My last suicide attempt

43

I slipped on my converse quickly and ran out of the bedroom, down the stairs, down the hall and out the front door. I pulled it shut with a light click, careful not to awaken my mother, wherever she was. I ran down the streets of my hometown, past Peartree Avenue Church in the grounds of which my father was buried, past the little row of shops at the bottom of the mile-or-two-long (literally) road, across the cross roads, towards the building sight.

Why me? Why was I the luckiest girl of the eleven, but the girl with the worst of luck in human reality? Why didn’t he kill me, like he did with the other eleven victims? What did I do now? Did I report this whole incident to the police, just to add my name to the list of girls he decided it might be fun to kill, with the slight exception that I had only been bitten and not had my throat ripped out? That he didn’t molest or rape me? At least, not while I was awake…

So I guess this wasn’t a thing like twilight, but more edging towards those horror folklore stories about how vampires went into your house at night and snatched your children and killed them and stuff.

I’d had Bipolar 2 disorder before, when I was fourteen, nearly fifteen. I was treated with mood stabilizers and therapy, and since it wasn’t as bad as some cases, my mental health returned to its orSelenary state. Ever since I’d had episodes of depression though, but the Bipolar never returned. Or, so I liked to think. But it was there: I’d had it before, who was to say it never really went away? This could all just be a delusion… I hoped so.

“It’s not,” my voice snarled. “You know it’s not.”

No, it wasn’t, but I wished it was.

I entered the building site by slyly slipping into it through a hole in the side of the large wooden fence they’d put up. From there I was gained access to the crumbling building they said they were going to re-build, and never did. I slipped past the scaffolding and found sanctuary in the dark corners of a pitch black room that had been thickly boarded up. As I leant against the boards, I silently prayed that the building would just fall down and crush me, instantly killing me. It would make everything just that much easier – maybe then I could be with my father… if there was such a thing as the afterlife.

“Avneet Jackson… we meet again.”

Tears instantly welled up at the sound of that voice, and fear shot up my spine. Hearing his footsteps echo around me, I pushed myself further into the boards.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed, sobbing and crying. I mentally cursed myself for seeming so weak and vulnerable to him – childish, even. And that was probably what he saw me as: a child. I was weak and defensless and I had no clue what was going on. I was perfect for his games.

“Must you scream so loud?” Xian sighed in the darkness. I couldn’t see him or anything: only the pitch black darkness, which scared me more. For all I knew, he could be right next to me, or in front of me or something. His footsteps still echoed all around me as he walked slowly towards me.

“Please stay away from me,” I said throatily. After a few minutes of silence, I said more strongly, “Why are you here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“Did you follow me?”

He laughed a bitter laugh. “No. I was here first.”

“Oh, very rich… you sound like a child.”

“You are a child.” He snapped harshly.

“Thanks,” I said dryly.

I heard rustling, the sound of different fabrics brushing as he moved. When my eyes adjusted to the dark, it was only just manageable for me to see Xian sat on the opposite side of the large, unsafe room with his legs crossed, eyes fixated on me.

“Did you do that to all those girls?” I asked, suddenly remembering about the article Rabi had told me about earlier. “All those poor girls, their organs missing and semen on their clothes? Was that you?”

“No!” Xian snarled. His voice was outraged, but I couldn’t see why. “Damn it, no. I’ve only bitten you.”

“That makes me feel so special,” I muttered sarcastically.

“Don’t be sarcastic towards me,” he snapped, and then continued, “I’m trying to get to the bottom of who is doing those killings, and why. Although I have a hunch who it may be, it’s not like I can turn them in to the freaking police, otherwise our whole race would be exposed surely.” His voice softened ever so slightly as he said, “I don’t know how to stop them… I… wish I could.”

I snorted. “Why should you care? You kill people, right? You suck them dry. You’re a vampire, they’ll only die eventually.”

“And you think I’m the heartless one,” he murmured to himself, before speaking louder, directing his speech to me once again. “Yeah, they’ll only die eventually, but they didn’t get the chance to experience all that bullshit humans love to do so much. You know, like move out, have babies and all that. I think everyone should be offered that chance before they die, Avni. Whoever’s doing this is sick. I might be a vampire, but I’m not twisted in the head…”

“Are you sure?” I shot back sourly. In reply, all I got was a muffled hiss, gentle and soft from deep within the depths of the darkness that surrounded us, separating us. It was supposed to be venomous, I guessed, but the way he muffled it made it sound as though he were sorry or something.

“Why are you even here?” I continued. “I don’t need you. I can do this on my own, whatever ‘this’ is. Just tell me what it is, and I’ll deal with it by myself, I don’t need anyone’s help.”

“Oh, but when you change fully,” his voice was dripping with assumption, “You know, when you feel the urge to drink a human’s blood, to torment humans as if it were all a game… when you feel the lust and desire overtake your mind, consuming every animalistic frenzy in you, you’re going to need me to help you not kill those you love.”

“I don’t need you!” My tone of voice was strained and raised. “I don’t need anyone’s help, you hear me?”

“I hear you. I hear you perfectly, Avni, but you do not hear me. I’m a vampire, you’re a vampire, and I need a favour of which only you can fulfil. I’ll make you a deal – I’ll train you to become a self-controlled vampire like me, and in return, you’ll do this favour for me?”

“Depends on what that favour is.”

“I’ll tell you when the time comes,” I could hear the smirk in his voice, his triumph overcoming the atmosphere.

After a long pause I heard him whisper, “Are you relaxed, Avni?”

I jumped at how close he suddenly was, his breath washing over my face, my strands of hair fighting with the cool breeze. I could hear his dead heart, his lips part in awe as I stared into the darkness, my eyes searching for some sign of his figure but… nothing.

