About to committ myself to a re-write of something. I think it might please a few people in my life.
I just feel the need.

Grave Obsession - Continued

Three
“What do you mean I have to go to school?” I hissed. “You think I am capable of sitting through a day at school after a night like that? You expect me to go there looking like this?” As far as I was concerned school could function without me, I think I would barely function there. I hadn’t been able to sleep at all, and how could I?

“We have to keep Viktor unaware of our presence here” said Marcus softly. “He must not know that you know anything, we need the element of surprise on our side. I don’t think you understand just how hard this is going to be.”

“What’s one day of school though?” asked Tom in jest, as always being a brother. The troubles I was facing, that we all were facing seemed to go straight over his head.

“We need to keep things normal. Lily missing school is not normal” sighed Marcus. “For all we know Viktor is always watching, he does have spies everywhere.” I rolled my eyes in annoyance, 6 hours of torture was just what I needed to top a night like this. At least I got to be away from all this madness; at least I could try to make sense of everything going on in my head. It was almost like I needed to reprogram myself. I could hear the old bloodsucker still explaining things as I stormed up the stairs to get my school things and make myself look somewhat presentable. This was just stupid. This whole situation was just ridiculous, not to mention the fact that there were three vampires in my house right now. I was so confused.
My entire life I had been trained to kill vampires and now I was supposed to work with them, I was supposed to save them?
It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense.
The biggest thing that I couldn’t get over was that Isaac lied to me. He kept this secret from me for so long. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see why. Why would he keep something like that from me? Why?
It seemed so cruel. It seemed like such a breach of my trust, of all of our trust.

***

I made it into the school grounds in one piece, physically. It was hard to not glare at people as they smiled at me. I really had nothing to smile about and their smiles only made me mad and even more frustrated. If only they knew.

“Hey Lily” bounced up a girl named Kathleen. I mentally cringed and rolled my eyes. Dealing with other people today was clearly going to be a challenge. Kathleen was a nice girl, really she was, but if she had any idea about the things running through my head right now I think she would run in the other direction.
I guess she was what you could call a friend. We talked every day, or almost every day, we sat next to each other in classes, but it never really went any further than school. That was my doing, outside of school I distanced myself from everyone. She didn’t push it and neither did I. She had invited me to a few things outside of school, but I had never really been able to go, for very obvious reasons. We did a few things after school at each other’s houses on very random occasions. It was all to keep up appearances really, but it hadn’t happened in a long time. It had gotten to the point where she had stopped asking.
In truth we fit together perfectly, we were both pretty much the outcasts here anyway. We were the slightly off centre people at the school, the ones that didn’t exactly fit in, but didn’t stand out like a sore thumb either. The great thing was that no one really bothered us, and we in turn didn’t really bother them.
Kathleen had managed to make a few other friends, thus making up our ‘group’. The majority of them must have had some social disorder because we really didn’t act much like friends; we weren’t exactly inviting each other over and having parties or anything. It really didn’t matter all that much anyway, because it suited all of us just fine, it was the way we liked things, so no one was going to challenge it.

“Hi Kathleen” I forced a smile. I wonder if it looked like I was crazy?
Probably. Try smiling when you’re furious and willing to punch an innocent friend, I’m sure it looks all forms of ridiculous.

“How was your night?” she asked, falling into step beside me. I focused on controlling my breathing, I really shouldn’t be this angry that my friend wants to talk to me. I guess I just need to be alone right now. Well, being anywhere but this institution would be better on my mental psyche.

“Busy” I sighed, trying to let go of whatever was happening outside of school. All my problems existed in a world these people knew nothing about; right now I needed to pretend they didn’t exist. I needed to be normal. It wasn’t like busy wasn’t exactly a lie either, I was busy.

“Really? What did you get up to?” she asked me. Why were girls so talkative? Why could they not let things fall into silence for a few moments?
Okay, so that is a gross generalization, but seriously, Kathleen can never let there be any form of silence. She always has to be talking, right now; talking is not something I want to be doing. Hell, being in this horrible institution was not something I wanted to be doing.

