Temptation.

• Ashliegh Dinatale
• Short Story
• 2008

Another black day, no clouds but still the rain was pouring down. The sound of it crashing against the windows, the eerie patterns of the shadows it makes across my room. Its twelve in the afternoon and still the sky is dark but not a cloud in sight still it continues to rain, im supposed to have left by now, were are they’ I wonder. My friends and I have booked a room in some remote country town with a name that sounds like it comes from a fantasy book, a name witch I can’t even pronounce, Haiti Adonis. We have been planning this trip for weeks. We wanted to go somewhere without parents and neighbours telling us to turn down our music somewhere where our band can practice.

The familiar sound of Scarlett’s car. I grab my bag and run to the front door, pull out my sunglasses and step outside.
“What’s up Celine?” yells Nedra. Her Peroxide blond hair bounces around her face as she walks up towards my front door. She’s pretty i've always said that, her peroxide blond hair natural wavy even though it was straight now, her hair match perfectly with her pale complexion. She had brown eyes that were round and sat more into her head. She was tall, way taller than me. “Just stepping out” I yell back at her. I take that im the last to be picked up as Adian and Wyatt are already in the car. Adian is a whole different story he doesn’t look as innocent as Wyatt. His black hair covers his face in a side fringe, short and sticking up at the back. He has brown hair that’s curly and deep brown eyes, he has tattoos and piercings. I remember the first one he got. It was his lip, his gotten more since then. A full arm of tattoos and ones on his back as well. Wyatt, being Nedra’s twin brother look a lot like her without the peroxide blond hair, he has his natural black wavy hair. He has his tongue pierced and that’s it no tattoos no other piercings, just that one. Nedra said he was drunk when he got his tongue pierced, he had to of been, because of his fear is of needles. Everyone in our band knows that, bet you anything he went with Adian, his the one who’s obsessed with them. Then there Scarlett with flaming shoulder length red hair and a voluptuous life. Scarlett’s only short about a head and a half shorter than me. She’s the complete opposite of graceful.

The cars something like a van, the instruments and electronics in the back. I get in and the car lunges forward like it hasn’t been driven for years, and couldn’t wait to get going.
“We need some music” calls out Aidan. Scarlett grabs at one of the many CD’s on the floor. My Chemical Romance blasts out from the cars subwoofer and surrounding speakers. “How has your holiday been?” Adian asks me.
“Boring, I haven’t done anything or seen anyone since school ended” I reply.
“You should have rang or something, we could have hung out, you no I always rather enjoy your company”.
I could feel myself blushing. “Oh Adian has a thing for Celine” Scarlett chants in a singsong voice.
“Shut up” I reply in the same singsong voice.
“Yer Scar, shut up” Adian follows my lead. He turned to face Wyatt and gave him some sort of a boy nod as I like to call them. Wyatt just smiled and returned the nod. When Adian’s focus retuned back to Scarlett and I he just looked from me to Scarlett with a confused look on his face. He then turned once again to Wyatt but this time whispering something to him.
My glare went to staring out the car window watching the scenery pass by thinking to myself for most of the trip, before I met the band, before we started any sort of concept of our music I was friends with Nedra. We both had a thing for music when we were kids and started the guitar together, until she found out that I could sing. That’s how the band started, a singer and a guitarist all we could do was write riffs and put words to them. We needed more members, which is when Aidan came along. We meet Adian at the same time, at a concert for Paramore in the mosh. He and Nedra hooked up and after that went out for about three months, and then they sort of fell apart. They stayed friends though. Good thing was he was a bassist and loved to play. Wyatt was a mean drum player his black wavy hair would look so good on stage. Wyatt being Nedra’s brother wasn’t hard to convince to join our band although he didn’t think anything would happen we have had a few gigs and they have all gone well. He had confidence from the first moment he step on stage and played at Blue Moon nightclub. Adian was different shy at first but gained his confidence soon enough. I have always had a thing for him. I’ve since gotten over him. Then there’s Scarlett. My cousin who ran away from home when she was sixteen and came to live with us, then moved out a year later. A hidden talent for guitar she joined the band. And there we were the band known as Unbreakable Forever.

“Celine, wake up. How the hell did you end up falling asleep? With the music so bloody loud. You and Wyatt both did” Nedra said.
“Be quite. So what, not like it hurt you” I said. “I couldn’t sleep last night”.
“Yer what Celine said” drawled on Wyatt. He had the red mark of the seat belt across his forehead. I giggled, it looked so odd. The van pulled to a stop.
“Guys were here” Scarlett cried. I peered out of the window the rain had slowed to a drizzle but now there were dark clouds in the sky, letting little bits of light filter through them. A fog had settled around our feet and glistened on the ground. It surrounded what look like a haunted house pulled out of a scary movie and just dumped in the middle of a semi forest. The trees were big and tall but there wasn’t enough of them to make a canopy and completely drown out the light. The roof tiles are black and the body was made of old stone like that from a medieval castle with moss growing down the bottom in the cracks of the stones that were worn by the weather. A chimney protruded from the top of the house no smoke spilled from it and the windows were shut, the blinds drawn. A pathway also made of what look to be the same stone in the house’s body made the path. No shrubs or flowers followed the path along just grass not green but not dead. To the side of the porch just to the left of the path were the prettiest flowers id ever seen, black roses stood. Beautiful glistening in the dim sunlight so fragile, so delicate. It made the house seem more real. The house would have been nice, if it hadn’t reminded my so much of a house in a horror movie were people were murder, slaughtered in their sleep or ripped from limb to limb decomposing on the floor until somebody found them.

