Round Four

This is when I discovered the lovely skins by Oepu, which I've been using ever since. There was a conflicting override I wasn't aware of that made some of the babies naked - I did find the culprit eventually.

The Big Day

I'm now eight months gone, and bored out of my mind. Not at home mind you... in hospital. What happened? Remember when I said I'd been diagnosed with severe anaemia? Puh... severe's right. Don't know about anaemia though... it started last month at home, when Daddy and I were sat at the table talking, and Mummy wanted a word with us. I remember feeling overcome with dizziness as I pushed away my chair, and I remember Daddy needing to help me to my feet, but I don't remember collapsing. The others certainly do though – apparently Daddy caught me on the way down.

I woke up in hospital, where I was subjected to tests-a-plenty as the doctors struggled to find out what was wrong. Not with me, they already knew that – this so-called anaemia is actually a continual loss of blood. What the doctors were scratching their heads over was where the blood was going, since I'd hardly slit my wrist this time. Neither was there anything else upon my person to give any clue as to how I was losing so much blood. The last place they thought to look was within my belly, but in the end that's where it was... that vampire cure I drank months ago had caused the weirdest of side-effects to my unborn children – it had turned them into little vampires, or Dhampirs according to Adrian, since they'll be born this way. Think Blade – born half vampire, half human with the strengths of the undead but none of their weaknesses. Trouble is they still need blood... my blood. The little babies growing inside me were killing me, all thanks to a concoction sold by a gypsy to ensure I'd be able to see adulthood... if it'd been any later I wouldn't have had the chance either way.

Adrian was the one who told me, and he was also the one who called Andy in so we could discuss a good date to cut them free from my body – I was hardly in any state to give birth naturally, I could barely walk next door to the bathroom. Andy looked how I felt at the time when he told him what the problem was.

It was him who decided on our birthday for them to be born by Caesarian. At the time all I could think was “that's weeks away!”, but even eight months was still early by birthing terms, although twins apparently tend to arrive early anyway. Still, eight months was safer than seven, for the babies of course. As for me, I had another month of being stuck in hospital not able to do anything... if I didn't miss my exercise before I certainly did now.

Yet now, at long last, it's here! Most teenagers would spend their sixteenth partying the night away, and as much as we'd planned to do that originally we can hardly do that now. I'm incapacitated, he's heavily pregnant, and Daddy's getting fat too! Mummy's at home with the girls, who are now just approaching their teens... I can only hope they don't suffer as much as we have through adolescence, especially with that little discussion Andy and I had with them when they were younger.

However, as I wait for my operation and for Andy to arrive, Adrian comes in to tell me that he won't be here as he's... otherwise predisposed.

I should be happy about the news, but instead my heart sinks – not only was I hoping for him to see his first two babies being born, I also wanted to be there for him when it was his time, but seeing as that time's now there's not much I can do. My only consolation is that Daddy somehow managed to tag along, so he's with him instead. Meanwhile Adrian offers to call someone else in to be with me while mine are born, and there's really only one person I can think of who isn't a vampire – one of my triplet cousins, Kian.

We'd hit it off really well years ago; we often jogged together before I got bad and he would often stand up for us while people at school continued to treat us like dirt, even behind our backs. Now he pulls up a chair while Adrian makes preparations, and I find myself becoming grateful when Kian takes hold of my hand. I grow increasingly nervous as well as excited, maybe because it's an operation. It doesn't help matters when his Mum works the razor, and to make things worse it's after he injects me with a local anaesthetic, so if his hand does slip I'll be none the wiser! I don't know whether or not to be grateful for the screen erected to prevent me from catching a glimpse of my insides on display for all to see – I don't fancy watching my stomach being cut open, but I do want to make sure I leave with my trouser gear intact!

One thing I am glad for is the use of local anaesthetic. Adrian's reason is that a general one would pose a risk to the babies, but my reason is being able to watch them being born. It's an amazing feeling, especially when they're handed to your nearby cousin soon after so you can get a good look at your new child. Or in my case children; a boy and a girl. The minute I hear of there being one of each, I know exactly what I'll name them – Joey and Gina, after my parents. Not their real names, but the pet names they give each other.