“Homework, you know, that killer English essay” I lied. It was the first thing that came to me and really it was the only plausible thing that I could have been doing. It’s not like I had an after school job or anything, well I did, but not one she knew about. It was also something very believable, my good grades lead everyone to believe that I was someone who did study hard, when in actual fact, I rarely did my homework. That horrible task usually fell into the hands of Isaac or Marty while I stole another ten minutes sleep.
“What did you get up to?” I asked. It was a good move to ask her a question, it meant that she would ramble on about herself for a while and I wouldn’t have to do any talking.
As if she had read my mind Kathleen launched into the story of her nights events, none of it was of any interest to a girl like me. I spent last night killing a vampire and then discovering that the majority of my life was a lie, as if I cared about the fact that she had painted her nails and flirted with a cute guy at work. Sometimes I wondered if she was obsessed with boys.
Boys, the teenage boy is such a weird thing really. I mean the guys I go to school with make me want to stab out my eyes with a blunt object, and I am not being overdramatic.
I had spent my entire life around boys, well, men really, but needless to say I was comfortable with the other sex, maybe sometimes more so than with other females, but the boys at this school left a hell of a lot to be desired.
I am sure everyone was convinced that I was a lesbian or something else equally as shocking, but in truth, I had just never found anyone that I had, or could even fathom having, that kind of connection with. The boys at school were never going to be the ‘apple of my eye’ and the men that I lived with were too much like family for me to even consider such a thing. This meant on the boy front I was rather inexperienced, well, totally inexperienced. I guess at this rate I’ll die before I even need to consider the thought of a boyfriend anyway. It’s not like I have the time anyway.
Kathleen continued to ramble on in fast excited sentences, her bubbly tone making me feel dizzy. Was this Isaac’s way to torture me?
Send me to school and put me through a very human hell. It just wasn’t really that fair. I bet they were at home talking about me, talking about this so called ‘war’ and I was here being normal. I don’t think I could last the day, I really think I am going to break something before the day is out.

“Did you hear that Mr Jensen’s daughter didn’t come home last night?” asked Kathleen. Something about that sentence caught my attention, something about it made me snap out of my trance and listen to whatever it was that my friend had to say.
“The guy is going insane; my mother said he’s on edge because it’s not like her to not come home after anything, and it’s been 12 days. I think she’s probably done a runner, I mean with a father like him and no mother, it must be like torture.”

“That’s so weird” I replied. My stomach started to flutter and I felt sick. I never thought of any of the people we had to kill as victims. For the most part they were just vampires, werewolves, people we had been told we the evil scum of the earth, and they were never people. I never thought of any of them as human, as something innocent.
Every ounce of hope that I possessed was praying for that girl, I was hoping with all my being that she wasn’t the girl that Tom had to kill last night. I prayed that being caught up in that mess wasn’t the last thing she ever did on this earth, that being taken by the evil was not the last thing she ever got to experience.
“I hope she turns up” I added, trying to brush off the effect this news was having on me. It wasn’t supposed to affect me at all, I didn’t know her, and she didn’t mean anything to me. I shouldn’t be feeling the way I do.

“Yeah” shrugged Kathleen, the whole thing didn’t seem to faze her, but then again, she didn’t need to think about the things that I’ve seen or the things that happened last night, so she didn’t have anything to worry about. “I still think she’s done a runner, she was getting pretty close to a guy. I bet she just left with him, eloped or something.”

“Romeo and Juliet is not real life Kathleen” I replied, “I doubt they eloped.”

“I can dream” she sighed. I shrugged and left her to her own romantic fantasies, tuning out the rambling of her voice and getting lost in the thoughts swarming in my head.
We walked together to our first class, Kathleen filling the silence with random topics. I sighed when I finally got to sit down, there was nothing like sitting though hours of school to make me feel better right now.

*******

He sat at the table and watched the room around him. He had been sitting here doing nothing for hours; everyone else seemed to be doing something except for him. Marcus, Sophia and Isaac were deep in discussion about Lily.
The others had all gone to bed, trying to sleep off their emotions. What he would give to be able to sleep for a night, to be able to rest, to not have to think. He sighed, pushing his own fairytale thoughts from his head and rested his eyes on the old man.
His hair was wispy and wiry, greying all over. His face was worn, wrinkled and scared, showing all the signs of his long life. His age didn’t come through with his appearance though, it came through his eyes. They looked tired and worn, burdened by the life he had to live and the secrets he had to keep.
Alex let his eyes drift over to the pale, composed face of Marcus. They were complete opposites of each other; one was stuck in an ageless body while the other was falling apart at the seams, his old body slowly starting to give in against the years of physical abuse.
Sophia was seated next to Marcus, her back straight, her pale hands resting on top of each other. She was quiet, contemplative.
They hadn’t planned what they were going to do next, there was no reason to. For so long it had all been about finding Lily, about keeping her safe. No one had been able to plan further ahead than that, finding Lily was a hard enough challenge as it was.
Now that they had her though, what were they supposed to do? Sit here in a house full of humans and wait?
No matter how many things his brain could come up with, no matter how many different scenarios it played out, none of them seemed to fit in this situation, none of them seemed the likely outcome.
“It’s been a long time Isaac” said Sophia softly, her dark eyes looking up to lock with the old mans.

