his tongue trace the marks and lick my wounds - almost like a lioness with her cub. It felt so intimate. But yet, so awkward as I noted that his shirt was off and I was truly afraid of touching him, for the sake that Dylan may have been right the whole time.
I clutched my leather seats, marking them with my fingernails and tearing that one evil rip even further than it had been.
Dex's tongue on my neck was pain and torture, but all mixed with a pleasure I couldn't dream of. I closed my eyes to take it in. The stinging of his gentle strokes. The pleasure of his gentle strokes. Which was it? It couldn't be both? Or could it?
He stopped too early. The warmth of his tongue and lips escaping from my sore wounds. I opened my eyes to see Dex looking at the ground, almost like he was embarrassed. How? How could he be embarrassed. I was his best friend. Best friends don't get embarrassed in front of each other. Right?
"Dex..." I breathed, letting my head rest against the window once again. I let my eyes shut for a moment before continuing, letting them open once more to look into Dex's bluish-purple eyes. "I could never hate you for helping me."

Dex had helped me bandage up my neck as soon as we got back to my house. Luckily, neither Dex's nor my parents were there, which meant that we could fool them into thinking that we went back early because we had a school project to do. And that project would be figuring out our next steps into getting that bastard of a vampire, and then getting some much-needed rest.
"Diamonds? Are you sure?" I asked again, making sure I heard Sabia right.
"Yes. Diamonds. That's the only thing I remember from Friedrich. Why are you asking about vampires anyway? What did you get into, Emelija?"
"Nothing. It's just to make sure that if anything happens, Dex and I are totally prepared." I lied. Sabia was already risking her life by talking to me over the phone. I didn't need her to die when she found out what we were doing and fly all the way here just to get killed.
"Totally prepared? Okay, then. Is there anything else I can tell you to help you get prepared?"
"Uh...nope! We have everything we need. The site is a big help, it just didn't explain... that part."
"Okay, then. Be safe, dear. Please."
"I will. Thanks." I hung up before Sabia could speak again.
"What did she say?"
"Diamonds. Diamonds are the only thing that can kill a vampire."
"How? Showing it to them? Touching them with it?"
"It has to come in touch with their bodily fluids. Whether it's in their body at the moment or not, it has to be touching their bodily fluids."
"So... where to we get diamonds?"
"I don't know."
"We could buy a diamond ring. That would work..." Dex stated. I let my head fall into my hands. I felt... depressed. Depressed, tired, sad, hurt, in pain. It was all right there. "We could always go make an attempt to steal a neighbor's ring. That might work, right? Then again, we'd probably get caught, sent to prison, and then killed in prison by that damn vampire. Or a cell mate." Dex stopped suddenly and I could feel him looking at me. "Em...?"
"I just want to sleep." Was all I said, but Dex still understood.
"Okay... Goodnight then..." He left me to my empty room. My cold, dark, misty room. I laid my head on my pillow, my back facing the door and my front facing the window, my position avoiding the covered, disinfected bite mark on the other side of my neck. I closed my eyes and let tears fall down my face, dripping onto my pillow.
I cried myself to sleep.
And I didn't regret it once.

I didn't know how long it had been, but it was long enough to imagine that the rest of the house was asleep. Sound asleep in beds and couches, and futons on the floor - all filled with warm, tired bodies. But now, one was missing. And that was because that warm, tired body was with me.
Dex hadn't been there the whole time, in fact he had just gotten there by the time I began to wake. He had wrapped his arms around me tightly, not too tight, but still tight enough for me to feel warmth - the first warmth I had felt during my sleep as I slept on top of the covers. He wanted to place his head in the crook of my neck - I could feel the resistance when he pulled back from it - but he didn't. Instead he pushed my hair to the side and rubbed his forehead against the back of my own head, his breath tingling the back of my neck ever so lightly.
Thirty minutes had gone by, an hour, two hours, and I still couldn't sleep. Diamonds were bothering me. Not their existence, but their non-existence in my life. I had no diamonds. I barely had jewelry, let alone actual, real diamonds.
Then I got it.
I might've not been the one with the diamonds, but someone did. Someone with a lot of them. Someone who definitely didn't need them all.
Carol.
I slid out of Dex's tight grip - which was harder than I imagined, but I still managed it. Quietly stepping outside of my room, I tiptoed to Carol and Lenny's room, making sure to not step on the creaky boards I knew too well. The only reason I knew them too well... let's just say I used to love makeup more than myself. And I also loved to put it on Lenny. In the middle of the night. It might've almost given him a heart attack, but that's what he get's for marrying Carol without my permission.
I walked to the bathroom and saw the ring - 13 karat diamond. Lenny could afford better. He knew he could too.
I picked it up slowly and carefully, examining it like the manufacturers. That was until it slipped out of my grip and went running for the drain.
My heart sped and then completely stopped as it hit the marbled countertop and then hit the sink with two, high-pitched clinks and an echo that bounced off the walls.
I wasn't sure if it was me or reality that made it so loud as I grabbed it with all my agility and panted like a dog. A quiet, very quiet dog, but still a dog. I clutched it to my chest as I peeked back into the room, mentally sighing as I saw that both Lenny and Carol were still sound asleep.
I slipped the ring onto my middle finger - even if it was supposed to be for a ring finger (sizes differed greatly between myself and Carol) - and looked in the jewelry box on the counter to see if Carol had any extra diamonds lying around for me to "borrow." Sure enough, a pair of earrings stood out, their beauty almost glowing in the darkness. I grabbed them and placed them in my pocket. Closing the box gently and sneaking out of the room.
Another sigh soon followed as I began to make my plans for both the earrings and the rings. I had my plan solid before I stepped into doorway of my room. My heart jumped and I threw myself back behind the wall before he could see me. The vampire. Sitting on the bed, staring at Dex.
I quickly put in the diamond earrings, putting them in the opposite way by having the diamond on the back of my ear and the backing on my front. My hand shook as I completed the job. With all my strength, I pulled the diamond on Carol's ring off, placing it in the side of my mouth and swallowing the saliva surrounding it. I took a deep breath, slipping the broken ring into the bottom of my bra before walking in.
"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked in a low, hard whisper. He smiled and looked back at me.
"Checking on your boyfriend. He's strong. I can't lie. Knocking me out is a difficult job. But you really wouldn't know."
"What do you want?"
"From you? Nothing. From him... everything."
"No."
"Oh, yes."
"No. You will not take his blood."
"Who's going to stop me?"
"Me."
"You? The little girl who almost died because of pure stupidity? Wow. You are full of yourself."
"Please. Not Dex. Take me instead, just leave Dex alone."
"Sweetheart, I'm sorry, but I don't think that offer is valid. Your blood isn't the worst. But it isn't the best either. Now, poor little Dex's here, that's a gold mine."
"No." I spoke as he moved closer to my best friend. "Please."
"Please? Is that your game here? Please? You are a child. A foolish one to think that I would answer your prayers."
"You want to play that way, fine." I said. Change of plans. I was going to play dumb. Well, dumber than I was, not completely stupid.
I pulled out the broken ring and pointed it towards him, a stern look on my face. He laughed quietly.
"A broken ring? Really? That's the best you could do? How hilarious?" He said as he laughed.
I moved closer to my desk and grabbed the only pocket knife I had, snapping the blade out almost like a movie. I held it up.
"One wrong move, and I'll kill you. But that's only if you take Dex. If you take me, I won't kill you."
"Ah. I see. So if I do take this offer, and I kill you, how will you protect Dex?"
"I won't." He smirked at my answer. "He'll protect himself. He is strong. Physically and strong willed."
"So there is no protection for himself after. You do realize what you're saying right?"
"Yes. Dex can and will protect himself. He'll also find a way to kill you. Another one, that is."
He gave me a smirk as he brushed off his suit.
"Then shall we go?" I nodded. "Leave them." He ordered. I hesitantly dropped the knife and ring on my desk. "Take my hand."
"Can I at least change?" He rose a brow at my question. "I'd like to die in normal clothes. Pajamas seem... degrading."
"I'm not one to answer last wishes, but this is different. So, yes. Go on." I stared at him as if he was crazy, which in some words he was. But he merely rose his brow again at my silence. "What are you waiting for?"
"For you to turn around."
"Dear girl, if you want to change, do it now. Don't expect me to give you any sort of treatment like privacy." I swallowed at his statement, turning around slowly and opening my closet to pull out a pair of jeans.
I pulled off my pajama pants, glad that I had worn a pair of lacey black underwear instead of anything with the word "PINK" written on the backside. I slid on the skinny jeans, buttoning them and then stripping from my long sleeved shirt for the whole world to see my black and white striped bra. I slipped on my shirt and turned back, grabbing my jacket and throwing it on without zipping it up. I slid into my high-top converse - slid would be an understatement seeing that it took me two whole minutes to get both shoes over my ankles and tied - and looked at... whoever the hell the vampire was.
"Turn around." He said in a deep voice. I did what I was told and turned around. He lifted my arms up and told me to keep them there as his hands went to my ankles, gradually working up as if to see if I had anything on me. Weapons, that was.
His hand came and covered my mouth, which scared me more. What the hell was he doing. He unbuttoned my pants and slid his hands down and grasped my crotch through my underwear. I stiffened and gasped, but my voice was muffled beneath his hand. I swallowed as he dragged his hands away from the area and let his fingers slid harshly up my stomach and to the front of my bra.
He released my mouth and I gasped for air as his hands went under my bra and grasped my breasts. I gasped again, but a hand covered my mouth. A hand that felt like air, just like what had moved my hair out of the way at the game. I swallowed again as he took his hands out of my bra and dragged them down my stomach again, taking them out of my shirt and removing my jacket.
With one hand, he zipped up my pants, buttoning them for me before moving my hair to one side. With his teeth, he ripped off the bandage that covered his previous bite mark. I swallowed.
He lightly kissed the mark he had made earlier that day, but it was a harsh kiss, one that made me cringe and whine with the pain. I could almost feel him smile behind me as he gripped my waist with one arm, and pulled my own arm behind me with his other.
Everything around us started to fade and I felt him pull my arms above my head and wrap them tightly. I hadn't even realized I had closed my eyes until he spoke.
"Open them." I knew what he meant when I opened my eyelids to reveal that I was no longer in my room anymore, but instead standing in a room with cement floors with my hands tied to a pipe above me. "This is where you're going to die..." Was his cruel, unraveling words. I shivered.
His fingers reached up for my neck and when they got there, he gently trailed them across each purple mark on my pale skin. I hissed.
"Calm, darling. You should stay calm. That's how you wanted to die, didn't you?"
"How would you know that?"
"I know everything about you. Everything." He gave me a smile - or maybe it was a smirk - as he reached a hand to my ear and pulled off the backing. "Oh, yes. I know about these," He spoke, letting one diamond earring fall to the ground. He pulled his body against mine and I felt something hard push into my lower stomach.
Oh, God.
I hadn't even noticed that he had taken the other earring out until he held in his hand and dropped it. I had focused all my attention on his... thing.
"Yes. I also know that. And I may be willing."
He was talking about my virginity. My God damned virginity. I couldn't tell anymore if it was me he was reading, or my plan. Or both. My plan had been to ask him to take it. To give me one last thing before I "died." That way we could possibly exchange saliva and the diamond would be able to... touch it.
That's when I made a huge mistake. I was only supposed to swallow my saliva, to cure my dry throat, but it went with it. The diamond. I swallowed the diamond.
Shit.
"Two hundred years, tell me. Has sex changed?" I didn't answer as he unbuttoned my pants and unzipped my zipper again. His hand went into my underwear this time, feeling around, twisting a few short hairs, touching my clitoris softly. He smiled. I wasn't wet. That I knew of.
He tugged at the string to my tampon gently, not pulling it out quite yet, and his smile growing. Alone with a few other things.
"Why didn't you tell me that it would be this much more fun?"
Almost intimately, he brushed his lips with mine. It was almost an automatic reaction to part my lips, and so did he. His tongue moved into my mouth, searching around and fighting my own tongue off with strength beyond any other. He touched my teeth, my tongue, reaching back to touch the back of my throat. I was so lost with the feeling of his tongue in my mouth that I hadn't felt him zip and button my pants again. He drew away forcefully, laughing out loud like a mad scientist.
"Darling, I'd rather kill you than fuck you then kill you."
He opened his mouth at lightning speed, his fangs drawing closer every millisecond. I cried my last tear and swallowed as the sharp ends of his canine teeth pieced my skin, drawing barely any blood until he really sunk his teeth into my skin like earlier.
I waited for the pain of his teeth, the draining of my blood, the hell of dying. But none of those came. I opened my eyes to seem him frozen like a statue.
"What...?" I breathed. His body - frozen and statue-like - fell. Not in solid pieces, or in pieces at all. But fell into a pile of dark, black ash at my feet. I took a breath.
What. The. Hell.
"Em!" I heard a familiar voice yell. I didn't dare look up from the pile of ash to look at Dex, in fear that it was all just a trick, a trick to suck Dex's blood.
"Don't..." I muttered, about to warn him. But Dex, like usual, didn't listen. I saw his shoe first, his regular pair of Converse that I had written on with Sharpie all Junior year during that boring Physics class. He stepped right in the ash - the ash that used to be the vampires - and I watched as it fell off the nearest step and into a puddle of water.
A new tear fell, but it wasn't one of sadness. It was one that was pure happiness. I was alive. Dex was alive. We made it out alive. Again.
"Em..." Dex muttered and I closed my eyes as I felt his hands grasp my face, lifting it from it's hanging position. I felt his thumb wipe away a new tear and I could help but smile as I rest my face on his palm.
He moved my head so that it rested on his shoulder as he cut the rope to set my arms free. I hadn't realized until then that... that rope, that awful horrible rope, was the only thing keeping me up.
I stumbled, but Dex was there to catch me. I didn't have to open my eyes to feel him. Our friendship. Our undeniable love for each other. It was more than I ever could've asked for.
We didn't have to be romantic, we didn't need the presents or the flowers or the taunting kisses. None of those things mattered. I didn't think they ever would either.
Dex lifted me up in his arms and I wrapped my arms around him, fresh tears falling and staining his shirt momentarily. I nuzzled my face into his neck, feeling his warmth and love and affection. Everything a human being like me could ask for.
Even as we were greeted by a colder temperature, Dex kept me warm. A car doors slamming later I was asleep in the front seat of what I found to be my car. Holding the hand of the one person I loved more than the entire world.
Dex.

