Coulisse

…Which should really be the sixth, but… not happening. The following post is based on a dream that I bang my head against the wall trying to figure out.

It was the middle of winter. Fresh snow blanketed the ground. The snow crunched under my feet as I briskly walked along. I knew I should feel cold, but it felt like nothing could touch me. Not even the weather. I took my cellphone out and looked at the reflective surface. My skin was paler than usual, and under my lids rested purple–still. I wondered how long I’d looked like that before I’d noticed two days ago.

They were waiting when I got there. They both stood in their black jackets, waiting for my arrival. We stood there on the basketball court, watching each other.

Irene was tall. Her tan skin had since gone pale, just like mine had. Her hair was jet black, but the Change hadn’t done that to her. There she stood, looking very calm and cool in her black attire.

Keeva was the shortest of us, not to mention the girliest. Only she could take an all-black ensemble and make it look cute. Her naturally black hair fell over her now-pale face. Her blue, wire-rimmed glasses rested delicately on her nose.

Then there was me. The one who’d always been paler than most people, even before the Change. My hair hadn’t changed color at all. It shouldn’t have. It was still a dark brown. My freckles, though, had started to fade away. The grey of my normally hazel eyes was already taking over my iris. My vision was sharpened by about a million times. I didn’t need to breathe as much as I used to. My blood was colder. I was different. I was one of the Changed.

I tugged at my scarf, as if it actually made my neck hot. I cleared my throat, but couldn’t find my voice.

“You sleep well?” Keeva asked, finally breaking the uncomfortable silence.

I shook my head. “I didn’t sleep at all.” I was surprised at the hoarseness of my voice. “You guys get back okay from the party?”

“Yeah, but man, I was so smashed,” Irene said. “I think I may’ve . . . eaten.”

“Would it really even matter, now?” I asked. “I mean, the three of us just disappear into thin air, and then a few days later, we’re back, unusually pale and different.”

“We can explain the paleness,” Keeva said. “I mean, it’s winter. Don’t people get pale then anyways?”

“We need to get out of here,” I said. Through the past days, I’d been the one that had come out the strongest, the most mature. The others seemed a little scared of this alien thing. I had neutral feelings about it.

“We have to take my brother,” Irene said. “He’s been One for a while.”

“I guess we could take Tristan,” I muttered, thinking it out. “But will he want Heather to come?”

“Well, she is his girlfriend,” Keeva reasoned. I’d almost forgotten she was there. She really had gotten quiet after the Change.

“But she’s not one of us,” I said. “What if we . . . hurt her? What if she gets captured, or lets our secret slip?”

“Jeez, Alexis, you know Heather wouldn’t do that!” Irene said with strain. “And come on, she’s our friend.”

“I know, I know, but what if people harass her about us? I don’t want her to get hurt because of the Change,” I said. Really, I did want to bring Heather, but she was just going to be in danger, even dead weight. But if Heather didn’t go, then neither would Tristan, which would make Irene stay. That would leave just me and Keeva. I truthfully don’t know what she would do.

“But dude, it’s my brother–” Irene began to say, before I cut her off.

“He isn’t your brother!” I shouted, rage filling every bit of me. “He’s in no way related to you by blood! No, he can come with us if he wishes to survive and remain inconspicuous. But if he wants to stay with his–” I didn’t have enough time to finish that sentence, because someone else cut me off.

“Hey! Blood-suckers!”

We all slowly turned to see a crowd. A crowd of people we knew and loved, people who we belonged with before our Change. Everyone we’d ever cared about was there. Even Damon. Most of the crowd held things like crosses, rosaries, cloves of garlic, even little vials of water that was supposedly holy. Stakes of ash wood and bibles were in their hands. I saw a priest among them. Looked like they were even ready to preform an exorcism.

“Well, someone did their homework,” I said loud enough for them to hear, with my bland tone that let no emotion escape.

“If you know what’s best for you, and people you love, let us dispose of you,” Damon called out.

My lip twitched. Oh, how I was in pure loathing of Damon. “In your dreams, mundane.”

Without warning, someone fired a gun. The bullet went straight at me, but I caught it with ease. I examined it. The tip was of ash wood. “Man, you guys are smarter than you look.”

Another shot. This time the three of us were running, and in no time, we took flight. It was so bizarre, flying. I felt so free, but I knew I could never be free. Not now, because of the stupid, stupid Change.

We landed in another basketball court, only a few miles away. But it’d only been a few minutes after landing before the group had found us again. They must’ve had dang airplanes or something if they’d been able to pursue us at the rate they had been.

But then I saw someone in that crowd. I saw Maxine. She looked scared, but so sure of herself. She held one of the ash wood stakes and a rosary around her neck. That normal, un-pale neck. That neck that sang to me.

“Why?” I heard myself yell. “Why, Maxine? Why?!”

“Ever since you disappeared, things have changed. You’re different now, Alexis,” she said with a shaky voice. Tears ran down her face. “I want you to get out of here. Get out of here, and never return, you leech.”

Irene and Keeva were way ahead of her. They’d already taken off, leaving me to face them. The ones I’d loved and know. The one’s I cried with and grew up with. Now they were rejecting me so easily, now that they knew I wasn’t like them.

I looked to Damon. “Why . . . why is this happening?”

“I don’t know, but you better get out of here.”

“I don’t know why I Changed, but why can’t we just talk it out?” I was sounding like a total hypocrite right about now. “Why can’t you just accept me for what I am?”

“I can’t. It was hard enough when you were still human.”

“Nikki? Erin? Holly? Adam? You guys still believe in me, don’t you?” No one said anything, but I knew they were in that crowd.

“Get out, now,” Damon said, now more harshly. “Before we make you pay.”

I turned, but I felt too weak to fly. Instead, I ran a bit and jumped up onto the rusted fence. I’d jumped really high, much higher than I ever did before the Change. I climbed, looking at the snowy field up ahead. I figured if I could make it into the field, I’d be free. For a while.

There was a pine tree next to the fence. I hadn’t noticed that someone hid on the fence in the cover of the needles. I looked into the shadows and saw him.

“Cedric,” I gasped. He held a wooden dagger. His eyes were serious.

“Cedric, don’t do this!” I cried. “Please!”

“I’m sorry,” he muttered, but I had a feeling he didn’t mean it. Before he could even move his dagger an inch towards me, I was gone, up in the air, and headed for freedom. Behind me was everyone I loved, but they will never love me back, because they’re dead by now. Now their great-grandchildren roam this cursed planet. These days, I’m in the company of Irene, Keeva, and Tristan. Heather died a long while ago. It was hard for all of us, but we managed. We had to.

We were Changed.