Chapter 8 : Older Sister

║Tangerine is Orange: Papa pick me up at 5:30 okay! [/emoji] chibi orange winking [emoji]║

Leon stared at his phone quite troubled and can't help but sigh deeply in his heart. He scratched the back of his head and looked at the time on his phone. It's just 2 in the afternoon. He turns to look outside the door of the store, towards their house and wondered if their second daughter is awake now. Leon didn't know what their daughter was thinking right now, he was worried, but at the same time he didn't know what to do. He was a man, a very quiet man, even his wife didn't know what to do with their daughter's situation how could he.

Recalling the news that almost filled all the local channels right now, Leon couldn't help but feel emphatic for his daughter. Such a terrible scene was seen by his cowardly little daughter, he just doesn't know what to do. Fortunately, Tangerine was coming home. Maybe that girl has a solution, and can talk to Zee.

As Leon was thinking hard about his two daughters, a customer came and he threw all his thoughts aside. Anyway, Zee is already an adult. If there's a problem she will surely come and ask for help...maybe...

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5:19

"Hey, Orange, going home today~" Tidying up her backpack, Tangerine didn't look up and just nodded as she was busy thinking about what to buy for her family later.

"Who's going to pick you up? Your boyfriend? Tell you boyfriend, to bring taro flavor sometimes." She asked again in a teasing voice. But her eyes never leave the delicious looking taro flavored ice cream on her phone. She was browsing FB casually and saw this pic and can't help but crave it. Then she saw Tangerine packing her stuff, and remembered her boyfriend who likes to give away gallons of delicious Ice cream whenever he appeared. That's why she asked.

Tangerine rolled her eyes and answered to her disappointment, "No, it's my dad." Closing the zipper of her backpack, Tangerine looks up, "is the donut from the xxxx store delicious? I haven't tried their donuts before."

A woman who seems to be in 40s heard Tangerine's question and answered her while still focusing on retouching her make up in front of a hand size mirror. "Tangerine dear~ if you wanted to buy donuts for your sister then you should buy from the YYYY store up ahead. They tasted like d*nkin donuts."

"That good?"

"Yeah, I tasted it before, Orange. Try it." After getting rejected by Tangerine, she let the ice cream fly off to her mind and continued browsing her FB, until she saw a certain video and played it.

"Then I'll buy it later." Then she glanced at her friend that suddenly stopped talking. "Hey, what are you watching? So serious." Tangerine wanted to joke around her friend. She rarely saw her this serious, even at work this friend of hers always gave off the feeling of leisure and carefree life. To think that there's a time she will get this serious look on her face, this is a rare occurrence.

She walked beside her friend and bowed her head to peaked at her phone.

"It's been two days since this incident occurred and they still didn't know what made the train go off tracks."

"Oh that~ the news is full of that train incident you know. So many people died. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Such a tragedy." She pursed and plumped her lips, making the lipsticks scatter in her lips. "Right~ dear Tangerine, did your sister see the accident that night. You said before that your sister went home the next day due to that incident on the train."

"That's right, Orange. Do you have news?"

Tangerine stayed silent at first, she recalled her mom's words when she called the day after Zion got home perfectly whole yesterday.

[She seems wrong. Though it's understandable how tired she might be experiencing but there's something wrong with her. I don't know how to describe it, but I felt very bad looking at her. We will observe her more, but try to talk to her when you get home tomorrow, okay.]

"I'm not sure. But she might have seen it."

...

"Give me a dozen of these flavors, please." These donuts really look delicious, just walking inside, Tangerine could feel the warm heat, and sweet and delicious scent coming out from a freshly baked and fried donut.

Zion has a sweet tooth and loves donuts very much. On the other hand, her parents love western fast foods, but Zion doesn't like them very much. It's not that Zion is picky. In their family only Zee and her mother like to eat veggies. She...nah~ however for some reason, Zion doesn't like eating pizza and hamburgers. She only eats mother's cooking. And whenever she goes out, it's either she eats spaghetti or just eats bread, cakes on the road. That's why after buying these donuts, Tangerine still has to buy pizza from next door. Fortunately, she went there first. So, as the pizza is heating, she could buy donuts while waiting.