I grabbed my bag and lead the way up the stone steps. Adian pushed his way past me giving me a smile as he did. I returned the smile. He had the key in his hand and put it in the lock and turned the key in a clockwise direction. There was a click as the door unlocked. Aidan pushed on the door and it creaked under the pressure. Id expected the house to just have a couch inside with a fireplace, cold and small inside with dust trapped in the smallest places. It was nothing like I had imagined. The floor was smooth stone in the main room. Medieval but modern day furniture furnished the room and a door in the far corner, shut closed with engravings across it in a foreign language. I walked through into the dimly lit lounge room the other following me. The lounge room was also the same stone used in the main room I wondered weather this would be in the whole house. A staircase lead up in a spiral pattern, Nedra headed for them first, climbed up the and disappeared. We heard he voice “dips on the first room” she cried “im in the same room as Nedra” Scarlett said. Scarlett ran up the stairs to follow Nedra and the rest of us followed her. Scarlett ran to the door of the room peered in and walked into the next room and said
“There’s three beds in that room and two in here, Adian you and Wyatt take the one with the two beds”.
“Ok fine” said Adian. He and Wyatt walked into there room
“See you in the morning” Wyatt called.
“Yer, see you in the morning sweet dreams”
I walked into our room Scarlett and Nedra were already in there. The room had cream coloured carpet and the same themed furnishings as downstairs.
“Well, well, well” said Scarlett “I think somebody has a thing for you Celine”
“Who” I said looking around the room with my eyes wide. Nedra giggled.
“You cant be that clueless, Adian come on”
“No way, were just friends anyway”
“Okay whatever you say Celine, just don’t do anything stupid”
“What’s that’s supposed to mean”
“He is a pretty good kisser” Nedra added
“Eww didn’t need to know that” I said.

I could see myself. I was in a black room, a fragment of light shone through a tiny gap in the wall. I could see myself walking towards it with my outstretch hand. I felt it, it wasn’t a crack in the wall it was cold and my fingers recoiled back at the unexpected change in temperature. My fingers traced it, I lowered myself to the level in which I could peer through. I could see a man in the back, pale with electric blue eyes. He was sitting on a oddly shaped table. He was looking straight into my eyes, `but how could he now I was here?’ I thought to myself. He stood, walk over to a cabinet turned and lifted a book down. It was the only one on the self, hard to mistake. The book look old, very old ancient. It had an black leather cover with imprints in it that I couldn’t work out. I was lost in him, in the way that he stood the way that he seemed so mysterious. It excited me I could feel my heart racing, could feel the breath start to catch in my chest. He was handsome. To perfect. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from him. I wanted to touch him for him to embrace me, to feel him against the warmth of my flesh. His black hair gracefully sat above his shoulders. It seemed to move in the non-existent wind. He seemed to glide across the floor, although I could here his footsteps. I didn’t want to be out here anymore I wanted to be in that room with him. I blinked and he was gone. The room seemed to grow dimmer, to not be as bright as it had been before. All that was left on the room was the oddly shaped table, now that he wasn’t sitting on it I could see it better. Shaped as a wooden box that could have fitted an average size person in it, it shaped itself to gradually get thinner at the end and come to a smaller frame. A coffin, like it was taken out of a graveyard there was still dust on it. I turned the room I had wanted to be in more then anything suddenly made me nervous. I felt a cold touch on my arm, then fingers running up my arm towards the naked flesh of my neck. I moved to follow the fingers, in a complete trance I let myself go, genteelly turning towards were the person who was touching me was standing. It was him. “how did you…” he put his finger to my lips, cutting me off. I stood not being able to move, not being able to say anything not wanting to. I wanted to stay here forever, he cast what seemed like as a glow, beautiful but yet somewhat to beautiful to be, well human so supernatural. His electric blue eyes locking into my own. His fingers ran a trace down my neck, he turned me so that I had my back towards him. I could feel the blood to rush through me once again, I could hear it. He brushed his lips across my cheeks. My eyes wanted to see him, but just couldn’t quiet manage. he moved around me so that I could see him. He parted his lips showing me his teeth. They were unlike my own, unlike my friends. They looked sharp, dangerous they looked like fangs. He wasn’t human, but what. I put ideas together in my head. The way that he looks, moved. Like a movie, things I never knew existed something not human, not even alive I was sure, and everything leaded to it. He was a vampire. He turned away from me once again, his lips softly caressing my neck, I felt warmth even though none illuminated from him. For a spilt second I was in shock, I felt his fangs pass through me breaking my flesh allowing the blood to flow. Little drops dripping down from my neck. I felt pain, but pleasure at the same time. So much it was overwhelming. His arms wrapped around me, holding me. I started to go limp to fall into his embrace. Giving in to him, wanting him to take me.