“It has” he replied.

“I’ve changed so much since then” she continued. “I’m not the same person...I’ve changed....”

“I can see that” Isaac replied curtly. There seemed to be a tone of annoyance in his voice. No, annoyance wasn’t the right emotion, Alex could see through his mask. What was it? Regret?

“I never got the chance to thank you” Sophia softly continued.

“You don’t need to” the old man gushed quickly, he seemed to want to dismiss the topic before it even started. “There is nothing to thank, I don’t need any thanks...”

“You saved my life” continued Sophia softly; pressing on with the topic she so bravely aired, “...or whatever you’d like to call my existence...”

“Please” said Isaac standing. “Sophia please...I don’t deserve the honour you are trying to place on me.” With those words said he left the room, disappearing into another corner of the small house.
The three vampires remained at the table in silence, the soft sounds of the humans breathing in the various rooms around them echoing between the walls.
Sophia returned her gaze to the table, not bothering to try to hide her confusion and hurt. Alex just tried to ignore the moment that had just happened, he wasn’t one to jump right into emotional situations, nor was he one to ever want to witness them. He preferred to leave his emotions out of everything, and only choose wisely when to display them. He liked to be in control.
It also wasn’t his place to ask questions about her past, that information would have to come to him willingly from either party’s lips.
Alex watched his older companion comfort Sophia, his marble like arms wrapped around her graceful small frame. He pursed his lips tightly as he watched the tender embrace of the two vampires, jealous of the bonds that they had, the love that they shared.
Leaving them to have their own moment and some privacy, the youngest of the three vampires abruptly stood and excited the room. Unsure where to go, the shinning sun restricting him to the confines of the house, he let his feet guide him to another room to be alone.
The house was somewhat small for something that belonged to the order, but he didn’t expect them to grant anything better to a man with Isaac’s reputation, not to mention to these few Guards. These Guards were on the Order’s list of people to forget about, which, considering all that was going on and who exactly was amongst these Guards, was rather ironic.
He walked down the small hall, his eyes sharp in the dim light. The walls were adorned with various artefacts and scrolls, and scattered here and there were a few pictures of the four young Guards. Unless you knew what they were, you would have no idea that this house housed four Guards and a Guide, anyone from the outside world would think they were normal people with a unique taste in objects collected from places all around the world.
He could hear the steady breathing coming from the rooms he passed, knowing that all the boys had fallen asleep already. He passed their rooms, one by one, until he came to the end of the hall. There was one room left, the door was closed, but he knew what was behind there. It was Lily’s room.

