1.

One of my mother's nurses was a vampire. Of course, I didn't know that right away. Who in their right mind would ever come to that conclusion? That the woman tending their ailing parent could be the blood-thirsty creature from the myths? That the said person belongs to a race of usually cadaverous beings who can transmute themselves into an airborne mammal and has a huge fan following across the globe–most of those fans being teenagers who think a man sneaking into a girl's room and watching her sleep is romantic. I mean, I never would. I'm not perfectly sane. If you ever saw me walking down the street, you would probably get a feeling that this dude has some of his screws loose, which would be true. And yet I would never think that one of my acquaintances is a vampire–even if they leave their homes only at night. Hell, my best guess would be an escort. But a vampire? Hell, no.

It was a cold winter night. The square screen of my smartwatch read 11 PM when I exited my office premise and stepped under the dark sky bearing a handful of scintillant stars. Outside, the familiar street was as grim as ever, a desolate piece of weathered tarmac draped in the gloom, dirty cars, muck, and yellowing posters–how can we forget about them? Those irritating pieces of paper cover every patch of vertical walls. If you count me out, there was only one more living soul walking on the cursed road, an old guy wearing a rather crude sweater. Nothing new, yet something felt off about that night.

A cold wind sighed, and the lights from the only working streetlight on that dead, dark road flickered. I shivered and pulled on my faded-orange jacket for comfort that I didn't get. The night was too damn cold–so cold that it felt as if only dousing in kerosene and lighting my body up would do the trick. But still, if someone asked me what I preferred the most: death from frostbite or passing from third-degree burns, I would probably choose death from suffocation. I know it's not among the choices, but hey, you can always hold your breath.

I rubbed my palms against each other to generate warmth when my phone began vibrating in my jeans pocket. I pulled it out and glanced at the glowing green screen. The call was from my mother.

I answered it immediately. "Hey, mum."

"Where are you? Have you left the office yet?" My mother asked.

"Uh, yeah, I just left. I'll be there..." I paused a little. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"Okay," my mother said. "Okay. Just be careful, and also, have you eaten anything?"

"No, not yet. We didn't get time to cook," I said with complete honesty. "I'm planning to get something from the hospital's cafeteria. They sell pretty cheap food. It's not tasty, but hey, it does fill the tummy."

My mother sighed. She made a sound that sounded like a 'you' but stopped herself from turning that inarticulated sound into a comprehensible sentence. She refused to let her thoughts flow out as spoken words, which was not like her. But I already knew what was on her mind. She probably was about to say–you guys need to stop saving money for my sake–or something along those lines.

"Mum?" I said as my mother turned silent.

"Huh, yeah, I'm hanging up. Just come here as soon as you can."

"Yeah, mum, you don't have to keep repeating that. I'm coming over straight away... It's not like I have anywhere else to go. My goto places are likely closed by now."

My mother snorted. "Oh, please, I'm pretty sure the brothels are still open."

"MUM?"

My mother laughed. "I'm joking. I'm joking." Now she was acting just like her usual self. The kind of person she was before this horrible disease got hold of her in its deadly clutches. "It was a joke, honey." My mother added and chuckled.

I sighed. "Oh... I thought you found out the last Sunday."

"What?" My mother snapped.

This time it was my turn to chuckle. "Relax, I'm joking as well."

"Can't believe I raised a clown," my mother said.

"And I can't believe I'm being raised by a clown," I said, smiling.

My mother laughed, went silent, and slowly whispered, "Not for long."

I felt like an invisible hand had tightly gripped my heart. "We already told you, didn't we? Stop saying those things. You are not going anywhere anytime soon, okay?"

"The nurse is coming," my mother said quietly. "I'm hanging up."

"Yeah, bye, see you soon," I said, slipped my phone back into my pocket, and looked ahead. The elderly man with the crude sweater had disappeared. Now I was the only person walking down that cold street, my sneakers clapping loudly against the cold, cobbled sidewalk.

I rounded the corner and came upon the main street, which was wide and well-lit by those yellowish-orange, halogen streetlights. I could see a myriad of mosquitoes flying around in those orange beams.

God, I hate those creatures, hate them for a good reason. When I was seven–By the way, I'm twenty-five though my beardless face would make you think otherwise–so when I was seven, my mum and dad took me on a lakeside camping trip. At that time, I had no idea what malaria was, but those annoying and wretched mosquitos there by the lake made sure that I realized the meaning behind that word and that I felt the pain and dread that comes along with it. My case had turned out to be a complicated one. This was the only time in my life when I had come close to shaking hands with death.

It was also the first time I had seen my mother's gloomy and worried face. I had known her to be a cheerful person, and she always had that pure, childlike quality that differentiated her from the rest of the adults. So, seeing her eyes that reflected nothing but dread and her cheeks always smeared in dried tears shook me to the core. On the other hand, my father displayed a rather stoic exterior that didn't surprise my six-year-old self. If my mother was a runaway wagon of emotions hurtling down a road, then my father was an unmoveable rock ready to take on the beating of the countless storms. They both had their way of doing things and were opposites to each other in my ways. Despite the differences, together, they moved like well-oiled machinery ready to take on any challenge the faith threw their way, and my bout with malaria was no different. I had come out victorious from my short but deadly episode with the disease but ended up developing a susceptibility to bacterial infections.

