Oskar asks Eli if she's a vampire

Somebody's knocking at the door. Nobody knows I live here. I hope. Could it be a salesman or something? Trust me, whoever you are, you don't have anything I want.

(MMmm...)

No, bitch, not now. You left witnesses at the last meal! You didn't kill what you ate! That's bad. That's very bad, but maybe nobody knew who I was. Hakan died to keep this place a secret, did things to himself I can't imagine, and then you go and do something like that? And then you want to eat right here where I live? You're an idiot.

Like that's news, huh?

I don't want to eat. I'm too tired to eat. I'm empty, really really empty, but you can't hunt down and find what I need. I'd sleep if I could.

Wait... that's not knocking. That's Morse code!

Nobody knows I live here, and nobody knows I know Morse code!

Nobody but one.

It can't be!

It has to be!

My god, it can't be... can it?

"Oskar... is that you?"

Yes! It's Oskar! He's here! He's come back! Quick! Open the door! Open it NOW!

Something's not right. His smell is off. His colour is off. He's not standing up right.

:sigh:

Did I really expect it to be right? After the way I ran away from him in the basement? I don't really remember it very well. I was so close to not holding on, and all I can remember is the smell of blood, and I was hungry. So hungry. I could hear everything, see everything, smell every thing, every little thing, but none of it meant anything but that goddamn blood.

It had to have that blood, and I was losing control. When it gets like that, there's almost no point fighting it. Isn't that right, bitch?

I remember clearly enough how he sounded when he said my name. God, If I live to be a thousand years old, I'll never forget that sound. I'll hear it in my dreams. He was scared. Even over my being so hungry, even with the bitch about to take over, his being scared like that made my belly want to drop out of my body. Again. He sounded so scared, and sick, the kind of sick I see sometimes when people lose too much blood too fast and they get dizzy and puke. I hope I never hear that sound again. Not from him, and not from anybody else. If I ever hear that sound again, I'll die.

When he didn't go away after I told him to, when I didn't get enough blood and felt myself losing more control, I ran. There was nothing else I could do. Good thing I did. I don't remember much after that.

And now he's here. And he's being too quiet again. Just like at the candy store. Too still. He's not here to play a game of cards or talk about music stars. He's here to ask about it.

He doesn't want to hit me. He never does. He doesn't want to call me names and make me feel bad. He just never has those smells, never has these things in his voice. I get that now. I know him a little bit now, better than I've ever known anybody. But when he gets really quiet like this, it's even harder than usual to figure out what he's thinking, and that scares me.

If I lie, if I try to wiggle out of answering, he'll know, and he'll go away and never come back. I'm sure of it. And when I tell him the truth, he'll go away anyway. He can't not. Either way, I lose.

He's not going to hold me and try to make me feel better this time, is he?

How can it be that Oskar can make me feel so good and so bad, sometimes at the same time? How is it he can make me feel so safe and so scared at the same time?

God, this is so pointless.

:sigh:

Yeah, this is going to be pointless. He doesn't say anything to me as he goes past me into the little hallway.

Make sure the door is good and locked. Oskar can come in, but nobody else can. Especially not right now.

He's just standing there, facing the wall. He's keeping his back to me. I can't see his face.

I can't figure out what to say. Can't figure out what to do. Can't stand still and can't run away. My stomach feels like it's full of something really big and heavy. I want to explode or scream or go find a deep cave and sleep for a million years. Anything!

I've been standing here trying not to dance for what seems like forever, just waiting for him to tell me it's over. The last words I ever want to hear, but what he'll just have to say because it's the only thing anybody could say after what happened.

How much does he know? What has he guessed?

Look at me. Please? Just... let me see your face.

I was so sure I was going to lose at the candy store again. I was wrong. I didn't know what he was like, then. Not really. Now, I do.

Before, I was just going to lose a good time, a friend whose name and face I probably wouldn't even remember a year from now, after moving so many times and seeing so many different faces and trying to remember so many different names. I was going to lose somebody I didn't think I'd much care about much. I thought that was bad.

It gets worse, though, doesn't it? Things always find a way to get worse. Lots worse.

Now, I'm going to lose Oskar. Not just a friend. Oskar. I'm going to lose being with somebody who makes me feel things I don't remember ever feeling before. I'm losing the friend who can make me laugh. I'm going to lose being able to forget about being me for hours and hours and hours at a time.

I'm going to lose me. I'm going to lose something I didn't even know I had.

It's really different this time. This is worse than eating candy. I'll eat all the goddamn candy you want! It can't be worse than this!

He's turning around. He's moving into the living area. He's not looking at me. When's the last time he wouldn't look at me? Was there ever a time?

God, I can't handle this. I can't handle having him in my living room when he starts asking questions. I can't handle his turning his back on me in my own home when I have don't have anything to fight back with. How does anybody fight this?

There's no way I'm coming out of this without getting hurt.

Bad hurt.

Close the inner door. Latch it. It's a really good thing this door has a window so we can still see each other. Oskar... can't you smile, not even a little? Can't you find some way to let me know it's going to be OK, that you don't hate me? Can't you even stand to look at me anymore?

Oskar... just... look at me? Please?

I thought I was scared at the candy store? Pah! I didn't know anything! I didn't even know I didn't know anything!

If I could only just disappear in a puff of smoke and blow away! How can it be I can't even feel my face? I can't feel anything except my belly, it's emptier and colder now than it's ever been in my whole life.

There it is. The Question. Am I a vampire? He figured it out. I thought he was just going to ask if I was crazy or sick or something. People don't believe in vampires anymore. They're just monsters you read about in comic books, but they're not real.

Am I not real?

