One Chance

Two pairs of long legs stretched across the blue, light gray, and white wedding ring quilt beneath the apple tree on the slope of Smith Hill. The morning air felt warm and welcoming to the two friends as they sat and watched the sunrise after staying up all night to see if the eldest friend, Nikolai, could withstand the nightlife and the eerily quiet hours to the rambunctious freaks that came out to run wild in the town. 

Nikolai leaned back onto his hands and tilted his head as he watched the sunrise. “I don’t think I will miss it.” 

Alice frowned upon hearing that confession coming from her best friend and sat up to curl her legs to bury her feet beneath her knees, and wrapped her arms around her abdomen to feel safe. “There is more to do in the sunshine than in the dark, Nik.” She was determined for Nickolai to change his mind. She would miss her best friend. Their lives would be the solar opposite and they would rarely see each other again, if at all. It made her sad to think about it and she couldn’t imagine losing her friend to Vampirism. 

“Living in the darkness will be better than nothing, and that’s what it would be - being dead. Nothing.” He disputed. 

“You will have to drink blood for the rest of...of… forever.” She stuttered as she was prone to do when she became upset. She knew that either way, she would lose him even if he had promised to visit her after he overcame being a developing vampire, she didn’t have abundant confidence that he would keep his promise. 

He turned his head to look at Alice and noticed the tears falling from her green eyes, and moved to wipe the eye closer to him with his thumb. “It’s the only way.” A reminder for her and himself. 

He is too adamant to give up on living despite the illness attempting to terminate his existence, he would do anything to remain alive, and without the agony of suffering the illness - even if it meant he would become a murderer and a drinker of blood forever - it was the only alternative for him to accept.

Alice wanted to disagree and offer another solution but she understood deep down that there wasn’t anything else that could be done. She was there when his doctor gave him only a few months left to live and she was worried that he would be back in the hospital soon. She moved her face from his touch and stood up to go home for some sleep. “I will see you later, okay?” She said looking down at the blonde-haired boy with dark eyes. His skin is nearly white as a sheet with blue and purple veins translucent in his arms, neck, and chest.

He stood too and picked up his mother’s quilt, and tucked it under his arm looking at the sun in the sky for he hoped the last time. His gaze falling on Alice’s black hair on the shoulder and viewing the side of her face. He didn’t know what to say to her and he wished he could convince her that he was doing the right thing. He nodded before walking towards town to go to the cemetery to pay a visit to a vampire’s crypt. 

Alice watched him for a while before going home in the opposite direction, hoping he would be smart with his plan. 

Nikolai reached for the door handle to his beater car when the cell phone in his pocket began to vibrate violently. He had ignored calls all night from his mother, father, and sister too. He knew that they were worried and he couldn't blame them, he had stayed out all night without any contact on purpose. With a frustrated sigh, he opened the door and tossed the blanket in the back seat to answer the phone as he sat down behind the wheel. 

"Hello." He answered.

"Oh, God, Nikolai, Baby, I have been so worried! Don't you ever do this to me again!" His mother began shouting and sobbing. 

"I am sorry, mom. I am alright. I didn't mean to worry you." 

"Where have you been? Where are you now? Come home. I want to see you. You haven't taken your medication. You need to take it, now." She ranted. 

Nikolai rubbed his face as she continued to go through the emotions of him leaving the house before sundown and just now hearing from him. He wouldn't need his medication after today. If he could get to the crypt and the more his mother spoke the less that chance became. 

"Alright, okay. I am on my way home now." He interrupted to shush her up. 

"Promise me." She urged in the frantic tone her voice turned to. 

He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, he had no intention of going straight home, but when he had to make a promise about anything, he kept his word. 

"Promise." His clenched teeth allowed it to come out loud enough to be heard. He ended the call and laid his forehead against the steering wheel, his mother would suffer from his death, and even though he wouldn't be dying completely it was still a loss she would have to face. He raised his head and started the engine. He'd give her one more day. 

At four o'clock Nikolai snuck out of his window to sit on the roof to talk to Alice. His grip on the smartphone tightening as he waited for her to pick up the phone and he almost hung up just as she answered. He quickly jumped to the point. 

"I am doing it tonight. This will be the last time you'll hear from me until I am able...to you know." He sighed. He had instantly regretted not going through with it that morning and giving his family another day with him. Each one tried to protect him and baby him, and worse the way they acted knowing he would die soon. He wanted them to just let him breathe and act like a typical family with a healthy son or at least pretend to for a while to keep from making himself feel worse about the outcome. 

"I am coming with you," Alice replied. "I will meet you there at the gate and don't say no. I am leaving right now." 

"No, absolutely not. It's dangerous and I don't want you there." 

It hurt her feelings hearing him say it but she thought he had said it to keep her safe. She took a deep breath and shook her head as she picked up her car keys. "Too bad. I will be there." She ended the call. 

Nikolai looked at his phone screen in disbelief. Alice hasn't been so persistent to do anything that he didn't want her to do and she had ended the call on him. It was unlike her and he thought something was going on at her house to make her want to leave so soon. 

He looked back through his bedroom window and to make sure a family member wasn't breathing down the back of his neck with worry about what he was doing now or if he needed help with it. When he noticed that the room was empty, he climbed back through the window and stood in his room for a few minutes. His gaze falling on the rewards for football, track, and basketball that he had gotten two years before his diagnosis. It seemed like a long time ago and in a different life, a life when he lived. A life without an early death sentence. 