"Your mom is going to freak if she sees us like this." Dex said as we watched the same movie we had the day before. Dex and I were lying on my bed like before, but this time I had my head on his shoulder, my hand tracing patterns on his abs, his arm around me with his hand stroking my waist, and our legs intertwined. Not exactly what my mom wanted to see when she walked in the room, but what she was getting when she entered and when she leaved.
"I think she'll freak out first when she finds that we're not at school." I said.
"True." I closed my eyes and began listening to the idiotic references the characters who we were watching made. It may have been the stupidest movie on the planet, but at least I was watching it with Dex. And neither of us were dead, so I found it to be a win-win situation.
"Can I ask you a question?" Dex said, interrupting my train of thought. I continued to trace weird, unusual patterns on Dex's stomach as I hummed 'yes.' "Tell me. Are you really a virgin? And did you really want that guy to take away your virginity?"
I opened my eyes at the question I had not expected from Dex. He was serious about the question, and I wasn't too sure how he felt inside about it, but it looked like it hurt.
"Despite the way I act at time, I am. And o. No, I didn't. It was all fake. All lies. The plan I made up was to... to..." The reason wasn't even selfish, but I couldn't say it. I couldn't make myself say it out loud. And I didn't know why.
"To save me." Dex got it on the first try. I closed my eyes and turned my head, embarrassed.
Why? Why was I embarrassed. It wasn't selfish, it was kind and crazy and all for Dex. My best friend. I saved my best friend. So why did I feel this way?
"Emelija..." Dex breathed as he lightly gripped my chin and turned it to face him. "Please... Open your eyes..."
I opened my eyes and looked into Dex's beautiful bluish-purple eyes.
"Have I ever told you how beautiful your blue eyes are?" He breathed, staring at me while moving a few black locks behind my ear. I swallowed, not answering him. "They are the most beautiful eyes of them all. And you are the most beautiful girl I know."
I felt my cheeks become heated as Dex continued to stare at me straight in the eyes.
"I want you to know something, Em. Something that I've kept locked up for some time. Something that I want you to know, but I've been scared to tell you. Something I'm not sure if you feel too." Dex stopped and looked down for a moment, trailing his eyes back up to mine in milliseconds. I could hear him swallow, as is swallowing all his fears and doubts and everything in between. This was the moment. The moment he had been waiting for all this time. This one moment that could change everything.
"I love you, Emelija. I always have and I always will. I want you to know that."
My heart stopped for a second, my world slowing down to a halt for me to pick up what Dex was laying down ever so clearly. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I tried again, fail. Fail again.
Dex looked away, untangling himself from me and looking all sorts of hurt. My heart needed to start beating again. I needed to tell him the truth. I needed to fix the misunderstanding.
I jumped for him, my hands flying to the sides of his face, gripping him like if I didn't he'd fall away from me. My lips touched his and my heart starting beating. Fireworks went off like a celebration. The world paused just for me. For us.
I pulled away for a breath, afraid that Dex may have already fallen away from me. I opened my eyes to see him staring at me, bluish-purple eyes swirling with colors I had never seen before.
"I love you, too, Dex."
He gave a smile, a bright, happy, light smile that I hadn't seen from him in months, years even. It was like angels had fallen over him, sending love, light, and happiness, despite my own personal beliefs.
"I love you." Dex said again before grabbing my waist and pushing me onto my back on my bed. He was on top of me again, like he had been when Dylan was in the room, but this time it was different.
It was love, affection, warmth. Not fun and games. It was kind and beautiful, something that I barely knew, yet I was close friends with when I was kissing Dex. It was new, never old. It was... gorgeous.
It wasn't sex. Dex made sure of that. Kind and Beautiful were friends. It was only kisses. Hard, soft, wet, kind, beautiful, new, gorgeous kisses. One's that I wanted to cherish forever.
It mattered to me. And to Dex. But neither of us could imagine what would happen why Carol - also known as my mother - walked in and saw us like this.
But until then, it was romance. Pure, sappy romance that I was going soak up because I loved it. I loved it only with Dex, and that's how I felt it would be for the rest of my life.
Until death do us part.
We didn't even need a wedding ceremony to know that.
I loved Dex.
Dex loved me.
That was all that mattered.
Until death do us part.
And forevermore after that.
Damn right when you breathe this business.

If you reviewed one of the first two chapters, look at Chapter 2's Preview.

New chapters are posted every week! (I try to post them every Wednesday.)
Reviews are welcomed with open arms. Unless you're a supernatural creature who want's to kill me, then let me call Emelija and Dex first, will you? :)
Thank you all for reading!
And try to stay out of the way of all vampires, will you? They all aren't Edward. Or Steven (I think that's his name. Someone remind me that guy's name in Vampire Diaries. Any of them!) Or Klaus/Rebekah(That's how you spell it right? God, I need to rewatch these things!)/Elijah (Love the Originals. Sorry Vampire Diaries, but that family just killed you!) Just stay away from vampires, people! Especially if they are from islands in the Pacific, or from Florida! Please!
"Don't let the vampires bite you." ~Emelija Praxis
Trust Em when she says this, 'cause she ain't lying! :)

Read and review: https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3259081/1/The-Supernaturally-Insane

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

Supernaturally Insane #1

I hope you enjoy the first chapter of Supernaturally Insane! Reviews are welcomed!

