Soul Crafter

Chapter Two: The Deadly Guest

Michelle woke to the grey light of the morning peeking through her blinds. Groggy, she looked around her simple, white, sparsely decorated, bedroom. Only one painting hung on the wall— a willow tree, mounted above her window. There were a couple of knickknacks here and there, along with a picture of her as a teenager, along with her parents whose arms were wrapped around her. The picture was aimed away so that she wouldn’t see it. She slowly got up from her bed and made her way to the bathroom. After freshening up and brushing her teeth, she returned to her bedroom and got dressed in a red sweater and deep blue jeans. She added on some pieces of jewelry— a blue teardrop shaped pendant necklace and studded earrings. She brushed her short, straight blonde hair, and brushed down her bangs. Once satisfied with her look, she left her room to make breakfast.

     Her kitchen was in full view of the living room and small dining area, as her house had a wide, open layout. She cooked eggs and placed them on top of her lightly buttered toast. She then took her plate and walked over to the dining table to eat. As she set her plate down on the table, she heard a light groan. Her face turned white as a sheet as she looked around; she saw a tall, pale man sit up on her couch and stretch.

     “Good morning,” he said with a yawn.

     “Holy crap, you’re real!” Michelle exclaimed, putting one hand on her chest and stepping back.

     “What, am I that unbelievable?” he asked, grinning and standing up to his full towering height.

     “I just… I didn’t think any of what happened actually happened,” she admitted, watching his every move while recalling each gory detail of yesterday— including the incredible claims he had made.

     “I can assure you, it did.” He pulled out a chair opposite her and sat down at the dining table. “So, what’s for breakfast?” he asked, eyeing her plate.

     “Oh, I didn’t make you anything… Since I was trying to convince myself you weren’t real. What would you like?”

     “Aw, what a shame,” he sighed. Michelle walked back to the kitchen and opened the fridge. “I’ve got pickles, eggs, cream,” she moved the cream aside to reveal a leftover sweet dessert, “some cheesecake—”

“Cheesecake?” Victor perked up.

“Yep.”

“Oh, I’ll have a slice of that.”

     “What, you want cheesecake for breakfast?” she asked incredulously.

     “Well, yeah. You Americans practically eat sugar-laden dessert for breakfast anyway, so I don’t know why that’d be a problem,” he teased.

     “I don’t eat sugary stuff for breakfast. I just eat eggs usually,” Michelle insisted. “And since when was Europe better? You eat junk, too,” she added defensively.

     “Do they? I haven’t been there for at least eighty years,” he said as simply as if he were remarking on the weather. Her eyes widened as she brought him over a slice of cheesecake, and then sat down in front of him.

     “You’re eighty years old? You look pretty good if so,” Michelle said, ogling him as if searching for signs of wrinkles.

     “Much older,” he said, picking up his fork and taking his first bite.

     “Mmm,” he moaned. “If this place does anything right, it’s cheesecake.”

     She eyed him closely as she dug into her eggs and toast.

     “I didn’t know vampires could eat… normal food,” she commented, watching him stuff another bite into his mouth.

     He looked at her, raising one eyebrow sardonically. “What I eat is normal for me,” he said, mildly darkly. They both went quiet, and he clarified, “I can eat what you might call “human food” or “normal”, but it is not as nourishing as blood. I won’t have many of my abilities, for example, if I don’t consume blood.”

     Michelle slowly swallowed her last bite of egg, looking down at her plate. She then slowly looked up at him, fear evident in her expression.

   “You’re not going to eat me, are you?” she asked in a slightly more high-pitched voice.

     He chuckled. “Of course not; don’t be silly.”

     Michelle sighed, still uncertain.

     He eyed her gently. “I’m not completely out of control. I’m not brand new. I’ve had a long time to discipline myself.”

     Their eyes met and she stared into his piercing blood eyes. Something in them caught her attention and made her lose herself in them. She stared at him for what felt like too long, and then broke the silence.

     “So,” she began, “how old are you?”

     “I’m not that old. I’ve only been around since the 1500’s.”

     “Not that old?!” Michelle exclaimed, clamping her hand over her mouth.

     “Yeah, time is really relative when you’ve got forever. Everything is so short, yet so long at the same time.”

     “I wouldn’t know,” Michelle confessed. She took their dishes to the sink and put them in the dishwasher. “Are you planning to stay here?” she asked, not quite sure what to do with him as she cleaned the crumbs off of the countertop.

     “I’ll be staying as long as it takes you to use up all of your wishes.”

     “There’s another bedroom next to mine – I’ll fix it up later, so you don’t have to live in the… living room,” Michelle finished her sentence, pondering what she just said.

     “God forbid I live there,” Victor grinned.

     Michelle examined the dining table to make sure she wasn’t forgetting anything. She finally noticed      there were subtle sunbeams landing on Victor’s skin. “Wait, how is it that you’re not on fire?”

