The Condemned

By: Kymberlie Egan

P.1 English 2

The classroom had an unfriendly cold feeling and the unhelpful buzzing in my brain kept adulterating my work. In pain I clutched my head, making sure not to make a sound as I tried to squash the annoying thoughts of my classmates around me.

Sarah was thinking about her F in Biology. Jason was thinking about the drugs he's going to get from Derek. Derek is thinking about the bills he's going to get from Jason. Brittney is relieving her events of last weekend. "Saint" Brittney is what everybody calls her for her good grades and inability to curse. Well, she's no "Saint" that's for sure.

I sighed as I opened my eyes, my throat screaming for liquid making me wish I were dead.

"Only a few more seconds till the bell rings" I thought as their inclement thoughts continued to buzz making my ear turn slightly red. "I can wait. School is usually tepid to me anyways."

"Hey Jordan, are you ok?" asked a voice behind me.

I turned, my best friend Josh was leaning close to me, so close that I saw my electric green eyes reflected in his brown.

"Headache." I mumbled still fixed on my reflection in his eyes. My hair was raven black with blood streaks striped through it. My black long sleeved t-shirt covered the horrible scratches from my nightly walks in the woods.

My legs look slightly skinny in my dark blue jeans and my high heeled black boots made me look like the "Saint" Brittney in the inside. To top it all off my skin looked as though I was locked away in a dungeon every day. I turned away, envious of Josh's slightly tan skin with black short unkempt hair.

The bell then finally rang. I saw my classmate's gapes follow me as I ran with all my will power out of that classroom. His vein moved ever so slowly, jumping at me and torturing me with every pulse of his juicy heart. With my messenger bag swinging by my legs, carrying this stupid thing teens have to do daily, called homework. I hurried out of the school to satisfy my hunger before it was too late, before I turn like the animal I am, the…monster. My classmate's harassing thoughts were continuously aimed at me, continuing to stab at my already aching brain.

Before I realized it I was running straight into the local cemetery, hissing at the sun that tried to come out and scorch me to a crisp. Oregon was rarely sunny which angers me that today is the day that it comes out. I ran looking for shelter, a common impetus with my kind; a cold damp place was the best. Then a building loomed, a place creatures like me know very well, a tomb. I hurriedly ran towards it, feeling relief in the shade as I closed the door. Rats scurried everywhere but they wouldn't do, there blood went cold after a few seconds. I found a perfect small corner. I didn't care that there was a black widow next to me; she couldn't kill me like all of her mates and children. I clutched at my knees, as I closed them next to me. I loved cemeteries, there quiet and nobody thinks around here. My throat was now in flames, the rats were actually starting to look mighty tasty. I mean I am averse against eating one but they were very feasible to catch one. I could feel my fingernails disappearing as I concentrated on the rat not far from me. My fingernails gone and replaced with curved claws I stared at my prey hard and started to feel something move in my teeth. I knew what was happening and was glad that I ran from the school instead of walking with Josh. No way would I have survived if I walked with him and that juicy vein. My mind started to act like the hunter I am, I was already claimed the tomb as my home. My new home, the darkest dampest place in the world, the best place in the world. I stared at him; every move he made sent a shiver up my spine. A twitch of his whiskers, the switch of his long ugly tail. My tongue found my fangs and they were just quivering to feeling the warm gush once I take my little bite.

The dark tomb then became brighter to my, my eyes true form were finally coming in, my red eyes looked around the dark tomb finding multiply rats and a barn owl. I licked my lips hungrily and took one creeping step towards my prey. Then the door of the tomb swayed open letting in the light. I hissed like an angry cat and back into my dark corner. My eyes felt inflamed as they were blinded from the sun. I not only hiss out of pain but of anger, whoever opened the door had just ruined my dinner. With my animal instincts I hurried into a crouching position, my messenger bag and identification long forgotten. Great, it was a human. Whoever it was will meet his demise very soon. He was walking slowly into the tomb looking around in awe but also it seems to be looking for something.

"Come on." I thought hungrily smelling the air and hearing his pulse. The rush feeling of my small yet insidious moves made me even hungrier. The buzzing returned into my head which enraged me even more. I finally had found peace and quiet and now this human is going to destroy it, HECK NO! He was slowly coming closer; toward my dark little corner with me crouching like the animal I am, hissing silently. He had stopped moving, he was turning into the corner. His face was in plain view.

"Jordan?"

I launched onto him, dragging him into my little dark corner where the sun couldn't reach. I reached for his neck automatically making my fangs quiver with excitement. The blood gushed from my forceful bite. My tongue was sucking as hard and forceful as I could, quenching my long and painful thirst, a thirst that I tried to keep from Josh as hard as I could. The human I envy the most in life. My hunting skills came in perfect precision. Aiming for the most vital pulse, the one that keeps his heart beating. The same one on Josh's neck, the one that has tortured me all day. I removed my face from my prey, breathing in the fresh air as the new blood filled my body and its needs. I licked the blood off my hand, wanting to saver the taste. I think crazy thoughts, but at that moment I was compelled to feel sympathy for this poor human and bury him in the back. As I turned to start dragging the body, I looked at his face and almost threw up the blood I had just sucked out of Josh's neck.

"No." I yelled as I saw Josh's cold and shocked face as he looked into my flaming red eyes.

His brown eyes were warm and sparkling beside the fact that he is dieing.

"Why Jordan? Why?" he asked, the blood gurgling in his throat as he spoke.

"Oh Josh, I thought you were someone else and when I am really thirsty I don't think I act. When you opened the door you made my dinner run away." I said through cold tears coming out of my demon eyes. "I am so sorry. You have no idea, I didn't mean to but you shouldn't be here to see me like this."