After buying out the donuts and pizza, Tangerine went to her usual spot and waited for her father to arrive. She talked with her boyfriend on the phone as she waited.

Seven minutes later, a huge black motorcycle stopped in front of Tangerine.

Broom~ broom~

Tangerine looked up and saw a honey-colored skinned man taking off his helmet. He wore a black motorcycle mask that covered his entire face down to his neck, except for his eyes. But despite how his face was entirely covered you can still see that the man is good looking. More so, he is quite tall and he looks cool riding this black motorcycle.

The good-looking man hugged his helmet with one arm and went to take the other helmet with his other hand from the back of his motorcycle and offer it to Tangerine.

Meanwhile, Tangerine was still on her phone talking with her boyfriend. When the good-looking man went to give her the helmet, Tangerine just smiled but didn't take it. She held her phone in one hand while holding the donut box with the other hand. She has a huge backpack on her back and the pizza was placed on a stone beside her.

"Ice cream, my dad is here. Call you later. Luv u!" After hanging up, she immediately put her phone in her bag and quickly took the pizza. She went forward and bowed and let her good-looking dad put the helmet on her head. Yup, this good looking, cool man is her dad.

Leon silently compromised with his daughter. He put the helmet on her and locked it. Then he put his helmet on and waited for her to come up to his back.

Tangerine raised both of her hands that were full of things and went up to the back of the motorcycle. After struggling for a while, she was finally able to find a best position to sit with her stuff, and signal her father to go.

Broom~ broom~

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Waking up from her nightmares, Zion felt disoriented at first. Her head throbbed and she felt dizzy. She could feel her body numb and it took a while before she felt she could move them again.

Instinctively, Zion breathed hard as if she was out of breath. Her chest heaves up and down. Her body convulse, trembling and shivering nonstop.

She put her hand over her chess. A subconscious action for those who felt panic and nervous, wanting to feel their furious beating heart.

But...there was nothing.

Zion gasped. Her hand clenched her clothes tightly.

She looked blankly at the ceiling, wondering nothing. Even if she wanted to think, her brain is blank, she couldn't think of anything, there is only nothing. Like her breathing and heart. No sounds of breathing and no signs of beating. She doesn’t know why she can still receive dreams, no, they're nightmares.

She was dead. A corpse. But surprisingly, she opened her eyes and walked home like nothing happened.

She felt empty and lifeless. She fell asleep the moment she touched her bed. Then she woke up, and everything was the same. Everything is normal.

Except for her.

Overtime, Zion comes down. She slows her breathing while meditating. Inhale...exhale...until her breathing completely stopped.

Her face is pale, her body is rigid and stiff, more so, her body is naturally freezing cold. So, when she just halted her breathing and just looked up the ceiling with her black eyes, she seemed to look like a complete corpse.

She just died. Her body already stopped producing blood and her cells will no longer regenerate and multiply.

She just died. Her blood was smoothly dried and she hasn't eaten anything since then. Even if she did, she would only vomit it out. And that feeling is so horrible that Zion felt that she just wanted to die.

It's been a day and a half and Zion already felt that it's better to just die. She didn't know why she was still alive. She read many of these vampire series before, and Zee was not sure how these things work in reality.

Did she become a low-level vampire now? Like those hungry unintelligent vampires who are called with a big letter "E" in a certain anime? Or that certain novel with a female lead accidentally turning into one with a single bite and didn't even know who turned her into a vampire. And then suddenly falling into a deep sleep after at the center of fighting coincidentally, up to the end of earth time and meeting her father vampire who ruled an entire universe.

There's also that rule about a vampire feeding their own blood to turn human into a vampire. But Zion ultimately reject that idea, because she never drinks that scary woman's blood. Forget about that, that certain webtoon about a guy who have a blood who smell and taste sweet. Where they will turn into a vampire with a single taste of their blood– is certainly not a possibility either.