It takes a while before I get to see my other daughters though – Andy's had two girls, which he named Eva and Emily, after our Uncle and his new wife (Well, you can't exactly call a girl Evan, so he improvised). Not only do I need to recover from the operation, I'm being kept in for a few days, still attached to blood bags to build me back up to normal levels, so when I do go in to see them it's in a wheelchair, being driven with expert precision by our dear doctor Uncle. Operating razors clearly isn't all he does a lot of.

I'm still very glad to get home though, to our new home no less. Andy and Daddy moved in while I was being poked and prodded by puzzled doctors. Yes, Daddy moved in with us – it was Mummy's idea but not the result of a split, on the contrary they're still together. It was more for his sake as well as mine; we both suffered antenatal depression, and there's still a danger we might fall foul of the postnatal kind too. Like I said before, we've got very close and it's partly through our pain, partly how we deal with it. Another reason she had was, she wasn't looking forward to dealing with “four girls, a depressive husband and another baby under the same roof” as she put it. Which is fair enough – it would take the patience of a saint to put up with what she's already had to endure.

It's turned out to be a good thing on all sides – he's even helping us with both sets of twins. Him being a vampire is proving to be a great advantage, as he doesn't weaken at night and therefore able to tend their needs while we catch up on some much needed rest.

That's not to say we don't do our share though, far from it. In fact it's ironic; with Joey and Gina feeding from bottles of animal blood instead of milk, the way vampires absorb their food rather than digest it means we have two less babies needing their nappies changed. It's a double edged sword though, as they don't sleep either so they effectively need twice the attention. Vampires sleep during the day, but Dhampirs are at full strength no matter what the time is, so long as they're fed of course... get the picture?

Evan said to cherish the moments when they're little though, and with good reason. Knowing what Andy gets like once he has a camera in his hand, I make sure I'm the one to snap them in their little baskets. Funny how three of them seem to look alike... the only one resembling me is Emily, but whether or not that's a good thing I have yet to decide.

Time's worn on now – a lot of time. About four months after those pictures were taken, Daddy went into labour while out hunting. Alex was there at the time and he accompanied him to the hospital – Daddy's usually a cleaner eater, but with getting painfully interrupted during dinner it's a different story - when they saw the receptionist he still had blood on his lips. This occurred while we were asleep, so we didn't know anything had happened until the next day, when we saw him with the little bundle in his arms. He explained then and there what took place the night before - he had given birth to a boy he named Zephyr, after Granddad. He'll turn out just as cute as his Mum too, I can see that already – he even has his nose.

Andy and I found a way to study at home while we bring up the children – not an easy task! It'll be worth it though, no reason why we should miss out on a degree just because we have babies to look after. The only thing is, we miss out on the social aspect of classes as it's online, but these things can't be helped. We're now eighteen and just starting our studies, while I somehow manage to keep up the exercise I've so dearly missed for so long. I've changed a lot over the space of a mere two years, but sadly it's only physical.

I'll have to get something done about those cheekbones at some point. It's about now I pity Emily – I hope she has better luck with her looks than I have, although it's debatable whether she will just going by what Daddy says, about how she looks just like I did at that age. Not much consolation when you see me now... in fact I think I looked better when I was fifteen. I know, I put myself down too much but I can't help it. I got left at the shallow end of the gene pool, fact. Just look how Andy turned out and then tell me I shouldn't feel like the one with the short straw.

I saw it coming, I have to admit. Not just my looks, but I did suffer postnatal depression in the end. I don't even know what triggered it, maybe it was just everything catching up with me – just when I was getting the hang of parenthood I felt myself start to sink, and there was nothing I could do to pull myself up again. Once more I'd spend my days feeling detached from reality, or sitting on the bed sobbing into my hands as my past came back to haunt me. I'm no better now, and it probably shows from the way I've been talking lately. Things are meant to improve as you get older; maybe I'm impatient, but I was hoping the end of adolescence would mean the end of the pain, yet in truth things don't always work out that way. It's worse now there's not much chance to go out jogging or work out – there just isn't the time with five babies in the house and coursework to do. They're a distraction, but if I'm honest that's the only thing stopping me picking up the knife again – not to end it of course, just a means of release. I feel a mixture of destructive emotions every time I look at the reminders of when I did that before, but just those pairs of big eyes peering up at me is enough to pull those thoughts from my mind, if only while I'm with them.

