The following Friday Despen half-slept through her morning alarm until she was awoken by a terrible vision. Drenched in a cold sweat and shivering under the covers, she decided to remain in bed for the rest of the day, the day of her first bloodletting. She wondered how skipping school and not responding to any phone calls or text messages might play out among her new friends. Not well, she concluded, not well at all.
Throughout the remainder of the morning and into the afternoon Despen fell in and out of tormented sleep. Her dreams were like hallucinations, dark and sinister. In one dream she envisaged herself hosting a parasitic creature that had burrowed deep inside her skull, infecting her mind at its core and causing it to swell and then burst. In a subsequent dream Despen was the parasitic creature itself, insatiably feeding on Despen’s own brain. And in her most recent dream, the parasite, having nothing left to consume, began feasting on its own body as Despen watched in terror from a disembodied vista.
"Despen! Despen, wake up!” shouted Liza, who had skipped her seventh period class to check on her best friend. “You're having a nightmare!"
Despen choked out a muffled wail and nearly socked Liza in the face.
"It's okay,” assured Liza, “it was a bad dream."
Despen was green in the face and hyperventilating loudly.
Liza held her close, reassuring her, "It was just a dream, Despen. Shhh, it was just a dream."
Despen eventually fell back to uneasy sleep.
When she woke up again Liza was gone. Dusk had set in, eerily elongating the ashen shadows in her bedroom. She contemplated getting out of bed but she couldn't find the strength. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.
“Mom, is that you?”
At first there was no answer.
“Mom? Liza? Who’s there?”
Then, in walked somebody, slowly, silently, like a housecat on the prowl.
“L-Liza, is that you?”
“No, Despen, it’s me, Crystal.”
Despen’s heart nearly spilled out of her mouth.
“How are you feeling?” (This was not a question.)
Despen sat up, lightheaded but leery, wrapping herself in her quilt, and meekly replied, “I feel awful. It must be a virus of some sort.”
“Pity.”
The room fell silent. Despen could hear her heart throbbing in her ears as she watched the pupils in Crystal’s eyes swallow the little whites that remained.
"So I'm going to make this brief. Sick or not, you're one of us now. You know who we are and you know our," Crystal paused, searching for an innocuous synonym for ‘secret.’
"I won't tell, I promise," said Despen.
Crystal laughed menacingly. "Oh, I know you won't. Besides, once you see the results for yourself you'll realize just how stupid you're being right now."
Despen trembled, "I-I can't do it."
"Excuse me?"
"I mean, I-I won't. I'm sorry, Crystal, but-"
Crystal interjected, "I am not hearing it. You have no choice in the matter, none. Do you understand? This is bigger than you, bigger than us. So keep quiet and get dressed. We're late."
"I'm not leaving, I don't feel well."
"Cut the crap, Despen, I'm not buying it. Let's go."
"No!" asserted Despen.
"You're serious?"
"Yes. I'm not going. I'm sorry."
Crystal hissed, "You will be. You have no idea."
Exasperated, she left the room, kicking the door shut behind her.
Despen began to cry.