Anyway, Zee doesn't know. She doesn’t know. And she didn't want to know.

Now Zion felt like she was drowning and thinks that death is better than this kind of torture.

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Clink.

"Hey! I'm home!" Walking inside the house, Tangerine first took off her shoes and took a pair of slippers and put them on. She's carrying a big heavy bag full of clothes and a box of donuts.

After a week of staying in the office, as usual she will go home on weekends and sleepover. Since the pandemic spread all over the world, because of fear of getting the virus, the high management of their company decided to let their employees stay in the office 24/7 or just work from home.

Tangerine worked from home for a month before, after the virus was named a pandemic. But she was called at the office one day and had to report from there from then on. Her parents, of course, were worried for her. But still compromised since it's work.

At first Tangerine failed to get home for two months, because of the quarantine period. Nevertheless, as days go by, the government now gets the hang of this virus and people are getting used to this life, the quarantined life is now over. However, Tangerine still stayed in her office for convenience sake and for her own safety and will just go home at weekends. And every time she will bring a bunch of snacks and deserts for her family.

The box of pizza was left for her parents to deal with at their tiny little store. Her dad also stayed there to accompany their mother. Tangerine looked around as she went in directly. She found no one and it was really quiet, like the house was empty with no one else living on it. She felt weird, and can't help but feel a little creepy.

The inside of the house is dark with only dimmed light lit off. It seems that no one has ever thought of putting the lights on. Tangerine's brain worked fast and concluded that her grandpa must still be outside strolling, while her little sister...she must still be in her room all this time.

Tangerine thought about what her mother had said, Zion must have been staying in her room since yesterday and doesn't have a plan on going out. She might have just come out to eat. Since she has her own bathroom, then she must really have just come down to eat.

Sighing, Tangerine put down all her luggage after turning on all the lights and went to carry the box of donuts with her upstairs. Facing her sister's door, Tangerine raised her free hand and knocked on the door.

...

After Zee woke up and finally calmed down. The first thing she did was to find her cell phone. Looking at the time, it's almost six o'clock. Zion slept at 5:30 just when the sun was about to rise. Though, this was her usual routine even before, but somehow Zion could feel something different.

Zion doesn't know what's the deal between the sun and the vampire. Is it the same as the certain black blood siblings where only pure bloods could handle the sun? If she walks under the sun, will she become like Jiro walking below the sun as if being cooked, fried and baked at the same time? Sizzling noise and smoke will come out of her body as she feels tired and painful...or maybe she could be like a certain vampire movie where she'll just shine and sparkles when touched by sunlight. She could try it as an experiment, but thinking how starving she is, Zion just throws off that idea outside the universe.

What if she goes 'shing~' and turns into sand the moment the sunlight touches her skin, then wouldn't that be bad?

She stayed alive up to now, because she is worried about her parents. If she turns into ash and disappears all of the sudden, then what's the point of all her sufferings.

Sighing, Zee felt frustrated. She didn't know what to do...

She put down her hand holding her cell phone and lay down with her limbs spread across the bed. She stared at the ceiling blankly. Her thoughts are a mess. Is it possible to tell them? How could she tell? Would they believe her? Will they think she's a monster too?

She almost wanted to cry thinking these things, however as if she was poured by cold water– when Zion heard sounds coming from down stairs, she immediately sober.

One thing that this vampire thingy made Zion convenient is that it made her senses sharper. Though, it's not sharp enough like those described in novels, Zee felt that it's because she was hungry that she's this weak and could only hear vague sounds from afar.

Zion doesn't care though. These powers were useless to her. She doesn't even want money, prestige or status, how could she want these super powers. Even if she had eight grade syndrome before and dreamed of having these powers, she never wanted them in reality. Despite her chuunibyou days, Zion is a realist, more so she is incredibly pessimistic.

She, right now is surely going to be in trouble. Now, she really wished she just died back then.

After a while, Zion heard knocks on her door.

It was her sister.