Daniel stands in a shaded area outside his townhome in his usual all black attire, tapping his foot impatiently and looking around. It was a small place, it just looked like a normal house, although completely giant, with a white and blue color pallet. Even the house accuses him, for he stands out strongly against its paleness. His impatience was from the blood… He was still hungry, and Hunter was late. Conflict rattled his brain, “Obviously, eating my own blood is wrong.. I don't quite know how, but, probably… It just feels so good…” He leans up against the wall, crossing his arms and gripping his trenchcoat tightly, distressingly gritting his teeth. Drinking blood had some unforeseen side effects, firstly, his muscles were inflated, similar to the effect of lifting weights at the gym. Secondly, he has now become mildly irritated, aggravated and aggressive. Unsatisfied from what he got earlier, this may have made his blood lust even worse. For now, he has simply become stronger, faster, and sharper, more so than he already was. But at least he will live, a couple more hours and Daniel would have died by starvation. Which he can now clock in, it takes two weeks; two weeks until he would have to do it again, even so, he was not certain.

  Hunter’s car pulls into the driveway and honks at him. He quickly puts on his glasses and walks over entering the vehicle. As the door closes, Hunter puts out his hand to dab Daniel, “Yooo- Dude- what's up bro?!” He goes to shake his hand, before he can even make a comment about the way Daniel’s dressed or his skin color, or the sunglasses while the sun was practically down. When the two grasped each other’s hands he immediately commented, “Bro. You're freezing… But uh, sick costume tho!” He reluctantly withdraws, bummed out by the comment but relieved that he only thinks his oddities are a costume. “Had the AC on max, it's the beginning of August you know?” Hunter raises his eyebrow scoffing, he was dressed up in what looked to be the dollar store clearout sale version of a bumblebee. “You know wearing all that isn't helping right?” He scoffs back at him, “Yeah yeah, I know, I get it all the time.” “Huh?” Daniel has done again what so often he tries not to, ‘misspeak’. “I mean- I meant to say, yeah you're right- Anyways! Could we just drive!?” Hunter puts the car into gear, “Right, right, lets go.” As they drove on the highway, they made a second stop at their other friend's place, Charlie. Charlie was also the same as Hunter, a club bum. He was dressed in an equally cheap pink flower costume, meant to complement Hunter’s bee. How funny, surely they are getting laid tonight, right? During the drive, they talk and catch up on the time passed, with long moments of silence in between, a certain uneasiness was in the air that no one could quite put their finger on. But something was indeed off. As they pass through a residential area, Daniel looks over at Hunter, asking, “Huhh, so where are we heading now?” Hunter answers him, “Well.. to pick up your brother…” They turn into a driveway that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

  “Wait, so you mean. We’re going to be in the same car?!” Daniel is starting to fall into a worried panic. Hunter, mildly thrown off by this response, replies, “Uhh.. Ok. I can't remember a time where you and your brother were ever on good terms but… What makes this time so different?” The house they pulled up to was a nice and cozy suburban house. Having a nice warm color palette of a light maroon and burgundy, as well as a nice little stone path leading up to the door, accompanied by beautiful flowers and a tiny worn down water fountain, with a baby angel spewing from his mouth. “Nah man, this time is different, are you sure we can't just meet him there?” Daniel attempted to reason, but Hunter still did not understand, “Come on bro he's got no ride, we're not just going to leave him here.” The sun has set, as the garage door begins to open. Daniel stares blankly, sweat running down his face. Hunter puts the car into park and smiles, Charlie comes to the front, “There he is!” As the garage door opens slowly, clanking and revving to open. Luke is wearing black shoes, and grey cargo pants. The doors open some more, and he is wearing a black sweater with a metal band’s logo on it, his posture was stiff and strong, permeating menace. As the door opens more, his face is revealed. Luke had a grown out buzzcut and silver ear ring, and he looked like the most pissed off person in the world, his grave stare fixated on the passenger side. As he began to walk over to where his older brother was sitting, panic drove Daniel to seek some sort of escape route, frantically looking around to find some sort of escape. “Wait wait- y-you don't have to do this!” He goes to open the car door to run and immediately the door is shut as Luke sprinted to keep him inside. “Agh!- Oh come on now-”

