About the Author: Mikaela Zemaitis (Creative Writing and English double major, Class of 2018) has been serious about writing since the young age of 9. These days she writes both poetry and fiction, the latter being her main focus and the former being a form of therapy. Currently she is writing a fiction story for the Shires Press program and hopes to continue to publish novels in the future.

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Part 3 – Alkaios

by Mikaela Zemaitis

As I left Aaralyn’s room, I thought out my game plan, trying to think what the best plan of action would be. I knew that she couldn’t stay here any longer, but I  wasn’t stupid, thus I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. Getting her out of the building alone would be difficult, making getting her off of Antarctica nearly impossible. The best idea would be to talk to Alkaios, as he was the only other vampire I knew who sympathized with her.

However, the issue at hand was that I was Aaralyn’s personal guard, not her only guard. The building was full of other vampires, vampires who hated Aaralyn. If I used the phone and someone overheard what I was talking about, I knew things would only end terribly. So, here I was, searching all the rooms to try and find out if there was somewhere empty of listening ears. Even that would be a bit of a gamble, since our hearing was so superior, but it was worth a try.

Unfortunately, the nature of my job made my absence from her room a little suspicious, and it would only be a matter of time until I was caught. I remember how I cringed when I heard one of the guards call out my name. “Yeah?” I replied, turning to face the source of the voice, Nikias. Before I even faced him I could hear the confusion in his voice as he was aware I wasn’t supposed to leave Aaralyn’s room.

The only time I was permitted to leave was when Aaralyn pretended to sleep, Vampires can’t sleep and Aaralyn was no exception to the rule, but she liked to close her eyes and imagine things were different. Since it was pointless to just sit there and stare at her motionless form for a couple hours, I’d usually spend from about midnight to four A.M. wandering the halls. However, it was eight in the morning and I had no reason to be out of the room.

“What are you doing?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest while staring me dead in the eye. Most likely, he was trying to decide whether I was being suspicious or not through body language alone. Chances were that he had no idea what I was up to, but I was paranoid regardless.

“I just noticed that Aaralyn’s bags felt a little light and wanted to see what was up with that,” I said, even though I knew this was probably a terrible idea and I ought to have kept this information to myself. They probably wanted to keep me in the dark about the fact that they were draining her bags and I should have went along with their plan. However, I tend to be terrible at coming up with lies on the spot, so I wasn’t too surprised that it happened the way it did.

Nikias nodded, clearly displeased by my newfound knowledge, “You sure about this?” he asked, the tone of his voice giving him away, as he was doing a terrible job at pretending that he didn’t know what was going on.

When I replied, I tried my best to keep my voice calm, not wanting my anxiety surrounding the situation to show. “Yeah, I measured it out in the cups. Weird huh?” I faked a laugh, knowing that I had to pretend that I didn’t know they were beginning to starve her.

“Yeah, odd. You know what? I’ll ask for you,” Nikias replied and I faked a smile, having to try my hardest to not give myself away. I didn’t want him to tell the others what I knew, but not trusting him would definitely make me seem suspicious. “Okay, thank you.” I lied and watched as Nikias headed off to the refrigeration unit where the blood was kept.

Once he was out of sight I let out a sigh, knowing that while I had done a fair deal of damage, I also saved my ass. Sure, the others would know that I caught them starving her, but I had successfully gotten rid of Nikias, thus clearing the halls, which gave me a chance to call Alkaios. I snuck into an empty “break room,” a.k.a. where the guards went to have a cup of microwaved blood, and fished out my phone.

My cellphone was one that Alkaios picked off of the body of one of his meals. It was a great choice because even when the human’s loved ones stopped paying for service, I could still make calls as long as I had “wifi.” I got one of those portable wifi hotspots they sold at stores before leaving for Antarctica. One of the good things of being from Great Zimbabwe? I wasn’t unnaturally pale like the Greek vampires, thus making it much easier to go shopping. I could essentially buy things without people freaking out about the walking, talking corpse who wanted to make a purchase.

Though, buying a whole phone would have been problematic no matter how I looked at it. Buying a phone meant extended conversation and if my fangs showed, that would be an issue. At least a hotspot was a small enough purchase that I could get away while not saying much. I was thankful that Alkaios took the phone from that human, as it made what I was about to do much easier.

“Dakarai?” he asked, his tone making his confusion obvious. His uncertainty was normal, as I really didn’t call all too often, but also because even Alkaios knew that I didn’t get breaks at this time of day.

“Yeah it’s me. Look, I have something big that I need your help with. Before I tell you what’s going on, I need to know that you’re on my side. Okay?” I waited patiently for him to reply, hoping I was right about him being okay with his. This might technically qualify as betraying the Gods, as they wanted Aaralyn to be locked up for the rest of their days, but it had to be done. The issue was that Alkaios’ son Kleon was killed for playing a role in upsetting the Gods, so I wasn’t entirely certain how he was going to feel about this.

The only thing I had going for me was the fact that I was a close second, as he viewed me as his own, so surely he wouldn’t want me dead. I could only hope that this would be enough for him to not rat me out to Zeus.

“Okay, now what is it that I just agreed to, Dakarai?” he asked, and I smiled to myself, feeling that getting Aaralyn out might actually be a possibility.

“It’s about Aaralyn. She’s going to die if she stays here any longer. I know you have mixed feelings about her, but if I can get her out of the building, can you get us off of Antarctica?”

Alkaios sighed, making his hesitation obvious. “Alright, just try not to die, please.”

Copyright © Mikaela Zemaitis (2017) All rights reserved.