I made it all the way and darted into the parking lot.
After clearing the last line of cars, I spotted the door. As I ran up to it, a husky vampire wielding a spear-like weapon began chasing me. Ugly and livid, I could smell his putrid breath from several yards away.
He drew close and I froze. I would never be able to punch the combination to the door with this dominating chump standing over me.
“Where are you going?” he demanded. “This is a restricted area!”
He gawked hard at my forehead, noticing the absence of a TriFang symbol. “You’re a guest. That means you might be a spy. I’m going to have to arrest you.”
He tried to grab my arm. I backed up, and with adrenaline flooding through my blood rich veins, I pulled out one of my stakes and plunged it into his left thigh.
He fell to the ground screaming, the stake still sticking into his paralyzed leg. Rapidly, I punched the combination into the door and darted inside.
I was in a gloomy corridor. A staircase spiraled up as far as I could see, which I guessed was the way back to the surface. Beginning my climb, the orb in my pocket buzzed. I put it to my ear while continuing on up.
“Janice, you will not be able to get out this way. There are security breaches everywhere.”
An alarm went off, flashing and lighting up the corridor. Nervous and shaking, I continued to listen to my guide's voice.
“Keep climbing. When you reach the twelfth floor, push hard against the wall directly below the floor level indicator. There will be a secret passageway there. Hurry! You cannot be seen by anyone.”
Fired by the flashing alarm and the urgency in my guide's voice, I increased my speed up the steep staircase. I tripped at least twice, banging my knee against the sharp steel. Then I heard footsteps from below coming up fast. My heart sunk. They'd found me. This chick was history. But I couldn’t give up.
I reached the twelfth floor and pressed up against the wall like I'd been told to. A panel immediately slid open, allowing me enough room to slip inside. Before even looking at my new surroundings, I quickly pushed the wall panel back into place. It locked tightly.
I was in yet another dimly lit tunnel that was narrow and stunk like hell. With my knees soaked from some filthy gook all over the floor, I managed to stand up, but only just - the roof was barely inches above my head. Turning around, the orb vibrated. I listened to my new message.
“Janice, carry on through this tunnel until you reach a ladder at the end. Use this to climb your way to the surface. But take care. It is a long way up, and there are creatures in there that you don’t want to mess with. Hurry!”
I trudged on through the thick gook, which bubbled as I moved through it. At first I didn’t see anything, which was good. But soon I began to feel something nudging and gnawing at my shoes. I hoped it was nothing. But I was proven wrong when a worm-like monster jumped up on my leg. It was a deadworm, the same sort of hideous creature that had assaulted me when I was locked up in the orphanage prison cell. Disgusted, I brushed off the neon-blue beast that looked like a slimy skeleton with fangs. It landed back in the sludge. Good riddance, bloodsucking ass.
As I moved on through this hellhole, the gook got deeper.
Three more deadworms jumped up at me - one landed right on my chest. Tearing it off, I slammed it violently against the wall, shattering its thin skeletal frame into tiny pieces. But while doing this, two more of the repulsive creatures were busy biting me on the back and on the leg. The pain was shocking.
Somehow I gathered the energy to knock them off, even while they were feasting on my blood. I moved on, weakened by the pain raging through my body. My determination to survive increased when I saw the ladder at the end of the tunnel.
More deadworms lunged and bit at me like I was a meaningless tube of blood. I twirled around in all directions, swatting them off while still amazingly managing to make slow forward progress. I'd collected at least three more really bad bites by the time my trembling hands finally grabbed hold of the ladder. I didn't dare pause, not even to draw a few breaths. I knew that if I succumbed to the pain and fatigue I’d die down here, and then I'd never be able to discover what great secret of my life existed. If indeed, there was any secret.
With what little energy I had left, I began climbing up the ladder. A clutch of deadworms jumped up after me with their bloodsucking fangs, but thankfully they fell short and dropped back down into the slime. I continued to climb, unable to see the top.
I didn’t know how or where I got the strength to complete the endless climb. But somehow I made it. With hands burning raw from grasping the bars, I reached the top. Unable to stand, I crawled toward an opening that showed a weak light.
Sparkling leaves brushed up against me and I knew I was now outside in the woods. The world was swirling around me. I was unable to move, but I did manage to glance up and see some masked figures dressed in black. I recognized the voices of Martin and his assistants. My fuddled brain tried to work out how they knew I was here. Oh yeah - they must have been tracking me. They put a blanket around my body and tried to keep me warm. That was the last thing I remembered before passing out.
When I woke up, my surroundings gradually came into focus. I was lying in my coffin, staring up at the ceiling of my bedroom.
“Janice! Janice!”
I shifted my head slightly and saw Brett’s welcoming face. A very relieved looking Mr. FreeCut was standing beside him.
EXPLAINING
I sat up in my coffin, remembering everything. The worm bites. The party. The hellhole tunnel. And worst of all, the pain. But I wasn't feeling any pain at all now. Martin and his friends must have healed me. Nevertheless, I had a lot of explaining to do to a pretty stern looking Mr. FreeCut.
“What happened to you?” he asked. “I found you passed out on the front lawn.”