#1
I spent most of my days surfing the web, finding pictures of supernatural beings - you know, like vampires, ghosts, the undead creatures - and posting them to my blog, telling the world how I knew these creatures were not real. I had fans, like every other blogger, and I had haters. My fans - aside from my best friend, who I chatted with every night when a new "mystery" found it's way onto our computer screens - agreed with me, and hung on every word I said. Haters, like they usually did, created stories, blogs, articles, and etc. to try to put me out of business. The crazy part: I wasn't making a single penny off of my blog. Or off of my fame for that matter. I was completely anonymous on the internet, but if hater's gave a damn about what anyone who didn't want to cut my head off had to say, hell would've surely frozen over by now.
It was a Monday night, right around eleven, when I hopped on my computer and opened up Dex's latest email. Since becoming close friends - which our ten-year friendship anniversary was coming up - and getting emails to make it even more specific, we had grown accustomed to only checking the latest information, so I ignored the rest of his emails as I opened it up.
"Twenty-dollar contacts, home-constructed fake nose, dollar store Halloween makeup, cheap, store-bought copy of Selena X's 'Go To The Fucking Graveyard' primary video dress, and shitty Photoshop. What do you think?"
I had barely answered my cell when Dex blurted out the complete obvious. I shrugged, even though he couldn't see me.
"I'd say it looks more like Selena D's leather swimsuit from the world tour, but you could be right..."
"Damn it," He muttered, clearly hoping to get the whole thing right this time. I scratched my scalp and zoomed in on the photo, directing my eyes sinfully on the twenty-five year-old's crotch.
"Don't go and shoot yourself just yet. You make actually be right..."
"I checked the picture a hundred times already. Your hypothesis seems so more logical than mine." I could him sigh as he took the liberty to double-check the photo. I could hear the faint chirping of the mouse as he clicked over and over again around the picture, hoping for more evidence to see which one of us was right.
"I think you're right, Dex. I believe it is Selena X's video dress. Selena D would definitely put on a pair of underwear with that dress. Especially when she's using a tampon."
"How the hell did you notice a tampon string in so little time? And how can you tell the difference between Selena X and Selena D, anyway? They both have basically the same bodies."
"They're both a girl thing in my opinion. The tampon is definitely a girl thing. The whole who's who project, that's a different story."
"So, how are we going to rule this? A Selena X look-alike?" I thought for a moment, reminiscing what evidence we had stumbled upon and what we had concluded moments ago.
"No. I'd say Photoshop. There's a distinct line between the head and neck and there's a few gray patches along the body's outline. I'd say that whoever created this found everything on Google and mashed it all together."
"Case closed then. Do you need any help with the blog? I know you have a huge exam tomorrow and you definitely need some sleep."
"Nah. I think I'll actually be good. Plus, Chemistry isn't until sixth period. I can easily sleep in Johnson's class and take a nap under the bleachers during OP."
"Okay. Whatever you say boss." His voice was exaggerated, and I knew that he'd take care of the blog in a jiffy. But it was my night to upload, and I was going to. I didn't need to overwork Dex on Monday of all days. "Just, please, try not to be late picking me up. I do need to at least be on time to first. You know my mom. She checks first period's attendance and doesn't take another look for the rest."
"Lenny has to take me in the morning, since Carol has a doctor's appointment, and that dick totaled my car on Friday. So I think we'll both make it to class on time. Unfortunately."
"Great. Lenny. That'll be an interesting conversation, won't it? Hey, on the bright side, Derekson might not send you to detention, which means that we don't have to sneak out of Peters' classroom with a bunch of popular wannabe's trailing behind us."
"Good for you. I kind of enjoy the thrill and excitement of sneaking out of detention."
"Either way, I'm planning on skipping third, fourth and fifth. You said you had Chemistry sixth. Doing anything else important tomorrow?"
"Nothing but that stupid exam that I could make up during detention on Friday if I accidentally got sick..."
"Then how about we check out the Miller's old place? You know, the mansion? Maybe I could get a few shots for Photography."
"Simmon's would probably have a heart attack if you showed up to class with a camera full of photos. Hell, I bet he'd have a heart attack with you just showing up to class."
"So...? You in?" Excitement laced his voice like my mother's ugly ass wedding gown, but I couldn't exactly deny the chance to fake being sick and extend my exam for another few days. It was just too good of a chance to skip. So I was going for it. Head first.
"Hell yeah."

"Where does he live again?" Lenny asked as we came upon yet another wrong road. My fists were clenched tight as I forced myself not to tell him to pull over and let me walk to school. Or worse. Take him out and one of Dex's neighbor's mailboxes.
"Oh. My. God. I told a million fucking times! This is the wrong road! Turn the God damn car around and listen to my fucking instructions!" I yelled, growling and ready to pound the dashboard with the heels of my dirty Converse. "God, why the hell did Carol actually marry you? You're not good for anything!"
Ten minutes and not a single word from Lenny. I didn't care what the hell he had to say anyway, and his silence made me less angry than I knew I would've been if it had been Carol in the driver's seat.
By the time we pulled up to Dex's house, he was already hopping in, eyes glaring at me like I had broken my promise. I rolled my eyes.
"Blame Lenny. He's the one who can't follow simple fucking directions." Dex didn't say anything. Probably in fear that Lenny would put all his bottled up anger on him, since obviously he wasn't touching me. But with me in the car, and not to mention me climbing into the backseat with Dex, he had nothing to worry about. I mean, it wasn't like Carol was driving.
"So how many hits? Any comments so far? It's been hours since it was uploaded, right?" Dex leaned across the seats to look at my phone when I pulled it out to check. We both smiled at the data. Two-hundred hits. Fifty comments. Damn, we were good.
"Damn... We're good." I high-fived Dex without looking away from the screen. It really didn't matter to us what the comments were about, as long as they were there. I mean, at least people were reading our blog. It could've been worse. No one could've been reading it.
Dex's phone suddenly went off, right after his, so did mine. He pulled out his BlackBerry and checked his email as I checked mine on my IPhone. I could almost swear that our reactions were jinxed as we looked at each other almost like a mirror image and spoke.
"Is this you?"
I looked down at my phone again and looked for an email address. There was nothing but the word "UNKNOWN" typed as the sender. I was about to click on the link when Dex knocked the phone out of my hands.
"What the hell was that for? Are you fucking crazy? Do you want me to break my fucking phone again?"
"You're going to break it if you open that file. Look." Dex showed me the face of his phone and I froze. The touch-screen was cracked from top to bottom. But that wasn't the least of my concern. It was the background, the picture that was being flashed behind the cracked screen. A ghost. Or what seemed to be a ghost. It looked human from it's features, but it was translucent.
"It's probably some hater trying to screw with us." I murmered, but neither of us, Dex nor I, believed that. No one - not even our fans - had our true emails. Our true identities, our names, numbers. Yet the email was sent to our personal accounts. Personal being the ones with our names, ages, numbers, everything. So how did this happen?
"Hacker?" Dex murmured, looking up at me with eyes full of concern. I shrugged. "Hater Hacker?"
"I mean, that's the only way, right? There must be some heating virus that can cause that type of damage, right?"
Dex nodded, trusting me on my answer. But neither of us seemed to believe it. I wasn't sure we could, either.
"Have a great day!" Lenny shouted from up from. I had totally forgotten that Lenny was in the car, but from my perspective, it didn't exactly seem like he was bright enough to understand an eighth of what we had been talking about.
Dex grabbed his backpack and we both got out of the backseat, Dex slamming the door behind me and not even bothering to say a goodbye or anything to Lenny like he usually did.
The walk to his locker was almost a daze. I was too wrapped up in thinking how well, that happened to Dex's phone, and why that picture, of all pictures on the internet, showed up on the screen, that I had barely even noticed Dex opening his locker and me coming face to face with the skinny, metal door.
Before I knew it, I was on the slick floor, my nose hurting like mad and the group of bitchy ass cheerleaders laughing like hyenas. Dex offered me a hand and I took it reluctantly.
"Next time I should probably upload. You obviously way to tired to even walk straight, let alone walk around things and not into them." I leaned against the locker and watched lamely as Dex took off his brother's old football jacket, revealing a black long-sleeved button-up, black and gray vest, and one of those hats you always see directors wearing in the movies.
"How do I look?" He asked, opening his arms like he was posing for a Glee poster. I frowned upon his question.
"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you look a hundred percent gay." His smile turned into a sigh as he folded his arms and took a look at me.
"That would make two of us." I had attempted to sorta dress up, since after all it was a special occasion to skip class to go to an old mansion that had been assumed to be haunted by, well, every other teenager in the school. But unfortunately, I was a bit off with my choices. I mean, what was lesbian about worn high-top converse, black jeggings, and a red and maroon horizontally striped sweater?
"Hey! I attempted!"
"Attempted what? Murder?" Dex laughed. I rolled my eyes.
"Fine. If it's such a bad outfit, you fix it."
Per usual, Dex did exactly what I mentioned. Since one certain incident Sophomore year in the cafeteria, he swore he'd always keep extra clothes in his locker. And ever since that fateful day Sophomore year, he had clean, fresh clothes in his locker all the time.
Dex searched through the neat, folded clothes at the bottom of his locker and pulled out two articles of clothing: a crème, V-neck T-shirt and a striped black and gray scarf.
"Please do not tell me that you put on a black bra today. Please." I stopped myself from laughing as I smiled at his practical pleading.
"Fine. I didn't put on a black bra today." Dex rolled his eyes at my obvious sarcasm.
"Okay. We can play this later, but right now, I need to know what color your bra is."
"Wait. I thought I was supposed to show you after you take me on a third date...?" I couldn't help but smile at my bitchiness and Dex's unraveling attitude.
"Is your bra going to show through this shirt?" His words were slow and simple, as if he was talking to a three year old. I rolled my eyes.
"Yes. But I do think I have another bra in my gym locker."
"A sports bra?"
"No."
"What color?"
"Hot pink."
"Liar."
"Purple."
"Lie."
"Neon Green."
"Lie again. You keep that one for the club."
"White."
"You despise that color in your undergarments."
"I hate you."
"Lies."
"Fine! God. Nude."
"There we go. Truth. It sometimes takes a while, but we always get there, don't we? Now, I doubt you're going to first period, so change then. But right now, before the bell rings, tell me. What do I need to change?"
"Definitely take off the sweater and hat. Once you do that, you'll look a little less gay and more bi. If you undo a few buttons at the top and ruffle your hair a little, you'll look more straight than bi. Or gay."
"Okay..." Dex groaned as he pulled off his sweater and threw it into the locker with his hat. Usually he'd take his precious time to fold his clothes and put them neatly wherever he wanted to put them, but he had a schedule, and it was strict. At least for the first period of the day, after that he didn't give a shit about any other classes. Mostly because of one person. His mother.
"Better." I said as Dex ruffled his hair a little. "Now, I need a little coffee, Washer's will totally escort me to class if I don't have an actual place to go."
"Can't you just say you're on your period?"
"I told him that last week. Period's only last for five to seven days. He'll know I'm lying."
"Fine. But we're burning that sweater later today. Got it?"
"Who's not gay again?"
"Like I've said before, I just have a good eye."
"Whatever. See you after hell."
Dex waved as he practically ran to class. Everyone was scurrying to their classes as I poured some of Dex's coffee onto my sweater. I knew it was stupid, especially since it was scolding hot still, but there was no way I'd be able to get past the principle without an excuse.
The bell rang I shut the locker swiftly, the shirt and scarf being the only things in my grasp. Before I knew it a booming voice was echoing down the halls. I suddenly had a fondness for some of the school's rules, especially the one where all doors must remain closed after the beginning bell every period, until further notice.
"Emelija Praxis, may I ask why you are not in class right now?"
I turned around to see Jack Washer, the principle of Founder's High School.
"Hey, Washer. What are you doing out in the hall this early?"
"Making sure our students are getting to class. Can I escort you to Math, Miss Praxis?"
"Actually, I have to go to restrooms to change. Spilled coffee all over this new sweater of mine. I really don't want it to stain or shrink or whatever..."
"I cannot permit you to go to the restrooms without a hall pass."
"Please, Principle Washer, I really, really, really need to wash this out. My mom will be ticked if she finds out I ruined another one of Grandma's Christmas sweaters. And plus, if I walk into class like, like, like this, everyone will laugh at me, and then because of all of their laughter I'll run away and then it'll be too much and then I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll take a knife and jab it into my abdomen and then I'll cry myself to sleep. But really sleep is death, and-"
"Okay, Miss Praxis, please calm down. Should I call your mother and tell her to pick you up?"
"No. No. I'm fine. I just really need to wash this coffee out of my sweater."
"Okay, but only this once, you understand, correct?"
"Yes, sir." I turned around at a normal speed and began to walk away when I was stopped once again.
"Miss Praxis, your class is this way, so are restrooms. Where do you think you are headed?"
"I cannot wear a black bra and a white T-shirt, Principle Washer. It's degrading to let the whole school see my undergarments so easily. It's degrading to even let the teachers see. And believe me when I say that some of these teachers you have hired, especially the ones who... have just gotten divorced and are searching for something, no teacher in specific, they, they look, and they watch, and they touch at times. You should probably ask the cheerleaders about it. They know more than I do. Can I just..."
"Yeah. Uh, Go ahead..."
I could imagine Principle Washer shaking his head confusingly, wondering where that short little speech came from. I decided to speed walk all the way down the rest of the hall and run into the girls locker room to change.

