Chapter 10: Chapter 10

When I open my eyes at first, everything was blurry. I couldn't accommodate well. I blink rapidly, while being thankful that the surrounding lights are dim, hence supporting sight and soon enough, the adjustment start to claw in.

I'm in a hospital! My thoughts notifies me and I start to panic. What happened? Why can't I remember things?

I turn my head to the left when I feel a hand, entwining mine in a tender manner and see mom. She's sleeping on the hospital's leather chair, cramped in her position and clearly uncomfortable. I hate to know that it's because of me— all because of me and I can't seem to remember anything, again like the previous time.

I notice a rubber tube, passing something liquidized into my wrist like a wire, entering into my veins with a needle attached to it.

"Mom." I whisper and she shuffles and wakes up.

"Rayne?" She sits up more comfortably, "oh my goodness, you're awake." She's having those hopeful eyes that I'm really craving for at the moment.

"What happened?" I ask instead. I check the side of my neck, having the feeling of it being numb. Something had bit me...no...hit me...hard.

"You had an accident, obviously hit your head and probably in the process, get cut in some places. A colleague of yours from school brought you here and doctor Aaron had helped in your recovery." Mom explains.

"I'm in your place of work then? I can't seem to remember anything. It's hazy."

"Don't worry yourself, okay?" Her thumb guides to rub my knuckles. It soothes me. "I promise it'll be fine, it's probably the concussion. It will soon go away when you relax." I nod at her.

"Please always be careful, Rayne. You're all I have. Don't be reckless or careless to the stage of hurting yourself badly that you land in a hospital. Your neck was pretty bruised... hard."

And that's what amazes me. How did I hit, or rather bruise my neck?

"Okay, mom." I say and she leans over, snuggling me into a gentle hug. I pat her back once and she pulls back.

"I'll go pack my things since we'll be leaving soon. In about twenty minutes, I'll be back. You would have been discharged by then, okay?"

"Okay." I reply and she kisses my forehead.

Mom take her stand and gaits to the door, and when her hands touches it, I quickly ask.

"What's the time, and for how long was I asleep?"

"Nine in the morning and you only slept overnight. It was not too fatal, but still don't scare me like that again." She tries to laugh to denounce the tension.

When she emerges, leaving me alone in the room, I start to stir in my thoughts, rooting for the mysteries.

It all started from when I wake up from the bed yesterday without knowing how I even got home in the first place... then, my mind steers over to Shade and I talking... the food comes in... and followed is the Franklin school community party... I was on my way to see Mom when I saw the bad boy and Lydia, right? Yes, accurate... but what happened next?

It got me, reeling over the thoughts where the bad boy might not just be bad but also have some secrets. And those secrets can mean him to be a bad bad boy or a good bad boy. I mean, he was the last person I saw at the school's incident before I zone out and he was the last I saw at the party before I zone out again. Maybe he is the cause of things. Says my subconscious from its still-fixated-position, in a somnambulant tone. Could he be?

My thoughts runs off when the door opens, entering in is a man. He looks to be in his early twenties. His white coat uniform stands still on his body and underneath is an ashy shirt, well tucked into his lighter shade of green trousers. His simple dress hangs so seductively on his body, making him look too handsome to the sight.

He has a cold-beige skin, paler than I've ever seen before. His pale tone rings something odd but I can't lay my fingers on it. Lustrously blonde hair of his cascades down his shoulders, packed into a ponytail, and manages to blend alongside his grey shoes, making a low clicking sound as he approaches me. I'm surprised to have taken in much of his appearance. Well, they are sight-worthy.

"Rayne?" I'm startled by the call of my name, being that I'm watching him too much. He seems to look familiar.

"Yes." I croak.

Why can't I just figure it out?

"Hello, Rayne. I'm doctor Aaron." Snatching his eyes off of me, he checks the water bag. "You're fine and free to go home. I'll inform your mother at once."

"Would you want something else?" He adds.

"Um, yes, please. Water." That feels weird to ask.

He picks up a water bottle from the drawer beside the bed— which I hadn't noticed before — and pour me a glass cup of water.

"Here you go."

With a nodding of appreciation, I collect it from him, gratefully.

He helps me up to change into a sitting position and begins to remove the needles and bandages, used to keep the tubes in place.

"Thank you." I drop the cup onto the drawer.

