Say Yes To Forever

Chapter Eight

“Je ne sais pas ce que vous voulez que je fasse!” Dad replies aggressively to Mom.

“Quelque chose n'importe quoi! C'est une Humaine, Claude.”

He sighs, “J'en suis bien conscient, Caroline. Mais nous ne pouvons pas l'arrêter. Il est bien parti pour s'accoupler avec elle, il n'y a rien à faire.”

Through the door, it sounds like Mom falls into the nearest armchair, “Elle est Humaine....”

There’s some movement and then Dad’s voice softens, “Donc? Tu l'étais aussi.”

“C'est illégal.”

But I cannot bring myself to listen to it anymore. Tearing myself away from the door to Dad’s office, I stumble to the kitchen. I avoid Tori’s gaze but sit next to her at the breakfast bar. I don’t say anything, but I don’t have to.

“Better me than them,” she comments quietly.

For having seen us like that? Definitely. “I had it all planned… I was going to talk to them tonight.”

Her hand comes up to my shoulder as I’m hunched over the counter. “I know.”

“And I think Dad is right….”

“About?”

“Not just împerechere with her, but întipărire.”

I see her surprise out the corner of my eye. “… really?”

Willow and Alex are close to three hundred and fifty years old, Tori just turned two hundred, and none of them have ever talked about having been cuplata before. None of them have ever talked about feeling that once-in-a-lifetime experience of întipărire. If we didn’t have the proof of Mom and Dad, I might not have believed it was even a real thing, (until now). “Yes.”

“That’s….”

“Heavy.”

Tori gets up and heads to the fridge. Holding out a beer she agrees, “Yeah, heavy.”

I open the bottle and chug about half of it. Tori sits down and sips hers. There is a lull and then she asks, “Are you happy?”

Tori, who I’ve never known to want a relationship. Tori, who I’ve seen serial date over the past couple of decades. Tori, who will stay with a guy for maybe a month and often isn’t monogamous, looks to me with a saddened expression. “It must be nice.”

“Yes, Tori, it’s nice. It’s really, really nice.”

---

Cyrus hadn’t called me nor texted me at all on Saturday night. It’s Monday morning now and with him missing school this week, as he mentioned during our picnic, I don’t know when I’d get to see him again. I worry, though I can’t imagine why he would have gotten in trouble.

Sure, I’d rushed us out of there, but that was more out of embarrassment than being upset or not wanting to meet his family or… whatever. Maybe… maybe he was trying to give me space? Chewing on my lower lip, I send a quick text before the start of Sub-human Anthropology. ‘Hope evrythin is ok. Mayb we can meet 4 coffee? Go 2 the bookstore? Let me no, xoxo.’

After we finish the quiz on Fae, Ramsey turns off the lights. At the projector, he clears his throat. “This week we’re going over chapter five, the Sub-human in question: Vampires.”

Notebook open to a new page I write ‘9.29.1997 – Chapter 5 – Vampires’ at the top.

“Let’s start with the overview, shall we?” Ramsey continues. “As we have in the earlier chapters, we’ll start with the lore – what Basic-humans have understood to be Vampires before the Revolution of 1912. Then we’ll hop into their biology, what their metamorphic qualities are as we understand them to be today. And last we can look at how Vampires are in modern society and what we can hope to see in the future.”

With only one hour of class on Monday and one hour on Wednesday, we surprisingly get through a lot of content. From the myths, legends, and lore, including the famous Dracula – or Vlad Of Wallachia, to the how and why Vampires are immortal from a scientific standpoint to some of the more common characteristics of Vampires in daily life. Some of the more interesting facts that corrected a lot of misconceptions I had, that I cannot wait to talk to Nikki about, are Sun poisoning, how their fangs work, the fact that they can live off animal blood (and there are companies working to make synthetic blood), and what their more than Basic-human qualities are.

As I sit in the library before my last class on Thursday, finishing my notes on chapter five to be ready for the quiz Monday morning, some of the things start tickling my mind. Something triggers the memory of Miss Kathy talking about the Laveroi’s in Duke’s dinner… Mayor Morrison so confidently interjecting they were Vampires. Vampires…?

Flipping through chapter five again, I glance over my notes…

Sun poisoning: a slow but potentially lethal process where a Vampire’s blood is evaporated, some symptoms include thirst, dizziness, headaches, and fatigue. The longer Vampires are in the sun, the sicker they may become.

Fangs: fangs are one of the most noticeable metamorphic changes to the body, though they can be held at three lengths. 1. Extended – to feed or fight, 2. Low – which is the most comfortable. 3. Retracted – to hide their fangs, though this may cause mild discomfort or pressure against their sinuses.

Blood: blood is essential to the livelihood of Vampires, they need it for all physical functions, like Humans. However, their body cannot produce it or cycle it properly, so they must supplement it from a different source, such as Human, animal, or chemical. Recent intake of blood may cause Vampires to have a surge of energy, may fend off sun poisoning, and help their accelerated healing.

Metamorphic attributes: including but not limited to… superhuman senses, superhuman strength, superhuman speed, accelerated healing, the ability to manipulate energy, and having the ability to read emotions or thoughts.

… on extremely sunny days we’ve spent outside, Cyrus has commented on having dehydration-type symptoms by the end of our hike.

… regardless of how long we spend together or what the weather is like, Cyrus comments how rain must be coming to explain the sinus pressure he feels.

… when we’ve had travel mugs or other opaque containers, he always says I wouldn’t like his coffee or cider or whatever and stops me from drinking it.

… I’d always thought his obvious strength was ‘cause he was a guy, but even after hiking for hours over hills, or carrying armfuls of wood, he never seems the least bit tired.

Could Cyrus really be a Vampire?

… even if… does it really matter?