“I don’t know….” I began. Then I remembered I needed to be smart. “I was doing a lot of jogging to train for the fireball tournament. Looks like I went too hard. Sorry. I need to be more careful.”
I hoped they bought this.
Mr. FreeCut frowned. “Are you sure no one tried to attack you?”
“No one touched me.”
He sighed deeply. “Well, just be careful and take it easy. I think you better stay inside and rest for the next day or two.” He glanced at Brett. “Anyway, I’ll leave you two alone. If you need to talk to me about anything, you’re always welcome.”
Almost as soon as he left, we kissed smoothly and deeply, with Brett nipping my tongue and rewarding me with a gift of undeniable pleasure. Yet even in this moment of bliss, I knew trouble was coming. I couldn’t hide the truth from him any longer. I couldn’t let my true feelings and desires be bottled up by somebody who supposedly loved me. He had to accept them. Or he’d have to deal without me.
“I’m glad you’re alright,” he said. “I really freaked out when I saw you lying on the ground, especially since I knew you'd been messing around with people you shouldn’t have. But don't worry. I said nothing about that to Mr. FreeCut, just like you asked.”
He then hit me with a tough stare, giving a hint that he didn’t trust me. “Janice, tell me the truth. Are you sure this latest incident has nothing to do with your so-called secret messenger?”
“No,” I lied, feeling both offended and humiliated at the same time.
Now it was my turn to bite the bullet. “But you do need to know this. I’m still going to listen to my guide - who is real by the way. And he cares about me. He's going to help me discover something very special and important about myself. If you really love me, you'll want me to know what that is.”
He neither frowned nor smiled. “That’s the thing, Janice. I do love you. And it's because I love you that I’m going to have to break up. That’s it between us unless you change your mind.”
“I can't do that,” I said, looking him straight in the eyes.
Now I was the aggressor, not him. It appeared he was about to emot
ionally burst.
“Well, I guess it’s goodbye then,” he said sadly. He tried to hug me, but I backed off. Even then I couldn’t look away from his flawless eyes.
“You’re such an amazing vampire,” he told me. “And I hate to lose you. Whenever you’re ready to listen to me, you know I’ll welcome you back.”
“Whenever you’re ready to appreciate my beliefs, and who I am as a vampire, I’ll welcome you back,” I retorted.
I don't know how I had the guts to maintain my stare as Brett quietly left the room and walked out of my life.
At first I was proud of myself; I had stood up for something that meant so much to me. But that quickly changed. Soon I was mourning over the treasure I’d lost.
I lay down in my coffin, already missing Brett like crazy. No longer would he come to pick me up. No more would I be able to feel his strong arms around me, enjoy his sexy aroma, and bask in his long black hair brushing up against my face. He was gone. Out of my life. Done.
I was drowning in a lava pit of despair inside my lonesome coffin. Even though Mr. FreeCut had advised me to stay inside - and certainly I’d listened to a lot of his advice - I just couldn’t stay in tonight. I had to be moving and trying to achieve something meaningful in my life.
I decided to sneak out of the house and take a train to the recreation center for some fireball practice. Concentrating on winning the tournament might help to get Brett off my mind. And if I was gonna win, I was gonna need all the practice I could get.
The late night train ride was cold and lonely without Brett’s protection and warmth. Several of the passengers sent seedy looks my way, but I was beginning to fear more than just an annoying cat call or uncomfortable grope. Remembering how I'd stabbed one of TriFang's guards in the thigh, I was sure they had put out a bounty on me. But I couldn’t let them scare me into giving up. No. I was gonna win the contest. Or at least die trying.
I slipped quietly into a packed recreation center, seeking to attract as little attention as possible. The first floor was booming with perspiring fireball amateurs pounding the balls to each other. After showing my tournament ticket, which now allowed me access to the third level - a place I’d not yet seen - I made my way to the escalator.
It was quieter down on the second level, with fewer vamps attempting the treacherous spinning squares. I felt an eerie sensation that I was being watched. Shrugging this off, I continued riding the escalator down to the third level, the most advanced standard that anyone who was serious about winning the tournament needed to master.
Here, I discovered, the playing area was considerably smaller than the two above, and had quite a few less playing squares. The room teemed with high achieving tournament players ready to kick ass and acquire the experience they needed to win the big Carns. The ruddy playing squares rose out of the ground like spewing lava from a volcano, spinning and dipping much faster than the ones on the second level, and reaching much greater heights.
Looking up, I watched the athletic players battling it out. I saw one player flung from the square and hit the foam on the ground painfully hard. That was going to leave a bruise. Nevertheless, the courageous girl stood up like nothing had happened.
While I and the rest of the gamers continued to check out the remaining players at the mercy of the gyrating squares, I saw something extraordinary appear over their heads. Flying straight at them and interrupting their field of play was a pack of monsters. Not real monsters of course, but dramatically lifelike holographic images. A ghostly, three-headed dragon charged at one of the players, who expertly evaded the computerized beast before pummeling an incoming fireball into the square of an opposing competitor.
I said hello to Kate, who was taking a break from an exhausting practice.
