Ladies and gentlemen... the WrongPlanet writing showcase

Skilpadde · Posted: Sun Sep 13, 2009 5:14 am Post subject:

The unknown people

”I wonder why vampires can’t take garlic,” Hilde thought out loud while studying the pizza slice in her hand. Her friends moaned. Hilde was obsessed with cryptozoology, monsters and legends, and her friends were tired of hearing her latest theories.
”If that’s the case, Hilde, then you must be a vampire!” Conrad snickered and put his arm around his new girl friend. He was seeing someone new every week.
Hilde made a face at him. ”Maybe it’s just superstition…”
Bitten laughed. ”Vampires are superstition!”
Everyone but Hilde laughed.
”Oh come on, Hilde, you don’t really believe in this either,” Haakon said.
”A lot of cultures have believed in it through the ages,” Hilde pointed out. ”Something must have given them the idea…”
”In my homeland many people believe in strigoii,” Cosmin drawled, with a subtle smile. His fingers brushed through his coarse dark brown hair, and Hilde couldn’t help notice how handsome he was. She smiled at him, grateful.
”Only on the countryside,” Vali responded quickly.
He was Cosmin’s twin brother but the two boys were not similar in any way. Vali was significantly smaller and more slender than Cosmin, with a thin face and straight black hair. Vali always seemed nervous and quiet while Cosmin was self assured.
”We’re not living in the medival ages in Romania,” he added while staring down at the table.
Inga noticed the time. ”Oi! I have to get home, my folks will freak if I’m not back by nine.”
”Same here,” Haakon chimed in. Both Haakon and Inga had very strict parets who didn’t allow their children to stay out late, despite the fact that they were nearly adult.
The conversation continued but now it turned to more ordinary topics. By the time Hilde decided to go home, darkness had fallen. She dreaded walking the dark streets alone.
”Shall we go together?” Cosmin’s dark voice sounded behind her. She turned to see Cosmin standing in the doorway, and Vali just behind him. ”We’re going in the same direction anyway.” He smiled that charming smile of his. Vali looked miffed.
Hilde and Cosmin walked side by side in the moonlight, with Vali following a few meters behind. The conversation flowed easily between them, and soon they had reached the street where the twins lived. On the third floor, nearly hidden behind the curtains, she saw mrs Celmare peep out. The boys’ mother was a diffident and seemingly easily scared woman, whose reddish brown hair was always hidden under a kerchief. Usually shifty-eyed, her gaze was now resting on the three teens standing on the curb. Cosmin turned to see what Hilde was looking at and mrs Celmare withdrew.
”Mom’s getting anxious,” he snickered. ”Vali, why don’t you go up while I see Hilde safely home.” Vali seemed disgruntled but he entered the staircase, and Cosmin accompanied Hilde on the last distance to her home. When they were saying goodbye Cosmin asked the question she hadn’t dared hope for. ”Wanna go see a movie Friday?”

Vali grabbed her wrists and stared at her with bloodshot eyes. ”Stay away from my brother!” he hissed stifled. ”Stay away from Cosmin, if you know what’s good for you!” Hilde tried to get free of his grip, but he was too strong.
”Keep away,” he repeated.
She woke up covered in sweat. Thank heavens, it had just been a nightmare. Hilde got up and went to the bathroom to splash a little cold water on her face and hair. Something red hit the sink. Her wrists were red and there was a wound on the right one. Had she scratched herself in her sleep?

The weeks went by and Hilde and Cosmin became an item. Vali seemed to disapprove of it, but he never said anything to her.

Despite her crush on Cosmin, she didn’t forget about her old obsession with monsters. Now she had turned to the topic of witches. As she read, she realised that these wise old women had possessed great knowledge about healing herbs. She giggled. If Bitten had lived in the 1600’s, she probably would have been tried as a witch. Bitten knew all about such things; once she had put a poultice on the paw of her dog when he had stepped on a shard of glass.

One day she was visiting Cosmin and Vali. When Cosmin left the room, Vali broke the silence. He leaned forward and whispered: ”You have to break up with Cosmin.”
Vali glanced toward the hallway looking for his brother, then turned back to her. He seemed even more apprehensive than usual. ”You don’t know what he’s like. When we lived in Romania…”
He stopped when he heard a door be shut.
”I don’t think your brother likes me very much,” Hilde said when she and Cosmin were alone.
”Vali is very jealous,” Cosmin puffed. ”He’ll get over it.”
”Did anything in particular happen while you lived in Romania?”
”Did Vali say so? He’s a bit disturbed, poor guy. He was never the same after the death of our sister.”
”You had a sister?”
”It was a long time ago. Not important now.” He leaned towards her and kissed her. And she forgot all about Vali.

Until she stopped by the grocery store. While she was trying to decide on a dinner, a voice whispered into her ear.
”You’re not good for my son! Leave him alone!”
She looked up in time to see mrs Celmare quickly withdraw. She looked terrible, exhausted, and the skin under her eyes had an unhealthy colour. Shocked Hilde watched her hurry away. What did the Celmare’s have against her?

