.png)
EPISODE 2: The Bite
I spent my winter break typically. I tried hard to focus on
my studies to prepare for my finals. I was, and had always been an average
student. I liked to spend my free time
reading stories and watching movies. I always enjoyed a good story and aspired
to be an actress one day. My version of acting was like that of the olden days:
In a theatre, actually living and feeling the storyline and its morals within
myself, feeling the character, and delivering a live, emotion-filled performance instead
of a directed recording. I told my ambition to only a few people. I had always
kept the fact that my best friend was still my teddy bear, a secret.
Anyway, I had not gotten used to the new neighbours moving
in, so I would have to rush back inside to change into appropriate wear because
I generally only wore tube tops in my room. One such day, I accidentally came
face to face with a boy who looked close to my age. He had the typical post-fresh puberty figure of a teenager. His skin tone was dusky, he had light brown
hair, styled in bangs and he was dressed simply in trousers and a t-shirt. I
could not make out the colour, but I could tell that his eyes were very light. He
was holding something in one hand, although I couldn’t figure out what.
I froze for a second and debated whether to go back inside
my room or not for a few milliseconds, before deciding it would be too rude so
I just waved and forced a smile. The boy returned my smile with a wide grin and
proceeded to wave his whole arm back at me. I won’t lie; it made a shiver run
down my spine. Something about this gesture seemed creepy to me, but I shrugged
it off thinking he was just extroverted. I went back inside and began scrolling
through my phone. After about twenty minutes, I sat back for studying. However,
before I could even flip my book to the right page, my mother came into my room
and said “Someone is here to see you”. I was extremely muddled. I had no
friends who were close enough to me for them to randomly turn up at my house.
So this was very unusual. Even my mom seemed tense. I walked outside to find my
new neighbour standing at our front door. I didn’t even recognise him at first
because I hadn’t had a proper look at him from the interaction through my
balcony, and he had been afar. He had now changed into more formal attire. He
wore jeans and an olive green shirt. I was surprised to see that his eyes were
grey. He wore a calm expression on his face and acted as though it was a normal
thing for him to come to our house.
I was horrified. All
I did was wave to this guy and this complete stranger just decides to crash at
my place? I gave him a questioning look and asked him why he was there. He
smiled sheepishly and put out his hand in front to reveal the cutest black and
white little guinea pig I had ever seen. Perhaps it was what he had been
holding on the balcony. I was in awe but didn’t let my guard down. I shot him
another questioning look. He said nothing but laid his hand out further and
nodded as if insisting me to hold the little being. My mother then stepped
into the picture and said “We do not like pets. Please take your…hamster
elsewhere”. He raised one eyebrow in
confusion. He pointed at the guinea pig
then at both of us and shook his head with a questioning glance. We both
understood what he was trying to say and stated that it was not ours. He gave
us an understanding nod and shrugged. It was then that I realised that this
fellow had not spoken a word ever since he came. He began making hand gestures
that were quite easy to understand. He pointed at himself, then the guinea
pig, then the floor, made a shivering gesture, then back at himself, scooped
his hands and made them go in the direction of his building, pointed to his
head and then towards where he came, pointed towards his eyes then mine,
towards his head again then a gesture that was half declarative and half
shrugging. I watched him act out his message with each gesture. The message
said ‘I. saw. This. Here. And it was
shivering. So I took it with me. When I looked at you, I thought it was yours,
so I brought it here’. My mother did not understand what he was trying to
tell us so I explained what I understood and he, as if understanding what I
said, nodded.
My mom lightly shook her head and then looked at me. I explained
to her what had happened and she turned to the bot with a gentle smile.
“You are new here, I see. What is your name?”
The boy returned her smile but remained silent and looked
confused. Mom had also noticed that he hadn’t said a word since his arrival and
thus gestured towards her ears and mouth, asking if he could hear or talk. The
boy understood and indicated “little” with his thumb and index finger. Then he
placed one hand on his chest and uttered “Lorken” and laid his hand out for a
handshake. He proceeded to smile at me and hold out the guinea pig, probably
guessing that I was eyeing it to pet it. I stroked the tiny little furry being
with my finger. It seemed to like it at first and began smelling my finger; but
then, it suddenly bit my finger. I heard a little chomp as I felt two sharp
points pierce through my skin. I almost yelled but managed to muffle myself and
cried out in pain. Mom and Lorken panicked. Mom was too afraid or perhaps
disgusted to touch the guinea pig and so it was only Lorken who struggled
trying to gently pull it out of my finger while trying not to injure it. Every
second felt like a minute when finally about twenty seconds later, the creature
decided I was not a delicious meal and let go off me. Lorsen gently hit its
back and projected upset and annoyance at it. It rolled itself into what looked
like a white fluff ball and squeaked fearfully. It was so cute that I had to
forgive it. Lorken looked at me apologetically and bowed. I told him it was not
a big deal and smiled again to indicate that I was okay.
My mom shook hands
with him and let him off with a smile. He bowed in respect, smiled at me again, and
left. Mom and I shrugged at the small visit and took a moment to feel sorry for
the poor guy. Mom then lifted my finger to check if it was okay and her face
drowned into an expression of shock as she looked. I asked her what happened but
pulled my hand back to have a look at it myself before she even had the chance
to say anything. Truly, the wound was worthy of being shocked at. Instead of
teeth marks which one would expect after being bitten by a rabbit, rat,
hamster, or as in my case, a guinea pig, weren’t there. Instead, there were two
red holes in my finger. So deep that four fairly large droplets of blood had
dripped out from them onto the floor. They looked like they had been caused
by a snake’s fangs. Some skin around the wounds had turned bluish-purple. Perhaps
that rodent hadn’t been a guinea pig. My mom got very concerned. She told me
that she would take me to the doctor in the evening to have the wound checked.
“That nasty little thing was found here.” She said “Heaven
knows what it was or from what dumpster it had climbed out off. Hopefully, you
do not catch an infection.”
I nodded and hoped the same. Later I searched if guinea
pigs could bite the way I had been
bitten. However, all results proved me wrong, so I tried finding out what
creature resembles guinea pigs, but have fangs and yet again, there was no such
thing on the internet.
Even the doctor could not understand what it might have been
when she examined my finger. She said she was certain that blood had been drawn
from it like a vampire bat would, but I should
no signs of infections nor anything was found in my blood test reports. Both
mom and I heaved sighs of relief as we were told this, and I luckily got off
with nothing but ointments and band-aids.
As we were leaving the doctor's chambers, and walking back toward our car, I was startled by a shadowy figure walking past, shooting a slight glance at me.
I could have sworn, that his blue eyes were glowing...
To be continued...
Hello there! Welcome/ Welcome back to The Cyan Corner.
We really hope that you enjoyed this episode and will also enjoy reading further. New episodes for Valerine will now come out on every Saturday, at 14:30pm, GMT. Please follow our blog (Click on the sidebar at the top right corner of the page -> follow), so that you never miss an episode or more interesting short stories and more (coming soon!).
If you like our page, we'd be very grateful if you'd share it to help us grow. You can also support us on: our Patreon
Thank you so much for your time, we hope to see you again soon. Till then, please take care!
Comments
Post a Comment