Im still alive, p.1
I'm Still Alive, page 1
Copyright © 2021 Jade Austin
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9798458219761
DEDICATION
I dedicate this book to the amazing people who read this story all the way through and supported me every step of the way. You brought joy and light to my heart when the world seemed so dark.
Thank you
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DISCLAIMER
This novel contains:
Bold/Capitalized Words
British Spelling and Abbreviations
Mental Health Awareness
The following are situations or themes throughout the book:
Attempted Sexual Assault
Abuse
Gore
Domestic Violence
Brief Thoughts of Suicide
Consensual Sexual Content
Contents
BEFORE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
After
BEFORE
Everyone in this world needs to be LOVED. Sometimes it’s possible to go through life and never experience this sensation. Other times the little amount we are given simply isn’t enough, and all hope we once had slips away.
I wish I could remember why I was walking down that deserted road, why my tears added to the wetness on my face, or why my entire body felt like it was collapsing in on itself from sadness, but I simply can’t. I remember the rain. It was a particularly frigid September night, and the torrential downpour was like none I had ever seen. Even for London, with its usual dreary, depressing skies, the misery and chill that swirled around seemed to eclipse every other night. The shivers racking my body, however, were from more than just the icy wind and my drenched clothing.
Through the crashing rain, I heard footsteps behind me and quickly turned to see who it was. Yet there wasn’t a soul in sight. I continued, but it was only a few seconds before I heard the footsteps again, thumping louder than my own heart. I stopped in my tracks and turned back. It was unmistakable. Someone was there. Perhaps even more than one of them. If their intentions were good, they’d have made themselves known. But alas, no one did. So I faced forward once more and kept going.
What does it matter? I thought as I glanced down at my soaked jeans, white t-shirt, and ratty trainers. I had nothing. Nothing to rob, no phone, no money. Nothing to take except for my miserable, pathetic life. My stomach growled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten in days. My body was too weak from hunger to put up a fight, even if I had wanted to. So I merely kept staggering along, accepting death, longing for it. And in a way, my life did end that night, just not in the way I had expected it to.
The slow footsteps drew nearer, almost as if they were toying with me. I closed my eyes, bracing for the attack, ready for it, but all the while praying it would be swift. When they grabbed onto me, my legs gave out. The two of them swiftly lifted me, carrying my limp body from either side. Far in the distance, my father’s voice sounded through my head. You’ll go to hell, he’d always said. He said I’d rot there. A pool of sadness swelled in my heart. I wanted more than anything for it not to be true.
“What’s your name?” a faceless man asked, dragging me abruptly back to the present with his cold, angry hands.
“Azalea,” I breathed out, but my voice was less than a whisper.
Exhaustion kept my eyes shut tight as something hard pressed against my lips, and they parted anxiously. I allowed the cool liquid to trail down my throat, but as my parched mouth accepted it, I came to realise it wasn’t water that went down. It was bitter, and not like anything I had ever tasted before. But there was a more pressing question that itched at me from within. Using the last bit of energy I could muster, I turned my head, still too weak to open my eyes.
“Are you taking me to Hell?” I asked.
The cruel voice of a woman responded.
“No, Sunshine. We’re taking you somewhere far worse.”
The grip she had on my arm tightened and it grew numb. I opened my eyes and tried to wiggle free, but it was no use.
Everything turned black.
I was violently awoken when something sharp pierced into my neck, and I cried out into the night. The little life I had left in me leaked out, leaving me like a shrivelled corpse. Even my memories spiralled down the drain, around and around, as if never to return.
“Here,” the strange man said from beside me as he offered out his arm, and a sweet smell filled my nostrils.
“Drink,” he demanded. “It’ll make you stronger than you ever imagined possible.”
I hesitated for only a moment before instinct took over. My teeth sank into his flesh and I drank. The taste buds on my tongue exploded in pleasure as if they had never had something as sweet or as satisfying before. My jaw clung onto him eagerly as I latched on, draining him as he had done to me. Yet, just as I was reaching the height of the rapture, the infinite suffering began.
The pain started in my throat and shot to every other part of my body, crippling me. It was intense, it was endless, and it was relentless.
All I felt was agony surging through me.
All I knew was the torture it brought.
It was a burn a thousand times worse than fire.