"Why are you filming this? I thought you were only taking pictures?" I asked as Dex and I entered the abandoned mansion. Dex closed the door with a squeak and continued filming.
"What's the point of just taking pictures when you can fully see everything with a video?"
"Uh, the fact that a video records my fucking voice!"
"Well then, shut up."
I rolled my eyes at Dex's short and "sweet" sentence and looked around.
"This would be one hell of a place to photoshop ghosts into." I stated, walking in front of Dex and finding myself in a kitchen. Drawers were open, the counter was shattered, all appliances were gone. It was crazy to think that the Millers family actually lived there with all their high-end technology and what not.
"Yeah, no kidding. Well, at least we have an idea as to where these people get their backgrounds from."
"I highly doubt that they come here voluntarily. They probably get all these pictures from the real estate." I said. Dex shrugged.
"Maybe. But why would real estate agents take pictures of this? I mean, isn't the whole point of being in real estate to make the house seem, I don't know, luxurious?"
"How the hell do you make this house seem luxurious, anyway?"
"I don't know..." Dex's voice trailed off and became distant. I looked around me, searching for that certain, bright orange light that came from his camera, but to my dismay, I saw nothing but black and gray shadows.
"Dex?" I called out. My heart began to pound a little faster. Where did Dex go? "Dex?" I called out a little louder. "Dex!" I practically screamed.
"In here!" I followed his voice at a rapid pace and bumped into something soft but sturdy, falling ass first onto the wood planks of the flooring. Or more like into the wood planks. The wood broke beneath my weight and sent me crashing down to the basement of the house. It was almost a ten foot drop onto concrete as I screamed like the girl I was and landed on my back. I groaned.
"Em!" Dex shouted, walking over the hole I had just fallen through.
"Down here!" My voice was weak as I groaned in pain.
"Em? Are you okay?"
"No, dumbass. I just fell fucking ten feet onto solid concrete by bumping into you."
I was still lying on my back as I looked up at Dex. He cocked his head to one side as he looked down at me, almost like a dog not understanding its owner's command.
"You didn't bump into me." He said awkwardly. I growled.
"Yes I did." I contradicted.
"Uh, no, you didn't. I was on my way upstairs when I heard you scream."
"Then who the hell did I bump into? You're the only other person in this fucking joint!"
"Maybe it was ghost..." I could make out the faint smirk on Dex's face.
"Not funny. Ghosts aren't real. There must be someone who followed us in. Can you, uh, lend me a hand, perhaps. I'm not one to be cooped up in a basement on a rainy day."
"Then what exactly happened two weeks ago?"
"Shut up and come help me."
Dex jumped down easily, one of the traits he and his football star of a brother had in common. Agility. But it wasn't all that it wrapped up to be. Ever since Troy made that one touchdown that broke the tie and made the school's football team win the last game of the season, life has never been the same. It's been discord ever since.
I mean, sure comparing one brother to another was normal, but Dex and Troy were polar opposites. Troy was an extrovert, a caring, loving, outgoing guy that was loved by everyone, excepted as he was and adorned with respect and perseverance. And then there was Dex. Introvert, careless, crazy, shy - when he wasn't talking to me - guy that everyone was disappointed in. Including his own parents. It was crazy to think that those two could be related, well, after you got past the whole "looks" part of their anatomy.
"Thanks." I said as Dex took my hand and helped me up. I had been too busy with my own pain to look around at my surroundings, so when I did, I could almost feel my eyeballs ready to fall out of my head like one of those stupid cartoons Carol made me watch with Lydia.
"Why do I feel like I've been here before?" Dex was facing the opposite direction I was when he murmured the question. I knew it was a rhetorical question since he wasn't exactly expecting an answer from me as much as he did himself.
"Because that picture was taken right here..." I muttered, awe-struck and in disbelief of my own eyes. Dex turned around and I could mentally picture him with the same reaction as me, staring at the one thing I never thought to see in my entire life. The studio of the fake pictures.
"Oh my God... Is that..."
"It has to be..."
"How much would that thing cost...?"
"It looks so real..."
"How?"
"Who did this?"
"Where would they get something like that?"
"Who's doing this?"
"What?"
I could barely believe my eyes as I walked over to what I thought to be a doll. A human-looking, life-size doll that looked exactly like the translucent person we saw when Dex opened the email and received a picture and a crack in his phone.
"What filter would they use? How many pictures would they have to take? What about the pixels?" Dex murmured as he pulled out his camera, taking a few shots of the doll. I was close enough to put my arms around it, which I was tempted to do based off of pure excitement, but held back.
"I don't understand..." I muttered right before a breaking sound swarmed the basement. It sounded almost like glass shattering, but also ice. I looked back to see Dex's eyes filled with fear. I rose a brow. "What the hell..." I looked down at the ground near Dex's feet to see his camera, shattered into bits and pieces, surrounded by shards of ice and pools of water and blood. "Dex?"
"E-Em..."
For a tiny second I could almost swear that Dex was looking at me. But he wasn't. He was looking behind me.
I swallowed the saliva in my mouth and turned my head. I felt a sudden rush of cold air hit my side, like I almost had no clothes on. My teeth chattered with the new temperature as I turned fully around to see nothing. I took a sigh of relief before addressing Dex.
"There's nothing here. Jeez, Dex, what movies have you been watching as of-"
"Der Tod wird sich durchsetzen. Versprechen gebrochen warden."
The voice struck me with so much force that my natural fight or flight decision kicked in.
"Run!" I screamed, galloping around the living doll and grabbing Dex's arm, dragging him up the stairs.
Dex began to run faster than me, but I didn't dare stop, that was until I caught my foot in the flooring. Again.
"Shit!" Before I knew it the doll was on top of me, grasping my wrists tighter than I had ever felt before. Instead of being a normal temperature, he was freezing.
The world faded around me into a sort of cold, misty fog. I turned my head, watching as ice spread from my wrists - where I had been pinned down my large, freezing hands - to the rest of my arms. I looked to the other side, seeing the same thing. I was doomed. He was going to freeze me to death. This was the end. I knew it.
The world became darker, the mist filing around me in thick bunches. It got darker and darker and I became calmer and more tired. My eyes began to droop, like I was drifting off into a deep, much needed sleep.
"Em!" I heard faintly. "Em!" Dex. "EM!" A hard slap across the face.
I looked up to see Dex, panting with the same fear in his eyes and the doll - or whatever the hell that was - gone.
"We need to go. NOW!" I ignored the pain in my ankle as Dex helped me up and we ran. Dex swung the door wide open, and I didn't look back until we had reached the beginning of the woods.
I panted, collapsing in the mud. Ragged sticks poked every inch of my body, but I didn't mind. The downpour made the dirt soggier, wetter, dirtier, and still, neither Dex, nor I had a care in the world. Nothing could make us more scared than that house. That hell of a mansion.
Panting, I sat up and looked back. The house - the one Dex and I had just ran out of frantically - was virtually untouched. The door closed, the sound peaceful, the shutters shut tight, even with their broken edges and worn notches.
There was one thing off about it though. One shutter open. The rest closed. I looked closely at the window, afraid of what I might find. I knew I shouldn't have. I told myself not to. But I did. Glowing green eyes. I swallowed.
What the hell was going on?