*********

I dragged my feet in the dirt as I walked home. I was so tired; in fact I was beyond tired. I was exhausted. Long nights and an even longer day at school had made me exhausted. I clung tightly to the fact that I would be graduating soon, which meant that sitting through hours of torture would end. That is, of course, if I get the chance to graduate, with everything that was going on at the moment that seemed like something that would never happen. Strangely enough, it was something that I was looking forward too, another normal achievement to cross of the list.
Despite being tired I was walking even slower than normal. I didn’t want to go home; I didn’t want to be thrown back into the nightmare that had just become my life. I wanted it all too just go away. For the first time since I was 5, I was wishing that I was a normal person that didn’t have to deal with this kind of thing.
The sounds of cars going past didn’t startle me. The mothers were all picking up their prized possessions now, collecting their children and making small talk about how their day was. The one sound that did stand out was the silence; it was the fact that there were no cars that was startling. It wasn’t very often that the street was quiet at this time of day. I relished the chance to not have to think about anything.
Without having time to register what was going on my body was slammed into the brick wall next to me, I heard a disgusting cracking sound. I knew that meant that something was broken, my body ached all over, meaning I couldn’t tell where or what had exactly broken. So far it felt like everything was damaged. I felt myself slide down the harsh brick slowly.
I gasped for air, crawling along the concrete pavement, trying to put some distance between me and whatever had hit me.
I had barely moved an inch before I was dragged back along the footpath, my nails scraping against the pavement. The sound they made was a sound I never wanted to hear again. I felt cold hard hands gripped around my ankle and I instantly knew whatever it was that was attacking me was definitely not human. Human hands would be warm, the blood flowing through the veins making the skin feel warm.
I felt the sharp nails of my attacker dig into the flesh in my leg; I winced as more pain shot through my body. Instinctively with my free leg I kicked at my attacker. I heard another spine tingling crunch and I knew I had made contact.
The grip on my leg didn’t ease, so I kicked again and again.
The moment my leg was released I was on my feet, on my feet and running. I ignored the pain searing through my body, I ignored my aching limbs. I just ran.
I had moved ten meters when I felt my body falling forward again, slamming me back into the pavement. I groaned, my head smashing onto the ground.
I could feel the warm liquid start to run down my neck, the sign of another new wound to add to the ever growing, painful list.
I rolled over, pushing my attacker off me, sending them into a fence two meters away, I heard another crunching sound. It was probably the sound of breaking wood. I was gasping for air, pain shooting though my body, running completely on adrenaline.
I clawed my ways forward, scrambling to my feet and taking off. I needed a good head start if I was going to have any chance of making it home.
My ears were ringing, my vision blurry, but I kept running. I knew the way. I could faintly hear the sounds of my feet on the footpath; I could feel the burning in my lungs as I gasp for air. I was almost home.
I rounded the last corner, my attacker slammed into my body sending us both flying into a parked car. I heard and felt the windscreen shatter against me. I screamed out in pain as I felt shards of glass tear into my skin. They wouldn’t give up, and I couldn’t give in. I needed to get home right now; I needed to make it through this alive.
I pushed at the body on top of mine, struggling to break free. With every ounce of strength that I had left I pushed and kicked free, scrambling once again to my feet.
I ran, with my back turned, willing myself to get home. I needed to get myself into the safety of the house.
I could already feel myself going faint, starting to get dizzy. My coordination was going; I snagged my jumper on the fence as I ran through the backyard of the house.
My hand was shaking as I pushed open the door, my vision was blurred. I could barely see what I was doing, but instinct told me I was heading in the right direction.
I felt my body bounce into each wall as I staggered into the house, my breathing laboured, my head spinning, my heart racing. This sort of thing had never happened before, I was caught off guard. They had come from nowhere, they had attacked in the daylight.
“Lily?” an unfamiliar voice greeted me. I had heard it before, but I couldn’t put a face to it. It was perfect, soothing, it sounded like velvet, even with an alarmed tone.
I couldn’t even respond, the ability to talk had gone, along with my ability to make out what was around me, everything was one big blur.
“Lily what happened? You’re bleeding?!”
I don’t know if I imagined it, but it sounded like a groan mixed with a hiss at the end of that alarmed sentence. Whoever owned the voice was in some sort of distress, I don’t think he could be more distressed than me. I was attacked in broad daylight!
“Lily stay still” the voice commanded. “Please just hold still for a moment” the voice pleaded.
I felt myself bang into another wall, my head pounding hard, my vision getting worse. I grabbed the wall for support, but it was too late. I was falling, the world around me spiralling into darkness.

