Chapter Text
Knock, knock, knock.
Apo is rapping on the door of the apartment she and Cherri share, above a shoe store. She keeps fidgeting with the hem of her dress. The sun is starting to sting. She’s still not used to how sensitive to it she is. She had felt like a leper, walking through the town’s side streets with her cloak on and her head bowed.
Knock, knock.
Is she even here? Apo hadn’t considered that she might not be home. It is about dinnertime, the train ride having taken most of the day. But she is here now, and the only thing between her and her home is this damned door that Cherri isn’t answering.
Right as Apo is thinking about turning around and coming back in a few hours, there are steps from inside the apartment. The door creaks open, and she’s there. At first, Cherri looks annoyed, as if she had been torn away from some activity by this knock at the door. Then, recognition flashes in her face and her eyes widen. Her lips part, ever so slightly, and she stares at Apo. Her hair is pulled back in the practical ponytail she adopts when she is staying home, and she has a shawl thrown over her shoulders.
She’s not sure which one of them leans in first, but suddenly they are stuck together, arms wrapped around each other. Apo is ever so slightly taller, so Cherri ducks her head into the crook of Apo’s neck. They hug silently. Words don’t come to Apo, and apparently they do not come to Cherri either.
Apo feels some of the tension bleed out of her bones. She is okay. The worst has not happened. She has survived, and now she has returned to her lover. For the first time since stepping foot in that wicked ruin, she feels safe.
Something in Cherri must be melting too, because she starts to tremble noiselessly. Apo rubs her back, trying to soothe her. Trying to say that it’s alright, and that she’s sorry, and so many other things that she cannot name.
Cherri finally lifts her head and makes eye contact with Apo. They are still pressed together, too desperate to let each other go. But she must have managed to quiet the ocean inside of her, or at least tamed it enough to pull out a few coherent words. “I thought you were dead,” she whispers.
Apo doesn’t know what to say. She moves her hand to the back of Cherri’s head, attempting to pull her close again. But she resists. Her eyes are going a little watery. “I- I sent a letter to the army when you stopped sending letters. They said you hadn’t been sending in your reports, and they couldn’t confirm your location. They said it hadn’t been long enough to officially presume you were dead, but I- I knew you wouldn’t stop mailing me unless something really bad happened, so I thought-” she cuts off, choked up. “I don’t know what I thought.”
She sighs, wipes the shine out of her eyes, and takes Apo’s hand. She pulls her inside the apartment, and shuts the door. Although it has only been a few months since Apo was last here, it feels like it might as well have been years. It may as well be, for everything that’s happened to her since the last time she was inside these walls.
Their hall mirror is a reminder of that. When they pass it, Apo prays that Cherri will not notice that she’s holding an invisible hand. Cherri leads her to the couch, and they sit beside each other. Cherri scoots closer until her hip and shoulder makes contact with Apo, as if she will combust if she is not in contact with her girlfriend. Apo figures she deserves it, after what she’s put her through. Finally, Apo finds her voice. “Cherri… I’m sorry. I should have stayed in touch,” she mutters, wringing her hands together.
“I just want to know. What happened? Why didn’t you write? Why are you back-” she glances at the wall calendar. “A month early?”
Apo sighs. She has no idea how she is going to explain this one. “Okay. This is going to make me sound crazy. I thought they all were crazy, in fact! I didn't believe a word of it until it happened to me too.”
Cherri’s face pales. “Who is ‘they all’? Did something happen to you?” she says, her tone grave.
“Do you have a mirror?”
“Uh, yeah, but why…” Cherri questions. Apo just looks at her with a serious expression, and Cherri realizes this isn’t some joke. She gets up, looks in a drawer, and brings over a makeup compact.
“Watch. I’m going to prove it to you,” Apo murmurs. She flips open the compact, holds it out, lines it up so that Cherri is behind her, and looks into it. She does not see herself. All she sees is her girlfriend’s face. Apo turns ever so slightly, enough so that Cherri can see the mirror, but small enough that Apo should still be reflected in it. That is, if it weren’t for other circumstances.
‘Prove what?’ is halfway past Cherri’s lips when she falls silent, shocked at the impossible trick Apo has seemingly just performed. “That doesn’t make any sense. What? How?” she says. She grabs the compact out of Apo’s hands and angles it at herself, then at Apo. She does it a few more times, as if she thinks what she sees in it will change. But no matter what she does, Apo does not show up in it.
Eventually, she gives up and stares at Apo, gobsmacked. “How are you doing that?” she asks. She must think it’s some kind of trick. Apo has to remind herself that she has absolutely no context for the idea that vampires might be real, and her mind is rationalizing accordingly.
“It’s not a trick. I’ll tell you the story, just, please believe me,” she says, her voice low. Cherri nods, eager to coax words out of her. She takes one of Apo's hands, which emboldens her to continue. She starts at the beginning, because really, what other place could be better to start?
“When I got to Oakhurst, there were a bunch of other people showing up all at the same time. It seemed like such an unlikely coincidence, fifteen travelers showing up separately right when I arrived to guard this ‘abandoned’ town? What are the odds?
