When Jolyne next awoke, it was with a hazy, confused sense of frustration. A migraine to end all migraines made itself known to her as she struggled to sit up. With a grunt, she was able to will herself to at least get there, hunched over as she might've been. Her left hand cupped her forehead, as her eyes flickered between being half and wide open.
Her mind was an incoherent jumble of thoughts. Memories that flickered back and forth, misty and untraceable. She wasn't lucid enough to get a look at where she was at. The only thing she felt was an aching weariness. She was tired, and hungry. It felt like she hadn't eaten in what felt like months, and it was making her rather angry. That was always a bit of a quirk of hers. If she didn't eat for a prolonged period of time past when she normally did, Jolyne would get, as her friends called it: in her feelings. It was teen slang for getting upset, and it was pretty accurate.
After a moment, the migraine faded away to the back of her mind. At the same time, a bright light hit her eyes, forcing her to squint. When they finally opened again, she found herself recognizing where she was. She was at the Creston Valley Hospital. That meant she was back in town, putting her on fifteen North Avenue, right across the street from the Redeemer Lutheran Church.
Right now, she was in one of their emergency care rooms. At least, that's where she thought she was. Jolyne had never been to the hospital before. If she was sick, her family would always take her to their family doctor. It was safe to say that this was an entirely new experience for her, and she didn't know how to feel.
"The hospital?" Jolyne muttered. Why was she at the hospital? She didn't remember much from last night. All that Jolyne remembered was that she had called Trevor, who said he would pick her up from Erickson Street to take her home. But, after that, it had all been blur.
Jolyne looked over to her left and saw an IV drip attached to her wrist. There were a few monitors, too. It was also at that point that she noticed she had a heart monitor connected to her. She didn't know how to make sense of all the flashing numbers and beeping. What she did notice, though, was that the monitor was off for some reason.
She could also somewhat make out the sounds of conversation going on just down the hallway from the room she was being kept in. There was sobbing coming from a woman, and a gruff, pained voice, alongside a calm, collected, and measured tone. Jolyne could instantly tell that the woman crying was her mother, and the gruff voice was her father. Meaning that the last voice was a doctor.
Her mother probably felt guilty for some reason or another. Jolyne was in the hospital for crying out loud, so something must have happened. The only question was what? What happened? She couldn't make heads or tails of anything during the time after she had called Trevor. Jolyne looked down at her hands, hoping that maybe if she had some kind of wound that she could jog her memory.
In the movies she watched growing up, if someone was lost or confused about a situation, if they looked at a wound or a scar then suddenly all of their memories would come rushing back to them. Now while that didn't happen to her, she did notice something that seemed more thana little off about her hands. More specifically, it had to do with her nails. Her nails were longer.
Now, obviously, finger nails grew. That was biology 101. If you didn't know that, you might as well have been a preschooler. But what made this so much weirder was how they grew. It wasn't your typical straight edged finger nail like how most looked. It wasn't chipped, either. It was pointed like the end of a knife.
As a matter of fact, all of her finger nails were. Even her thumbs.
"Since when did I get nail extensions?" Jolyne thought, raising an eyebrow. Sniffing, she recoiled. It smelt like chemicals and bleach—the building, that was. Which made sense. She was in a hospital. That much was true about any sanitary area. A hospital doubly so. She just wished it wasn't so pungent.
Her eyes whipped around, trying to get a sense of anything else that might be going on. Aside from a vase of flowers on the bedside table next to her and the clipboard that was just out of her reach, Jolyne could find nothing out of the ordinary for her to be worried about. Scratching her nose, she straightened herself out, stretched, and yawned. It was just as she did that when the voices started to come a little closer, and she could actually make out what the conversation had been about.
"I'm sorry, Mister and Missus Brooks, but there wasn't much we could have done. When she got here, her throat had been ripped wide open, and she had lost far too much blood," the calm, practiced, and measured voice that belonging to the doctor said, as Jolyne's mom spoke.
"My poor baby…! I-I… I just hope it was quick."