"No need to. I'm only doing my job," he glances at me, "do you remember much?"

"A bit. Think I need a rest for now."

"Sure you do." I flinch and hiss in pain when he removes— more like yanks the bandages off of my wrist. "I'm sorry." He dramatically say. Damn! Those muscles in his hands.

"No, it's fine." I take my wrist in my other palm and rub it in a circular motion. The way he had yanked it off my wrist is as if he wasn't expecting me to get hurt.

"I'll take your leave."

He strides out, leaving me to my thoughts again but they don't last long as in five minutes later, mom enters the room.

"We're set, Rayne," when I want to stand, she adds, "do you need a hand?"

"I'm fine mom. I'm not a porcelain doll." I assure and she snort.

In the elevator as we're gravitating down at a terminal velocity, mom declares. "I'm taking a leave for you. I shouldn't have left you alone to be by yourself. What was I even thinking? You're seventeen, Rayne and I left you alone to take care of yourself. I'm so sorry."

"Mom!" I snap at her. "You don't need all this. Fine, I know you're only caring about my safety but I don't think I need much of it. I can be okay on my own. Whatever happened earlier was just... nothing much."

"It's not nothing much."

We get out of the elevator and strides past the hallway to the outside. Before we leave, at the register, mom sign in a blue book and when we reach the parking lot, we make our way to her car, which is one of the latest, vogue BMW, a colour of wine shade with tinted, scaly black at the downs.

The drive is mostly breed in silence, we just talk about random things and I learnt that she meant her word earlier — she won't be going to work for a while. I hate it, the last thing I want is a babysitting Mrs. Chloe— my beloved yet troublesome mother.

"I didn't know you learnt how to cook the fried rice and chicken at Christmas."

Oh, that!

"Well, I had help, wait... how did you know about it?"

"I have my ways." She snickers. "Actually your friend, Shade told me yesterday when you were unconscious."

"Of course, she'd tell you," I pause when the thought clicks, "the food... it's wasted, right?"

"You don't have to worry. I appreciate it whether I ate it or not," mom pulls over in the garage and leans closer, kisses me in my hair, and sniffles it.

"You seriously need a bath. You stink."

"You don't know that."

I help in taking down some of her polythene bags in the booth and I collect the key from her to open the door since I'm ahead of her.

I take off my shoes when we enter and walk into the kitchen, dropping off her bag onto the worktop. I notice it to contains some carrots, veggies, tomato paste, green beans and a plastic already-prepared-and-warm-to-eat salad.

"Go into your room and have a long bath, yeah?"

"Mmm-hmm." I hum and run to the stairs.

"What should I prepare us? Or you want the salad?"

"No." Firmly, I answer and she laughs. She knows I hate salad which makes me a less-lover of vegetables. Not that I'm a full non-vegetarian. "I want smashed bana-egg, please." I give her a puppy face, knowing she just won't reject.

Smashed bana-egg is a food I discovered myself and nicknamed. During my junior high school year, I had a sick hobby for cooking-- not just cooking but discovering foods of oddness— mixing of different series of foods together. And that was how bana-egg had came up— the bananas boiled to a sputtering state and splat along with a mixture of eggs, and blended...and fried, or boiled.

In my bedroom, I strip myself off of all clothing and pull the towel, left on my unmade bed closer to my body. Rolling the towel round my frame, I get into the bathroom and turn on the shower. I lay the white towel, printed with too many rabbit's head inside the hanger and the sprinkling water, bouncing off the tiles indicates to me that the water is warm, just the way I wanted.

It cascades on me— refreshing, enlivening, rejuvenating, and ebullient. I sigh, brush my hair after a while, wash off the dried sweats from my body, and wait more beneath the shower.

After the shower, I grab two towels-- one encrypting my body, and another, helping to dry my damp hair.

I look the same me before the mirror but inside, I know I'm not. Something is wrong with me— seriously wrong with me and I need to find it. My big hazel eyes stares back at me.

With the help of my hands and the towel, my hair still wouldn't dry and I groan. Oh, mom has a hair dryer. How come I hadn't think there before?

Without delay, I rush to her bedroom and luckily for me, I find the dryer, sleeping comfortable on one of her fantasy books which is also laid on her ornate desk. Hmm.

