The Blood Bank

Chapter 2 - The Big News

I wake up with one name on my mind, Annie. I’m not even sure that feeling like you’re floating on a cloud constitutes as waking up, but I feel my thoughts are my own, even if my emotions, for now, are not. I sit up and look around me and find that I’m in a rather plain, white-washed room with absolutely no decoration what-so-ever. It looks clinical but the absence of old-people smell tells me that this is just a plain white room and not a hospital. Around me I can see other beds, about fifteen, all identical to mine, filled with what I hope are human occupants sleeping silently. The room is so quiet that I practically jump out of my skin when the sheet next to me moves and a mess of blonde hair sways upright and turns towards me.

“Thank god you’re awake! I’ve been awake for ages and everyone else here seems dead-to-the world!” I gasp as the girl brushes her blonde curls out of her bright blue eyes; she looks so much like Annie.

“Where is this place?”

“You think I know? I’ve been lying here for ages thinking I was in a room full of…” She bursts into tears and I see that I must adopt the stronger role of the two of us. But her words bring back the terror from my last episode of consciousness, I was attacked…attacked by a vampire. They weren’t supposed to exist!

“It’s ok, it’s ok…what’s your name?” The girl clings to me as if I’m her life source, a funny notion really; we were all life sources here.

“Charlotte…well…I’m mostly called Lottie…” She looks to me as if I was her sister, her shiny blue eyes and bouncy blonde curls reminding me so much of Annie that I just want to lay down and cry. “What’s your name?”

“Mina…can I ask, have you noticed anything that could give us a clue as to what we’re doing here?” Lottie shakes her head and wipes her damp, puffy eyes before reaching out to cling to me once more.

“The last thing I remember was a vvv…” She struggles to get the word out so I help her.

“Vampire... ye, me too. What happened to you?” She cries into my jumper, making my shoulder all damp as she mumbles into the fabric. “Lottie, I can’t hear you, honey, what happened?” Lottie lifts her head; her face is all red and ugly from crying so I smile to encourage her.

“He bit me and drank from me and I started to feel really tired and the next thing I know I wake up in here with lots of others…I thought you were all vampires…I was so scared…” I bring her into a motherly hug, not my style, but the poor girl needed it.

“And how old are you?”

“I just turned eighteen..” Oh wow, she really doesn’t seem eighteen. Suddenly, the doors at the far end of the room open and two men walk in. The first is my blonde-vampire from…last night?...and I jump back, almost falling out of the bed carrying Lottie along with me; she lets out a loud squeak at my sudden movement. The second man…or vampire… walks in right behind the blonde one and seems to be waiting for him to say something. Both vampires are well-built and completely opposite to one-another, the second vampire being a brunette with hazel eyes and my kidnapper being blonde with blue eyes. They were really quite a sight, but my current scattered thoughts and emotions make it very difficult to process anything I was seeing. Upon them entering the room, I suddenly felt wide awake and I watch as every occupant of the surrounding beds begins to stir.

“Wake up! All of you!” The blonde vampire bellows this command and the whole room seems to shake with the power in his voice. Every living being around the room is now wide awake and sitting bolt upright in their beds. The brunette catches sight of Lottie in my lap,

“On your own bed, now!” Lottie dives off my lap and onto her own bed where she curls in on herself as her body violently shakes. The blonde vampire steps into the very centre of the room and begins to speak in a deep bold voice which seems to freeze the entire room into a static silence.