Does it matter? He figured it out. He's not sure yet, but he's smart. He's really smart, and he doesn't always believe what other people do. He reads papers. He thinks about what he reads. He knows the myths and the stories. A lot of them are just wrong, but they're true enough and he'll put it all together anyway and then he'll really know.

:sigh:

God, this is all so pointless. If I have to lose again, I'll to do it honestly. I'll figure out what I want to do after he goes away. There are worse things than dying, I guess, and this has got to be one of them. What the fuck, I'm already dead anyway. There's no way to live through this.

Maybe this door idea wasn't such a hot idea. Oskar, if I could only touch you just one more time... would you scream? Would you faint? Would you try to kill me?

Would I try to stop it if you did?

:sigh:

"I live off blood."

Yes, but am I a real vampire? Should I explain what a real vampire is? A mindless animal that just runs around killing whatever it can, not caring all they're doing is making more vampires? Would he care? Could he care?

Real vampire or not, I take people's blood. I kill them. That's all he's going to be able to see. It's all I'd be able to see. It's all I can see.

He's not saying anything yet. He's too quiet! Too still!

I've got this door closed between me and him so I can look at him through the glass, like he could reach out and punch me in the face and kill me or something, but I'm really a monster. I'm not seeing this for the first time. I see it every day, and I hate it every day. But, it's like... yea, it's like I'm seeing the monster I really am for the very first time.

I wish I were dead.

"Yeah."

He... put his hand on the glass where I put mine? What does this mean?

He's thinking. He's not screaming. He's not laughing. His hand is following mine on the door glass. What...?

No, Elias, don't let yourself feel hope. Don't let yourself feel anything. You know how this is going to turn out. Maybe not right now, while he's still thinking about it, but when he's done thinking, you know what he's going to say. And then, when he's gone, you can go away, too.

He's asking if I'm dead. Am I like Dracula, sleeping in coffins and not having reflexions in mirrors and burning up if you touch me with a cross or splash me with holy water? Dracula is a jackass and a clown. He doesn't know anything, either. Good thing he's not real. Seriously.

"No."

Am I really not dead, though? Way I'm feeling right now, I may as well be.

Still, do I really look like a walking corpse? When we were running around in the courtyard, and I was giggling like a drooling idiot, did I seem dead to you? When I jumped into your bed, yea, my body was cold, but I warmed up after a little while, didn't I? You didn't spend that night shivering, did you?

No, I'm not dead!

"Can't you tell?"

His hands follow mine on the glass. He's making these "um" noises people make when they're trying to think what to say. Yeah, I know how this is going to turn out, but... why am I feeling just a little bit better? He's thinking...

He's curious about how old I am? That sound in his voice, it's..? Confusion? He's trying to put it together. He's trying to make sense of it. There's no sense to it, Oskar. It doesn't have any reason. It just is.

I'm really just a kid, Oskar, just like you.

"I'm twelve."

I'm really a kid, Oskar, just like you, only... I've been a lost little kid, just like you, for so long, and sometimes I get so tired, so goddamn fucking tired. I've seen things, done so many things you'll never see or do, so many things you've probably never even heard of yet, things you might never know are even possible.

Why have I never grown up? I've never figured that out. Why am I still little, as old as I am? Why is there so much I don't understand that grownups seem to? Don't people always say that experience comes with age? Why isn't it also true that age comes with experience?

Could you undertsand any of that if I told you?

"... but I've been twelve for a really long time."

Oskar...

You're not here to fight, are you? You're not screaming. You're not yelling. You're not calling me names and making me feel worse.

Like that'd even be possible.

Oh, god, I'm really going to do this, aren't I? I'm going to open the door and let him in the rest of the way.

I'm feeling a little better. Not much, just a tiny little bit. This isn't going to be as ugly as I was afraid it was going to be. He doesn't have any torches or pitchforks, like in all those silly movies. He doesn't have a backpack full of wooden stakes and a big mallet. I could even handle that.

But, Oskar...

Oh, god.

I'm not hungry, but my stomach feels so strange. Bad strange, just like at the candy store, only worse. Much worse. I can't fucking believe how much worse.

Oh, god. Oh god oh god ohgodoghodohgodohgod... I'm really doing this, aren't I? That's my hand on the doorknob, turning it. Did I tell it to? Do I really want it to? Doesn't matter, does it? It's doing it anyway, it's opening the door. It knows it has to - it knows I have to.

I can't not open that door because whatever's going to happen will happen, if I open the door or not. It's pointless to even worry about it.

Oskar...?

Please...?

Tell me you've been thinking about it. Tell me you've known for a long time, that you just didn't really know until now. Tell me you want me to eat five kilos of chocolate before you put a stake in my heart because murder is wrong and you can't just let me run around killing more people. Tell me I'm a monster and that you're mad at me for not telling you before. Tell me anything! I've heard it all before, so many times I can't count them all.

Tell me anything! You'd be right! All of it!

But...

Oh, god.

I thought I knew what being scared is. Every time I've had to leave a town in a hurry because somebody came after me and I almost didn't make it, every time I got caught and almost didn't make it home before the sun came up, I thought I knew all about being afraid. I've run from almost every town I've ever moved into, and every time I move into a new apartment or house, I listen for noises that might mean somebody's found me. I look into the faces of people I've never seen before, looking to see if maybe they recognise me from some other place, some other time, always afraid somebody is going to get that look and point a finger and scream and then I'll have to run again, maybe even leave everything I have behind.

But I've never been afraid like this before.

Oskar...

If you tell me you hate me, there'll be nothing left of me. Nothing will matter anymore. Just... nothing at all.

Oskar...?

Please...?

Please... don't hate me...?