Turnling

It was saturday, early morning, 7:10 according to the clock on the wall overlooking the waiting room, and I had checked past security at the Lisbon airport. My flight was scheduled to leave to London at 7:40, but I had come earlier. To tell the truth, I hadn't been able to sleep last night, crying and tossing, unable to come to terms with the things that had happened to me recently. My life had suddenly taken a turn for the worse, with no previous warning, no way to ready myself. 

 

I mean, I had never had this much “excitement” all at once. My life was pretty boring. Yet still, I reached up and touched the wounds on my neck. They had bruised violently during the afternoon yesterday, but when I had gone to bed they had faded already, looking like scars I'd had for years. I still didn't know where they had come from, but my mind kept giving me this ridiculous notion that it had had something to do with dreaming about the vampire. This was ridiculous, of course, but every time I thought about it my stomach tightened and I felt a mix of fear and excitement. I grew up on vampire romances after all.

 

At the same time, when reality checked in, I remembered I didn't know anyone in my family who suffered from sleep walking, and I certainly never had as a child. I turned the problem over and over in my head, trying to come up with possible explanations while I waited for my flight to be called. 

 

Truth is, I was avoiding thinking of the reason why I was going back home. Joaquim had been pissed, but understanding, when I told him I had to take a week off all of a sudden. It's me and him in that store, and now he'd have to work my shift, but dammit, this was my father. Joaquim understood. He had even told me that he would have been angry at me had I chose to stay and not go to the funeral. Despite being single, Joaquim values family.

 

I attempted to distract myself further by browsing the internet on my laptop, connected to the dubious, unprotected airport wi-fi. It worked well enough that I, browsing using StumbleUpon, didn't even notice the man who sat down next to me, ignoring the adjacent benches, which were all occupied. 

 

I didn't notice him, that is, until I happened to see his reflection on my screen. Suddenly surprised, I nearly jumped out of my seat as I turned to face him, staring with my mouth wide. The man next to me was clad in a white shirt, black blazer, wavy black hair and sunglasses. It was the exact same man from my dream, in the flesh, in real life!

 

As I sat there staring at him wide eyed, the man tilted his head at me. Though I couldn't see his eyes, I was certain he was probably wondering why the heck I was reacting this way to a stranger. Just as he had opened his mouth to speak I bolted, taking my laptop and meager luggage with me as I ran to the nearest bathroom, heart pounding fiercely. 

 

I mean...what were the odds?! That I dreamed of a man who actually existed, who was at the same airport as me, on the same day, same hour, who had sat down next to me up close and personal...and who probably thought I was insane.

 

As I calmed down, it dawned on me how crazy I must have seemed to him. He had never seen me in his life, probably had sat down just to be creepy and spy on what I was doing and I act like he's a ghost or something. Yeah. Or maybe just for company, who knows? At any rate, my reaction had totally been uncalled for.

 

Laughing nervously at myself I splashed my face with water, refreshing, before I headed out of the bathroom and went to face the daunting task of looking for a new, empty, non creepy dream guy occupied bench.

 

It was just out of morbid curiosity that I glanced back at where I knew the man to be and what I saw then nearly made my heart stop. He was reading a novel. A familiar novel. A novel I loved very much but at the moment despised with all my heart.

 

He was reading Dracula.

 

All my fears and fertile imagination came flooding over me at once as my eyes stayed glued to that yellow cover. Could my dream have been more than just a dream? It was impossible, right? I had never sold that book. I had never been bitten on the neck - my hand touched the fading wounds - and I most certainly wasn't facing the supernatural. The supernatural didn't exist. 

 

"Passageiros para o voo número TP0354* por favor dirijam-se à porta 1. Passengers for flight number...."

 

I heard the information desk girl call out my flight number and immediately headed for the gate, hoping to everything holy and unholy that the man wasn't at least taking the same flight as me. That was probably more coincidence than I could handle.

 

While the stewardesses ferried the passengers into their respective seats, I was abnormally happy that I hadn't caught sight of my innocent tormentor. This whole situation was getting to me, very badly.