******************

He was bored, there was no denying it. Everyone was asleep, everyone that was except him, Sophia and Marcus. The latter two were both busying discussing and planning their next move. He, however, was left to explore to try to pass the time.
Almost instantly he found himself standing in her room. He didn’t mean to end up there; his legs had just carried him. He didn’t want to get too attached to her; he needed to not get attached to her, but here he was looking through her things, trying to get to know anything and everything about her.
The room wasn’t exactly what he pictured a girl’s room to be. It was simple, elegant, and clean. There were no large posters lining the walls, or any bright colours, anyone that walked into this room would hardly believe that it belonged to a teenager.
The large double bed dominated the space, a desk and two bookshelves took up the rest. It wasn’t pink, it wasn’t frilly, it was simple. One wall was covered in photographs, some old, some new, few with people, many just of places. It was a collage of places been and places to go to, almost like a diary of pictures.
Books were stacked everywhere, old ancient books, history books, books for school, and even fictional titles. It seemed that she spent her spare time reading; he smiled to himself as he came across a history book. People wrote about history the wrong way, they never got the story right.
He was trying his hardest not to pry, but he was so intrigued by her, this small, fiery girl. He wanted to know more about her, he wanted to know about the pictures on the wall, the books that were scattered around her room, everything, he simply wanted to know everything.
He stopped dead in his tracks. He was getting attached to her right now; he was doing everything he promised himself he wouldn’t do.
Before he had a chance to move back the few things he actually touched he heard the sounds of a door closing, he could make out the stumbling of someone trying to make it up the hallway. Without thinking he stepped out into the hall, only to regret his very movement.
“Lily?” he stuttered, trying to catch his own breath. Before him stood the small girl, battered and bruised. Her clothing was torn; her body slumped against the wall for support, her face covered in the crimson colour of her own blood. He dared not look a second longer; he clamped his eyes tightly shut.
“Lily what happened? You’re bleeding?!” he breathed out, his throat tightening. He could smell her in the air, the sweet tempting smell of her fresh blood. It was intoxicating. His hands were clenched into fists, his nails digging into his palms.
The desire to run to her, to wrap his arms around her and breathe her in was so strong he didn’t know if he could do this. He didn’t know if he was strong enough to withstand this. He wanted nothing more than to drink her sweet smelling blood, giving into his animal desire. It had been a long time...He pushed the thoughts from his head and forced himself to gain some composure.
“Lily stay still” he whispered into the darkness before him. The image of the battered girl scared into his mind, her blood dripping down her face, running down her smooth neck. “Please just hold still for a moment” he pleaded.
He needed to get a grip, he needed to compose himself. This desire was like nothing he had ever had before, it was so strong, and he almost didn’t think he could withstand it. He didn’t have a choice.
He slowly opened his eyes, just in time to catch the small girl losing her balance completely, falling slowly to the ground, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.
He reacted quickly, his marble arms catching her before she hit the ground, pulling her lifeless body into his arms, into his chest. Another wave of intoxication hit him as he started to walk towards the kitchen, the muscles in his jaw tightening as his teeth locked together.
With one swipe of his arm everything on the table was gone, and he placed her limp body on the worn wooden surface. Isaac ran into the room with a look of confusion on his face, it quickly turned to horror.
In that very moment he forgot about his desire for her, about the intoxicating smell of her blood, in that moment rage gripped through his body, his eyes burning with anger. His teeth clenched and locked together as his hands balled into tight fists.


Four
“Marty I need more bandages, she’s bleeding through” yelled a familiar voice, their volume and urgency making my already aching head pound.
Within seconds I wished I was unconscious again. Pain ripped through me, I couldn’t even pinpoint the source it was so strong. A groan escaped my lips even before my eyes had opened.
“Get the morphine too Marty, she’s coming to” yelled the voice. I groaned again as the volume of his voice sent a wave of pounding pain through my head.
“Lily?” asked the voice, more tender this time. I let out a small groan in response. I knew I was hurt badly; the fact that I couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of any of the pain in my body was a clear indication of this.

“Who did this to you?” asked another voice, it was the voice from the hallway. Their voice was not so tender; it was more forced, more malicious.

“Alex the time for revenge will come later” replied the tender voice. “Right now we really need to get her healing, and then we can try to figure out who did this.”

“It was in broad daylight” I managed to get out. “They never come out during the day...”

“Lily just rest, we can figure it all out later” replied the tender voice. “Right now I am going to inject some morphine into you to help with the pain....this might hurt a little” they added. I couldn’t feel whatever it was that they were doing to me; the pain in the rest of my body was too severe. I must have broken more bones then I thought, my body was aching all over and it all was blending into one.

“How bad?” I asked through clenched teeth, changing the topic. My head was racing and pounding all at once, it was an overwhelming sensation.

“Four broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder and a fractured ankle, not to mention the various bruises and cuts” sighed the voice. “Jesus Lil, you’re lucky....really lucky. Hold still, some of these cuts need stiches and dressings.” I winced even thought I couldn’t pin point the place on my body that was being treated, it just hurt everywhere.

“How am I going to go back to school tomorrow?” I whined, rolling my eyes.

“You were attacked by God knows what today in broad daylight and you are worried about going back to school?” hissed a voice from the corner.