"Well, judging by the amount of blood that was spilt, and according to the officer that discovered her, she had been dead for a few minutes. I don't think I've ever seen Officer Samson quite that disturbed in my life."
"Samson's a family friend. He's known Jolyne since she was in diapers. Saw her as his own flesh and blood," her father's clipped, infuriated yet calm voice replied.
"When can we get the body ready for a funeral?" Her mother asked as the doctor replied almost instantly.
"Very soon. The police just need to borrow it for an autopsy to see if they can determine the direct cause of death. This isa homicide case, after all," the doctor said, his voice more clear as he rounded the corner and into the room with her parents in tow.
And when the doctor locked eyes with her, he nearly leapt back in full blown shock. "Jesus!"
"Sup," Jolyne remarked, keeping her shock, confusion, and mortification on the downlow in favour of trying to look cool, even if her admittedly pale complexion gave away that she had been horrified.
Jolyne's mother, Susan Morgan Brooks, was around the same height and build as Jolyne herself. She even had the same colour of hair as her, naturally speaking anyway. She was dressed in a full-body, bright pink dress. Her hair was long, flowing down the center of her back. Her eyes were less wide than Jolyne's own, and they were a bright shade of blue rather than green.
Aside from that, Susan and Jolyne shared their appearance one for one. Although Susan had a much more rounded chin than Jolyne, and Jolyne's hair was less straight as it was slightly curled like her fathers.
And speaking of her father, Karl Adam Judas Brooks, was a tall, imposing, burly individual, standing at a whooping 205 cm in height. His arms were, metaphorically speaking, the size of tree trunks. His upper body was built like a professional body builder, with a large chest and a bulky but thin waist. His hands could eclipse a smaller person's head, and his legs were as thick as seven planks glued together.
His hair, like Jolyne's own, was curly. It was a deep shade of black, and he had a thick chevron handlebar mustache overtop his upper lip. It made him look like a stereotypical police officer from the 1990s.
He was dressed in a light blue, long sleeve compression shirt, and a pair of black jeans. They were held in place by a black leather belt with a silver belt buckle. His shoes, a pair of black air force ones, were in pristine condition, and he, much like her mother, wore a silver cross necklace—a matching set, and a gift given to them by her Grandma.
"J-Jolyne? You're alive! Oh thank God you're alive!" Her mother cried, rushing over to her in a burst of speed that Jolyne was wholly unprepared for, as her mother wrapped her in a hug so fierce that it sucked all the breath out of her body.
"Oh you have no idea how worried and upset and afraid I was! I'm so, so, so sorry, I promise I won't ever leave out there alone like that again, you have my word. I-I'm sorry, I'm sorry," her mother continued, her voice a sobbing, sputtery mess.
"Hey, it's okay, jeez," Jolyne said, returning the hug, her mother sobbing into her shoulder. Just at the foot of the hospital bed her father stood, his expression one of relief, if not some confusion. "Hey, Dad."
"Hello, Jojo. How're you feeling?"
"Tired, hungry, and I have a headache. But otherwise I'm fine," Jolyne said as her father nodded.
"This doesn't make sense, I…! er…! um…? Alright, well, I guess I have a few things to correct with the head doctor here, but, hehe, I guess welcome back to the land of the living, Jolyne Brooks. I'll be right back with a couple of nurses. We're going to do some general health inspections and then we'll go from there," the doctor said as he promptly left the room, leaving just her and her parents.
Her mother pulled away, slowly, joining the side of her father. An awkward silence filled the room, as Jolyne rubbed the side of her arm, and after a few minutes of silence, her father finally spoke up. "Jolyne. I think this is a sign from God. Maybe… you should come to Church tomorrow. Just once. That's all I'm asking."
Out of instinct, Jolyne wanted to snap back and say "no", and who could blame her? She was still reeling from all of the information that she had just heard. Her throat had been ripped open, she had been pronounced dead, and the police were about to open a homicide case to discover what it was that had happened.
