Sofie walked on the dark street. It was cold ...damn, how cold! Yet everything was exciting; she knew why. She was also off balance, and thought only of how cold it was, and how far she was from home. She knew she was in trouble, her dad would get jumping mad. Her mom would be silently angry, for a day maybe. Sofie hated that.
She walked by a bus stop, wearing the big jacket she found on a chair at the party, and tights. They were too cold to be walking in, it was after all October. Ice was on the grass, not snow just yet. She looked around the stop, and saw what she wanted, a list of buses and when they left. She looked at her watch: 2:45. Her head got heavy, heavier. No bus was going to come, for hours. She would have to walk.
A shiny black car drove by, stopped and reversed. It stopped by her, and a head stuck out of the now-open window. It was a guy from the party, a very cute one too. She had been staring at him for some hours.
"Hey! You need a ride?" Sofie walked to the car, and looked inside. No one else was there, only him. Was this a smart thing to do? He was a complete stranger, who smiled at her. Cute smile. Cold wind. She started to shiver, yeah OK. Sofie got in, beside him in the front. He turned the music up, and the car beat with drums as they drove faster and faster. She felt cool, but also a bit nervous.
"So what's your name?"
"Mats."
"Oh."
"Yours?"
"Sofie."
"Nice name." Mats smiled at her once more, with his right ear full of ear rings, and his head of dark-dyed hair.
"Thanks." His arms were pretty wide too, he looked strong. Sofie soon got warm again, and she started laughing all of a sudden.
"What is it?"
"It's cold outside and I'm sitting in your car!"
Mats nodded as a response, he didn't get it. Sofie had to laugh some more, because he was so handsome and stupid, because he didn't get it!
The car stopped, and the world got quiet. So quiet. Sofie's head was spinning, but she noticed that the windows were black, they were far away from any buildings. She realised that she had forgotten to tell him where she lived.
"I don't live here." She said." Where are we?"
"In the woods." Mats answered.
"Okay? Why?"
Mats leaned over, and started kissing her. Somehow she knew this was what she wanted, right? It felt so close, so private. Her face and her lips, her eyes. She opened her eyes, looked at his, they were closed. Sofie jumped; too close, too close!
"No..." Mats said, he kissed her some more, but she turned her head away. She felt his hands on her tights, getting closer and closer to... NO! She twisted her body, to get him off, but he got hold of her arms, pushed them down, and she couldn't move.
"Get off me!!" He didn't listen, kissed her neck, tried to kiss her on the mouth again, but she could still move her head. She thought she would throw up, and had a bad feeling in her belly; this was awful, and he had cold hands. Sofie really started to get worried when she heard his zipper, and she fought some more. But it still didn't help.
"HELP HELP!! SOMEONE PLEASE!"
"No one is near," Mats said.
Sofie knew he was right, and no one could help her. She started to cry as her legs were pushed apart, with force.
She cried out, "NO! It will hurt!"
A second later she heard Mats make a weird sound, something like "Oooff!", but she didn't see why, because her eyes were closed. When she opened them, he wasn't there, the car door was open. She heard him screaming, and when she crawled to the door she saw his legs moving, kicking, on the ground.
What is this?! The courtesy lamp from the car lit up the ground, it also shone on Mats. He had something on him, or some things... When she saw a hand, a small human hand, she got scared. It was two people, who were...biting?...Mats. What the hell? She crawled closer and watched with great interest. Whatever this was, she knew she should be afraid, but she couldn't run anywhere anyway.
She saw that there were indeed two young people, their heads were covered with hoodies; and they ate, yes, ATE Mats. He screamed and kicked but they were completely calm, they just lay over him like they were...gone. After a while Mats stopped moving, and Sofie began to hear the sounds. Drinking sounds. It made her want to throw up once again, and she crawled back, away from the sound.
She hid in the corner in the back of the car as she heard something break...a bone. Mats?
Her eyes were closed, but she could hear them getting near. They climbed over the seats, and sat down beside her. Sofie's arms were around her knees, and her head bent down in the dark. Then she heard a boy's voice:
"We aren't going to hurt you."
Sofie looked up, she jumped at the sudden sound. She looked over at them, two kids.
"You are safe now." A different boy's voice said. She saw that the one with the darkest hair moved his lips. The blond one nodded. Sofie stared at their mouths, covered with blood. They noticed this.
"Oh, sorry", The blond haired one said, and both he and the dark haired one wiped their mouths with their sleeves. After that Sofie was a little less scared, but she still didn't move.
"We heard what he was about to do", The dark haired boy said.
"Was that why you came?"
He tilted his head. "Well, we were hungry too, and this was an easy target."
Then the blond one opened his mouth and spoke:
"But we wanted to help also, and decided not to drink you."
Drink? "You're vampires?" The kids nodded.
"Is it all true then? Sunlight, garlic, mirrors, crosses?"
The kids laughed, and it made Sofie laugh too.