My phone vibrated in my jeans pocket. After pulling it out, I unlocked it and stared at the notification bar. I had just received a like and comment on my latest video. I clicked on the text saying 'New Comment'. And instantly, my heart flipped in my chest. My school crush had commented on the video. She had written: You are a wizard that continues to mystify me with your visual effects.

I turned off my phone's screen and caught the reflection of my grinning face. The grin reminded me of the smiles of your everyday cartoonish, mustache-twirling villains when they come up with new devilish plans to either take over the world or destroy it entirely for reasons either poorly explained or not explained at all. I snorted, suppressing my laughter.

2.

It took me approximately twenty minutes to reach the hospital's gates, a little longer than I had promised my mother. A good deal of my time got wasted on me standing next to a fire hydrant and coming up with a reply to my school crush. At first, I wrote: Wait, you are already this impressed? But this great wizard still has more tricks in his bag. Either way, please continue to shower the channel with your support and love–I probably had a creepy grin when I wrote the word love. After that, I added: Also, I love you. Obviously, there was no way I was going to post that reply. My thumb pressed the send key.

"What the heck!?" I yelled while fumbling with the phone. "I didn't mean to do that." Figuring that I still had some time, I clicked on the edit key and removed the dangerous line. Thought for a while, deleted the whole thing, and replaced it with: Thank you for the like and comment.

"Man, I'm so pathetic," I murmured as I crossed the hospital's gate. I wished that I could collect my resolve and go and tell my crush how I felt about her. But whenever I think about revealing my hidden feelings, pulses start beating in my ears, blocking out all other sounds from my surroundings. I deeply care about our friendship and don't want it to be ruined because of my quest for love.

My mother's room was on the third floor and sat in a cozy corner of the western wing. My journey to the third floor was uneventful. But I was stopped by the head nurse just a few feet from the door to my mother's room.

"You are late as usual," the head nurse said. She was a big woman with ruddy cheeks. Her lips are always curled, forming a tight smile, a smile that never seems to reach her eyes. Whenever I come across her, I always wonder if someone ever told her that her smile looks phony and forced.

"Ah, yes, I'm sorry," I said, instinctively rubbing the back of my head.

"It's fine," the head nurse said. Her smile looked more forced and uncanny under the fluorescent white lights that lined the ceiling. She shoved her hand inside the pocket of her light-blue nurse uniform and brought out a folded piece of paper. "Can you get these?"

"Sure," I said, took the paper, and unfolded it. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"Oh, no, it will take you more than just a few minutes," the head nurse said. "You'll have to go outside. Our pharmacy doesn't have these as these are controlled drugs. Only one pharmacy in the city has a license to sell these. I've written the address of the pharmacy on the backside." She pointed at the note in my hand.

I flipped the paper and read the address out loud. "If I'm right," I said, "this place is pretty far away."

"Yeah, It is. Don't worry. You don't have to go there right now. You can run this errand in the morning. Just make sure you get these before 10 A.M."

"Okay. Got it. It'll do it first thing in the morning." I had just started turning away from the big woman when her heavy hand fell on my shoulder.

"Uh, what is it?" I asked in a tired voice.

"One more thing," the head nurse said, that fake grin still plastered on her face. "Can you tell your mother to tone it down?"

"Tone down wha–" Before I could finish my question, shrill boisterous laughter rang out of my mother's room.

"That," the head nurse said, turned around, and walked away.

I sighed, shook my head, and pushed open the door. My mother didn't look up when I stepped inside. She sat in her bed with her legs stretched out and her eyes glued to the phone.

Dropping my bag to the floor, I went over and sat on a white stool by the steel bedstand.

"You need to see this," my mother said, still laughing.

"It's great that you are laughing and all," I said. "But you need to lower your voice. You are disturbing other patients."

"Huh," my mother said and made face as if she had seen or smelled something nasty. "The woman in the next room snores a lot. But I never complain."

"Well, she can't help it."

"I can't help it either," my mother said.

"Mum." I gave her a stern look.

"Okay. Sorry. Sorry," my mother said, holding up her hands. "I'll keep it down, I promise, okay? Can we move on from this now? Look at the video. It's hilarious."

It took me a second to realize that I had been holding my mother's phone. When did she give me that? I wondered and played the video. It showed a man fishing in a boat in the middle of a lake full of swans. Around ten seconds into the video, the fisherman stood, and as soon as he did that, a swan came out of nowhere and grabbed the fisherman's butt in its beak, and pulled the guy into the water.

I laughed. "Okay, this was hilarious. What did that poor guy do to that bird to deserve that?"

"I know, right?" my mother said, laughing along with me. "Someone in the comment section wrote the swan woke up and chose violence."

That made me chuckle.

Someone knocked on the door. A second later, I heard the door moving on its hinges. I turned around, expecting to see the head nurse returning to scold both me and my mother. But it was not the big woman.

It was her, the vampire girl who came into my cold life like a warm breeze on a cold day.