He walked out of the room saying goodbye to the life he lived and hello to the new life he will get in just a few hours. He told his parents that he would be over at Alice's house and dashed out of the house before they had time to stop him. 

Alice opened the car door and got out to stand by the hood of her car to wait on Nik. Her eyes puffy and red from crying until she had fallen asleep and slept up until Nik had called. The cemetery trees loomed closer as the daylight turned to a dark gray for the night to fall. A few feet from the fence and looking up at them, Alice felt like they were about to reach out and grab her, and the hand she felt on her shoulder scared her so much that she screamed out and jumped away from it. She turned around and saw Nik grinning and laughing. She rolled her eyes at him. "Not funny." 

He cleared his throat and swallowed down the laughter. "It was funny to me. I am surprised you didn't hear me pull up." He hooked a thumb to his car and furrowed his eyebrows. "Alice, please go home. This isn't safe. I am supposed to show up alone and I can't protect you." He reasoned. 

"I can protect myself!" She exclaimed.

"From a vampire?" He asked doubtfully. 

"I want to be with you until the end." 

He started to object again but the look of determination on her face had changed his mind. 

He groaned and opened the gate. "I hope this isn't a mistake." He said walking in after her and closing the gate behind him. 

He knocked on the crypt door in the order the only vampire in their town gave him. His stomach felt like it was in knots waiting for the old stone door to come open. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead and even though Arkadi's explained the process to him - his nerves were shot. 

He took Alice's hand into his own and gave a gentle squeeze. The door opened and a man that Nikolai had never seen before stood in front of him with a black tailored suit on. 

"I have a meeting with Arkadi. I am Nikolai Chadwick." 

The shorter man with white gloves on his hands stepped back and invited them in. "Ah yes, Sir has been expecting you. Do come in." He said as he took a torch from the wall, walking to the coffin in the middle of the crypt, and pressing a button on the side. The midnight blue casket sunk into the floor and a staircase came into view leading to a tunnel. "Come with me." He stood on the first step and turned towards the pair. "And, the girl? Does Sir expect her as well?" 

Alice leaned closer to Nik's arm as she saw the stairs descending into a dark hole. She didn't like stairs nor spiders and she could imagine how many were lurking in the dark down there. Her eyes going up to Nik hearing the question asked. 

Nikolai looked at, who he assumed, the butler, and down at Alice's pitch-black hair, and back at the butler. "She's my immortal support." He joked and smirked. "Is it alright that she comes, too?" He asked. 

The butler began taking each step down into the tunnel. "Very well." He replied without responding to the question. 

The three walked into the dark tunnel together beneath the soft glow of the torch in silence for what seemed like an hour to Nickolai. He was trying his hardest to not think about what was to come. He gave little thought to the whole ordeal since the offering of vampirism from Arkadi. They had met in the hospital and for weeks Arkadi would come by his room to visit and to convince him of accepting an everlasting life. Nikolai never questioned why Arkadi would selfishly offer such a gift or what would happen after he was turned into a vampire and although those questions came to his mind walking through the tunnel, he couldn't find himself to care about that now. It was too late and he wasn't going back home to expire without the benefit of existing again. 

The tunnel ended at an entrance to a huge living room in a house and Alice looked around the room trying to comprehend their location. She only knew of one big estate close to town on the opposite side of The Smith's hillside, and she thought it had been abandoned years ago. If it was the same place the outside did not match the inside. The place looked like a fortress compared to the wooden slabs of an old haunted house on the outside. 

A voice whispers next to her ear "It's lovely on the inside, isn't it?" She jumped at the sound and turned around to see no one there, and faced Nikolai again with wide eyes. Chills running up and down her arms, back, and neck. "Who's there?" She weakly implored ignoring the face of worry Nik held. 

Nikolai felt tired of waiting and wanted to sit down, he didn't want to admit the pain his stomach felt and he didn't want it to show either. He barely registered what Alice was going on about with the stabbing pains digging into his organs and setting ablaze along the way. His vision weakened and spots began to dance in his eyesight. The long walk had been too much for him and the dusty air had suffocated his lungs. He quickly became dizzy and slumped against the polished wooden stair railing leading to the second floor, holding on tight to stay on his feet. 

Arkadi walked into the room and saw the state his soon to be his child was in. He could hear the flow of Nikolai's blood clogging and knew that there wasn't much time left. His attention on the girl, at the same time, he sensed she was terrified for Nikolai and herself but mostly for the boy. Arkadi motioned the butler forward and told him to take Alice outside to the dock by the lake as he cared for the boy. 

When Nik had slumped over, Alice wanted to run to his side and help him but she knew how much he hated that and watched in horror wishing she could help him somehow. She didn't hear the vampire enter the room and had only noticed him standing there as the butler grabbed her by the arm and began leading her out of the back. 

"I will see you soon, Nik!" She squeaked out just before the butler closed the door in her face. 

Arkadi stood by the body of Nikolai after the boy limply fell onto the floor.

Alice stood at the door for a few seconds thinking of knocking on it until they let her back in but she didn't. Being hopeful that Nickolai finally got what he truly wanted, she walked to the end of the dock and sat down to watch the moon reflect on the water.