He smiled at my crying and said "I kind of figured that out, but that's not what I meant."

I looked at his smiling bloody face. "I mean why didn't you tell me Jordan?"

I looked shocked at his question. He wanted to know why I didn't tell you what I was instead of why I just sucked all your blood.

I turned away, my tears completely uncontrollable. "You don't know how long I've kept this secret. This secret of who I am, what I am, this…monster."

A cold wet hand touched my hand, I turned back to see Josh trying to sit up.

"No, don't, you'll die even quicker."

"I DON'T CARE!" he said in a roar. He struggled to say this forcefully but slowly but surely he sat up, holding my hand in his.

"You are not a monster, you are not a thing, and you are not a horrible creature from some children's book. You're Jordan, the girl who sits in front of me in my last class of the day. I think about you, I dream about you. Your smile, your eyes, your personality."

"If only that were true Josh. But the girl you knew didn't have fangs as sharp as razors in her mouth." I said angrily pointing at my fangs which quivered against my rage. "Or claws that can cut you up to millions of pieces. I said indicating my curved sharp nails. "I've been created to kill and kill alone. I am the worst monster in the books, a monster that takes on a human form and kills others for pleasure or to survive."

Josh didn't move during my entire rant. Just holding my hand and listening as his last minutes ticked by.

"Everything you know about me is a lie Josh. I always hide my emotions from everyone for so long that I can no longer handle it, I wish everyday that I was dead, so that I don't have to listen to other people's thoughts. I am a monster that killed her best friend, out of hunger."

Josh was silent; at first I thought he was gone forever. But then I felt another wet arm and I realized that he was holding me when I should be holding him.

"Josh, I …"

"Would you just shut up for once and let me hold you." Said his raspy gurgling voice. "What I don't understand is that you call yourself a monster when there's a proper name for what you are and you won't say it like you're trying to avoid it."

I sighed, "Because it has been defiled for such a long time that I have no use for is." I said kind of harshly but hey, it was the truth.

"Can you say it please, in a sentence?"

I hesitated, I haven't told a living soul, not even one that was dieing.

"For me?" asked Josh his breathing becoming shallow.

I was quivering, I was shaking. I wished none of this had ever happened.

"Please Jordan, just for me and no one else." He said, holding me tightly.

I couldn't see his face, but I could feel his short breaths on my neck. To think, I just saw him hours ago with his sparkling brown eyes, smiling.

"Josh, I have something to tell you." I said, starting the sentence he asked for. "I am not really fifteen."

"Oh, really, well then how old are you Jordan?" he asked holding me even tighter.

"Josh, I am 500 years old. You see Josh, I am a vampire." I held my breath then said with a smile. "And you want to know what else?"

"What's that?" asked Josh surprised by this new information he did not ask for.

"You're the first Human I ever fallen in love with, even when I was human. And I swear to you this will never happen to anyone else again."

"What do you mean?" asked Josh, his grip was starting to slide away.

I turned to look at his bloody face. "I going to set things straight, you'll see."

I did not expect what happened next but it was a surprise to taste his blood again on his lips. And then he was falling, falling away from me, from this world, from me.

Tears were falling down my cheeks before I could stop them as I held his lifeless body ever so meticulously in my arms. I cried for him over and I reiterated my words again and again hoping we would retrogress back to the good old days, but it didn't work, he would never come back to me, but I could go to him. I gently laid his body down and walked towards a destroyed staircase across the room. With my vampire strength I detached a single block of wood and took it over to Josh's body.

"I promised you I would make sure that this would never happen again. Well, ever vampire keeps to there promises for life and I will take mine to the grave."

I aimed the sharpest point of my wood above my chest. I took a short intake of breath and used my last vampire strength to shove it right into my heart. I shot of pain. I warily made my way to Josh's lifeless body, positioning myself right next to him then taking an intake of breath, I smiled. My life is now over, my hunger finished. I have made multiply mistakes with my life and finally I have been able to find a perpetuate solution to them all.

Hours later at the channel nine news every student at the local high school was watching a shocking segment about the murder of Josh Liegeman and Jordan Night.

"Apparently." Said the anchorwomen, trying hard not to cry. "Joshua Liegeman was attacked at the local cemetery in a tomb, his best friend Jordan Night finding him cold and dead, committed suicide to stay by his side, forever."

The Anchorman next to his Co-Host interrupts to say, "So, how did Joshua Liegeman die, Stacy?"

Stacy looked like she was about to vomit, "Joshua's autopsy report says that COD was caused by choking on his own blood. Apparently an animal of some tried to take his throat out. Jordan's on the other hand was a different story, Her COD states a simple stab in the chest did her in. It looks like Hank that this is a modern day version of Romeo and Juliet. They will soon be ready to be placed in rest at the local cemetery after there sojourn and the morgue."

"Let's hope that Rome's and Juliet's families are fortitude over this new struggle.

"And now onto sports." Said Hanks voice coming out of a morgue room with silver cabinets all over the walls, holding dead lifeless people. On one cabinet there was written, "Jordan Night" another cabinet claimed that its occupant was "Joshua Liegeman." Both cabinets were open showing the cold, unmovable bodies of the teens. Josh covered in his own blood with his neck looking perfectly fine but with only two holes. Jordan only with one hole over her heart and scratches all over her arms, an intimation that she seriously had problems. Both teens looked pale and there guise faces will stay frozen even when there put in there graves.

A lonely doctor came in closing all cabinets. He mused over his work as he shoved Josh and Jordan into there separate silver cabinets. Leaving the morgue locked and secure he left, getting ready for a long rest.

He was just out of the building when two occupants kicked their cabinet doors open.