Into The Night

After I got home, I went and changed into a pair of sweatpants and an old band shirt. Once I did that I plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV. I pulled out my phone and saw that I had a few missed messages from Cooper, Adison, and Mathias.
Cooper- "Be ready for us to come over at 5, we're going to be staying in for your birthday." To be honest, I was excited we were staying in for my birthday; I was more of a homebody anyways.
Adison- "Bringing Benji with me tonight. He misses his aunt Alice!!!!" Benji is Alice's Corgi she's had since she was 18, her parents got him for her as a graduation present.
Mathias- "I'll be out of town a few more days than expected, sweets :(" I sighed and left the message on read. This is happening constantly with his job, I wish he didn’t have to be gone so often.
I messaged Cooper and Alice back saying "Can't wait! See you tonight!!!"
After I messaged them, I pulled Mochi into my lap and pet him for a bit. I finally settled on watching re-runs of Jersey Shore. I may not have my life together, but they most certainly didn't either and look where they are now.
I finally let Mochi escape from me when I got up to go into the kitchen to grab a glass of juice. I looked at the clock and saw that it was 3:45. I groaned and leaned my head against the refrigerator. 'Maybe I could work on my book. Gordon has been on my ass to submit new chapters…' I thought. Gordon is my publisher and tries to keep me motivated by submitting 3 or 4 chapters every few weeks. I know he's not trying to breathe down my neck all the time, but he's been a bit overbearing lately.
I grabbed a blanket off of the couch before heading into my office and sitting down at my desk. I opened up my laptop and logged onto my writing homepage, I had to keep my personal and professional homepages separate because I am prone to watching more Youtube than doing any writing. I opened up my book titled "Hell's Reign" and read a page to try and gain back the momentum I had while writing the last chapter. I became lost in my writing until I heard knocking on my front door. I looked at the time and saw that it was already 5. I closed out the page before heading to the door to let Cooper and Adison in. Before they got in, Benji ran in and ran into Mochi. "What up, birthday girl!" Adison excitedly said, hugging me. I hugged her back and then felt Cooper wrap his arms around us, we all laughed and fell back into my apartment.
After we all got settled in for the night and ordered some takeout, Adison asked me about Mathias. "Ali, please tell me you don’t really think he's not cheating on you." I shook my head. I understand how protective they are, I mean we're best friends.
"No, I don't think he is. I trust him completely. I mean, we've been together for almost 7 years. I think if he was going to cheat on me, he would've done it by now." I said looking down at my hands. Cooper sighed and said "Please explain how all of his 'business trips' get extended for a few extra days then. I spoke to a friend who works in a similar job and he said all of their trips are 2-3 days tops and never extended for any reason."
I shook my head, ignoring the comment. I heard a knock at the door and got up quickly, trying to get away from this conversation. I opened the door and was surprised to see Jake standing there. "Oh, hi. Thank you for this morning, I can't believe I ran off before saying that. Guys, this is Jake he lives down the hall and saved me from getting hit by a car this morning." I said gesturing to him. He nodded and waved to them.
"I thought you might want this back and no worries, any other decent person would've done the same thing." He said holding my wallet out to me. I took it and put it on the table next to the door. "Thank you, I really appreciate it. Do you want to stay for dinner? We have some thai food on the way." I said, smiling at him. He shook his head and chuckled a little "That's not really my thing, but thank you for the offer." He said before walking off.
I closed the door behind him and saw Cooper and Adison staring at each other, giggling. "He's cute, isn't he?" said Adison. I rolled my eyes and sat back on the couch where we talked and watched trashy TV shows until our food came. While we were waiting, Adison brought up the idea of me going to visit Mathias while he was gone and have like a mini vacation. I thought it would be a great idea so I pulled out my phone and texted Mathias a few questions about where he was staying, just playing them off as me being curious.
After we all fell into a food coma, I heard my phone start ringing. I picked it up and saw that it was Mathias calling. I excitedly answered it, I couldn't wait to talk to him.
"Hello!" I said softly, not wanting to wake up Adison and Cooper.
"Hey there, sweetheart."
"How's your trip going?"
"Good, I just miss my favorite girl."
"Aww I miss you too."
"Why are you talking so softly? Where are you?"
"I'm at home, Adison and Cooper came over for my birthday."
"So, you have a guy in the home? Without me there?" He said, sounding irritated.
"Yeah, I mean it's Cooper. He's my best friend plus he's sleeping." I said, becoming worried he may get worked up like he does from time to time.
"I don't care, you wouldn't want me having another woman there. I want to see a picture of where he's sleeping and where you're sleeping." He said firmly.
"Babe I-"
"I do not care. Send me a picture, now."
I sighed and took a picture of the living where we were all sleeping, sending it to him quickly.
"Are you happy now?" I asked, probably sounding annoyed which I don't care if I did.
He sighed and said "Yeah, I guess so. It's good to know my girlfriend isn't sleeping around when I gone and gets annoyed when I ask for proof."
"I am not having this fight with you right now, I'm going back to bed. I have to sleep for work tomorrow." I said rolling my eyes.
"Oh okay. Bye then, sleep well with him." He said curtly before hanging up.
I threw my phone on the counter and just shook my head. I climbed back onto the couch and drifted off to sleep.
Dream
I was surrounded in a circle by people and they were inching closer and closer to me. I kept calling out for help from anyone, I was so scared. I wasn't too sure what was going to happen and didn't want this to be my last few waking moments.
The people surrounding me were in black cloaks with metallic masks covering their faces. They were chanting something in low voices, it wasn’t apparent what they were saying until they were all inches away from me. They were saying "Vampire mors aequat… Mors… Mors…" as they kept getting closer.
