Immortal Part 13

Chapter Three (3)

            As far as prisons go I guess the room wasn’t too bad. The bed was comfortable and clean. The doors that I thought would only be closets, were actually doors to a little hallway. I wasn’t just trapped in a tiny cramped space. I had access to three other areas besides the little rooms.

            The first door on the left as I traveled down the little hallway was a bathroom. As far as bathrooms go it was actually very nice. It was elegantly decorated with hanging plants all over it. The wall paper was a creamy white with a maroon trim. There was a huge Jacuzzi bath that I fully intended on making use of a little bit later, and a separate shower. The toilet was hidden away from the rest of the bathroom in its own little alcove. I wished I had this bathroom at home.          

            Across the hallway from the bathroom was a little kitchen. I was surprised at how well stocked it was. I wasn’t going to starve unless Tavian and Zhivvah left me locked up here for several weeks.

            And finally, last but not least was a wreck-room of sorts. Bean bags scattered the floor but there were also a couple of couches and a couple of nice easy chairs. There was nothing electronic to be found anywhere. There wasn’t even a digital clock. There was an old grandfather clock that stood in the corner, tick tock, tick tocking away but that was the closest thing to technology I could find in this room. But best of all were the shelves built into the walls lined with books. Hundreds and hundreds of them. I would not get bored.

            Not that I thought I would get bored anyhow. I had tons and tons of questions and admittedly my imagination was going wild. I was being held prisoner by two vampires. Real vampires.  I struggled to remember everything I had heard and read about vampires. I’d spent quite some time earlier reading about vampires and going through Zachary Payton’s blog. But my mind was jumbled between history and stories.

            A few things were consistent no matter what country the legends originated. Vampires are living dead. Corpses that somehow have come back to life. They need human blood to rejuvenate themselves. That basis, regarding vampires, is the core belief. After that legends and myths deviate and vary. How to ward them off and kill them, varies.

            Braham Stoker’s Dracula changed the world’s view and gave us the sophisticated, charismatic characters of the modern vampire rather than the half rotted, bloated corpses that were once thought of as vampires. Stoker shaped several characteristics of the blood sucking monsters such as not being able to see their reflection, their affiliation to bats, having to sleep in dirt from the creature’s homeland, the sensuality, and of course the best way to dispose of vampires, that is beheading them and then burning them, although, those methods had been used in actual history for hundreds of years.

            Then changing the vampire’s again was the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. Beautiful, sensitive, creatures with super natural abilities.  Sunlight didn’t kill them, they could see their reflections and they walked among human’s fitting in perfectly fine. They even had the ability to control their appetites. They didn’t sleep in coffins… in fact, they didn’t sleep at all.

            Zhivvah had said that they were somewhere in between these two extremes. They weren’t quite as evil and as beastly as count Dracula but they weren’t the Cullins either. Where the differences were, I wasn’t quite sure.

            I knew Tavian was fast. He was very, very fast and he was also very strong. I mean, he broke both of my doors and carried me for hours and hours without even getting tired. That seemed to fit with the ‘Cullin’s version of vampires. But did he have super natural powers? Like Edward Cullin could read minds and Allison Cullin could tell the future. Did either Tavian or Zhivvah have any special abilities?  So far, if they did, they had not manifested them to me in any way.

            I hadn’t actually seen coffins but the shelves lined with dirt indicated to me that they had to sleep in the dirt of their home land. That was more akin to the ‘Dracula’ version of vampires.  I hadn’t seen any mirrors but I hadn’t been looking either. And I spent quite a bit of time wondering if Tavian and his mother could turn in to bats or not.

            Another mystery that I let myself think upon for a long time was the sunlight issue. It was after dark that Tavian kidnapped me but my apartment had been well lit and he hadn’t recoiled at the artificial light. Their own house was also well lit. It wasn’t dark and dank as I imagined it would be considering it was inhabited by vampires. It was actually very bright and cozy, at least, my little prison area seemed to be quite comfortable.

            That’s how I passed the time at first. Trying to figure out what it meant to really be a vampire. But guessing wasn’t going to get me anywhere, I knew, and I quickly grew bored of that. Then I flipped through a couple of books but I wasn’t in the mood to read. I kept thinking about Emryl and what was happening to him. Was he really being tortured? What kind of ghoulish fiends had taken him?

            Really what I did during those dreadfully long, dull hours as I waited for Tavian and Zhivvah to come back from wherever they had gone, was pace, fret and worry. My imagination was in overdrive and I kept thinking about all kinds of things.

            It’s hard to say how long they were actually gone for. It might have only been an hour or two maybe as long as up to an entire day but not much longer than that. But however long it lasted for was the longest, most difficult wait of my entire life. So many variables and unknowns. I wasn’t sure if I was going to die or if Emryl was going to die or if both of us were. Maybe Tavian and his mother had lured me here with the intent of letting me wait here until I ran out of food and then I would be trapped here until I starved to death.

            I had nearly bitten off my fingernails to the point of bleeding when I heard a faint click and the door opened. I had been pacing for quite some time, wandering nervously from room to room, aimlessly wondering what was going on and of course, the scenarios that went through my mind were worst case. In my imagination no matter what happened things didn’t end well for me or for Emryl. And I didn’t yet fully trust Tavian or his mother. It would be awhile before that happened.

            I spun as soon as I heard the click and standing in the doorway was Zhivvah. Tavian wasn’t with her.

            “What did you find out?” I blurted. “Where’s Tavian?”

            “Don’t worry about Tavian. He needs some…rest.”

            “Rest? I thought vampires didn’t sleep.” I stated almost accusingly.

            “Another fallacy. We require even more rest than humans do. Being a vampire is not the glamorous, easy existence you may have been led to believe.  There are many downsides to the reality of vampirism.”

            “Oh,” I replied weakly, “So what did you find out?”

            “That Septimus is even grumpier than the last time I saw him. The arrogant, pompous…” Zhivvah growled. “But he claims he doesn’t have any idea who has taken your friend. He told us we need to seek out Quintas.”