“There were so many of them and they were all so weird. One of them spent all of her time talking about the fanfiction she was planning on writing. One of them wouldn’t shut up about vampires. One of them was a university student who just decided to up and move to this abandoned town. One of them was-” she pauses to make pointed eye contact with Cherri “-the gayest man I have ever met. Anyways.
“I didn’t really care about any of them at first. I thought they were all noisy and annoying. I ended up living with the university student because he seemed relaxed. His name was Pyro. I didn’t believe in vampires. I thought Avid was paranoid, or hysterical, or something like that. I think everyone thought that about him, at some point.
“For a while, I managed to hike to the next town over where they had a post office so I could write to you. But as time went on, the walk seemed longer and harder. I got lost on what should have been a straight road, found myself walking back to Oakhurst when I thought I was going the opposite direction. It didn’t feel natural. I felt like I couldn’t leave that place. Eventually, I really couldn’t. I couldn’t take a step beyond a certain point without somehow ending up back in the town center. That’s why I stopped writing.”
“That doesn't make any sense…” Cherri mumbles. She sounds like a broken record, as if the only thing she can speak about is how everything Apo is saying violates the laws of nature she knows to be true.
“I know it doesn’t. It didn’t to me either. I thought I was going nuts. I really thought I was losing it! But everyone else in Oakhurst said it was the same way for them too. That’s when we really started talking, really started getting to know each other. Now we had a common goal: getting out of this place.
“Things were weird, but okay, until one day when I went out with a woodcutter named Owen. He said he was from Oakhurst, which went against what I had been told. I was told it was completely abandoned. I didn’t question it too much at the time. I should have. I shouldn’t have trusted him. He led me into a trap. Scott and Pyro were already there, and Owen stopped me from being able to get out. They told me they were vampires, and that they wanted to kill someone. They said it could be me, or I could bring someone tomorrow to be killed.
“Oh, my god…” Cherri gasps.
“I came back the next day, ready to… I don’t know what. I thought I was ready to fight, but I wasn't. Scott, he was just too much. He wouldn’t stay dead. I couldn’t do anything. He… he-” she stops, struggling for the words to describe it. She settles on brushing the hair away from her face and showing Cherri the messy scars on her neck, right over the blood vessels. “His teeth,” she says. Cherri reels back, shocked at the sight. She’s sure they make her look like a mauled prey animal. That’s what she was to him, after all.
“Apo! Those are… How’d you even survive that?” Cherri says, her voice high and shrill.
Apo feels like crying. “I didn’t. I thought I was going to die. And I would have, if he didn’t decide to make me like him.”
Cherri’s brow knits “So you’re a-”
“A vampire,” Apo finishes
She pauses. When she starts again, it’s with carefully chosen words. “I don’t… This is hard for me to believe.”
Apo feels like she might be going crazy all over again. “Cherri, please. I’m not lying,” she says desperately.
“I don’t think you’re lying! It just seems impossible.”
“That’s what I thought too. Until it happened to me.”
Cherri cocks her head, her expression serious. “That mirror thing should be impossible. But you did it right in front of me. How would you do that if you were lying, or mistaken, or something like that?” she asks. Apo doesn’t answer, because the question obviously isn’t directed at her. She’s reasoning out loud, trying to fit the new information she’s been given into her worldview.
“I guess there are a lot of things in this world people like you and me don’t know about,” Apo consoles. She doesn't think it would be a good time to mention that she also met a werewolf in Oakhurst. One crazy thing at a time, today.
Cherri combs her hand through her hair. “I guess,” she says, with a hysterical half-laugh. “But how did you get out?” she asks.
Apo cringes. “We came up with a plan, and it mostly worked. But it went wrong in the end. Some of them died. The doctor, Martyn and Ren…” she trails off. She knows Cherri does not know these people, but she allows herself a moment of quiet before she tells further. “Some of the vampires too. Shelby killed Pyro, her own sire, you wouldn’t believe it. But she only did that because Pyro and Owen killed Avid.”
“That’s horrible…” Cherri murmurs. “I’m so glad you made it out.”
Apo takes a moment to consider that. She hadn’t considered how lucky she’s been, to make it out alive. A significant fraction of the people who showed up on that first day in Oakhurst never left it again, undead or alive. She should be grateful that she lived, that the worst that happened to her was vampirism.
She should be grateful. But she can’t silence the part of her soul that is saying that she will never adjust to being a creature of the night, that she will feel this uncomfortable in her own skin forever. And it will be forever, because that is now how long she will live.
“I wish… I wish it hadn’t been like this,” she mumbles, looking down at her lap.
“Apokuna.” Cherri scolds. “Don’t be like that. You’re here now, even if you’re a vampire or whatever.”
“I have to drink blood now, Cherri,” she blurts out, putting her head in her hands. “Or I’ll starve. I’d rather starve, frankly.”
She can feel Cherri’s pity oozing off of her. “Come on, you’ll be alright. You’ll work it out, like you always have.”
She pulls her girlfriend into a tight hug, and even if they have a lot to figure out, and even if it only lasts for a few moments, things are finally alright again.