"You sure this is a good idea? I mean, what if your mom finds us? School's not even out yet."
"Stop worrying. She doesn't even get home until midnight. It's Tuesday remember? Ten o'clock news..."
"Oh, yeah. But still. What about your dad?"
"Business trip."
"Troy?"
"He'll probably be fucking his girlfriend in the back of his car until Mom leaves work. Why are you stressed out anyway? You definitely aren't one to stress about getting in trouble."
"These type of string of events do it for me. Or so I've figured out over the past hour. Ow..." I hissed as Dex finished wrapping my ankle. I could barely look at my own foot without disgust. Purples and blues and well, hugeness. If that's even a word. It was terrifying to know that twisting an ankle could result to... that.
"There. Done. How are your wrists?"
"Cold. Still." I said, pulling them away from my neck and out of the blanket for Dex to see. My wrists were cuffed in light blue hand marks while the ends of my fingertips were stained a deep red. I didn't worry much. I mean, red was a good color for blood flow. Right?
"Hmm. They look... okay. Maybe you should take a bath. Soak them in warm water for a while. We can bandage your ankle again, after."
"But-"
"I don't know what's going on Em, but I don't like it. In fact, I hate it. Today was confusing and scary and painful. All I want to do is go to bed and forget this ever happened. I want to go back to school, sneak you out of detention, write blogs about how there are no supernatural creatures, and live life like no one's watching. That... person in the house was probably just a crazy psychopath. Nothing to it. So, please, let's just get you back to health and forget today ever happened."
Dex looked scared of all emotions he could display. Scared, frightened, terrified. I couldn't blame him. I was too. But whatever happened that day wasn't some psychopath. I wanted to believe him, I really did. But I knew better. There was no one in the house. Not a single soul. That... thing that touched me, it couldn't have been human. It just couldn't.
Everything that revolved around that house seemed supernatural, mythical, even. Like it came straight out of a horror movie and made Dex and I the stars. Either this was real, or I was on something. The both of us were.
Dex looked at the fire and I could make out a tear escape down his cheek. He was loosing it. One incident and he was slowly, but surely being shattered into a million pieces just like his camera.
Dex was fragile. I knew that. But only had I known that after I broke through the many layers of fake Dex years ago. He needed time. Time to rebuild himself, put on a new face, and forget that ever happened.
I stood up without saying a word and left Dex to watch the flames of the fire and to give myself a much needed bath. I dropped the blanket as soon as I shut the door in the bathroom and turned on the water to a scorching hot temperature.
I stripped to nothing and slid in, my heart racing at the thought of what could've happened if Dex hadn't have been there. If Dex hadn't had been there, I'd be dead. Then again. I wouldn't have been there to get hurt.
I wasn't sure whether to blame Dex for the incident or not, so instead of finding a solution I slipped under the water and let the heat take me in.
The water burned my face more than any other part of my body. My eyes - as sensitive as they were - watered and mixed with the fresh, hot water and the faint residue of my not waterproof mascara.
As my heart raced faster, I ran out of breath. I slammed the water's surface as I sat up quickly and gasped for air. I panted and panted, without opening my eyes. It was the mansion all over again.
"Are you... Em?" Someone asked. My eyes jolted open as I took notice of a young, tall man leaning on the wall next to the tub. I opened my mouth to scream, but he was next to me in seconds, his dry hand covering my mouth.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Em." He spoke, his voice soft. I began to calm down and stopped clawing at his hand, my own hands reaching down to cover my exposed nipples. That's when I noticed his eyes. His green eyes were vibrant, glowing almost, and I immediately thought back to the mansion, as soon as Dex and I escaped.
Dex. Where the hell was Dex? Why wasn't he here? Did this guy take him out? Was Dex dead?
I tried to scream again at the finding of this new information, but the man's hand just pushed harder across my mouth and cheeks.
"Be quiet." He demanded. I did as he was told out of pure fear. "Good..." He spoke, breaking eye contact and looking down. His free hand touched my arm softly, which surprised me even more with his harsh tone. I swallowed as he lifted up my arm and inspected my now purple wrist. Placing it back in the water, he touched my other arm, the one that was covering my breasts as much as possible. His finger trailed up and down the purple spot on my left arm before he looked up at me.
"Are you going to scream?" He asked, his voice rough but calm. I shook my head. Lie.
His hand slowly but surely released my mouth and the first thing I did was take a huge breath. I opened my mouth again to try to scream, expecting another hand, or even both. But this time it wasn't a hand. It was a mouth.
His lips were on mine in a mere second, my eyes as big as golf balls. I squeezed them shut as I felt his lips spreading apart and his tongue trailing the crease between each lip. I pushed back, but he only came with me. His hands grasped my wrists with strength that could only be compared with the strength of the other man - or thing - that attacked me earlier that day. I opened my mouth to scream and he took the opportunity to kiss me harder. His tongue escaped into my mouth, tickling the roof of my mouth. I tried to fight him, but I lost in mere seconds.
It seemed like forever before he took his mouth off of mine and I gasped for air. He released my wrists and I fought the urge to cry.
"Your boyfriend's downstairs. Get dressed quickly. He's safe for now, but waiting much longer will, with no doubt, decrease the chances of you two surviving."

"What the hell are you doing!" I screamed as the man tied me to a chair next to Dex. As normal as it was, I felt fear towards Dex's calm, but disturbed attitude.
"Em... Please..." Dex said. I looked over at him, eyes blazing with fear and anger.
"Please what? Be quiet? That ain't happening anytime soon!"
"If you are quiet, I will tell you anything you want to know."
"What the hell is this, fucking school? Quiet isn't happening buddy! Not after what you did to me!"
"I healed you." He said to me. "Look at your wrists, your ankle. They're fine."
I looked down at my wrists, which were tied together and then down to my ankle. They all looked perfect. Good as new. And they didn't hurt.
"Who the hell are you?" Dex said, taking over the... "conversation."
"I'm Friedrich Niklaus Greenberg, agent for the SSGI."
"What the hell does that stand for?"
"The Supernatural Security of German Insulters."
"The Supernatural Security of German what?" Dex asked as I said, "Sounds like you should be on their list."
"The Supernatural Security of German Insulters."
"What the hell does that mean?"
"Exactly as it says. Security for every supernatural being that belongs to Germany."
"What the hell do you mean 'Supernatural Security?'"
"Supernatural? An example would be Leberecht Tangeman, the think you two ran into at that old mansion a few hours ago."
"You know about that?" I spoke. Friedrich nodded.
"He's on my list."
"What the hell's your list? Death warrant?" Dex croaked. Friedrich sighed.
"Again. It's security. Everyone on my list is to be protected."
"So the... guy that tried to kill us is being protected by you? So you've come to, what, kill us?" Friedrich rubbed his face as he sat down.
"Not quite. First of all, this isn't just some 'guy.' He's an Insulter, a person who's been dead for at least a year and is attempting to get revenge on those who deserve it."
"You're kidding right?" I spoke up. "You've got to be kidding me. Supernatural? Dead? Revenge? What are you on? Hallucinogens? Aya tea? Cocaine? Heroin? Seriously. You need help. Supernatural beings are totally fake. They were made to scare people out of their minds - some worked some didn't - they're made up. Simple. Made up. Fake. Whatever the hell you want to call it!"
"You saw him. You met him. You felt his power. How the hell can you not believe in him or everyone else who has suffered his fate?"
"Fate? Okay, even if this Supernatural thing was real, how the hell could you side with a dead revenge-driven killer? Huh? If you weren't already fucking crazy with this supernatural shit, well, now you've fucking lost it."
"How do you think I healed you? Drugs? Medication? I'm sorry to say but no medication in the human world is able to heal something like that in seconds."
"You were at the house. You could've drugged me. You could've drugged us both into seeing a hallucination. Then you show up here and give me the antidote to 'heal' me. That's it. You're a fucking pedophile!"
"Listen. I know it's hard to believe, both of you, but you are in serious danger. That Insulter you were attacked by today, he's after you. No one knows why, but he is. Not even I know and he's on my list."
"Aren't you supposed to be protecting him?" Dex asked, eyebrow raised.
"Yes."
"Then why are you helping us? Why are you going against him?"
"Rule four-twenty-one in our book is that as long as each being on our list does not interfere with the everyday life of human beings, they are to be protected by those who may harm them. But if they, themselves are the ones doing the harming, we are to protect the humans at all costs. Balance is key for life to remain stable on this planet."
"So, pretend that everything you say is true. What may happen if there is no more balance?" I asked, curious as always.
"No one knows. It's never happened. All we know is that hell will break loose, and there's a slim chance that anyone - human or supernatural being - will survive."