I pulled at my long, curly dark brown hair, desperate for a lesser evil, something to distract me from the feeling, but my hair merely fell out in clumps. I didn’t know where I was. My only clues were the cold grass and mud my fingers clutched onto and frantically ripped out of the earth to try and ease the pain. I wanted more than anything for it to end, to escape it, or for sleep to take me away, but no slumber came. Instead, a slithering sound drew closer as I writhed and screamed for mercy, and invisible vines wrapped around me, holding me in place. The more I moved, the more they entangled me, until all I could do was drown in the torment.
This was Hell.
I couldn’t make out what was happening around me except for the sound of other voices mixing in with my screams, and the scent of more BLOOD as it teased me. When I thought back to that moment later on, I realised the two of them must have been arguing. Things around me seemed to shift, and a new voice rang through my ears.
“What did you do to that poor girl?” a woman screamed. “It’s against the laws!”
She knelt next to me, and I tried to claw at her arms, begging her to help, but the invisible vines held me in their grip. As she stroked my hair out of my eyes, none of it made sense. Just the burning. Everywhere. Inside and out.
Why was this happening to me?
Eventually, my body grew numb. After what felt like an eternity, the black night engulfed me, and I finally felt nothing.
Chapter 1
A New Life
My eyes slowly crept open, fighting against the drowsiness that weighed them down. The rain and cloudy skies had vanished, and in their place was a white ceiling lit with an orange glow. I watched the shadows dance across it playfully, slowly pulling me back to reality. The numbness that had taken over my body was gradually subsiding. As the sensation of needles pricked my fingers, I clenched onto stiff fabrics that had replaced the sodden grass I had clung to so desperately before. Strength had deserted me. It was wasted on futile attempts to break free, for the disease had consumed me; a battle I hadn’t been prepared to fight, a battle I had lost severely. As the shadows continued to play, the memory of torture and two evil voices flowed to the forefront of my mind.
A sudden stir to my left caused my muscles to contract, and the head of a woman popped up from where it had been resting beside me. The sudden movement sent a shock to my head, and I scrunched up my eyes as I waited for the pain to fade away. After a moment, it became bearable, and I opened my eyes to the orange glow once more before they fell upon the stranger sitting next to me.
The young woman, wide-eyed and unwavering, straightened herself in her chair. As I looked into her blue eyes, I found they were soft and worried, not cold and cruel as I had expected. Her mouth lifted into a faint smile as I took her in. She was barely an adult, possibly nineteen or twenty, and she had a Star of David pendant necklace. Her skin was deathly pale against her long onyx-black hair and gothic dress, but her face was smooth and stunningly beautiful nonetheless.
“Azalea?” she asked softly. “Is that your name?”
The room blurred in and out of focus as her words floated delicately to my ears. The name felt odd at first, but then a twinge of familiarity rang through, and I managed to give a nod. Through the haze, her voice was kind. Images of clawing at
“Azalea, I’m Abigail, your… your friend. Or, at least we could be...”
Her voice tapered off, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs to follow. My lips stayed shut, though I yearned to know more, ached to leave the fog that surrounded me.
“Look,” she continued. “I know you’re confused, I do. I was confused when it happened to me. When I saw what Florence had done—well…” Her hands nervously picked at the folds of her long dress. “It was too late...”
A man striking a woman across the face.
“—he turned you—”
BLOOD dripping down her face.
“—I couldn’t stop the venom—”
Teeth burying deep into my neck.
“—and I’m so incredibly sorry.”
Invisible vines.
I slowly shook my head, not understanding how I was seeing these images so clearly in my mind. None of it made sense. It was as if she was trying to explain the impossible.
“Azalea,” she began once more. “I know it’s hard to believe, but you’ve been... changed.”
My weary eyes searched hers, but the thoughts in my head refused to translate into words.
“This isn’t exactly the easiest thing to explain to someone, you know, but I suppose it’s better to come from me than...”
She took in a deep breath before leaning into me, a brave look on her face. Her dark lips moved in slow motion as she whispered another impossible explanation.
“Truth is, you aren’t entirely… human anymore. You’re a vampire.”
A small laugh left my mouth. From where it came, I’ll never know. It didn’t seem to be the proper response, but somewhere in between the mixture of confusion, aches, and drowsiness, a truth whispered in my ear.
“Vampires aren’t real,” I told her firmly, finally breaking the paralysis that had taken over.
