(Forgive me if I'm getting a few - well, a lot of - details wrong. I missed a few chapter recaps in between, and don't really feel like catching up right now, sorry.)
Elliot can never forget the night he was Marked.
There are times now when he's not sure of much else, when the days blur dizzily into each other like a sort of blood-tinged kaleidoscope, but he doesn't forget the night that changed his whole life. He can't.
He wasn't terribly special Before - he was an average student in an average school living in an average neighbourhood with average interests. He had a little sister, he remembers, and they would just as viciously fight over video games and the last slice of pie at dinner as they would commiserate later, when she would come into his room at night, whispering that she was afraid of the dark, asking for a story, sharing every little detail of what happened at school with all the sincerity and seriousness of discussing current world affairs. He remembers his parents, just as ready with a warm embrace and soothing words as they were with the sharp words they threw at each other behind closed doors as Elliot and his sister listened, scared and trembling.
Then that night, on the way home from football practice, he saw the shadow against the streetlights before he even saw the vampyre, and when he did - when his vision was consumed by a pair of bright blue eyes and the crescent-shaped Mark atop them - when time froze and his whole world was nothing but the searing pain that started from somewhere behind his eyes and exploded in his head and shot down his spine - when reality slipped its axis and the word vampyre set up a twisting chant at the back of his mind - he knew everything had changed.
-
He could barely hear the sound of his parents arguing over his own relentless coughing and his sister bawling, but he registered the resignation on his father's face and his mother's features pinched in worry as they bundled him into the back of their old SUV with blankets and his old inhaler from when he used to get asthma attacks as a kid, just in case. His sister sat with him, holding his hand, her eyes shining with a sort of heartbreaking bravery even as he continued to cough, his chest heaving with every laboured breath.
He got better as they approached the House of Night. He could sit up, his chest didn't feel like his lungs were imploding and sharp blades were no longer lodged in his throat. However, it only seemed to increase the sense of gloom within the car, and as they got closer and closer to the school, his mother dipped her face in her hands and began to cry.
He wasn't sure what to say - except, shut up, Mom, couldn't she see that it was making his sister upset? - but when his father snapped at Mom, his voice rough and hands shaking even with the white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Elliot was suddenly terrified. This was - this was - this was real. This was happening.
He'd heard a lot about vampyres - about how they were the bastions of society, about how so much high-brow culture owed itself to them, but all that was the propaganda they stuffed kids with at school, at meetings and on TV. When people talked about vampyres? They talked about these blood-drinking creatures that stole their children away from them without warning, sequestered them in total secrecy where most of them either turned into vampyres themselves, or were never seen again. It was the kind of nightmare every parent hoped never to face, the kind of scary story that kept kids awake at night.
And it was happening to him, right now.
Elliot took his sister in his arms and began to cry along with her.
Elliot's Story - 1/?
Elliot can never forget the night he was Marked.
There are times now when he's not sure of much else, when the days blur dizzily into each other like a sort of blood-tinged kaleidoscope, but he doesn't forget the night that changed his whole life. He can't.
He wasn't terribly special Before - he was an average student in an average school living in an average neighbourhood with average interests. He had a little sister, he remembers, and they would just as viciously fight over video games and the last slice of pie at dinner as they would commiserate later, when she would come into his room at night, whispering that she was afraid of the dark, asking for a story, sharing every little detail of what happened at school with all the sincerity and seriousness of discussing current world affairs. He remembers his parents, just as ready with a warm embrace and soothing words as they were with the sharp words they threw at each other behind closed doors as Elliot and his sister listened, scared and trembling.
Then that night, on the way home from football practice, he saw the shadow against the streetlights before he even saw the vampyre, and when he did - when his vision was consumed by a pair of bright blue eyes and the crescent-shaped Mark atop them - when time froze and his whole world was nothing but the searing pain that started from somewhere behind his eyes and exploded in his head and shot down his spine - when reality slipped its axis and the word vampyre set up a twisting chant at the back of his mind - he knew everything had changed.
-
He could barely hear the sound of his parents arguing over his own relentless coughing and his sister bawling, but he registered the resignation on his father's face and his mother's features pinched in worry as they bundled him into the back of their old SUV with blankets and his old inhaler from when he used to get asthma attacks as a kid, just in case. His sister sat with him, holding his hand, her eyes shining with a sort of heartbreaking bravery even as he continued to cough, his chest heaving with every laboured breath.
He got better as they approached the House of Night. He could sit up, his chest didn't feel like his lungs were imploding and sharp blades were no longer lodged in his throat. However, it only seemed to increase the sense of gloom within the car, and as they got closer and closer to the school, his mother dipped her face in her hands and began to cry.
He wasn't sure what to say - except, shut up, Mom, couldn't she see that it was making his sister upset? - but when his father snapped at Mom, his voice rough and hands shaking even with the white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, Elliot was suddenly terrified. This was - this was - this was real. This was happening.
He'd heard a lot about vampyres - about how they were the bastions of society, about how so much high-brow culture owed itself to them, but all that was the propaganda they stuffed kids with at school, at meetings and on TV. When people talked about vampyres? They talked about these blood-drinking creatures that stole their children away from them without warning, sequestered them in total secrecy where most of them either turned into vampyres themselves, or were never seen again. It was the kind of nightmare every parent hoped never to face, the kind of scary story that kept kids awake at night.
And it was happening to him, right now.
Elliot took his sister in his arms and began to cry along with her.
-