"I cannot believe we agreed to leave with him. What if he like, I don't know, murders us?" I whispered to Dex in the backseat. Friedrich had claimed to be driving us to a safe house, which would have everything we needed until he got rid of this so called "Insulter." Dex swallowed and looked at me.
"If that happens, at least we'll be together."
"Do you think he can hear us?" I asked Dex. The radio was playing an up-beat German Folk music, which Friedrich apparently loved based off of pure body movements.
"My guess. Not a chance in hell."
Friedrich slammed on the breaks, sending Dex and I to slam into the back of the seats in front of us. I looked through the windshield to see a deer, staring at us as if it had just seen its life flash before its eyes.
I was too busy staring at the deer to even realize what Dex was doing. His hand etched around my waist, pulling me out of the car and almost throwing me into a tree on the opposite side of the road. Before I knew it, we were running. Again.
I attempted to avoid every rock and root that came my way. For five minutes I was acing it. That was until I met my own fate when we came upon a lake.
Dex was behind me this time, and wasn't in range to save me from my effortless fall. Head first I fell, my body crashing into the dirty, swamp-looking water. I gasped for air, but I swallowed bugs and mud instead. I swam to the surface, coughing up little of what I had just swallowed, and seeing Dex look from me to behind him and back again. Before I knew it, he jumped, slamming into the water at my side. His head popped up moments later and we heard the familiar yell of the man who we believed to be crazier than Lincoln Marley, the murderer/cannibal/offender/rapist/everything-else-in-between-that-I-may-have-missed.
Dex pushed my head under the water and pulled me down to the bottom. The lake wasn't deep. Barely as deep as my own height, but still it made a good hiding spot.
I had never been a good swimmer, Dex knew that. Thank God. He held me down at the bottom, making sure I didn't blow our cover quite yet. That was until he disappeared.
He had been there one minute, his arms wrapped around me, drowning me for my own sake. Then the next minute he was gone. His arms unraveled, his body no longer touching mine. His hand no longer over my mouth to prevent air bubbles from popping up and alerting the crazy man.
With all my strength - and air - I felt around for him, grasping plants to keep me from floating back to the surface. My hand was met with a rough object moments later. Scales was my first thought. I hadn't thought to much of it for a few seconds, that was until I realized what was really happening.
Scales.
I swam to the top frantically, swimming to shore as fast as I could. Like I said, I wasn't a good swimmer. And that meant that I was slower than a turtle on land.
I was half way to shore when I decided to look back. It was a bad idea, I had known that, but I did it anyway. As I looked back I thought of all the bad decisions I had made. The mansion being the biggest one I could think of that time. The other... probably mistaking home-made cigarettes for weed in eighth grade. Either way, I knew I was going to die.
It's jaws opened and I could've sworn I saw it's stomach from it's throat. I closed my eyes, squirming a little bit, but not bothering to fight. It was my time. I never thought it would end that way, but it was.
It's jaws began to close, the teeth waiting to meet each other once again. Was that what death felt like? Teeth closing in on you slowly.
"Sabia!" A voice said. That wasn't my name, but then again, Em wasn't either. It was Emelija. Emelija Praxis. Born to Carol Melody Witherpool and Jordan Ira Praxis.
I could feel the teeth sink into me, my blood pooling over the edge of the jaw, dripping into the water slowly and steadily. Was I dead? Was it over yet?
I waited a few moments to let me completely die. I didn't feel pain. I felt wet. Was that death?
I opened my eyes, expecting nothing but pitch black darkness and no emotions. But it was completely different. Yellow-gold eyes stared at me. But they weren't human. A slit ran down the middle of them, like a cat's did during the day. I didn't dare look away from the creature.
"Sabia..." I heard again, this time in a less loud and somewhat kinder voice. I continued to stare at the creature. What was going on? Wasn't it going to kill me. The alligator was going to kill me and now it wasn't? What?
"Em..." I heard, this time from a different voice. I didn't take note of who the two people were. All I knew is that they were male. And they were staring at us.
Slowly, the large, scaled creature began to glow the same hue as its eyes. It's form began to change from vicious human-eating alligator to a human. A human woman.
I could barely hold myself together. An alligator. An alligator changing into a human woman. A naked one too.
She was about as tall as I, with long, wavy black hair, dark brown skin and the same yellow-gold eyes as the ones I had seen seconds before. Her pupils were the same too. Like a cat, but now reminding me of the alligator. She wore nothing, no clothes, no jewelry, no adornments. Only a decorative tattoo on her right hip that glowed with green and yellow. A tattoo design including nothing but alligator scales, teeth, and eyes.
She stared at me, eyes as wide as mine, but somehow more normal.
In normal circumstances I'd feel awkward staring at a naked woman while standing in lake. But this, this was different.
She took her golden eyes off of me and looked to my right, her eyes softening and her shoulders relaxing. She was gone in mere seconds, running off to my right as I stood still in the lake, staring at the space she had just been standing in.
"Em? Emelija?" I heard again. The voice was closer and familiar, but I didn't look that way. I took a glance at my right to see the crazy man, Friedrich, and the young, naked woman who had just changed from an alligator to... a human. His arms were wrapped tightly around her, despite her unclothed state. The two of them were breathless, their knees digging into the sand as they hugged and kissed like they hadn't seen each other in years. It was almost sweet, believe it or not. Almost.
"Em?" Dex spoke in almost a whisper. I looked back to the water where the woman had been and collapsed, the water barely reaching my elbows as I gasped. Had I been breathing at all?
Dex jumped to my side and helped me up, eyes full of worry. I was in some sort of daze. I was drowsy, tired, relieved, but still frightened. I looked at Dex as he wrapped his arm underneath my shoulder and helped me up.
I wasn't sure if it was a reaction based off of my emotions or the fact that I was almost killed, but no one questioned it. I shrugged out of Dex's assisting hold and wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him tight for what seemed to be like hours. His arms wrapped around my torso and I rested my head on his shoulder.
For the first time in my life I was happy about being alive. Dex was too. About him or me, it didn't matter. But even with the relief that came with our lives being saved, he still needed to know something.
He touched my face, smiled, and laughed lightly when I spoke. "Forget all those suicide attempts. Just swim in this crazy lake. Either way, I'm never coming back again."