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  In a last ditch but far too late attempt to avoid the incoming wrath, he tried to roll up his window, but Luke grabbed, squeezed, and pushed down against the glasses; then as he looked over to he see his beloved and oh-so joyous brother’s arm winding up like a baseball bat and slapping him directly in his face, recoiling his head back into the cars head rest. This broke his glasses and left an awful stinging sensation in his sinus, even his ears rang a bit and began to turn red. After that, he looked at him earnestly, intensely, bitter with hatred. He was disgusted by what he saw to be a failure of a brother, and the amount of effort he put into something so stupid. He just imagined him putting on and being very thin, the fangs, the white make up, the red contact lens, and it disgusted him even more… Then he mocked him saying, “Big shot thinks glasses and trench coats make things right. Crack of my fucking ass here, thinks spending other people's money is funny!" He looks to his friends for approval, as Hunter and Charlie both thought that the violence was absolutely hysterical, laughing at his pain and misery. Luke scoffed at him and got into the passenger side of the car, and put his feet up against Daniel’s seat. “Well come on man! We got somewhere to be no?!” Luke then laughed with them, laughing at Daniel’s pain. Hunter put the car into gear and they were off.

  And as they drove, a void began to grow in Daniel’s heart… As he sat there with everyone talking and enjoying each other’s presence around him, he began to realize... He began to realize that these people were no longer his friends, his brother no longer his brother. Everything he thought he had was just so… superficial. He leaned against the car door, and began to feel nothing, the void grew larger and began to take. No one. No one cared about him anymore. Not his family, not his brother, not his friends, no one… He lost the glasses, he doesn’t know how he's going to hide anymore. “But why?” He asked himself. “Why does no one love me..? Why do I have to hide? Afraid of everyone. And everyone is afraid of me. Where am I to go? Whose arms am I to rest in?” As they drove along the beach side, the sun was long gone and the void took some more, “My parents don’t even love me, my family hates me… I'm about to be evicted and I have nowhere to go.. This is such bullshit, I should have just stayed in school. I should have just listened to them, but instead. I ran.. I ran to go and party my life away…” Now, he is but a walking shell, hollow out and chilled over. He looked out to the sea with tired eyes and tried to think, think back to a time where he felt alive, felt whole and full. He tried to think, something, anything! He tried to think to when he was happy, full of joy and the pride of his community, back when he was in service to the church, back where everyone knew his name and smiled at him. He thought back to the times when he was younger and prayed, no distractions, back when he had an unshakeable peace, back to when he was the honor of his father and the crown to his mother, the role model to his younger brother… Back to when all his paths were made straight, back when he had it all, and how he threw it all away… And now everyone hated him for it…

  Luke calls out to him like someone would a dog. “YO! Bugeyes! How's that coffin I made you? Is it to your liking? More importantly, do you plan to pay me back? Hehehe.” Daniel continues to stare blankly into the dark vast Atlantic Ocean, he didn’t fully hear whatever it was Luke said to him, but he honestly couldn't care less than he did. Responding in a regretful and quiet tone, almost queasy, “Huh?.. Oh yeah… ummgg…” Luke looked on with discontent, “Are you mocking me?” Daniel stayed silent, responding only in defeat, “What more. Can you take from me?...” Luke kept silent as unease took its seat in the car. They had finally arrived, the last place Daniel wanted to be in the world. They finally arrived at a well sized beach-side bungalow, with cars lined up and scattered about. Multi colored flashing lights beat from inside, bass thumping from within. O’ Fortress, O’ Terrible fortress.. Who can oppose thee…? As the car pulls into the outskirts of the makeshift parking lot. Everyone gets out, Daniel slowest of all. When he closes the door he stands; lifeless and slumped over. As his brother gets out behind him, he walks up and slaps him hard on the back, smiling, “Come on, this is what you wanted.” Then, before he can walk, the two of them catch each other's gaze. The look upon Daniel genuinely caught him off guard, he had never seen his brother with such a long face, he was always happy and charming, now nothing more than a miserable rut. He scoffed it off one more time, then turned to go and join the others on their walk towards the house, leaving Daniel to stand isolated, desolate, and alone. Letting the cold wind blow against him in the never ending darkness…