She was supposed to be dead. Yet, here she was, breathing. Alive. As if nothing ever happened. Her hand passively went to her throat, stroking it slowly, trying to feel for some sort of scar, and there was one. Just not the kind she was expecting. It was two, perfectly round circles near her jugular. Needle marks, perhaps?
She looked at her mother and father. She could see the pained look in their eyes, and… they were clearly just as confused as she was. Whatever it was that had happened, she survived it, and they saw it as a sign from God that He had protected her from death.
While Jolyne might not have been a fan of the church, or organized religion in general, she also knew when to draw a line in her dislike of it to appease her parents. She wasn't a complete jerk. She could compromise if she wanted to.
"Sure. I mean, might as well show my thanks," Jolyne said, her tone reluctant, but nevertheless genuine.
"You mean it? You'll actually go?" Her mother asked, a hint of excitement in her voice as Jolyne smiled.
"Yeah, I mean it. Hopefully, they'll let me out before Sunday," Jolyne said as her father nodded.
"Thank you, Jolyne. This means more than you think. You don't have to go every Sunday, just this one time. Who knows, maybe you'll convert?" Her father said as Jolyne inwardly scoffed. No way in hell. Her family was Mormon, and they were some of the most restrictive groups in Christianity, ignoring the weirder, more fringe groups like The Jehovah's Witnesses.
But, she wasn't going to be a downer. She smiled a toothy grin, snickering. "Yeah, maybe."
"Yeah," her mother paused for a second, before eyes widened. "Huh? Jolyne, when did you get tooth implants?!" Susan exclaimed as Jolyne blinked. Dental implants?
"What are you talking about? I didn't get a dental implant. Those things cost a fortune anyway," Jolyne replied as her father raised an eyebrow.
"Well, maybe you should look in the mirror, Jolyne. I—" he was cut off when his phone started to ring. Karl frowned, before fishing his old Nokia phone from his pocket and answering. "Hello, Karl speaking. Right now? Sure. I'll be there in a few minutes. Alright. Thank you, Greg."
Hanging up the call, Karl cleared his throat. "Alright, well, I have to go to the station. They need me for something. I'll have to drop your mom off at home. When you're ready to come home, just give me a call and I'll swoop in or have Trevor pick you up. I love you, Jojo."
"Love you too, Dad. Love ya, Mom," Jolyne replied as Susan smiled."Alright darling, I'll see you when you get home. Be nice to the nurses," Susan said, before turning to leave with her father. When the two exited out of the room, she looked around for a reflective surface. She would have reached into her pockets for her phone, but she was wearing a hospital gown right now, so she couldn't.
So, instead, she did the next best thing. Jolyne reached out to the bedside table and grabbed the vase, which had a reflective surface. It was a little warped, but it was the best she was going to get until she got to an actual mirror.
So, when she peered into the vase, and when she smiled the same way she did just a few seconds ago, her heart skipped a beat.
Her parents weren't lying. Something about her had changed.
Her canine teeth were now twice as big as they once were. For a moment, she thought that maybe it was the vase warping her face. But when she touched the tip of her pointer finger to one of them, she noticed not only just how further down they now were, but also how sharp they had become. It was almost like a needle….
And it was at that moment that she finally recalled what had happened.
Jolyne had been attacked, and had her blood drunk by someone who had large, pointed fangs like the ones she now had. Pointed finger nails like she now had. And her pupils were the final thing that had set off the last bit of alarm bells.
In the reflection of the vase, her typically round, circular pupils were now cat-like slits, just like the man that had attacked her.
"Do not worry, you will not die, my lambkin."
Those words pounded against her skull as she clutched the side of her head, nearly dropping the vase on the floor next to her.
Carefully, she was able to put the vase back down on the table, her head still hurting as the migraine from before came back in full force. The events of last night repeated over and over in the back of her mind. The sensation of having someone's teeth piercing her throat, the feeling of hopelessness, and the strange yet relaxing feeling that had taken over her body in what were supposed to have been the final moments of her life.
But now, it had become clear what had happened. As mystical and as bizarre as it might have been, it was no less horrifying.
Jolyne had been attacked by a vampire, and now was one of them.