Friedrich explained everything during the car ride to the safe house. And I mean everything. In mere hours I understood what the SSGI was for, the rules, the forbidden, how his girlfriend, Sabia Tara, or otherwise known as the naked girl from the lake, got mixed up in this supernatural stuff, turned into an alligator, and sent across the world to never be found again, and the ideas behind why this ghost guy wanted to kill Dex and I.
But first, before we got to kicking ass - as Sabia liked to call it - we needed rest. And there was only one place we'd be safe doing that. The safe house.
"Make yourselves at home. You'll be staying here for a while. Or until I find a way to contact the SSGI and get backup to exterminate Tangeman. Everything you need is in your room. And yes, you're sharing one. Just please, don't have sex. Anything but sex."
"Uh..." Dex mumbled, as surprised as I was...
"We're not..."
"Yeah..."
"Wait." Friedrich spoke. "You two aren't dating?" We both shook our heads. "Why the hell not! What was that moment back there then? Huh?"
"We're best friends. That's what happened back there."
"Exactly." Dex agreed with me.
"Whatever you say..."
I growled under my breath as Friedrich assisted Sabia into a pair of hot pink underwear and dark skinny jeans. Friedrich must've had her clothes here for certain situations, because they seemed to be totally her and not brand new.
Dex and I entered the room we were to sleep in and found our change of clothes on the bed. Dex shrugged at the clothing choices as he unbuttoned his shirt. He didn't even bother turning away as he stripped. I rose a brow as I noticed his abs.
"Whenever Troy comes home we end up having this competition. It's stupid really, but after a while I got sick of loosing, so I started working out."
"You never told me that."
"It started that year you left for Washington."
"Oh." The year I left for Washington. The worst year of my life.
. . . . . . .
"Hey Mom! Guess what? I got accepted into the Cooking Club! Isn't that awesome! I even beat that girl Angie, you know the one who used to bully me in sixth grade? It's crazy really. We both went to the board at the same time and looked down the list and-"
I stopped as soon as I saw my mother, her legs sprawled out on the floor of the kitchen, mascara running down her face, a broken wine bottle at her side and the tip of the only bottle of Vodka she owned at her lips.
"Mom?" I spoke softly. It wasn't new to see my mother drinking so early. If anything it was normal. Work stressed her out, and alcohol gave her sort of a happiness that nothing else could. I swallowed. "Mom?"
"Come here, Emelija." She spoke drunkenly. I did as I was told and sat down next to her, letting her swoop her free arm around me and lean her head on top of my own. "We need to talk. Your father-"
She stopped, tears running down her face, carrying more mascara with it. Sure, she wasn't head over heels in love with my father anymore, not like she was when they got married and had me, but she didn't hate him. And he didn't hate her. They just weren't for each other. The divorce showed me how much they really did love each other, just not in a way a married couple should be.
She choked on her own words again as she tried to speak. My heart was pounding. What was going on?
"What's wrong? What's daddy doing?" Fourteen and you'd think I'd be mature enough for other parental words. But 'Daddy' was my favorite. Not just because it was a childish connection I had with him, but also because I was a total daddy's girl. I spent every waking moment with him - every moment I could that was. But after the divorce it had been goodbye Washington, hello Florida. I wanted to stay with my father, but my mother took main custody of me, making me stay with her during the school year and back to Dad during the summer. At least I had more time during the summer to hang out with him, compared to my mother.
"'Daddy's' not doing anything anymore. His plane crashed. He's dead, Emelija. 'Daddy's' dead."
My world came crumbling down as I denied it.
"No. No he's not. He texted me. See?" I pulled out my phone to show my mother the text I had gotten from him but it was dead. "Hold on." I said frantically, scrimmaging through my bag to find the cord. I plugged it in and waited for it to turn on.
"Emelija..." My mother murmured.
"No. Just give me a second. I'll prove it!" I was yelling now. My mother crawled to my side, placing a hand on my back to try to calm me down.
"Emelija... He's dead... He's not coming back..."
"No!" I yelled watching at the screen finally turned on. "NEW VOICE MESSAGE" was the first thing I saw. "See! He called me!" I unlocked my phone and pressed play. I had thought my world had come crushing down moments before, but this, this was the real fall.
"Emelija. Emelija, my sweet little girl. My baby girl. I am so, so, so sorry for this. I love you soooo much. I want you to know that. I want you to hear that. Please, forgive me. Forgive me. Please. I love you. Don't ever think otherwise. I love you Emelija. I love you. I-"
Tears fell, I collapsed onto the floor, my mother being the only thing holding me up. My world had fallen. And it would never get back up.
. . . . . . .
It was beautifully horrid. Beautifully sad. Beautifully painful. And it hadn't even begun. I had expected more from my mother and my father's girlfriend. As they had planned the whole thing without asking me. Red? Seriously? You're all just fucking reminding us of the blood he spilled all over that field. You're all sick and demented and none of you deserve to be here.
That's what I wanted to say. And I would've too, even though everyone thought of me as this sweet, perfect little angel. But the one thing holding me back. My father. No one bothered me. No one said a word. No one did anything as I walked over to the casket - the one that held little of my father's remains, but still some - and collapsed at it's side.
I cried and cried until all the tears were gone, and as soon as they were replenished I cried again. No one touched me. No one watched me. They all left me to cry next to my father's remains in peace.
. . . . . . .
"Emelija!" My mother yelled, stomping up the stairs to state her nasty attitude. "Emilija Praxis!" She yelled, bursting through my door. I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling the silky cloth of the dress I was supposed to put on hours ago. My mother growled.
"Get off that bed and get dressed right now, young lady. We're already late because of your uncouth attitude." She walked into my closet and picked out a pair of sparkly, strappy, midnight blue heels to go with the silky blue night-gown like dress on my bed.
"No." I muttered, closing my eyes solemnly. I could only imagine the expression on my mother's face. I had never told her no before. But then again, I had never lost my father before. Until now.
"What did you just say to me?"
"No."
"Excuse me?"
"You know damn well what I said." I sat up and mother's eyes grew to the size of golf balls.
"Do not swear at me, in this household, or ever! Do not tell me no! Do not lye on your bed and pretend that you are the only one grieving! We are all grieving, Emelija. All of us. But we are still living like normal people. Now, get up and let's go. I promised Lenny and Dylan that they'd meet you tonight, just like I promised your father that I'd take care of you. But if you don't get up and act like a normal person, those promises will be broken. Do you want me to break that promise. The one I made to your father?"
"I can take care of myself. And what about the promise you made when you married? Was that one just a toothpick on the floor? One wrong step and it would be broken forever?"
"Get up. And get dressed. I don't want to hear another word like that coming out of your mouth, understand?"
"No."
"Do I need to teach you again how to keep your mouth shut?"
"No. I won't get up. And no. I won't get dressed."
"Why not?"
"Because I don't want to."
"We all have things we don't want to do, Emelija. Deal with it."
"Go away."
"No."
"Go away!" I screamed, throwing a pillow at my mother. Instead of hitting her I hit my mirror, breaking it to bits as shards fell to the floor. My mother was stunned at my reaction.
"Fine. I'll take this the physical route." She said, pulling me by the arm off my bed. I just laid there on the floor, no intention of getting up. "Get up."
"No."
"Get up."
"Get out."
"Get up, Emelija! I'm warning you!"
"What are you going to do? Punch me?" She didn't answer, but I could tell that she wouldn't ever have the guts to. "That's what I thought. Now, if you excuse me..."
I stood up, ready to get back on my bed when I felt it. The hit. It wasn't a punch, but a slap. Right across my left cheek. I was partially in awe as I touched my cheek. It stung. But I was also scared. My mother would never hit me. But she did.
"Get out." She didn't listen. I looked up at her gray eyes and clenched my fists. "Get out!"
Tears stung her eyes, but I felt nothing but hatred for the woman. "Emelija. I'm so sorry..."
"Get out!" I yelled again. She backed up, a tear falling down her face.
"Emelija..." She was outside my door, staring at me, practically begging me to forgive her. I'd do no such thing. Ever.
Before I slammed the door I spoke my final words to her.
"I hate you. I wish you were the one who died."
. . . . . . .
I was on the roof when they pulled up. Lenny. My mother. Lenny's son, Dylan. They all noticed me.
"Emelija!" My mother screamed as I stood. I wanted them to know, I wanted them all to know that I was the one who felt the most pain. I was suffering more than them. I needed to see him. I needed to be with him.
"Emelija!" She screamed again. As terrible as one could imagine, at least Lenny and Dylan wouldn't get too attached. They wouldn't feel the same pain I felt. They couldn't. They didn't know me.
"Emelija, please! Don't do this!" I didn't look down. Not at my fate, not at my mother. Not at any of them.
"Emelija!" Lenny and Dylan spoke, backing up my mother like they were her master.
I put one foot out in the open, over the ledge, as if to step on an imaginary staircase. One foot in front of the other. I leaned forward, taking my final step - the last step I needed to take to see my father again.
"Daddy." I murmured as I fell. "I love you."
. . . . . . .
They were married. I was supposed to make the toast. And I wasn't going to be given alcohol. What adult in my mother's world would give a fifteen-year old alcohol? A world where my mother was dead, that's what.
"Emelija! Thank God. We're ready for dinner, and you and Dylan are making the toast. Don't screw it up and don't be late."
"Sure. Whatever."
"Is that alcohol I smell?"
"I don't know what you talking about..." I slurred.
"You're drunk?" My mother gasped. "My fifteen year old daughter does not drink. What the hell has gotten into you?"
"What the hell has gotten into you? Swearing. Marrying some dick you meet... where again? I don't care. Talking about God in a non religious way? Wow... Where's that southern hospitality of yours, mother? It sure as hell ain't here. You must've left it with grandma back in 'Sweet Home Alabama.'"
"Let's pretend your sick then, shall we? You didn't want to toast anyway, right?"
"Hell, no. I'm toastin' and no one's gonna stop me. Not even you motha'fucka's."
My mother gasped at my language, but I had already entered the dining room so she couldn't pull me away. She sat down, nervous as ever as Dylan and I stood up.
"Tonight, two very special people got married. Two lovely, beautiful people sworn together in holy matrimony. Now, usually I'd have crazy stories to share about the groom and the same is said for the bride, but I mean telling you all those crazy stories would just be, well, crazy, since there are so many of them." Everyone laughed at Dylan's words, even my mother faked a smile and laugh for her guests. "But there is one story I'd like to share today, a story of a young woman who we hope to help by bringing love, light and happiness into this marriage. A few months ago, as you recall, the date of the wedding was postponed. No explanation, just postponed..."
Anger built up inside of me like never before. He was talking about my suicide attempt. Oh, he was fucking dead.
"I want to bring the situation into light, for the sake of our family, friends, and everyone around us. Six months ago, we had a situation run along where one beautiful young woman was going to take her own life to be with the person she loved most." Dylan turned to me, a sad smile on her face. "Emelija, I'm here for you. We're all here for you. You don't need to take your life. We've got you."
The anger just kept on building and building, and I kept on holding it in like a dam that was cracking. I just couldn't take it much longer. He had just told every person in the room about my suicide attempt. Every person from my life, my mother's, Lenny's, and even Dylan's now knew. He was going to pay. Big time.
Before I knew it, blood flew onto the table and my knuckles ached. Dylan was grasping the table, nose bleeding from my swift, fierce punch.
I didn't bother to say my goodbyes or hellos or toast. I just left. I left with Dylan bleeding from my punch, my mother scorning me with her eyes, Lenny scared that I'd beat his son half to death, and a room full of people who had just met the real me. The real, bitchy, Emelija Praxis.
. . . . . . .
"Emelija? You okay?" Dex asked me as soon as I snapped out of my trance. Dex had been too busy watching me go down memory lane to even bother putting his shirt on. For some unknown reason, I felt my cheeks warming and fresh tears forming in my eyes. I turned away from Dex's gaze and attempted to calm myself down, to stop myself from blushing and bawling at the same time.
"Yeah. Fine." I spoke. I began to take off Dex's soaking wet T-shirt I had put on that morning, remembering that I had lost his scarf in the lake. I didn't think he minded though, he seemed to not be bothered with it as long as we had survived. I hadn't noticed until the shirt was off that there had been a loose thread that got stuck on my bra clasp. I groaned.
"These shirts weren't made to be worn in the water. They shrink a little every time. That's why I barely wear one more than three times." Dex said, walking behind me to help. His fingers were warm as they touched my bare skin. I hated how much I loved it. We were friends. Best friends. Not lovers. He had even agreed with me on that topic. Then why did it feel so right, but so wrong at the same time?
Dex walked away from me, his fingers lifting off of my skin and never coming back.
"You should probably take your bra off too. It's soaking wet with the rest of your clothes." Dex didn't understand the mere awkwardness of me undressing. As much as I felt comfortable around him, things were changing. I was... scared. I had no one. Dex was there, but then he wasn't. Kind of like an animal. They understand you most of the time - the things that they understand about themselves they understand about you - but when you feel something different, something so... foreign they completely miss it. Mistake it for something else. It was confusing really. To both parties.
I grabbed my shirt and pulled it over my head, not bothering to put my arms through as I took off my bra and threw it aside into the pile of clothes we planned on burning after that day. The shirt was big in all the places I wasn't and short in all of the places I wanted to be covered. Sabia, despite her height being almost exactly the same has astoundingly long legs, large breasts, and a short torso. So the shirt, made for none other than Sabia, was loose fitting, but showed off every curve and muscle I had from my hip bone to the area right below my belly button.
I looked back to make sure Dex wasn't looking and sure enough he wasn't as I quickly and swiftly stripped the rest of my clothes - even my underwear - and replaced it with a new pair of panties and some loose sweatpants that even with the drawstring pulled tight, still showed more skin that I had intended.
Dex was already sliding into bed by the time I let my hair out of its wretched ponytail. I brushed my hair out carefully, untangling the knots simple, practiced brushes. Before I knew it my ratty hair went back into its natural form: silky, soft black-blue hair with light waves.
I slid into bed next to Dex since there was only one bed in the tiny room, and curled up near the edge, as far away as I could get from the awkwardness that was sleeping next to a boy. Even if he was my best friend.
"Don't hate me for this. Or kill me for it. Please." I heard Dex murmur drowsily. I rose a brow and was about to turn until I found Dex right at my back, the front of his body touching every inch of the back of mine, from every normal place to every frightening place. His arm - which I hadn't seen so muscular ever - wrapped itself around my waist, curling with my curves and pushing against my belly button piercing as if it were never there. If his position wasn't bad enough, the nuzzling of his face into my neck was worse.
With a deep breath, he seemed to calm down, and it wasn't until then that I remembered feeling him twitch as he helped me with the shirt-stuck-to-bra situation. Whatever was going on with Dex, me, or our relationship was going to have to wait anyway. Dex was asleep, and I was tired. Too tired to function anymore. So beside Dex, just like him, I fell into a deep, relaxing slumber.