I felt guilty enough about Andy and our parents finding me in the bathroom, and the way people around me reacted to the sight of the scars - there's no way I could put my own children through that. As it is, I'm dreading the time they're old enough to start posing questions, to ask as my sisters did about the old lacerations on my arm. Just pondering that scenario makes me cry, and is most likely what keeps me trapped in this abyss, a seemingly bottomless pit that my only wish now is to finally be free from.

It's a miracle I can look after these ones, let alone think about having any more. I may change my mind in time, I don't know, but for now all I see are complications. I'm gay, so this is the only way I can have children, but as much as I still sometimes consider the ethics behind my relationship with Andy, I always come to the same conclusion; no one else would put up with me in my seemingly ongoing unhappiness. Andy's been wonderful and he still is, but the harsh reality is we should never have got together, let alone started breeding. Yet if we hadn't I would most likely be dead by now, my life taken by my own hands.

Round Three

Up Close And Personal

Family? Erm... you sure you want to know? Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you...

It started normal enough; twin boys born in wedlock and raised by the same parents who brought us into being... normal if you ignore the fact that Daddy's green and neither of them have a reflection, that is...

That's not my first childhood memory though. My first goes back as far as my nappy years, when a very young man dressed in dark attire came to visit. He was about as old as I am now, with a baby face and black nail paint adorning his fingernails. After he left Daddy was yelling, and then of course I couldn't understand why. When I asked about it when getting ready for my first day at school I was still none the wiser, apart from this “Evan” being the same as my parents – that is, red eyes, sharp teeth and no reflection.

That same day on the bus we met our triplet cousins for the first time, and we got on so well they brought us home for dinner. Nothing unusual there either... apart from their mother being male and them being green! Him living with a man instead of a woman was the least peculiar after everything else so far.

Their Mum's the smaller one with the muscle shirt depicting the image of a wolf... ironic really. After dinner we got ushered outside by his boyfriend, “Danny” as he was known, and the conversation he was having with Daddy on the phone was strange to say the least.
“Hi, Joe? I've got your kids out here and, well, you know what time it is...”
Neither Andy nor myself could figure out what he meant by that... not until Daddy came to pick us up when we heard this howling coming from within the house. It wasn't explained to us until the next day what that noise was, all we knew at the time was that it was scary.

So, vampires for parents, half alien father and cousins, a teen vamp for an Uncle on Daddy's side and a werewolf Uncle on the other... with me so far?

For some reason, despite there being a few green children at school, it was Andy the bullies latched onto. Even at that young age I saw myself as a protector figure, like a guardian or something like that, and that's certainly how Andy saw me. Not only was I helping him out at school, at the end of the day while sat on the bus, he'd wrap his little arms around me and bury his head into my chest. I didn't mind though, far from it, not even when he started crawling into my bed at night – he said the sound of my heartbeat lulled him to sleep. I just enjoyed the warmth and the company – he was my teddy bear if you like.

Not everyone grows out of wanting to cuddle up to something at night, and we were no exception. As we left childhood and entered our teenage years I was already making plans to save for a weights machine, wanting to get as big and strong as Mummy, although by the time our double arrived I discovered that wouldn't be necessary.

Funnily enough it was the same day we both got outed at school, so after that it was a very welcome surprise. In fact that became my outlet very quickly, when I started to harbour mixed feelings towards my brother. It turned out to be the same reason he was relentless in his practise at the piano – that was his outlet, but a lot less hazardous than mine. You can cramp your fingers but you can't tear a ligament in your arm...

We were also using them as a way to keep our minds off what was going on deep inside, but of course that didn't last. However, just like Daddy I have a big heart and a strong mind, not usually a problem but with this it was driving me to despair. My heart didn't care who became my lover, but my mind was screaming at me to not do this, to put an end to it, that this was so wrong. My heart won the battle but my mind won the war... if you can call it that, since that's when I sank into depression. By then we'd been found out and Daddy was in tears; my heart was in pieces and in no condition to fight anymore. Meanwhile my mind made sure to punish me for my wrongdoings, constantly tormenting me with images of that fateful night. My arm was joining in its torture by complaining loudly at the slightest movement, reminding me that my usual release was beyond my reach. By then we were pregnant, but of course we didn't know it, although further down the line it transpired that I was suffering from antenatal depression. Whether I would have felt pushed to self-harm, and even attempted suicide, if I wasn't pregnant is a question I often ponder even now.