I snapped up, sweat rolling down my face. I looked at the clock and saw it was 4:30 A.M., I looked around and saw that Adison and Cooper were still sound asleep.
I got up and walked into the kitchen to grab a glass of water, hoping it might help calm me down. As I was grabbing a glass from cabinet, I started thinking about what the people in cloaks were saying to me. It all sounded so familiar, but I'm not sure what language they were speaking.
I was sipping my water as I picked up my phone off of the counter and started scrolling through the news . That's when I saw the headline "Young Couple Killed In Whaley Park." I gasped and clicked on the article. Whaley Park was only a few blocks away from my apartment. As I read on, I saw that they were around mine and Mathias's age. Someone had placed a 911 call to the local police department, saying they saw a person who appeared to be following the couple, he was described as a tall male who seemed to have long dark hair and pale skin. He was wearing a long black trench coat, boots, and dark colored pants.
By the time the police got there, the couple had been killed. That's where the article ended, no other details or anything. Typical.
I sat my phone down and shook my head. I started walking towards my office when my phone started ringing. I saw that it was a blocked number when I picked it up; I decided to answer it anyways, thinking it may be a publisher trying to contact me for some reason.
"Hello?" I answered, trying my best to sound awake.
"Mors…" a deep voice said from the other line.
I felt my mouth fall open, trying to make sense of it.
"W-Who is this?" I demanded, now thinking it may be a prank caller.
"He who has the hair black as midnight and skin as pale as the moon will bring nothing but misery and possibly death upon those he cares for." The voice said, sounding fainter towards the end of the sentence.
"Tell me who th-" I was cut off as the person ended the call. I sat my phone back down and noticed I was shaking. 'Calm down, it's probably just a prank caller.' I thought to myself grabbing the eggs from the refrigerator along with the bacon. As I started cooking the food, I saw Cooper sit up, his hair sticking out everywhere.
"Good morning sunshine!" I said as cheerfully as I could. He glared at me as he walked slowly over to the island and sat down. "Could you not?" He said softly as he laid his head down. I laughed and shook my head, Cooper has never been a morning person. As I finished cooking the food, Adison woke up and called Benji to her. As he waddled over, she pulled on a pair of my flip flops. "I'm going to take him for a walk in the park a few blocks over, we'll be back in a few." She said putting the leash on him. "Wait, you stay here and I'll take him to the small enclosed dog park at the back of the building. There was a couple that got killed in that park last night, I can't have someone getting to you guys before me." I said with a smile towards the end.
"Oh my god, was it anyone we would know?" Cooper said sitting up, I shook my head and called over my shoulder as I was walking out the door "It didn't have any names." As I was closing the door, I felt Benji start pulling on the leash. I looked up and saw Jake again. He smiled as he saw Benji and stifled his smile when he saw me.
"I would've taken you for more of a cat person." He said stopping and holding his hand out to Benji. I laughed and said "I am, this is just my friends dog. His name is Benji."
"Ah, okay." He nodded, smiling. As we started walking down the hallway, Jake asked if I had heard about the murder in the park.
"Why do you think he did it?" He asked as we reached the elevator. I thought for a moment before answering "Maybe, he was just some random person who gets off on the murders of others." He started laughing and reached down to pet Benji. "That's actually a pretty good guess, kind of the same thing I was thinking." As we were about to step onto the elevator, a guy with hair like Jake's stepped off. " Hey man!" The man said, reaching out to Jake to hug him. Jake hugged him back, saying "Hey Jinxx! This is my neighbor Alice." He said pointing back to me. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Alice! My real name is Jeremy, but everyone calls me Jinxx. Jake was right, you are very pretty." He said before walking away, smirking. I felt my face heating up and I put my hand over my mouth to hide my smile.
"I-I'm so sorry, I don't know where he got that from. I mean, you are very pretty I just, I'm going to stop talking now." He said as we stepped onto the elevator. I laughed and shook my head. "It's okay, my friends are the same way. I know the feeling." I said as we reached our floor.
As we began parting ways, I could've swore I saw his eyes change colors. I rubbed my eyes, thinking it must've been the light playing a trick on me. When I looked back at him, his eyes were the same chocolate brown I had seen yesterday.
"I think if we're going to be real friends…" He started reaching for something in his jacket pocket "That we should trade phone numbers." He said holding out his phone to me with a new contact pulled up. "I completely agree." I said pulling out my phone as well. While we were trading phone numbers, I looked up for a moment and saw Mathias through the windows facing the front of our apartment building. He looked furious.
As I handed Jake's phone back to him, Mathias walked through the front doors and made his way over to us.
"Hey, sweetheart." He said kissing me on the lips. I opened my eyes at one point to see Jake looking a bit uncomfortable. "Hey, babe." I said pulling away from him. "I leave you two alone, I'll see you around Alice." Jake said handing my phone back to me before quickly walking away.
As soon as he was gone, Mathias let me go and stared at me for a long time. "We'll talk about that later." He said heading onto the elevator. After the doors to the elevator closed, I took Benji out to the small pet park behind the building and let him run around for a few minutes before putting his leash back on so we could head back up.
While we were waiting for the elevator, I remembered what language that was I had heard in my dream; it was Latin. I pulled my phone out again and pulled up a translator and typed in the phrase Vampire mors aequat. It translated to 'Vampire equals death'…

Notes

I hope you guys enjoy this!