"We can't handle the sun, but apart from that, the rest of is is just...silly", The blond one said. He looked over at the dark one and they smiled at each other. Gave each other a look, something Sofie couldn't put her finger on.
They left the car, and for the first time in her life Sofie saw a corpse. Blood was all over his jacket and his neck. He just lay there, facing away from them. His ear rings were red and shiny, not pure silver anymore. Sofie looked down, and she felt a gentle stroke down her back; the dark one withdrew his arm again, and gave her a caring smile. The blond boy took Sofie’s hand and held it as they went. After a while the dark one did the same thing. Sofie still wasn’t too sure they were to be trusted.
She walked along with the blond boy, while the dark one disappeared for a while, Sofie couldn’t really think why. She walked up a hill, but it wasn’t heavy going at all, and the weather wasn’t that cold any more. She knew it was supposed to be, but it wasn’t. When she and the boy arrived to some kind of cave, she got to sit down and wrap a blanket around herself. She laid down and drifted away.
Something lit up the other side of her eyelids. Something red, something that changed. Sofie opened her eyes gently and saw the fire. She closed them again quickly, it was too bright. After a while her eyes got used to the flames, and she opened them wide enough to take a look around. She now had three blankets around her, and she lay on one also. The kids sat on a blanket too, Sofie could see that they had changed clothes and were much cleaner. No blood, no dirt. They both had wet hair and dry clothes. The blond boy wore a thick blue sweater, while the dark one wore a red shirt. The blond one wore blue jeans, while the dark one wore some baggy black pants. Why did Sofie look at their clothes? They looked like any other children, but she knew something was wrong with them.
They sat closely beside each other, shoulder against shoulder. They were whispering, but Sofie managed to make out their words.
“You know that guy was trying to rape her?” The dark one said.
“Yeah. Poor girl.”
“It’s an awful feeling.”
“What feeling?”
He looked over at the blond one.“The feeling of being raped.”
The blond one put his arm around the dark one, stroked his shoulder with his hand. The dark one’s head leaned against the blond one's shoulder, and the dark one started to sniff a bit. He wiped his eyes and the blond one turned and hugged him tightly. After a while the dark one said: “I couldn’t let something like that happen to anyone. That’s why I had us go there.”
“You don’t need to say it.” The blond boy answered. Their embrace loosened and they looked each other in the eye. When their lips gently touched, Sofie's arm moved as she jumped a bit. Two young vampire boys, being together? Who would have thought such a thing existed? The kids didn’t kiss further, but rather looked at Sofie in surprise.
“How long have you been awake?” The dark one asked.
Sofie got up, her head hurt a lot, and the cave spun for a couple of seconds before everything calmed down again.
“Umm...for a little while, I think.” She rubbed her eyes with her sleeves. “So you two are, like...together?”
Both of them answered at the same time: “Yes”, then they began to giggle. They were still holding each other. Sofie had to like them, they were so cute together; the dark one looked like a girl after all.
“Thanks for helping me.” Sofie said, and gave them a big smile. They smiled back, but didn’t do much more than that.
“You’re welcome.” The blond one responded.
She looked at the fire, and got lost in it for a few minutes; it seemed like the kids did the very same thing.
“Why did you leave? When we walked up from the car?” Sofie asked, looking at the dark one.
“I got rid of the body, it can’t just lay there.”
“Oh.” Sofie nodded.” But where did you put him then?”
“I buried him, somewhere far away.”
Sofie nodded again. She began to realize that he was dead. She didn’t know if he deserved that. But she couldn’t do anything about it anyway.
“At least he didn’t die for no reason. You two needed blood”, Sofie said with a smile.
The kids' eyes got wide.
“Really? Is that okay with you?” The dark one asked, and the blond one added:
“You’re drunk?”
She laughed a little.
“Yes, I am.”
Sofie got lost in the fire again, and she was still very tired.
“What’s your name?” The dark one asked.
“Sofie. Yours?” The blond one answered:
“I’m Oskar and this is Eli.”
“You’re a girl?”
Eli looked surprised once again. “No, I’m...it’s short for Elias.”
He started laughing. “You know, most people think I am a girl.”
“I can see why, you totally look like one.”
“What made you think otherwise?” Eli asked.
“Your voice.” Oskar smiled at him, and Eli smiled at her. Sofie began to smile too.
“What?”, Oskar said, as if he thought Sofie was weird. But who was he to judge?
“Nothing, it’s just that...it looks like you two belong together. In spite of...you know...your gender...”
“Gender doesn’t matter”, Oskar said firmly. Eli nodded in agreement.
“Did you become vampires at the same time?” The kids shook their heads.
Oskar answered: “No, he was two hundred years ahead of me.”
Sofie looked at Eli. “Wow, really? What was that like?”
Eli moved his feet up, and got a good grip around his knees. “It was lonely.”
Oskar leaned over and kissed him quickly on the cheek, they smiled at each other, it seemed to help.
“How long have you been together, then?”
Eli answered again: "Ten years.”