It didn't help at the time of course, especially when we tested ourselves. Mummy had always been disgusted with us for what we'd done, but after nearly losing me she became better, at least until then. As I said before, Daddy seemed to take it in his stride. He was there for us when she wasn't, he showed an interest in us when she wouldn't even speak to us, although as time wore on Andy and I started to wonder if he was really as okay as he made out. We got our answer one night when we were sent home from school, after we'd had a talk with the Headmistress about our predicament. School was no more, but as one weight was cast from our shoulders another took its place...

He and Mummy had had a massive row, and another of our Uncles – a gay fledgling vampire called Gino – had been trying to fight his corner. Daddy was far from okay we learnt, he hadn't been for a long time, and Gino had eventually ordered him to offload at his house. However, as he left to answer his mobile he'd left Daddy with his promiscuous lover, and took a moment to explain that they kept an open relationship. Just as well it turned out, because his boyfriend is also a vampire and sensed something in Daddy. Something that led to a passionate encounter, which Mummy had been trying to kick him out for, despite him clearly being in the wrong frame of mind to set out deliberately to do anything like that. Besides, Daddy was always so sure he was straight so why would he sleep with a man? It was clear enough to us that he had no idea about that aspect of himself.

We didn't see anything thankfully, but hearing was bad enough; everything that he'd been keeping so well hidden inside for so long came out that night, and by the time we went inside he was a sobbing wreck on the floor. I'd never seen anything like it and hoped not to ever again, but as if that wasn't bad enough, when Gino explained later what had happened we learnt that he'd also been contemplating suicide. This is despite seeing me slumped on the floor in a pool of blood, finding the old scars on the back of my wrist. Instead of learning from me he'd gone the same way I had, and I know for a fact he wasn't pregnant, so what was his excuse? Why couldn't he have said something? He mentioned wanting to be there for us, but to not give any indication of how he was truly feeling meant he nearly wasn't.

That's blown over now, thank God. Mummy's talking to us now, and even accepted the relationship Andy and I still have, along with all that now comes with it. Daddy on the other hand has been going from bad to worse. With all we've both gone through and with how alike our minds work, we've been talking an awful lot lately. I don't know how he'll be when we have to leave, but one thing I know for sure – he's down for a reason. That night he spent with Gino's boyfriend changed his life in more than one way... the look on Andy's face when I told him mirrored my own sentiments.

So yeah – Daddy's pregnant, we're getting fat now as you can see... and I'm suffering worse than Andy is right now. For some reason I feel so weak, and although I've been sleeping like never before, I look as though I've stayed awake for at least a week.

I've been diagnosed with severe anaemia, and now spend mealtimes swallowing big iron and vitamin C capsules, and chewing my way through plates of beef and green vegetables. It doesn't seem to be helping in the slightest – give it time, they say. Working out is still out of the question, I can't even muster the strength to go on a jog or take a dip in the pool. Instead I spend my days sat reading a book, playing chess with Daddy or one of my sisters, or watching Andy dance to the stereo and wishing I could join him.

We managed to find somewhere to stay at least. Andy's got a job as a piano tuner and it pays pretty well. It's not an overly big house considering how many we're expecting, but it'll keep a roof over our heads, and although we're not moving in until the babies are born, we've been paying frequent visits there to get it ready. We've even gotten help from our parents – with strong creatures such as these that help has been more than welcome, especially given my condition.

Not much, but it's all we can afford for now – with this many kids we need every penny we can scrape together. I gave Andy such a dirty look when he brought in that yellow and green basket, but he just burst out laughing.
“What do you expect with a green Mum?!” was his argument.
I'm just glad I let Daddy do what decorating we could afford to do, I heard how Mummy made our room a bright green for the same reason – Dad instead of Mum of course, but still... No prizes for guessing where Andy gets it from! I just hope this anaemia clears in time, I don't fancy spending the rest of my pregnancy looking like a ghost and feeling like death warmed up.