“Maybe they’re not real,” she said, glancing up at the flying holograms. “But you have to avoid them all the same. If they make any kind of physical contact, you’ll lose.”
I figured out what she was talking about when one of the players was unable to avoid the flames coming from the dragon. A circular trapdoor in her individual square flipped open, sending her tumbling down onto the foam below.
Thankfully, the fake flames disintegrated on impact. So she was not burned, just beaten.
“Dammit, bitch dragon got me again!” she cried, beating her fists on the floor.
After several degrees of waiting and watching, Kate and I finally stepped onto a free platform with two other vamps I didn’t know. As we rose high in the air, a fireball mysteriously dropped from the ceiling, landing in the center of the platform. It then bounced into my personal square.
I slammed the ball into the next player’s square just as the main platform began to sway. Then it rose violently and fell again, forcing us all to work hard in keeping our footing. For one girl it was too much. She crashed to the floor. Either she hadn’t practiced enough, or she was simply having a bad night.
My corner abruptly plummeted, giving Kate a brief advantage as she jolted high above me. Intercepting the ball, she bounced it hard into my square again. I managed to keep my balance and countered, pounding the ball back to her. She missed it completely and it bounced to the floor.
The trapdoor in her square immediately opened and she plunged down into the loser category. I hated to knock a good friend out, but there could be only one winner. Besides, she might whoop my butt in the next round.
I focused on the brute in the square across from me. We were caught in an endless battle, knocking the ball back and forth to each other with increasing ferocity. Every time I thought I had a chance to knock him out, he somehow managed to smack the ball back into my square, even when I had the advantage of rising above him.
I was growing increasingly frustrated when a hologram suddenly appeared in the middle of the platform. Shimmering with a jade tint, it was a brawny one-eyed monster brandishing a sharp ax. Its grisly white eye was huge, taking up over half its entire head.
It charged at me, swinging its weapon. I dodged the attack, knowing that this bogus creature would not physically hurt me, even if it did make contact. But to lose this game would hurt in another way. I speedily intercepted a fast flying fireball by the hair of my knuckles and flung it back the way it had come from.
Now my opponent was the one facing the ball and an attack from the creature at the same time. He succeeded in hitting the ball back to me, but as I prepared to return it yet again, I realized there was no need to. My opponent was no longer standing on his square. He must have taken a direct hit from the ax.
Of course I felt good as I stepped off the lowering square. I'd won the round, and Brett was the last thing on my mind. Well, maybe not the last thing, though it was clear I could be happy without him. I could make it. Love was a wonderful thing, but I had to think of me first. I was gonna win this damn tournament!
I practiced relentlessly for more than half of the night, determined to make myself the best fireball player in Vampire World. It didn’t come easy. I lost multiple rounds, repeatedly falling and hitting the floor so violently that it felt like I’d been run over by ten trucks. But I gained confidence every time I got back up, and I become faster with every winning round.
Tired and hurting, though temporarily free from the mental anguish of breaking up with Brett, I rode the train back to Mr. FreeCut’s house with a smile on my face.
The rest of the night I got only a few degrees of sleep. I dreamed of Brett, not by my side, but running away from me with some super gorgeous vampire he’d met on the street. I woke up with my head aching. Instead of drowning in a sea of bloody remorse, I concentrated on the bulky book in front of me. This was the gateway to my exciting new career.
Heavy, thick and dusty, I began studying the location of every item in Vampire Supermarket. Since I’d already gained experience in finding the female clothing, I focused on the male section.
Ironically, I discovered that the male stock was considerably larger than the female. The selection was vast: flaming jeans wi
th blood smeared on them, shirts made completely out of skeletal bones, 3-D caps with images of beating hearts, skulls and severed vampire heads, spiffy suits drenched in blood, ties with strange images that came alive – and that was just for starters.
Once I'd got into it, I forget about the stress and actually started enjoying what I was doing. Just thinking about being an assistant manager, and possibly one day even manager itself, of the best clothing store in all of Vampire World sent bloodflies racing through my stomach. Not like Brett did, of course. But in a differently cool way.
Now I could enjoy a freedom like no other. A freedom to be my own self, and to forget about Brett for a while. Yeah he was good, but this was just as good. Maybe even better in some ways.
There was a knock at my door. It was Mr. FreeCut.
I must have been psychic 'cos I was pretty confident I knew what he wanted to talk to me about. Brett must have told him everything. I prepared myself.
“So you got a promotion,” he began.
Well, maybe I wasn't as smart as I thought.
Upbeat, I told him everything, especially how much I loved my job and how I couldn’t wait to advance.
He congratulated me. “Finding a career that you love is one of the most rewarding things a vampire can experience. Intelligence, willpower and patience are all qualities that you possess, and they will lead you to success, Janice. In other words, you will lead yourself to success. Your future is entirely in your own hands.”
He comforted me with his words of wisdom.
After talking for quite some time without once referring to Brett, he headed toward the door. I didn’t want him to leave.
“Janice,” he said, pausing and turning around. “I know about the break-up, so I understand it’s probably a very tough time for you.”
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