InsaneJournal

The day was nearing it’s end, and with every passing minute the sky seemed to turn a darker shade of blue.

Ana was walking alone along one of Logroño’s main streets, it was nearing eleven o’clock and she didn’t want to be late tonight; she knew she would never hear the end of it. It wasn’t the first time she walked home alone; Logroño was, after all, a small city, mostly safe and village-like, but that night she felt nervous, as if sensing, somehow, that something was going to happen.

As she took the street on her left, Dukes of Najera, she quickened her pace. She could almost hear her heart beating hard against her chest and the blood pulsating in her head as her body tensed, alert as if preparing to face some unseen danger.

She had spent the afternoon with her friends, all together at last; Tana, Liz, Lucya, Alba, Stefi and Lucia had managed to agree on a date to get together, and they had had a great time. They didn’t usually gather in the same place and at the same time, so she cherished the scarce times when they did.

Even though they all had their own quirks they got on quite well, and the afternoon hadn’t been lacking in debates, bickering and good-natured arguments.

Ana knew that, in the subject of paranormal, weird, unnatural estrange confusing and mostly incredible happenings, she could rely on her friends.

Absolutely.

Who better than Lucia to develop and masterfully unravel paranoid theories? Or Alba, Stefi and Tana to imagine complicated terror stories involving crimson butterflies, zombies, creepy Japanese songs and ghosts from a distant past, trapped forever in a void of nothingness by a blood-hungry curse? Of course Liz, with her mad stories about vampires and the living-dead wasn’t the exception. And Lucya, the only one she had expected not to contribute to the subject, but to stare at them with mocking eyes, had surprised them all with chilling urban legends and terrifying stories of Ouija.

It wasn’t so strange, after such an afternoon, the nervousness she felt.

She looked around, suddenly startled out of her thoughts. Had she heard that...noise? Had it been a product of her over-excited imagination?

She shook herself out of it and chuckled nervously.

She had been a little more paranoid that usual lately, but Logroño had turned more dangerous in the last weeks. Even tough it was a small city, the number of murders had been constantly –and surprisingly- rising, and it had them all on edge. A month ago or so, you wouln’t even hear of something more grave than small theft, and now, all of sudden, the murder cases were piling up.

She kept walking, her pace picking up as her thoughts turned darker. She was almost at home, and luckily her parents wouldn’t be able to scold her about being late.

“That noise again. I’m starting to think it wasn’t my imagination, after all.”

She stopped, and turned around, trying to hear it again. The streets were silent.

“Nothing at all. It’s probably just my nerves” she reasoned.

With a resigned sight, she let her thoughts run free, away from the cold, deserted streets.

‘Well, I have to recognize those deaths are kind of unusual, they were even talking about it yesterday on the local news. I mean, six people, dead and dried of blood, in under two weeks? Weird.’

When she had spoken to Liz, one of her best friends, she had told her, her voice strangely serious:

‘Vampires.’

‘What?’

‘Vampires, bloodsuckers, leeches, Dreag-Dul, moroi, strigoti. Take your pick.’

‘That’s nonsense!’

Liz just shrugged, looking for all the world like she didn’t care.

‘Every clue points to them. You only have to know what to look for.’

‘Come on, Liz! You don’t even believe in vampires!’

She laughed, but it wasn’t her usual laugh, full of mirth and happiness; it was cold and harsh, bitter and at the same time mocking.

‘Believe whatever you want to believe, Ana. But...I wouldn’t go out after nightfall, if you know what I mean.’

That particular conversation had left Ana shaken for weeks.

“But she’s always talking about vampires, demons and whatnot. Surely she was…she was pulling my leg, right?”

She shook her head, as if to clear it from the thoughts clouding it, and kept walking. She didn’t have time to worry about such useless nonsense. She had enough with real life, thank-you-very-much, she didn’t have to add any more concerns –specially made-up ones- to her already complicated days.

R&R?