Round Two

A Double Line?!

During my brief spell as a vampire, I had a taster of just how big our family is nowadays. Not only were there the various Uncles and Aunts we have, but Evan's Mum was engaged to a man called Marco, and he has his own large family... and news of my relationship with Andy had spread to them all. I'd never felt so humiliated as I did that night, especially when Mummy decided to take off the bandage applied to my wrist in front of everybody. The freshest wound on my wrist had healed thanks to my vampirism, but the older scars on the other side remained, and were on display for all to see.

The flame between Andy and I was rekindled earlier in the day, and about a month or so later we were attending the wedding of Evan and his soon-to-be wife Emily, who we'd met before. It was a double union shared with his Mum and Marco, to whom Mummy was Maid of Honour, while Daddy was Evan's Best Man, so our sisters got left with a friend while we went. Meanwhile the sickness both Andy and I were suffering refused to leave us alone, and at first we'd put it down to stress since it affected us both. As time went on we had no other option than to blame it on a persistent stomach bug, although this particular night I blamed the car ride – I never have travelled well on the road.

I was in dire need of a drink by the time we went inside, and understandably our parents had to leave us at the bar while they saw to their assigned duties. As we waited for things to start we found ourselves left among some... interesting people.

That plant man standing next to Evan is his father, Luca. The other who approached Andy is a true alien being, not like Daddy... in fact that alien man is his father. We learnt then that he used to reside somewhere among the stars and experimented on random people, impregnating them with their seed... people like Luca, who gave birth to our own father. Those two men we met were our Grandparents, and they both knew everything about us... I don't use the word lightly either. In fact the alien man, Zephyr, was even encouraging us to be open with each other, reassuring us that everyone present knew about us anyway.

It was for that reason that night was the best we'd ever had – the freedom was wonderful, and we savoured every minute. The only thing amiss was Daddy's temperament – during the course of the evening his mood dropped through the floor, and none of us could figure out why. It was only when we came back home he shed his mantle and ushered us urgently into one of the reception rooms, which seemed to be our meeting place of late.
“What's wrong?” I asked innocently, not prepared in the slightest for what his answer would be.
“As soon as the shops open tomorrow,” he replied with a stern urgency, “You guys are getting yourselves some pregnancy tests.”
I blinked in surprise as I stared back at him, for a moment thinking he'd gone mad.
“Excuse me?!” was all I could say, before Andy echoed my confusion.
“We're both guys!” he exclaimed, “How is it possible?!”
“That's what I wondered at first,” Daddy explained, “But you were both showing signs I'd seen before three times; twice in your Mum, once in Evan's. I tracked down my Dad to ask about it; he casually said men of his race can conceive as easily as the girls.”
“That's him though!”
“No Andy,” he continued, “It gets passed down the line. If I ever slept with a man I could get pregnant by him. Now please, get yourselves tested!”
My mind by now was spinning as I managed to put across my agreement. All this time we'd thought that, by us both being male, we'd be free from the worries a woman would normally have, now it transpired nothing could be further from the truth. After that new fact about our origins was laid in front of us I was left picturing the time I slit my wrist, when I was bad beforehand, and now felt a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was praying this was all a false alarm, for no other reason than hoping I hadn't put another life in danger through my rash actions.

We were true to our word too, getting up early and heading straight for the city pharmacy – we deliberately chose a place we weren't known as brothers, although in hindsight maybe that wasn't such a good idea. People in the shop were so judgemental, it was written across their faces what they thought of us, how stupid we'd been. Never mind the fact that we didn't even know it could happen, but I wasn't in the mood to justify myself to strangers. Racked with worry and guilt, all I wanted was to make sure this was really just a stomach bug that wouldn't go away.

We both got a pack of two and used them both, just to make sure. Our parents took hold of one of them and we all peered anxiously at the little windows at the same time...

