Six: Lasting Moments

§ Lasting Moments §

 

“Look!” Adelheid greeted me the moment I awoke the next morning. “I brought you breakfast in bed.”

 

            I wasn’t even fully awake yet, so I stayed under the covers and grumbled at her to leave me alone.

 

            “Hey, I’m not gonna to come sit beside you and say something like ‘good morning, sexy’ in a deep voice. So get your butt up and eat the crap I brought up for you,” she ordered.

 

            She was holding a tray, kind of the like the maids’ rolling cart thingy, but more…portable.

 

            “Isn’t that…um, forbidden?” I ventured, rubbing my sleepy eyelids.

 

            “That’s why I snuck you breakfast in bed.”

 

            “You’re the best,” I told her.

 

            “I know,” she replied matter-of-factly. The wink in the end ruined the egocentric demeanor though.

 

            Since it Saturday, Adelheid decided we should “do something fun for a change” instead of “sitting around moping, dying from the inside out.” (I told her yet again that she should consider poetry-writing as a promising potential career path.) So Kate, Bevin, Cherry, Khaled, Andrew, Andrew’s hockey buddy Shane, Shane’s pal Eric, Bevin’s roommate Yin, Adelheid, and I all layered on clothing and headed outside. Supposedly to have ourselves some fun.

 

            “So…I decided to come along because I heard an interesting word you used, Adelheid,” Khaled informed her as we trudged our way through the still-falling snow.

 

            Adelheid laughed. “I don’t remember saying anything about TP-ing the Winters’ house,” she joked.

 

            “That’s not it,” he chastised her, shaking his head in disapproval. “I want to know…what is this ‘fun’ you speak of?”

 

            So we joked and embarrassed and made fun of eachother on the way there, wherever ‘there’ was.

 

            “So, where are we going, anyway, Addie?” I asked, feeling my legs go numb.

 

            She brushed back her platinum-blonde hair behind a reddening ear and pointed. “There.”

 

            I was surprised to see that we hadn’t yet left campus"and weren’t planning on leaving it to have some “fun.”

 

            “We’re going to make forts and attack eachother’s butts with snowballs,” she declared.

 

            On the way to the snowball fight, we were already all wet"hopefully only from the snow"and most of us had collapsed on the snowy ground and commenced laughing like people on ecstasy. An impromptu snowball showdown before the planned one. No one knew who’d won, how to determine who’d won, or which team anyone was on anymore. By the end of it, I got to know my teammates a little better"Shane and I shared a passion for the dark and dangerous, Yin and I were total bookworms, and apparently, Eric and I both loved Adelheid. Khaled, as usual, did his signature joking sessions and threw a huge snowman-head-snowball at me when I was turned around discussing Pride and Prejudice with Yin. The others were on the opposite team, including Adelheid.

 

            When we were frosted enough to want to finally head back into the heated buildings before actually getting to Adelheid’s chosen spot, we heard sirens in the distance.

 

            “That’s never good,” Kate commented. Her short glossy auburn hair was covered snowflakes, making her look like a mystical fairy.

 

            “I’d like to say I hope everything’s okay,” Adelheid said. “But hardly anything is ever just a drill anymore.”

 

            Her cheeks were flushed with pink winter touch, and darkly-lined eyes were widened at the sound of sirens. She looked like a pale supermodel"not as pale as vampires, but paler than everyone else in the group except me.

 

            Our concern escalated when the police car came into view"and parked right on the other side of the academy’s iron gates.

 

            “What’s going on?” I wondered aloud.

 

            “Nothing good,” Shane answered, glancing back at the vehicle.

 

            But the siren hadn’t stopped. Another police car came up behind the first one, and still the siren continued. And then, an EMS ambulance arrived. A police officer came upto the gate and spoke into the voice box; in a moment, the gates opened.

 

•••                                •§•                               •••

 

“I can’t believe this,” Adelheid muttered.

 

            It was Sunday, the day after the police and paramedics had come to the academy. My roomie and I were sipping hot chocolate, burying ourselves under thick blankets in our own beds.

 

            The police had arrested a second-year honour-roll university student from the academy and the ambulance had taken away his roommate in a stretcher.

 

            According to my sources, Sebastian Vander had betrayed us by turning in his own roommate, Jacob-something to a gang of rogue vampires, and they’d bit the latter after drinking from him. People were saying there was little to no chance of his survival, and that if he did manage to make it through the horrid transformation, either someone from the army or the local police force would take him out for good. That was, if he didn’t beat them to it; apparently, the student was patriotic about helping our cause in the war and would have joined the army if it hadn’t been for his parents’ desire for him to attend university.

 

            Jacob had kept it a secret, as he hadn’t wanted any trouble.

 

            “It’s so horrible,” I agreed with my friend.

 

            “Promise me one thing, Eileen,” she said. “Promise me that, if I ever get bitten and also get their blood into my system, you’ll take me out of my misery for my own good and the good of the world.”

 

            “Don’t talk crazy, Addie,” I protested. “Must you be so depressing?”

 

            “Would you want me to do the same for you if you were in that situation?” she questioned me.

 

            I stopped all incoming thoughts and considered the question.

 

            “I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I’m afraid to die.”

 

            “Becoming one of them is like dying, and then coming back to half-life and living like you’re dead, sucking other people’s life source out of them.”

 

            “I guess. But they don’t choose their own lifestyles in that regard. A human can become a vampire, but once he or she becomes a vampire, there’s no going back. And maybe the thought of death is still scary after you turn into another creature, so you do what you have to in order to keep living.”

 

            “That’s some profound speech you got going there, Eileen.”

 

            “What can I say? Some of your poetic qualities rubbed on me.”

 

            Adelheid laughed her twinkling laugh, then abruptly stopped.

 

            “Khaled’s gone,” she stated.

 

            “What?” I exclaimed. “What do you mean, he’s ‘gone’?”

 

            “He left to join in all the action.”

 

            “How do you know?” I asked, my heart sinking at the thought of my friend in a front line.

 

            “He left me a letter last night"slipped it under our door.”

 

            She reached under her pillow, and produced a neatly folded piece of paper. She must have been the one to fold it like that; Khaled wasn’t the neat-keeping kind of person; the paper had obviously been ripped out of a notebook. Adelheid passed me the piece of paper, gesturing for me to open and read.

 

            Addie,

 

            I’m going off to help our world. It was ours first, and I wanna show the vampires who’s boss. Can’t do that by myself, so I’m joining the ranks"literally. The Canadian army, to be specific. I figure, if I join a human army, might as well join our own, even though the Germans are the most powerful right now.

 

            I did a little research, and know how to get to my goal. Like every other soldier though, I’ll have to start off as a private.

 

            Anyway, I’m only letting you know about this plan of mine.

 

            Because if I don’t make it back, and when we come out this whole thing victorious, I want you to know that I’ve been in love with you for a long time. I don’t know if you knew or not, but I’m good at hiding my emotions. Guys these days have to be (emotionally) tough like that to help our side.

 

            -Khaled

            (A future soldier in training)

 

            “He’s gone,” I told myself.