“Not really,” I whispered throatily.

I felt something cold on my jaw line, moving softly along my jaw. I blinked, shocked and frozen stiff. I moved my hands subtly on the floor, feeling for him, but he was nowhere. But that was impossible; I could feel his breath on my face, hear his breath close by, feel his lips trail down my throat seductively, making my knees quiver slightly.

They quivered, my lips trembled for two reasons; one) I feared what was happening. I couldn’t feel him on the floor, but I could feel him on my skin, and two) lust. Nothing but cold, hard, solid lust shot through me, intensifying for every kiss he planted on my skin.

“Are you relaxed, Avni?” he repeated.

Nothing but a whimper sounded from my lips, and I felt him then. His arms wrapped around my waist, glee filled me as my heart thudded out of sync, quicker than a humming bird’s wings as I felt his body on mine, his lips still planting mindless, careless kisses on my neck.

“Good…” he cooed gently into my ear.

Before I knew it, a pain so fierce struck through my neck. Fire coursed through my veins, my heart thumping erratically, struggling as heaps of blood soared freely from the wound in my throat. The pain shot up my spine, causing my whole entire body to become numb, my world crumbling down piece by piece as the deathly slurping noise sounded, the feeling of my blood being drawn by my will sending my head into a pitch-black, freezing cold darkness once more.

~

The sound of heavy rain pattering on the wooden boards surrounding me was what woke me up from my blackout. When I opened my eyes, all I saw was darkness, and as my memory came flooding back to me I wished I hadn’t picked the darkest room in the building. My neck was stiff, and instantly my hand flew up to it, only to feel some kind of crusty dry stuff there.

Blood.

My lips trembled as I fought to keep back a sob. Feeling sickened, I had no choice but to spit on my bar palm to rub the dried blood away before I made my way home. Once I’d collected myself and swallowed some sobs, I crawled across the room on all fours, over to where I knew the door was. I shoved on it, ran out into the rain and squeezed through the gap in the fence again. I blinked a few times at the direct daylight, and was confused as to where the sun had gone. Just a few hours ago – for it had been hours according to my phone, which told me it had gone two in the afternoon – the sun was out and the birds were chirping to the summer’s day. Now, however, grey storm clouds rolled across the city and the downpour was so heavy it felt like hailstones. I urged myself to run, and kick-started again up the road. I almost slipped over at some parts of the slippery pavement, and my head was rushing by the time I reached my driveway. I was fighting desperately not to cry with despair.

I got inside, my hair dripping wet from the heavy rain that still fell outside, only to hear the sound of a lighter protesting to work. My jaw clenched, I walked deeper into the house, only to catch my mother lighting a cigarette up in the kitchen.

“What happened to quitting when dad died?” I spat.

“I do what I please, thank you!” yes, she was definitely high. She didn’t smoke weed, she snorted cocaine as her stupid little daily addiction, after promising me when my father died that she’d stop smoking.

“Don’t make promises if you can’t keep them,” I said grumpily. I knew not to mess with her when she was in such a soaring state, knowing how aggressive or abusive she could get at times like these, but I couldn’t help myself. To see her face when I caught her hand before it collided with my face would be priceless. A change to our normal mum’s-high-again routine.

“Who are you to tell me what to do?” she hissed, pulling back her hand, ready to snap it forward and send me flying on the floor with the power she’d use. It came in my direction, and I caught it, squeezing her wrist, making her drop her cigarette in surprise as she squirmed at my hold.

“Don’t you dare hit me.” I said lowly. “Ever. Again.” With that, I let go of her hand, only to retrieve her only packet of cigarettes, alongside the bag of cocaine that lay on the kitchen counter. I ran upstairs before she could react, her mind probably slurring with confusion at my retort. I heard her heavy footsteps as she stormed up the stairs, taking her rage out for every step closer she got. When she got onto the Harmonying, she was in full view of me, holding her drugs and co over the toilet.

“You wouldn’t.” she said darkly.

I smiled like an innocent five-year-old, and dropped the contents, flushing the chain instantly, before she could lunge herself at me and try to save her precious babies from drowning in the drains of the sewer. I wasn’t her child. Drugs were her children.

My heart shattered nonetheless. The strength I held to do such a thing was only for show; inside, everyday I hurt. It hurt for me to come home, everyday, to find her either passed out, or in a rotten mood. And she wondered why I’d stay out until the early hours of the morning – I drank to numb the pain of my father’s death. She promised to stop smoking because he’d died of lung cancer, and I was the only one around to watch it get worse – as usual, my mother was off her head somewhere every single night, whereas I was in the hospital, trying to reassure him. I often asked myself at the time, ‘Who am I kidding? Myself or him?’, and truth be told, I never really could understand who I was trying to kid. Not even now.

I ran from the bathroom, dodging my abusive mother as she lunged for me, and swiftly went into my room and slammed the door, putting both the bolts across. Yes, I had a lock built in when she started getting aggressive as such. I couldn’t stand her being close to me, let alone forcing herself into the one place I could truly be alone. Tears staining my cheeks, I turned around, and my heart jumped with surprise.

Xian stood in front of my window, an expression of pure shock etched onto his face. He was staring at me, and my knees buckled underneath me as my mother’s fist slammed into the door, pounding continuously as I sank to the floor. I wallowed in my own despair and pity for the life I led.

Before I knew it, I was being scooped up into his arms, being held close and tightly to his chest. He stood on my open window ledge, and jumped off, headed out into the rain, braking into a sprint at inhuman speed.

“Where are we going?” I mumbled shakily, not helping myself when I buried my face into his chest.

“Anywhere you want,” he whispered back. “As long as it’s not here.”

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