"Much better." I say as I use mom's mirror to use the dryer. I dry off my hair so easily and gets to the threshold when I see her, entering.

"Oh, here you are. What were you up to?" She eyes her room in a fake attempt of being suspicious.

"Used your dryer." I reply. She walks past me to take the dryer as I've placed it back to where I had taken it and hangs it, clipping it to the arms of the rack, across from her wardrobe.

While she does that, she ask. "So you're the culprit who's been taking my stuff. You took my heels too, prove me wrong?"

"Oh, that... I didn't bring it back too? Shit!" My brain just flashes back, realizing I was wearing a converse at the hospital and not heels. It must have dropped off.

"Language..." in a sing song tone, she drawls. "Let's just go and eat." Mom pulls my hand. "Your health is very, very, very important than any luxury." She flashes a smile that reaches her eyes as she doesn't face me at all.

When we get to the kitchen island, I plop down onto the footstool I set my eyes on first, and open the silver lids of the dish to find a warm, fried bana-egg. Yummy-looking, and mouth-watering.

"Just how you like it, isn't it?"

"Exactly mom. Thank you so much. Don't worry, next time I want to bring you a food over to your place of work, I'll make sure to not let any party or reckless event interrupt me." I cross my fingers before I cross it over my chest, then, shows out my pinky finger.

"Such sweet words, getting out of your mouth. The food must be delicious to your taste buds then."

I fake a hurtful expression to mom.

"We haven't talked about your college life at all. I feel so bad." She's mentally beating herself— can be seen, evidently in her eyes. Oh, poor Mrs. Chloe! I beat my inner-still-self to shut up.

"Met any boyfriend yet?" I think I just cough involuntarily and almost spit the bana-egg onto the table. "Are you okay, darling? Is it something I said?"

We're not having this topic!

"Y-yeah." I cough and gulp down water instead of the milk placed near me. "How can your first question about high school be something synonymizing to boys? Not okay, mom."

"Boys are important as well as studies. You can not always focus on books and academy, leaving boys out of line. You'd only end up, being thirty five and still single." Afterwards she burst into a fit of laughter. Her laugh grows more when I turn away from her.

"Stop being childish mom. There's college out there where you'd find more mature boys."

"Oh, train me then Rayne."

"Okay, we had a pretty good breakfast at ten-thirty in the morning and it's time for me to get back to my room. I need to do some assignment." I lie. I just wanted to avoid the talk.

"You haven't finished your food." She complains.

"I know. I'm just going to ship it."

Who knows, maybe where I'm lost into thoughts, I'll start saying things about the bad boy, whose name I hadn't known. Yeah! He's pretty attractive to me and convincing enough to make me drink in his intoxicating features and get hypnotized by him— his charming, captivating frame had helped a lot in that. He has the tools and gadget. I wouldn't and shouldn't blame him to being a bad boy.

If he isn't, girls would be killing themselves over him and sooner than later he'd have no choice than to accept them. Are you going to throw yourself at him? My subconscious ask and I groan again. Why does she have to resurface? I'd have shouted back at her through thoughts but then, I revise, she owns the thoughts.

The bad boy is daring in my opinion, as if he wants me just like I do. I didn't just think that? We've only met once or twice, okay, no lies to myself, we have only met thrice— the lunch room, the bleachers, and the party and I'm making a firm guess already?

Ouch, headache!

"Shade phoned. I think it'll be appropriate to return one back!" A shout-out tone of mom's voice interrupts my thinking.

"Will do!"

I open my laptop and check my mails, there's nothing captivating expect for the cheerleading group mail box. I open it and read their message. It's an email from Mrs. Meredith about when it would be comfortable for me to prove myself and join. And that I should reply with the time choice of mine.

I don't know if I should join the cheerleading group anymore. I mean, I wanted to join it to retaliate against the bullying Lydia, but then, what if it tires me? I never had a thing for cheerleading, so obviously I would get fed up one day and I might just end up leaving the group, or regretting of ever joining in the first place, or even get embarrassed.

Maybe I should call it off. I'd give my answer at school tomorrow after I think well about it. I stand and slam myself into the soft bed.

My phone rings and I trace my hand to the cabinet to grab it. I place it to my ears and pick it up already before I check the screen. Shade's name is on the screen.

"Shade."

