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- 08/16/2015
- 843 Words
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The Lonely Heart Club – a prompt story - 5. Night shift - Prompt 438
Again, this is a prompt story telling short vignettes around the LHC. Sometimes the main characters appear only briefly.
Night Shift
I don’t do blind dates anymore. I’ve learned the hard way, is all I’m going to say. I also avoid all those happily involved friends, when they get this special twinkle in their eyes. ‘I know just the right man for you!’ (Insert saccharine smile here) No, thank you!
But then my friend Vincent from the night shift caught me in the elevator. I was just explaining to a colleague why I was staying home on a Friday night, and boom, now I wasn’t because suddenly I had a blind date. I mean, how could I say no to Vincent’s poor cousin Laurentius, who was visiting from another country and had to sit in Vincent’s home hungry and bored out of his skull, because Vincent had to work? See what I mean?
We met at a bar called ‘The Lonely Heart Club’. Not exactly the place you have in mind when you already have a date I know, but he wanted to listen to live piano music and that was what Google suggested.
Laurentius had this whole tall, dark, and handsome mysterious stranger routine going for him. I saw him, and I was immediately in lust. We ate, we talked, and we clicked. It was unbelievable. When I thought it couldn’t get any better, at least in a public place like a bar, he went up to the stage and talked to Martin, who played the piano. They laughed, clapped each other’s shoulders, and then Martin went to the bar for a glass of red wine, and Laurentius sat down behind his piano, wiggled his fingers, and played. One song. My favorite song actually.
I had heard Shots from Imagine Dragons so many times; I could sing it by heart, but never like this. His beautiful tenor voice owned every word, every cadence, every note. I could feel his pain, his agony, his devastation. It swept over me, into me, and I didn’t care about the tears running down my face.
The next morning I woke up alone, not remembering anything that happened after we left the club. Where did we go afterwards? When did I come home? Was Laurentius still with me then? There was nothing but a feeling of great loss I couldn’t define. A fierce longing for — what? That, and I was still bone tired.
Later in the shower, I detected some strange bruises on my neck, wrist, and groin. Oddly, I wasn’t alarmed, although something in the back of my mind nagged me I should be. I could have slept all day, wouldn’t there have been this constant hunger. In the end, all I did over the weekend was sleep and eat, though it never was enough. In the short periods I was awake, I felt restless, and always hungry.
Monday morning came, and I was barely awake enough to remember to go to work. Luckily the bruises were already fading, but then I touched them I got this tingle in the back of my mind.
Remember…
As soon as my colleague from Friday saw me, he started to laugh. “Oh my God, that must have been one hell of a blind date. Did he stay over the weekend?” He snickered. “You sure look like it.”
“No. I’m just tired. I think I caught some strange bug.”
“And the strange bug wouldn’t have the name of Vincent’s cousin, by any chance? Was he hot?”
He hadn’t finished his sentence, when all of a sudden, hot, white rage surged through me. Mine! I could barely swallow the rumble building in my chest.
“Did you just growl at me, Summers?”
Did I?
Word had gotten around that Vincent had made me go on a blind date with his cousin, so of course people kept asking me about it. Every time they did, I felt the urge to slash their throats with my non-existing claws. I could see it in my mind though, in vivid colors. How they would writhe on the floor, soaking in their own blood, dying a painful death. Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer and volunteered to do some long overdue research in the archive. Almost nobody goes down there anymore. Man, I was so glad when the day was over.
When I was heading out of the building, I met Vincent in the elevator again. As soon as he saw me, he grabbed my wrist, pushed the cuffs of my shirt up, and inhaled sharply.
“Do you know what these are?”
He ran his thumb over the two puncture wounds I had there, and before I could help it, a deep growl left my mouth. He pulled his hand back as if it stung. “Looks like you were bitten by a vampire.”
I scoffed. “Sure.”
Vincent shrugged his shoulders. “I have a feeling we’ll be working together soon. On the night shift.”
“What, why?”
He only grinned. “Oh, and you might be happy to hear, Laurentius decided to stay for a while.”
Acoustic piano version of Shots by Imagine Dragons
When I found the video I needed to write a story around it. Look at their hands, it's amazing. Or it's just me...lol
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Note: While authors are asked to place warnings on their stories for some moderated content, everyone has different thresholds, and it is your responsibility as a reader to avoid stories or stop reading if something bothers you.
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