Sofie understood; Eli had turned Oskar ten years ago. Pity no one else could hear their story. She knew they wouldn’t kill her; maybe she could listen to them, write it down? Someone other than her should hear it. “Will you tell me your story?” Sofie asked. The kids began to smile, seemed to get in a better mood.
“Can’t we ask you some things first?” Oskar asked. “We won’t tell anyone.”
Sofie started laughing. Right.
"How old are you?”
Sofie was happy, these kind of questions were easy. Her head was still spinning, but she figured she could manage.
“I am fourteen.” She nodded to herself, then she remembered more: “...and a half.”
The kids nodded.
“How did you end up in that car?” Eli asked.
Sofie looked at them with a “What?” kind of gaze.
“I opened the door and got inside...?”, she answered with a hint of doubt.
Eli giggled a bit.
“No. What made you go inside that car?”
“Oh!” She did a face palm. Stupid! “I was cold and far away from home.“
She began to think about it. It could have been the worst decision of her life.
“Yeah...”
Then Oskar asked, with a happier tone:
“Do you have a boyfriend.. or a girlfriend?”
Sofie shook her head. Nope. No one.
“My turn!”, she yelled, she had to know.
“How... When... Where... Did you meet?”
Eli took over. “We met in Blackeberg, Stockholm. In 1981. Oskar was stabbing a tree with his knife, I was standing behind him at the jungle-gym. At the court-yard to the apartment complex we lived in.”
Sofie entwined her fingers. “How romantic.”
“Yeah, right”, Oskar snorted. They all began to laugh.
“Why were you stabbing a tree?”
“I pretended that it was one of my bullies.” Sofie nodded.
“Oh I see..” She wanted to ask something cheesy, or maybe funny? How he was bullied, she didn’t want to ask about, even though she thought about it for a brief moment.
“So..” She leaned forward, closer to the fire. “What was your first AWW moment.”
“Aww...what?” Eli asked; Oskar also gave her a puzzled look.
“Yeah, like... The first time you showed attraction to one another.”
They understood, and began to smile. It got silent for a little while, then Eli turned his head and said to Oskar:
“The first time you hugged me, after the lovers-kiosk thing.”
Oskar nodded. Eli looked at Sofie and continued talking.
“He felt sorry for me, and when we were almost by our apartment house, he hugged me. After a few seconds of: What is he doing? I hugged him back. It was the best moment ever, after two hundred years like...this.”
“What about the first big romantic thing, then?” Sofie was totally in the mood. She wished she had a boyfriend too. They seemed so close, she envied them. Even though they were monsters... She shook her head. Who saved her.
“I, we were... and I...” Eli didn’t quite know how to answer, and Oskar wasn’t any better at it. “It’s kind of hard to describe it. I don’t think I have the words.” Oskar said.
Eli said: “Me neither.” The kids began to think, looking for the words. Oskar snapped his fingers. “Can’t you just show her?”
Eli gave him a questioning look. “Is that okay with you?”
Oskar leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth for maybe one second.
“There, now go ahead.”
Eli began to laugh, and climbed from Oskar’s arms to Sofie’s lap.
“In order to share my memory with you, I have to kiss you. Is that okay?”
Sofie’s face got warm, she nodded. She began to breathe slowly to calm herself down. She had never been kissed before. This would be so strange. Eli leaned forward and without moving a muscle kissed her on the lips. He was completely still and Sofie didn’t know what to wait for. After maybe one second things began to get darker, as if she fainted.
She was lying somewhere warm, she was boiling. There was a soft warm body in front of her, she held her arms around it, her face was pressed against its back. Her heart was beating like drums at high speed. The body before her breathed, it calmed her down somehow. She listened for something, someone sleeping in a different room. Sofie moved her hands up to the body’s chest. She could feel the heart beat against the skin. Then she felt two hands pressing against hers; she began to smile. She thought of how this was just what she needed. A moment of joy. She looked up at some blond hair that appeared in her view, then at the ceiling. This is it, she thought. The moment I have been wanting for so many years. This is my Romeo.
Something strong hit her eyes, and she jumped as she awakened. A hand shook her shoulder, and she opened her eyes quickly. A policeman, with a flash light. Sofie saw that the sky was dim, and orange. It was very early in the morning, she was shocked. But what, where? She looked around. The man sat in the front seat of that boy’s car. Mats, right. She was still in the back seat, still in the woods.
“It’s okay, you’re safe.” The policeman said. He helped her up to a sitting position. She had two blankets wrapped around her. Which meant that it wasn’t a dream.
“Was it just me here?”
The policeman nodded.
“We got an anonymous call earlier that told us you were here, in this car.”
Sofie nodded too, she understood. The policeman helped her out of the car, to her feet; her head was not spinning now, but it hurt a lot. The policeman had to use extra force just to keep her upright.
Soon enough she was in the police car, looking out the window as trees flew by. Then houses began to appear, and she knew she was safe for real. No rape, no kill. Thank you, Oskar and Eli. I will never forget you. Never.