The rising clamour washed over me in a haze. My mind was racing, my body paralysed with distress and shame. All I could think was “What could I have done to the baby?” I nearly died, I became a vampire, I drank a cure the next day, and all that time I had a little life growing inside me... as I sank into the nearby sofa I could contain my despair no longer and erupted into hysterical tears. I was only vaguely aware of Daddy's heartbeat in my ear as he sat by me, holding me in his arms. Mummy had long since gone, thank God... I learnt later she'd gone into a hissy fit and had to be sent to her punch bag. How Daddy could remain so calm was a mystery, especially given what followed further down the line. At the time though, after he left for his coffin it was just Andy and I sat on the sofa, or so we'd thought...

After just coming to terms with our predicament ourselves, we were faced with explaining it to our sisters. That in itself wasn't too bad, but they'd caught us in each other's arms, and what's worse was their asking about the commotion all those months ago, when I'd been found in the bathroom. I suppose it was only a matter of time before they got involved, no matter how much we'd tried to spare them the worst. Children aren't stupid after all.

We slowly got used to the idea, refusing to take the easy option and instead bonding with the growing babies inside us. Daddy seemed to take it in his stride but Mummy washed her hands of us, refusing to talk to us or even acknowledge us, spending more time with our sisters. That and the trouble we had at school all this time was making an already difficult situation near impossible, save for the more open minded among our family. It was people like Evan and even his Mum – where he said he got it from – who kept us sane during this time. I would include Daddy in that but I was concerned for him; he was showing similar signs that I had, of depression. He was also following in my footsteps by not confiding in anyone, and that worried me a great deal.

There was also another bug-bear we had to face, it turned out. We had our first scan a month after we found out we were pregnant, when we had to go up a trouser size to accommodate the increasing size of our bellies.

There is no feeling like that first sight of part of yourself growing inside you. Incredible doesn't even begin to describe how I was feeling then, although it quickly diminished when the doctor running the scan - none other than Mummy's brother - announced that there was more than one baby there. It got even worse when we found out Andy was also expecting twins! Forget the trauma we'd face of giving birth to them both, how the hell would we manage?! Two fifteen year olds pregnant with twins, in a house with four young girls? It became apparent very quickly that staying at home wasn't an option. My mind was racing that very day on how we were going to cope on our own, but for the sake of our children we were determined to manage.

Round One

Background

Hmm, personal history lesson, eh? Hold on, “if you have a spouse how did you meet?” Ouch... erm, okay, I'll play it by ear and see how it goes...

It started when my brother Andy and I were thirteen. Don't laugh, but a single bed was having trouble holding me at night, and I often fell out of it – I just couldn't sleep still. Poor Andy got so sick of it keeping him up at night we eventually discussed trading our singles for a double. Being able to spread out in bed was heaven, and as an added bonus we ended up doing something we thought at the time we'd grown out of – as kids he'd often crawl into my bed and sleep on top of me. He never did grow out of that, neither did I of enjoying the company. We've always been close, and he'd often bury his head in my chest on the school bus coming home – the bullying started with him at an early age, and someone needed to be there for him.

It was in the school shower after PE that it started with me too. A communal shower isn't the best of places to find out you're gay, because the guys around you notice the way you look about yourself. We got outed in the changing room when we were barely coming to terms with the idea ourselves, and things went downhill that very day. Those kids kept making remarks about how “disgusting” it is and how parents disown their gay children... bad enough with normal parents, but ours are vampires which are telepathic... It wouldn't be so much of a problem if we didn't have quad sisters who needed looking after. With us at school they needed to be awake, and neither of us were looking forward to facing them.

We ended up feeling stupid for forgetting we'd visited Mummy's brother, Adrian, when we were little – he's gay and lives with his boyfriend. Still, it was of little comfort knowing what we now had to face at school, and we were fast realising that a mixture of us liking guys and the related bullying we now both received was to change our lives forever... I can't go into too much detail, but let's just say it drove us closer together than either of us could have imagined. Boyfriend who prefers to not be named? No co-incidence, I can assure you...

This carried on for several months before we got found out. It was the night I'd torn a ligament in my arm while working out, and the confrontation we had with our parents was ugly to say the least.