 

In fact, I began to wonder, paranoid, could my dream, this man and my father’s death be related? Too many coincidences, too many unknowns, and I was scared shitless by the only possibility my usually rational mind seemed to come up with. 

 

Sometime in the past ten minutes, as I boarded the plane, I had decided that this mysterious man was a vampire, that he had made me sleep walk and sell him the book. And he had bitten me. Somehow, he had done this during the duration of my sleep, tampered with my mind and then, then he... he teleported over to England and killed my father? I laughed softly to myself, again, earning some glances from my fellow passengers. Now that I thought of it, this couldn't be, it was utterly impossible and ridiculous, even if I entertained the notion that vampires did exist.

 

Wait, if they did exist, then which author was right? What powers and weaknesses would they have? Had any of them even got it right? 

 

I looked at my inner self. Here I was, catching a flight to my father’s funeral, to face my horrible mother and respective family, and worried about the existence of vampires. 

 

I knew I was tired, the past 24 hours had made well sure of it. My emotions were scrambled, my nerves frayed. I was overreacting to the wrong things. I needed sleep. And some food. Badly.

 

While a rather plain looking stewardess lead me to my seat, I wasn't really paying attention to anyone else. I intended to fall asleep as soon as the plane was stable up high in the sky. My mind was so set to it that I sat by the window, put on my seat belt and waited, looking out the window at the airport, only vaguely aware of the form of a second passenger setting himself down on the seat next to mine. 

 

The plane was already well in the air when I deigned looking at my seat partner. Shiny, reflective sunglasses looked down at me and I swallowed dry, unable to muster any more reaction now that my exhaustion was catching up with me, the distant sounding rumble of the motors and the vibrations of the plane lulling me into calmness.

 

"Hello, I don't think we have had the chance to introduce ourselves," the man said, smiling at me, "I am Viktor. Viktor Dimitri."

 

Irritated, tired, and now not giving a shit, I side-glanced at him, head resting against the small window. My answer was short, "I don't care". It was a lie, of course, I did care, I wanted to know just who this mysterious man was, why he had been in my dream, why all this was happening to me. It's just that I wanted to sleep more, my mind seemed to be approaching the point of exhaustion that made people just simply fall asleep.

 

So I did.  Viktor didn't seem to mind.

 

I woke up later to the sound of a stewardess informing the passengers that we had arrived at the London airport and should fasten our seat belts for landing. I was groggy and looked around almost dazed before gaining some coherence and checking upon my own belt, finding it still firmly in place where I had left it for lift off.

 

As my memory began working again, I remembered suddenly the man sitting next to me. At no point in our trip had he made a sound to disturb me and now he sat quietly reading his book. Or, well, that's what he looked like. I couldn't actually see his eyes behind those sunglasses. Suddenly that fact was actually bothering me. Not even in my dream had he taken them off.

 

I must have been staring, because the man – Viktor, my memory supplied – looked up and smiled at me.

 

“Slept well?” he asked casually, me noticing that he had a faint Russian accent, just barely there. Of course, I should have guessed this when he introduced himself as Viktor Di...what was it? Dimetr? Dim...Dimitri! 

 

“Ah I uh...” I made a mental check of my body. My neck hurt from the position I had slept in “I've slept better.” I admired, but hoped he wouldn't continue conversation. I got my wish, but he continued to watch me as I stretched my muscles and looked around. A blush and irritation started rising. I hated it when people just watched me.

 

Finally, the plane landed and we were lead out in an orderly fashion into the airport, but once there all bets were off. I made a beeline for my luggage in hopes of losing Viktor in the crowd. Once I had my luggage, I headed out immediately and caught a cab, giving the driver my address and guarantees that I had enough cash to pay for it, as he would have to take me out of London. It probably would have been cheaper to catch a bus or call one of my old friends to pick me up. But I didn't want to chance more chatter with Viktor. 

 

Thus, my luggage sitting next to me on the back of the taxi, I headed to my childhood home in the country land way out of London, memories slowly creeping up on me as we cruised the streets that had seen my teenage years, drowning out any and all thoughts of Viktor and vampires.