"What the actual fuck, Rayne? You got me worrying all night where you might have gone to and your phone was unreachable. Thank God, I had your mom's number." Shade blurt.

"Oh, sorry about that. I didn't know."

"It's fine though. I'm at school, so can't talk much. We'd see you at school tomorrow, right? I'd have come to your place right after school, but I submitted my art paintings to a company as a freelance and they said they want to review it. So, they need me to be present."

"Maybe they want more than freelance? You're pretty good to become an actual worker." I encourage, and she laughs.

"They could."

"I'm actually and thoroughly sorry for being a disturbance."

"Better. You're a wave, gal."

"Whatever your lordship says." I tease.

"Actually, you sobered me up real quick because I drank too much and thought it's going to be morning before I get better, but when we couldn't find you, then, saw your heels around the backyard, I got sobered instantly. So I'm-a forgive you for that." She says and I snicker. "Your mom said you got your head hit, really hard. She just messaged me this morning."

"Yeah."

"Hope it isn't serious?"

"Not that I think of, no!"

"How did you even get yourself hit in the head when you never drink like we did?"

"I don't really know."

"And how did you get yourself to the hospital?"

"I don't even know—"

Something pops right into my brain... like flashes... images so foggy... crimson... bleeding eyes... scarlet... elongated pearly white teeth, tainted with crimson thick liquids... more like blood... inhuman acts... The bad boy and his sister... he was doing something to Lydia... if what I'm thinking is what he is then, he must be feeding off Lydia. Yeah, vampires feedings usually subjects to pains.

I guess I'm right...no, silly me, I can't be... vampires aren't real... they are only nightmares in people's imaginations... they can't be... no, they can not be... if they are, then the world would have been destroyed since a long time ago, or turned into a vampire-enslave-human world. Things wouldn't be like this.

"Hello? Hello, Rayne?"

"I'll call you back." And I hang up. I grab my hair in a fistful, pulling them up but careful not to cause myself pain, yet it's uncomfortable. I don't seem to care as I steer off into the lame possibilities.

If the bad boy is what I think of him to be, he wouldn't tell me and if he did, he'd do something to me that would make his secret hidden. But this possibility that's disturbing me and the hazy memories will always haunt me unless I ask him. I will have to summon bravery when I see him at school tomorrow. More also, satisfying myself by asking him questions will help me to know how I landed at the hospital and other forgotten memories. Or maybe I'm just making up unnecessary thoughts because of the concussion.

I spend the rest of the day looking over to the woods, taking a rest on the bed to reel over the thoughts again and again and again since it just won't leave me be.

That night, I dreamed of eerie dreams involving blood, flooding onto a white floor, nothing in sight but whites... fangs, walking by itself without being attached to a jaw and wanting to crawl to bite me... woods, trees and shrubs trailing after me... and red, glowing eyes chasing me in a dark room. It's taunting and dreading that I couldn't sleep anymore when I wake up.

I get up, halfway on the bed and support my stomach with lots of pillows at the chest to prop up and look out through the window to the woods. It's dead silent, very taciturn as if no creature could be in there but I know better, there is. I can feel it.

There is something, or someone in there, probably watching me from faraway, away from my far sight. It's terrifying just to dwell into the thought alone. So, I go back to sleep when the time in the analogue watch on my cabinet says four in the very early of morning.

A breeze blows, sprawling my hair and my eyes wrinkle to open and adjust. I draw my hair from my face, and stand to an upright, sitting position on the bed and turn when I see my windows open.

What the... how?

Dried brown, yellow and green leaves flies in and I pick those in my hair, throwing them out through the same open window. I have no idea how it even opened.

Mr. Bad-boy Originals! My subconscious daunt and I shun her instantly. Those were just yesterday's thought. It's still dark which means I haven't even slept at all and the sky is granted with just a crescent moon and less stars but still, it's marvelous and exquisite to watch in sync with the beautiful colouration of the woods.

The window creaks, opening more, shit, exactly like in the movies, where an unknown, frightening, beasty monster would just come in and want to devour its sinister part on its victim. Maybe I'll act Bruce Lee after all, at this time of the night.

As my hands trails closer to grab the plastic handle to close the window, I feel the air shift, becoming more cooler and breezing more and more.

My heart picks up a pace and when I reach the handle to pull the window, an ear-piercing sound erupt.