Despite the unfriendly attitude of his family, the relationship between Hilde and Cosmin steadily grew more intimate.
After a romantic picnic they made love for the first time right there in the grass and fell asleep. Hilde was the first to wake up. Satisfied she rested her head against his chest. Alarmed she opened her eyes. Cosmin wasn’t breathing! She felt his throat. No pulse. Panic stricken she shook him and called his name. A gust of wind hit her. Cosmin opened his eyes. Frightened she told him what had occurred, but he seemed unconcerned and was unwilling to see a doctor.
”Do I appear ill to you?” he asked her and laughed.

Hilde sat in front of the PC in the library, surfing. She remembered the word Cosmin had used some weeks earlier. Strigoii. She had heared it before. It was the Romanian word for vampire. She googled it.
A strigoi could be dead or living. According to Romanian folklore you would be born strigoi if you were born with a tale or embryonic membrane. If a woman had three children who didn’t know their father, then the third child would become strigoi. The same was true for a child born as a result of incest. Her heart missed a beat as she read on. *”Strigoii vii (the souls) leave the body in the night (which remain as dead) and they make bad things: steal the milk of cows, steal the virility of men.”
The body remaining as dead? No, that couldn’t be. She didn’t really believe in this. Did she?
She felt someone staring at her and turned around.
”Vali!”
The boy said nothing, he just stared hard at her. ”Vali, what happened to your sister?”
”Ask Cosmin,” he said hateful and was out the door before she could respond.

She called Bitten to ask for her advice.
”If he steals the manliness of men that could explain why Vali is so small. You should have seen him! He laid there like he was dead!”
But her friend didn’t take her seriously.
”Well, he’s alive now! Calm down; you know this is nonsense. Hilde, I’m worried about you.”

She watched him, wondering. ”Cosmin, what really did happen to your sister?”
He sighed. ”She died in an accident when we were children. I don’t wanna talk about it.”
”Do you have any contact with your father? Does he still live in Romania?”
”What is this, an interrogation? I never knew my father. What’s wrong? You look so pale.”
”You’re strgoii vii, aren’t you? You and Vali both?”
”Enough’s enough, Hilde!” Cosmin said harshly. ”It’s not fun anymore.”

”Hilde, I have to talk to you,” Bitten had said on the phone. ”Can you come by?”
She was standing outside Bitten’s house. Her friend had sounded so weird. Something was wrong. On her way she had felt several weird looks from passer-bys. Was she on the verge of losing it?
Bitten’s mother let her in before she even knocked on the door. ”She’s in her room,” was all she said.
As she walked up the stairs to the second floor, Hilde heard voices coming from Bitten’s room. ”How could you allow a human to see that?”
”You have endangered us all!”
Hilde stopped and considered leaving. Bitten’s door was flung open and Bitten looked at her. ”Come,” she said in a clipped tone.
Everyone was there: Inga, Haakon, Bitten, Conrad, Cosmin og Vali.
”We have been monitoring you. You really wanna know the truth about who we are?” Cosmin asked. ”Both Vali, myself and our late sister are strigoii. My maternal grandfather raped my mother; the result was the three of us. My sister was the third twin. When bad things started happening in our village, she got the blame. She was killed by a mob, burnt alive.”
”Cosmin was behind most of it,” Vali added bitterly. ”I am also strigoi, but years of experience and training have taught me to control it to some degree.”
”I’m a witch, ” Bitten said. ”My grandma taught me all I know.”
”Both Inga and I are werewolves,” Haakon admitted. ”That’s why we can’t be out in the moonlight.”
”I’m an incubus,” Conrad added.
”Why wouldn’t you listen?” Vali asked. ”We all tried to warn you.”
”Congratulations, you were right. We exist. You’re the only human being for miles,” Conrad said. ”The only question is: What do we do about you?”
Hilde felt weak. Her head was pounding, she couldn’t think clearly.
Using the last of her energy she ran away screaming.

She didn’t get far.

*If anyone wishes to check out the site mentioned above:

http://maleficangel.blogspot.com/2007/09/vampires-strigoimoroi.html

I got the idea for this one years ago, but for some reason I never got around to writing it until I entered a competition in Nemi, a Norwegian comic. The contributions were to be 3-4 pages long, so I had to keep it short. Writing it I itched to elaborate on it.
I intend to make a new ’fleshier’ version, but anyway, this is the version I sent in.

Lol, sometimes I lose control of my characters. This was supposed to be a story about a girl with a passion for horror, who finds out that her friends are all different kinds of monsters. Her friends weren’t very important in my first idea as other than backgroud. As it turned out I found myself becoming increasingly captivated by the strigoii twins Vali and Cosmin. I am so gonna write more about these characters.

Edited: If anyone reacted to the name Bitten, it has nothing to do with the English word. Bitten is a nickname for Birgitte.