Chapter 3: The Encounter
1480 Words
Brooke had gone to her room after breakfast, she opened her wardrobe and opened the secret compartment nobody knew about. It was her secret, she entered the passcode 260823 and her wardrobe expended revealing the most exotic collection of daggers and sharp silver objects, she pulled out the dagger and she had found earlier and rotated it in her hands to examine it again, she took off the case and noticed something written on the inside of the case she had missed earlier
She carefully traced the engraved words and read the word "αναγέννηση"; it was written in Greek, which meant "rebirth". Greek was the language often used by ancient vampires. The engraving showed that the dagger could be centuries old, Brooke was even more intrigued to find out more about the dagger, she decided not to tell anyone about it yet. She put it back in its case, and placed it in her collection among other daggers. She heard a knock on her door
"Coming!" She shouted and quickly closed the compartment and shut her wardrobe door before opening her room door, it was Norissa,
"We were planning on going to the noble street. Would you like to join us?" She asked
"When are you going?"
"Probably in a few hours"
"I'll come with you guys" Brooke replied
"Ok, I'm going to get ready" Norissa gave a smile and left. Brooke closed the door and went to take a shower. Noble street was one of the oldest streets of markets in Kladestine, She wasn't going with them because she wanted to buy anything, she was going because she knew that the internet didn't have any information about the dagger, only a few ancient books could actually tell her more about it and noble street had a few libraries which could have old books like that.
Brook changed her clothes and wore a comfy floral frock, tied her hair in a bun and wore sneakers. She had worn such clothes after a long time so she prepared herself for the reactions she was going to get from her friends and everyone else. Brooke was all ready, but she knew that she had to wait for others, she didn't like being bored so she went out of the house to take a stroll in the forest. She was walking around when she heard some sounds coming from her range, she was confused and slightly angry that someone was messing with her stuff, so she hurried towards the range but went stealthily so she could examine the intruder before facing whoever it was, she reached the range and hid behind a tree, she wasn't really looking at his appearance so she only noticed that he was very well dressed but kept her focus on eyeing what he was doing with her stuff, he tied the rope of her swinging targets back to the tree and checked the time, Brooke understood that he was about to leave so she came out of her hiding spot and stood behind him without making a single noise, the man turned around and stopped right where he was after seeing Brooke, the man was taller than her so she had to look up to him to maintain eye contact, the man was taken aback by her sudden appearance but managed to maintain eye contact by slightly tilting his head downwards with a surprised and confused reaction on his face, both of them stared at each other for a few seconds then realized how close they were standing to each other, the man abruptly broke the eye contact and took a step back, before speaking
"Who are you?" He said after taking a good look at Brooke
"You tell me the answer of that question since you're the one invading my space" Brooke replied in an unfriendly tone
"Oh I am sorry I must apologize for invading your personal space, I was just looking around I didn't know it was off limit"
"You still didn't tell me who you are?" She asked again
"I…uh I just happened to pass by looking for my…um lost object" the man replied awkwardly
"Did you find it?"
"Find what?" He said
"Whatever you're looking for?" Brooke said in an obvious way
"Right, um no I couldn't find it unfortunately"
"Unfortunate indeed" Brooke agreed
"Anyways I was just about to leave, I apologize again for the trespassing, however I must say that I can see very clearly that you have an excellent aim"
"Apology accepted and thank you for the compliment" Brooke replied, no longer frowning and gave the man a slight smile
"Thankyou and good-bye" he said, Brooke waved back in reply, the man turned around to leave, he had only taken a few steps when he turned around again, the sunrays directly hit him on the face making his eyes and hairs shine in a lighter shade of brown, he opened his mouth to say something, closed it again and then finally spoke
"It was nice meeting you, you're an…interesting individual not to mention extremely beautiful as well"
"Next time you can use this place if you want to, with me knowing" Brooke replied still smiling
"I would gladly take your offer" he said and stood there for a second lost in his thoughts
"Bye" Brooke said, still smiling and the man walked away.
That was extremely unusual, Brooke didn't normally react this way when her space was invaded, the man felt strangely intriguing and looked quite handsome, not to mention he was extremely well mannered and a gentleman, Brooke thought to herself walking back to the house as the image of that man standing in sunlight flashed in her mind, she caught herself smiling, she had never blushed or smiled at any compliment before but quickly regained control on her facial expressions, what is happening to me? She tried her best to banish every thought of the stranger she had just encountered. She went inside the house and saw Hayden and Norissa already dressed up they both stared at her up and down for a minute
"Where were you we've been waitin-" Hayden stopped mid sentence "You look….highly unusual" He finished his sentence
"Beautiful he meant" Norissa said
"Oh well… thank you" Brooke replied in an awkward tone
"I almost forgot that you have feminine clothing as well" Avery who had also joined them spoke up
"When did you come downstairs?" Norissa asked Avery
"Just a minute ago when you both were busy staring at her"
"Can we go now if you guys are done? Brooke spoke up
"Right, let's go everyone" Hayden said and walked towards the door
"Whose car are we taking?" Norissa asked
"There's no need to take a car we can walk, besides we're going to noble street you won't find any good parking spot" Brooke replied
"I agree with her" Avery said, Hayden sighed in defeat but then looked at them with a smirk
"Should we race instead?" He said
"Oh now you're talking. I'm in" Brooke replied happily
"I'm going to win" Avery said
"There is only gonna be one winner that is me" Norissa said
"We'll see about that" everyone got in their position and Hayden spoke "On the count of three…two..one!"
All four vampires ran at their supernatural speed, Hayden was at the front, followed by Norissa, behind her was Brooke and Avery was last, by the end of race Norissa had taken Hayden's spot and came first, Hayden became the runner up and Brooke came and Avery lost,
"Told you all that I'm the only winner" Norissa said proudly
"What matters is that I beat Brooke" Hayden spoke, smirking
"You didn't beat me, I let you win because you've been crying since morning" Brooke replied
"That is a lie and you know it, just admit you've lost Brooke" Hayden argued
"Whatever helps you sleep at night" Brooke smiled mockingly, Hayden opened his mouth to argue but Avery cut him off
"Can you both shut up? How are you even friends when all you do is fight?" She said annoyingly
"I ask myself the same question" Brooke and Hayden said in unison, then looked at each other and burst out in laughter,
"They're both mad" Norissa said, Avery nodded in agreement and they both walked to the shops leaving the other two behind
"What are you looking for? I mean what did you want to buy from here?" Brooke asked Hayden while they walked together to the shops
"I just needed a few clothes" he replied
"I think we just passed the shop for them" Brooke turned around
"Oh there it is, do you wanna come with me? Help me choose?" Hayden asked
"I would help you but I have something really important to do right now so I'll join in a few minutes"
"Sure" he said and went inside the shop.
- Writer