I woke up to the sound of clashing and yelling. Pots and pans? Sabia?
I jolted into an upright position to see Dex still sleeping beside me, his arm lazily slung over me and the noise not bothering him in any sense. Without disturbing him, I slid out of bed, walking into the insanity of Sabia vs. a rat.
It ran around in circles, Sabia chasing its tail like a cat. Maybe she had been turned into a cat before. That made sense. She was chasing a rat and her eyes had this distinguish cat look.
"Ah, Emelija, good to see your awake. I was supposed to inform you and Dex to stay inside today. Friedrich is attempting to chat with your..."
"Ghost?"
"Sounds good to me. I never understood what he did anyway. The joy, the job, whatever went through his mind when he decided between human or supernatural. As long as he loves me, and I love him, that's all that matters, right?"
"I guess..."
"What am I saying. You're a mere child. You shouldn't get into this horror already."
"Are we talking about the Supernatural or love?" I asked, confused.
"Either or, really. I mean, they're pretty much the same. Love is as supernatural as Friedrich's job." There was a pregnant pause before Sabia spoke again. "Blasted rat. So how's Dex? Still asleep I presume."
"Damn, right. If he gets up in the next two hours it'll be a miracle."
"Got a night owl on your hands, huh?"
"Night owl. Yes. Especially when school is not in the picture."
"You two are, uh, best friends, right?"
"Yep. Going on ten years now. Crazy really to think we've known each other for that short period of time."
"Feels like forever. I know the feeling all too well. I had a best friend once, too."
"Really? Not to be creepy or weird, but you seem like the type."
"Yep. Miss Extrovert over here. But yes, I did have a best friend."
"What happened."
"Love. That's what happened. We fell in love. Head over heels. At the time I had sworn myself to only women. I had been sold illegally at the age of eight to become a slave for some English workers. As I grew up, became a woman, my duties changed. Sex slave should cross your mind about now. Anyway, I had sworn myself to only women, and then to my best friend. But then Friedrich came along. He was kind, soft, caring. The type of man every woman wanted. And he had chosen me out of everyone. Me. Can you believe it? A poor black woman who had been a sex slave earlier in her years and was sleeping with a woman. It's more complicated than that, I'm afraid, but details aren't my forte, if you couldn't already tell."
"That sounds awful. I'm terribly sorry."
"No need to apologize, dear. You have nothing to do with it. Yet."
"What do you mean 'yet?'"
"The supernatural is what broke my best friend and I apart. Friedrich was the supernatural. This ghost, the one that wants you dead, that's the supernatural. It will break you two apart forever. I can see your future. A future with you two together and happy. But not if you don't get out of here. I love Friedrich. I really do. But after all this time, I've come to miss my innocence. My life with Marie. Simple, careless and free. It's something that you won't experience if you follow this path. I know it's your choice, but I don't want you to make the wrong one. You can run, run away from this life, leave the town, head wherever you like. Or you can stay, and be forever locked up with the supernatural of this dreadful world."
I was silent. What was she getting at? Dex and I? Together? Running away from this town? Running away from everything? I just didn't seem right.
"Why? Why are you telling me this? Why do you care? You almost killed me yesterday."
"I'm telling you this because I see something inside of you, something that I recognize but can't pin down. I see certain parts of myself in you. Certain parts that lead me to believe the supernatural was for me. I don't want you making that decision. I know I almost killed you. And believe me when I say that I didn't want to do it. I knew better than to feed off of a young innocent girl, but you were the first thing I saw and my curse just led me to believe that you were my only meal I was getting in a long time. That was until Friedrich broke the curse."
"How? How did he do it?"
"That's a story for later. Right now, I need you to wake Dex up. We're moving to the next safe house."

Dex had fallen asleep again next to me. This time we were in the backseat of the car with Sabia driving. I could see a faint smile play off her lips as she looked back at us, followed by a depressed frown and a sad expression. Whatever she wanted me to get away from by running away with Dex had yet to be cleared up, which meant that convincing him was useless.
The car began to slow to a stop as Sabia pulled over onto the side of the road - which wasn't much of a road considering the tires were in dirt, weeds, and sticks.
"Shit." Sabia muttered, hitting the top of the steering wheel ever so weakly.
"What is it?" I asked. Dex slept like a log most of the time, which is why almost a hundred percent of the time, I had to drive (or walk) to his house to wake him up. Especially when we had no school that day.
"We're out of gas. We're going to have to walk." Sabia got out of the car, followed by me as I woke Dex up.
"What! What happened? Did I miss something?" I rolled my eyes at Dex's confused nature.
"Get out. We're walking."
"The safe house isn't to far from here, but we need to hurry. We shouldn't stay outside very long considering this is the woods and the supernatural seems to linger here." Sabia spoke. Dex shivered at her words, and I couldn't help but imagine all the creatures that could be watching us at that very moment.
We began to walk. Sabia leading the way, me following her, Dex trailing behind me. It was almost like kindergarten, how we were always told to line up by that bitchy, smart-ass student-teacher. Linda...
I shook the thought out of my mind and looked from side to side, grateful that it was light outside and not, well, dark. But as time went on and my feet started hurting as I felt every little rock beneath my beat-up Converse, the sky became darker. It was around noon that the rain began to fall.
I had loved rain since my fifth birthday, when my parents had thrown a party, inviting every little girl and boy around my age in the neighborhood to play outside and swim in our pool. It had started raining and lighting soon after it had gotten started, ruining the party with ease. Most little girls would've cried, and I did, just for a different reason. But the rain and lighting was my friend. That how I imagined it. And ever since then, I embraced that kind of weather almost like a security blanket for an odd reason.
A loud crashing sound knocked me out of my thoughts.
"Friedrich!" Sabia screamed, running away from us. It wasn't until she got there that I realized what was going on. The ghost. The In... whatever. It was back.
Friedrich - otherwise known as the crazy man - was thrown in a tree, hard. A broken branch skewered itself into him. Piercing his heart ever so easily. Blood was everywhere, even on Sabia. She screamed and cried, and I noted the ghost coming towards the two.
"Sabia!" I yelled trying to warn her. She looked back at me, fear and tears in her eyes. She ignored me, turning back to Friedrich. I couldn't see what was going on. But from the looks of it, he was telling her something. And then came the burst of light.
Sabia went flying through the air like she'd been hit, falling over us and landing on the car, breaking the windshield and denting it easily. My eyes were huge as I looked at her. I turned back to see what had happened, and hated it.
Friedrich, still skewered onto the tree had his hand out, steam rising from it and eyes glowing a blazing green. A single tear slid down his face as he moved his hand toward the ghost guy. Dex and I watched in horror as Friedrich and Leberecht destroyed each other.
I stumbled to the ground in mental pain and fear. What had we done?

The funeral service was beautiful and elegant, an image that reminded me how much I hated my father's, how much I wished this was my father's. In some aspects, that was.
No one came but us. Us three. Sabia, the only woman Friedrich loved, and Dex and I, the people who sent him straight to a coffin.
Ten minutes, no one moved. Thirty. Still the same. Hours came and we didn't budge.
It wasn't much of a service, but when it came to an end, Sabia collapsed, tears shedding harder than they had ever before, arms hugging the smooth, oak surface of the casket. I dropped my head and looked at Dex.
"You okay?" I asked solemnly. He laughed softly, letting a single tear be shed.
"No. No I'm not." I didn't say anything. "You're not either."
"I'm sorry, I just..."
"Don't like sharing your own feelings with other people. I know. I know you. But that doesn't mean that I can't tell what you're feeling just by looking at you." I didn't mean to have a surprised look on my face, but I did. I was surprised at his comment. "We've been best friends for ten years. I've seen you go through hell after hell, and yet you put a smile on your face and ignore it. I know the patterns, I know the symptoms, I know. You're the same way."
"What are you getting at?"
"I think we should take on this supernatural stuff. For Friedrich. For Sabia. For our race."
"How did you...?" I started, noting that Dex knew everything Sabia had told me.
"I only sleep like a log when I feel comfort. Without it, I can't sleep. You showed me that on that night. And plus, Sabia's pretty loud. Especially when she chases rats."
"What do you mean by 'supernatural stuff' then?"
"Friedrich worked for the SSGI. That a German base. Now who says that we don't have one?" Dex smiled, but I didn't know how to answer.
"Thank you." Sabia said as she walked up to us. "Thank you for helping me plan the funeral."
"It was our pleasure. But, I hope you don't mind me asking, why isn't he being buried in Germany?"
"Germany was the base of his operations. Florida was his home. Our home. He should be buried where it most counts, a resting place for him."
"That's sweet." I spoke.
"Have you made a decision?" She asked, changing the subject.
"Emelija? Your choice?" Dex said, looking at me. I swallowed.
"I'm sorry." I said, closing my eyes and looking at Sabia. "But we're doing this. For Friedrich. His death has taught me one thing, and one thing only. Balance doesn't exist. And it's our job to create it."

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