Mummy nearly lost it, to the point where Daddy had to send her to her punch bag – how it's still in one piece given a vampire's strength I have no idea. Daddy was fine at first, calmly dragging the sordid details from us, but before long his mask slipped... I've always bonded more closely with him and a lot of it's down to how similar our minds work. He's very sensitive and intense with it, which means he's prone to thinking too much and ending up crying. I inherited that from him, and that proved to be the downfall for us both. When Daddy started crying I felt as though my heart had been ripped from my chest – we'd hurt him badly. I'd hurt him, something I'd hoped to never do, and I quickly began to hate myself. I spent that night trying to drift off with tears stinging my eyes, and even then began to wish I could just die. How much easier that would be than to have to face them both, people who had brought us into the world who we now had hurt so much through our actions. It was bad enough facing Andy after that – I wanted to hold him but at the same time I couldn't bear to touch him.

With my only outlet now beyond my reach, I quickly found myself on a slippery slope. Help was offered, in the form of our teenage vampire Uncle Evan, but how the hell do you talk over something like this? What Andy and I had done was illegal, there was no way I could confide in anyone about that for fear of the reaction I'd get. As days became weeks however, I found a release in an unexpected way.

It seemed to work at first. I'd held the analogy for a while of my blood becoming tainted by all the pain I harboured inside, and now flowing through my veins in a poisoned river. My only hope by now was to bleed the pain from my body, in the hope that if I kept it up long enough I'd be clean once again. All I wanted was to be happy again, but that blissful state of mind spitefully eluded my grasp for about another month before I'd finally had enough. The strangest feeling washed over me at that moment before I had a chance to do anything...

I had no idea then why I felt so ill. At the time I was concerned with only one thing – I hadn't intended for it to be anything more than another “fix” as it was becoming, but as I studied the scars on my arm and looked at the knife, I found myself asking “What's the point?” I'd bled not only the pain from my arm, but every other emotion I used to feel along with it – I'd become nothing more than a shell. I wasn't living – wouldn't it be better to just put an end to it all?

I very nearly succeeded in taking my own life, but my experience of death - or at least being so close to it – was the strangest I'd ever known. You hear tales of floating, a white light and hearing voices, surrounded by people you knew who had died... how about that voice being your own, the light closing up behind another figure as he approaches you, that figure being yourself? Angel and devil paradox had nothing on this.

I'd heard Andy telling me how much people were really missing me, and he'd mentioned Mummy saving my life... I couldn't understand what he meant by that at first. All I knew was, this gothic looking creature was standing in front of me, laying his cards on the table... or should that be my cards? He represented my heart, that part of me that gets so big I often trip over it. It had driven me to Andy, and my equally strong mind had been fighting against the move for over a year, keeping me from truly enjoying my life and instead trying to end it. He was urging me to join with him instead of pushing him away... I wanted so much to just be happy again I couldn't accept fast enough.

It wasn't long after I woke, back again in my now weakened body, that I discovered what Andy meant when he said Mummy had saved my life – she'd bitten me. It was the very next day Andy bought me a cure, not wanting to see me turning out like Evan and spending the rest of eternity trapped in this hellish adolescence. I only had to ponder his predicament for a moment for me to realise staying this way would be a bad idea, more for my own sanity's sake than anything else. I wanted to be shot of my teenage years as soon as possible, not stay there forever.

Neither of us were to know how big a mistake that would be. If we could foresee the future Andy would never have bought that cure, let alone ask me to drink it.

Application Round

Howdy folks! Name's Christian Turilli but please, just call me Chris. I'm fifteen and muddling through St Grey's Private School, no kids but I do have a boyfriend who for now prefers to remain nameless. I'm joint oldest of six along with my twin brother and born to vampire parents, one of them half alien... yeah, and you thought your family was weird(!)

Well, I'm no oil painting but here you go:

Yes I have a double bed, and yes it gets a fair amount of use! ;) ... in fact that's how I got into the mess I'm in now.

This is my outlet, or at least it was before things went drastically wrong...

I seem so accepting of this, huh? Well, one motto we all live by in this family; looks can be deceiving. I may act cool and maybe even cocky, but by the time Daddy asked - no, ordered - us to get tested, I was just starting to get back to normal after what seemed like a lifetime spent in a black hole. Anyone who's been through depression knows exactly what I'm talking about. It makes you do crazy things that you look back on later and ask yourself "what was I thinking?" The bottom line is though, it's thanks to alien blood this has even been possible to start with, and it got my brother into trouble too... now I know how the girls feel!