A frustrated tear fell from my eye as I turned my head away from her defiantly. It trailed down my temple, tickling the path of skin as it went. Setting my eyes on the only door in the room, I gave a despairing sniffle before continuing.
“They kidnapped me,” I told her quietly, emotions swelling in my throat. “You were probably in on the whole thing. You’re mad.”
It wasn’t a question. I wanted to leave whatever hell I was in, but I couldn’t manage to sit up, let alone run. I wanted to go back to sleep or wake up from this horrible nightmare.
Trembles rattled the surface I lay on as fear coursed through me yet again.
“Shhh… No, no, no,” she said, wiping away my tear. “I wasn’t there until the process had already begun. But you’re safe now, Azalea. The pain you felt before was the venom flowing through your veins. It’ll all be over soon. You’ll come to understand.”
Venom? Vampire venom? She couldn’t possibly be telling the truth. But even as I told myself this, the urge to escape my troubled mind prevailed, and I closed my eyes. Once again, I was out.
I sat bolt upright. My stiff joints and aching muscles gave the impression I had been lying there for years, if not an eternity. How much time had gone by? I looked down at my arms to see several tubes with fluids going into them, reminding me of the invisible vines that had held me down before. The caramel complexion of my skin was oddly familiar, but the smooth flawlessness about it was… what? Different?
I was on a small bed in an area that seemed to be a hospital wing, only there were several sconces on the walls instead of horrendous fluorescent lights. They were the only light source, yet they brightened up the entire space. They would have been soothing if it weren’t for my desperate need to get out. Abigail was nowhere to be seen, and the door on the far end of the room was wide open. My heart leapt at the opportunity to escape.
Loud, rhythmic beeps exploded into the air, and I covered my ears as sound slammed into my mind, yet the deafening call still echoed. My pulse pounded through my head at the same timing as the beeps, and I realised it was the beat of the machine I was attached to.
Braving the noise, I reached to quickly remove the needles from my arms, wincing at the seemingly inevitable pain it would cause to rip them out, but the pain never came. Once I was freed from them, the sound subsided and I quickly stood up, ready to plan my escape. But when my feet met the cold stone floor, I felt something wet underneath them. Slowly trailing my eyes downward, I discovered hair laid out, drenched in a puddle of BLOOD. My fingers flew up to my head, searching madly for bald spots, but there was no absence of long, dark brown curls. With a nauseous retch, my feet moved frantically against the stone floor in an attempt to wipe the vile liquid off of me before I ripped the white sheet from the bed and used it on my feet instead.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked no one.
“I told you, Azalea,” said a sudden, soft voice.
Abigail’s abrupt appearance in the doorway sent chills down my spine, and I instinctively pressed against the hospital bed. The brakes on the wheels caused a dreadful scraping sound to fill the room as the bed skidded against the floor, and my entire body seized in response. Abigail bit her lip before closing the door behind her, but as she took careful steps in my direction, her awkwardness was replaced by an air of determination. My shoulders fell, and dread overtook me as I realised just what that face meant. She was going to make me believe her radical story despite my insistent efforts not to.
“You’re a vampire now,” she said, still managing to sound patient with me. She raised her chin to gesture at the hair on the ground. “It’s normal for your hair to fall out during the transformation. Your body tries to fight off the venom like a disease, but it heals itself once the venom has run its course.”
Wary of taking my eyes off her, I chanced a glance down to the floor and then back to her.
“Where are we? How did I get here?” I interrogated her as I straightened back up.
I wanted to sound brave, or even intimidating, but it hardly worked. She continued without skipping a beat, her sweet voice wrapping around me like an affectionate hug.
“We’re at a place called Loxley Lair,” she replied gently. “I was there, in the woods just outside of here, not long after he turned you. Of course, you were probably in too much pain to remember...”
She looked down at the ground, as if deeply ashamed by the circumstances. It only confused me more. I was frightened. The woman standing before me was neither a friend nor a foe. She was merely in the way and spewing gibberish. For a moment, I considered whether or not she was understanding, so I leaned in and tried to enunciate the severity of the situation.
“You are clinically insane,” I spat out with misery resonating in my throat. “I want to go home.”
But my voice cracked as the word “home” rolled off my tongue. It was as if such a place was foreign, and waves of confusion continued to wash over me.
“It’s natural to feel scared and confused,” she said, not bothering to deny she was insane or reveal if leaving was a viable option. “But I promise it will all feel normal in time.”
