Chanyeol’s POV

I woke up to a hellish pain in my neck, and a note:

I’m sorry.

I knew as soon as I read it that its message was far more than the two simple words it seemed to. I simply didn’t want to interpret it yet.

I slowly stood; my joints voicing their protest. I quickly noticed I was in bed. Alix’s bed, to be precise. I stumbled to the door - my head spinning from even this small walk - and carefully made my way to the kitchen, checking each room for her on the way; even though I knew I wouldn’t find her. I knew a lot of things, most of which I wasn’t ready to acknowledge yet. Like why Alix’s car was gone, or what the stickiness caked to my neck consisted of.

I ate breakfast mechanically, before going to shower - trying to spend as much time here and without thinking as possible. It was as I was stepping out the shower that I spotted my reflection in the bathroom mirror and I finally allowed myself to break down.

*

‘I’m sorry’, it turned out, meant many things: mainly, disappearing off the face of the earth. I had waited for hours the day of the note, but she hadn’t returned. She hadn’t been at school come Monday, either. Or the next day, or the next. She wouldn’t answer her phone either, and although I went to her house every night she was never there. What should have truly worried me - the bite wounds slowly fading from my neck - had been pushed to the deepest part of my thoughts by Alix’s disappearance. It would have been too much to handle otherwise.

As the days past and she still didn’t show up, I started distancing myself from those friends I’d originally known to trust - people like Li An and Baekhyun. I doubted if I could even call them friends anymore; I barely ever spoke to them now. I knew it was a ridiculous notion, but I couldn’t help but think that they’d leave me too. Even without this fear I wouldn’t have been able to spend much time with them: their presence reminded me far too much of the one member missing from our little group. I tried to distance myself, and although it was difficult to start (Li An barraged me with questions on Alix’s whereabouts, even though I told her I had no idea, until one day I’d snapped and screamed at her) I had eventually managed. No matter how much they sought me out, I turned them away. Now, the simply didn’t bother anymore.

What was more shocking was how I now spent my time - both in school and out  without my former friends. And more importantly, who I spend said time with: Kai. He’d approached me one day and told me everything that had happened that night. The which now felt like years ago, even though it had only been a few weeks. Well, I actually had no way to tell if he’d revealed everything or not; but he had told me a lot. Don’t get me wrong - I still didn’t like the boy, but he’d done what Alix hadn’t: explained. And I valued that greatly.

I think he was shocked with how well I’d taken it. I mean, he’d practically told me that both he and my girlfriend (ex-girlfriend, I don’t know) were blood- monsters. Although he never seemed too pleased when I called him this. He insisted his kind preferred the term ‘vampyr’ (written with a ‘yr’, never an ‘ire’). I was quite surprised with my reaction as well, originally. Yet the more I thought of it, the more I realised that I had known for a far longer time than this. I hadn’t known that she was a vampyre, no, but there had been... something. Something that always puzzled me about her. Something otherworldly.

And now, something I was I’d never found out.

“Hey Yeol!” Kai’s obnoxious voice called out to me; pulling me from my thoughts. I nodded to both him and his friend Sehun in greeting.

“What do you want?”

“Aw, Yeollie~ Don’t be so glum! I have a surprise for you.”

Kai’s surprises were very rarely pleasant, more often than not consisting of some gruesome lesson on vampyr heritage I could probably done without. But Sehun’s presence intrigued me - normally he seemed as unamused by Kai’s vampyre history lessons as I did, and so had started to make himself scarce whenever Kai mentioned the dreaded ‘s’ word. But now he made no attempt to escape, which led me to believe he knew what Kai had in stock for me and that it was something actually worthwhile. I glanced from a grinning Kai (which honestly worried me) to a solemn Sehun. The latter catching my eye and offering me a small nod. For me, that was enough. I followed them without complaint.

*

There she was: the girl I had come to accept I would never see again. She had dyed her hair and changed her style, but it was undeniably her.

“Alix...” The name left my lips without my realising, and her head snapped up instantly; the laugh on her lips dying at the sight of me. The atmosphere around us grew quickly heavy; weighted with her abandonment - the distance between us or the two vampyrs behind me offering little comfort.

From the look on her face I could tell she wasn’t happy to see me, and I felt my heart drop. Out of all my worries, all my concerns and all my fantasies of seeing her again - not one did I even consider she wouldn’t reciprocate my feelings. We had been in love: feelings like that don’t just disappear.

“Alix.” My voice was stronger now, daring her to ignore me. For that was my fear now - her turning her head and ending whatever this was in one fluid motion. Ending us.

And all of a sudden I realised exactly why I had taken everything so well: why I had accepted the situation without question, why I had so easily befriended Kai and Sehun, and why I hadn’t once broken down at the thought of my own girlfriend being a freaking vampyr and drinking my blood since the day of the note. Because it wasn’t real. At least, none of it seemed real. I was in a dream, a dream in which stuff like this could happen, and I would wake up. I didn’t know when, but I would. And when I did, things would be back to normal and I could be with Alix, my girlfriend again. Not Alix, the vampyr who had attacked me without a second thought. Who had almost been killed on that night. Who I had no hope in hell of ever protecting no matter how much I wanted to.

...But it was real. Looking at her now, it finally sunk in. And whether it was irony, or karma, or who-the--knows - I was wearing the same jacket I had been then. I reached into the pocket and took out the note.

I’m sorry.

“Alix.” My voice was quiet again; a panic setting in.

Finally, I knew what it meant. It meant that she was leaving and had no intention of coming back. It meant that she was a monster straight out of a fairytale who had almost killed me. It meant I wasn’t safe around her and despite all my protesting I would never be able to keep her safe. It meant that in her time of need it hadn’t been me, but Kai who had come to her rescue. It meant that she could have killed me; should have, but hadn’t had the guts to.

“Alix.” My voice was strained; the despair starting to show through.

It meant she had been lying to me from the moment I met her and would never tell me the truth, not in its entirety. It meant that she regretted meeting me. It meant that she wished ‘we’ had never existed.

“Alix.” A chocked sob. I wouldn’t believe this.

And it meant that she didn’t love me.

“Chanyeol.” Her voice was soft; gentle - mocking what we had never had. She had moved towards me without my noticing, a hand now reaching up to through my hair. I jerked away. I lowered my eyes. I tried my damndest not to let the tears fall.

She froze, surprise by my actions, but made no further move to approach me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“I know,” I breathed back. ‘You should be,’ is what I thought.

The tension surrounding me was suddenly far too suffocating for me to bear, as I stormed past a confused Kai and a bemused Sehun, desperately searching for escape.

No, none of this is real. I can’t let it be. I surely won’t survive if it is.

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