17:43

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I'd be lying if I said that didn't cause a major panic attack.

"What does that mean?!"

"It means sit your ass down!" Conner yelled over my freak-out, "The last thing we need is you passing out and hurting yourself."

I crossed my arms and fell into the couch, "You don't gotta yell..."

He thought about hitting me but rolled his eyes instead.

"It's speculative,"

"Spectacular how?"

"Speculative."

"Just tell me what you mean!"

He sighed, "I've never seen it, but my parents had their theories." He got up and shuffled through a few dust-covered books on the bookcase in the small hallway between our bathroom and bedroom. "I've only heard of red eyes in terms of shifters."

"But shifters aren't real." Courtney interrupted, "They're just a hunter's urban legend."

"I agree, and so did my parents." He sat on the coffee table in front of me and flipped through an old journal. Con's parents died when we were in high school, he doesn't like to talk about them much aside from their work, not that I can blame him. They were good people. Smart and caring, like Conner.

"But the rumors had to have come from somewhere, obviously the red eyes are possible."

"What do red eyes mean for shifters?" Courtney asked.

Conner scratched the back of his neck with a sigh, "None of this is scientific, and you have to understand that what I'm about to say is completely based on lore from the 19th century, got it?" He made sure I knew he was talking to me.

I nodded. I was pretty sure I wouldn't understand it anyway.

"Marcheur de la mort," he said in French, it was hot, "Loosely translates to death walker. The red glow to their eyes was believed to be from a malevolent spirit or even the devil that would take over bodies after death. Marcheur de la mort could take over any dead body, I'm assuming that's where the "shifter" portion comes into play.

In true vampire fashion, they possessed speed and strength, fed on blood, typically violent when unprovoked. However, in that time there was a lot of provoking..." He mumbled to himself while he thought, "As far as the eyes, they were typically an indication of power, the redder the more powerful."

"So what does that mean for me? Are you saying I’m possessed?" I panicked, “Did that bitch possess me?”

“Calm down, nothing like that,” Conner leaned back on his hands, "It’s probably nothing. My best guess is that the red color is what they were noticing when their eyes were transitioning between whatever their natural color was and the yellow we're familiar with."

"Did my eyes turn yellow?"

"No, but you controlled yourself really well around all that blood, maybe this is just a weird middle color. You're in the middle, dead but human, your eyes are, too."

I picked the black nail polish off of my nail, "I guess that makes sense."

"What about the passing out?" Courtney added, "You said he fed last night, shouldn't he be y'know not doing that?"

"Yes, but it could've not been enough blood for him, or maybe because it wasn't human…" Con shrugged.

"You think it had anything to do with the blood?"

I shook my head, "It wasn't about the blood."

"What happened?"

"I don't know, I got this really bad pain in my head, I didn't even know I backed outta the room."

Aaron's ears perked up, "Wait, you said you had a dream, did you have a headache then?"

"... When I woke up, yeah, a little. I guess..."

"What are you thinking?" Conner looked over at Aaron.

Aaron made a face, "So you know how my grandma was a witch?"

That being the least odd thing he's said about his family, we nodded along.

"Um, I don't know how true this is either," he was sure to clarify, "But my grandma was really into the belief of telepathy, telekinesis, auras... And visions."

"Visions?" Courtney asked.

He nodded, his blond curls bounced against his shoulders, "Most of what she believed in could translate to vampires, it could be a lesser-known vampire trick."

Conner nodded, "We can’t rule out anything at this point."

"Y'know there's something similar in Spanish," Nate finally added something to the conversation, "Estás jodidamente loco."

Court gasped smacking my leg, "Hang on! It's like the swirly eye thingy just red!"

"What?" I had to rub where she smacked, I don't think she knows how hard she hits.

"Can't vampires do like the "woo woo" thing?"

Conner raised his transparent eyebrows, "The woo woo thing?"

"Yeah, y'know how Dracula does this," she pulled her hands up to her face, arching her wrists and wiggling her fingers, "The woo woo thing!"

"... I feel like you're mocking me...” Conner paused, “Do you mean like a trance?"

She rolled her eyes, "Forgive me if I don't know the technical term, college boy. I just mean he doesn't remember anything from when he was turned,"

"That's drugs, babe," I answered.

"Seriously, if someone gets changed the vampire’s gotta do something, right? It's not like someone's just gonna let some rando bite and poison them!"

"Could be," Conner nodded, "Could be that, could be this virus has more of an effect..." He trailed off scratching at his orange hair, "I'm going to call my grandma tomorrow, maybe she'll be able to overnight some of my parents' books."

I was quiet for a minute, just trying to absorb the day.

Visions, body snatching viruses, murder. What even is my life?

"Okay, well what about tonight?" She asked.

Conner shrugged, "There's not much else, I'll see what I can look up, but you know the internet."

"Okay, executive decision," She stood and pulled me up with her, "It's been a long, blood-soaked day, how 'bout Con lends us his blockbuster card and we'll get some beer."

"Sure, just no more porn."

"Don't be such a baby." She took the card from him and shooed me out the door.

I guess she sensed my headspace but she waited until we were down the stairs, "You talk to Con?"

"Huh?"

"Something's bothering you, just wanna know if you've talked to "dad" about it before I mother you."

I scoffed, "My life would be way less fucked up if you were my mom. Weird, but less fucked up."

She nudged me, "What's goin' on, babe?"

"Does any of this make sense to you?"

"Maybe I'm just too stupid to understand anything Con's saying," I shrugged, "I don't get it. Visions, super speed, super strength. I'm dead but I'm conscious. All of this sounds like a bad superhero! It's been two years, when is this shit gonna start making sense?"

"My guess is when this silly little planet gets flung into the sun."

"What?"

"Park, nothing in this world makes sense. It's dirty, it's gritty and it's fucked up. It doesn't make sense for anyone, if it did I would've grown up in Germany and you would be Mormon.

But it doesn't and there's no normal. We may never get the answers we want, you may never know why you're a human vamp and I may never know why my adoptive dad ran off with the first bimbo he saw! It's not about any of that, life is like a jigsaw puzzle, okay? Except instead of being just one picture, your little sister mixed up the pieces of three different puzzles and put them all in one box. Does the kitten's face make sense with the dinosaur body? No, but it's about what you make with the pieces you're given.

Luckily you know some people," she pointed at herself and jokingly winked, "That are pretty damn good at puzzles, so just hang on, okay? It'll start coming together, it won't be the picture you want but it'll be beautiful! And probably more understandable."

I stopped in my tracks, "How do you come up with this shit?"

"You get creative when you get kicked outta your country as a baby." She joked.

We walked for a while, the only noise was the crunch of the prematurely fallen leaves under our feet.

Courtney spoke after a while, "Do you remember the first thing you asked me to do?"

"... I asked you to kill me," I mumbled.

She nodded, "Do you remember what I said?"

She didn't give me time to answer, "You have a bright spark, Parker. You have a real reason for being here, we all do, just because you don't know what it is yet isn't a reason to give up. We were all put here for a reason."

It was hard to think of something to say to that, "... What's yours?"

"To make Conner's life a living hell, duh." She laughed and opened the door to the video shop for me, "We'll figure it out. Don't fret." She clapped her hand against my back, “Now let’s go get some porn!”