     It took a minute for Victor to figure out what she was talking about, then he followed her eyes and saw the flecks of sunlight on his skin coming from the window.

     “Oh.” He chortled. “Sunlight doesn’t actually bother me, personally.”

     “Personally?” She noted his choice of words.

     “Yes, I’ll perhaps explain it to you some day,” Victor said quite curtly, conveying his unwillingness to delve any deeper into the subject. His refusal to tell her made her more curious, but she decided she’d let it go, for now.

     “Anyhow, I’ve got to get ready to go to class,” Michelle finally said.

     “Class?” he repeated.

     She nodded, and then, everything went dark. She gasped when she thought she had gone blind. There was nothing but pitch-darkness all around her. She tried to flail her arms around her to feel for anything, but she felt like she was inside of a void without anything that she could hold onto. She was shocked to realize she couldn’t feel the ground below her.

     Slowly, light began to fade into her view, and before she could properly adjust her mind to what had just happened, she found herself standing in front of her college, on the sidewalk of her campus.

     “And here we are,” Victor announced triumphantly, amused by Michelle’s perplexed and horrified expression.

     She looked around, bewildered, and then turned to him in astonishment. He was wearing brand new clothes, albeit completely dressed in black, with black books. His long, dark hair was loosely tied back, his expression one of someone who looked like they were about to burst out laughing. She felt weight on her back, and realized she was carrying her backpack.

     “What just happened?” Michelle squeaked, helplessly looking around at all the students passing her by.

     “Well, you said you had class— so here we are!” he said. He grabbed her hand, and they began to walk up the sidewalk.

     “How did you know which college I went to?” she asked, surprised by the chilliness of his hand. As they walked past crowds of students, they all seemed to magically step out of the way as she walked by them, and none of them seemed to even notice Victor beside her— the tall, dark stranger.

     “I found the location in your mind and I just… transported us here. It’s one of the many things I can do,” he said, smiling, enjoying shocking her.

     It was true that Victor could have easily found out where Michelle went to college, but he omitted the fact that he actually had already known all along, and therefore hadn’t actually needed to probe her mind.

     “What? In my mind? Stay out of there!” Michelle hissed, embarrassed.

     “It’s not like I can,” Victor confessed. “You might as well be asking me to not be able to hear you when you’re speaking next to me,” he explained, somewhat annoyed. 

     Michelle frowned at him. “You mean I can’t hide anything from you?”

     “Not really, no,” Victor said.

Michelle looked into his eyes, horrified.

     “Oh no,” she uttered, remembering all the times she thought about how handsome he was, or beautiful—or how her eyes had lingered on his chest or abdomen. She pursed her lips and looked down, trying to hide the fact her cheeks were now bright red.

     They entered the building and made their way down the crowded halls. Absolutely no one noticed she was walking with an extremely handsome tall man with the smoothest alabaster skin Michelle had ever seen.

     “Why are they ignoring you?”

     “If I want them to notice me, they will.”

     “Hey, Michelle, over here!” a familiar feminine voice called.

     Michelle looked beyond the crowd, and saw her friend, Bianca Noble, alongside her brother, Christopher Noble.

     “Oh, goody, friends of yours,” Victor jokingly muttered in her ear.

     Michelle walked up to Bianca and Christopher. “Hi, guys.” She smiled and kissed them both on the cheek and noted a pungent odor that smelled like cannabis coming from Chris. Neither of them had noticed Victor, but once he made his presence known, they couldn’t take their eyes off him. Bianca gawked and actually looked like she would drool. Chris backed up with a startled expression.

     “So, who’s you’re friend, Michelle?” Christopher, or Chris, as Michelle liked to call him, had shaggy light brown hair and bright green eyes. He was considered a bit troubled. His parents had recently divorced, and it really left a mark on him. His sister, on the other hand, was experiencing some moments of irritation with life in general. His sister, unlike him, had darker brown hair, warn brown eyes, and was slightly tanner than her pale brother.

     “Oh, this is Victor. He’s a…” she trailed off, uncertain how to introduce him.

     “I’m her boyfriend,” he said. With that, Michelle turned scarlet.

     Christopher scowled at that. He didn’t like hearing that Michelle had a boyfriend.

     “Ha ha, you’re such a jokester.”

     “She’s still in denial; she can’t believe she caught a guy like me,” Victor grinned in Bianca and Chris’s direction. Suddenly, a glazed over, brain-dead look came over Bianca’s face as she stared at him, captivated by his grin.

     The loud buzzer went off, bringing Bianca halfway back to her senses. It was time for them to go to class.

     “That’s us leaving now!” Michelle exclaimed, grabbing Victor’s arm and pulling him away from her friends.

     “Bye, I’ll see you later!” she said, and she walked away with Victor, leaving her friends with a puzzled expression on their faces.