“Alex” another voice interrupted.

“I don’t want to repeat the year, again” I snapped.

“How can you be thinking about school right now?” hissed the voice again.

“Alex” came a quick, clear response.

“It’s much easier than the alternative” I whispered, struggling with the pain.

“You should be right to go back to school in a few days” replied Isaac, his hand moving some hair out of my face. “You’re young, and amazingly heal rather quickly. The cuts and bruises will mend fine in a couple of days, but the bones....judging by the last time you broke a bone, probably a week, maybe two.”

“I was five Isaac” I replied.

“Which is why I am allowing for the extra week” he sighed. “You’ll be able to manage right?” he asked.

“Yeah” I replied rolling my eyes and biting my lip as he started to check my ribs. The fact that I had morphine now running through my veins had dulled the pain, but barely, I knew in a couple of days I’d be able to walk, slowly, but walk nonetheless.

“She can’t go back to school” hissed Alex from his corner. “We have a battle to fight, we have to start to prepare...”

“And how do you propose we do that?” snapped Isaac. “They will know that we are coming if we take her out of school straight away, not to mention it will cause a bit of a stir. We need to plan our strike thoroughly Alex, we need to make calculated moves. If we take her out of school now we blow the small element of surprise we might have.”

“Not to mention we need time to gather a bit more force Alex” added another voice; my eyes followed it in the dimly lit room, finally resting on Marcus.

“She was attacked in broad daylight!” hissed the young vampire. “If there is any time to retaliate it is now. Besides, if they attacked her then what’s to say they won’t try again? How can we be sure she is protected?”

“We will figure something out” sighed Isaac. “For now I need to finish dressing Lily’s wounds, and she needs to rest. We need her to focus on fully recovering.”

“It’s not like I am incapable of defending myself” I muttered, squirming under the working hands of Isaac.

“I know” snapped Alex. “I just don’t want to risk anything happening to you” he added. I studied his face hard after he said that. Did the vampire have some kind of moral fibre? Did he actually want me to live?
The whole thought of a vampire on my side, on our side was still hard to get my head around. It was hard to believe the wavered lines of good and evil now. If anything my life so far had been a lie, and it was now hard to know who and what to trust.
Everyone was kind enough to agree that I needed rest, none of them, however, were kind enough to leave my room. Isaac was poking and prodding me with needles, with the aid of Marty, while the two vampires just stood there, motionless and expressionless.
It is kind of hard to sleep when you have an audience, or when you know all eyes in the room are on you. It’s also hard to relax when you know you’re bleeding, and two out of the five people in the room ‘eat’ blood for a living.
I fell in and out of consciousness repeatedly, but every time I would open my eyes the same five people were still by my side.
Eventually Marty and Isaac left, they themselves needing some rest from the day’s events. Marcus followed them, leaving me alone with Alex. It was weird to be left alone with a vampire while you still have fresh wounds all over your body. It was also weird being left alone with a vampire when I had spent the last 18 years of my life hating them.

“Isaac is right you should rest” said Alex softly, the venom in his voice from earlier all but gone.

“It’s hard to sleep when you know there is a vampire is watching you” I replied. I didn’t want to specify that he made me uncomfortable; I didn’t want to make the situation anymore awkward and uneasy as it was. I also didn’t want to embarrass myself by admitting that he made me nervous or uneasy, I don’t really know why, but he did.

“They are all gone now, Isaac and Marty are sleeping I believe and Marcus and Sophia are in the kitchen” he replied. “I won’t hurt you...” he added softly.

“How do you know that?” I asked a little perplexed. My room was at the end of the house, it would be impossible to be able to tell where anyone was, let alone what they were doing.

“I can hear them” he replied.

“That’s not what I meant” I replied softly.

“You should sleep” he said again. I rolled my eyes, now I was getting told what to do by a vampire, a rather pushy vampire. It was kind of ironic seeing as I was the one that was actually living.

“Yeah sure, thanks Dad” I mumbled.

“I’m just trying to help” he shrugged, I could sense he was starting to get a little agravated.

“You know what would really help?” I asked sarcastically. “What would really help is if I was left alone to sleep in my room.”

“I can’t leave you alone Lily” he sighed. “Not after what happened today, I can’t leave you.” I sighed in frustration; I guess that meant that my self-appointed body guard was never going to be leaving my side, much to my annoyance. “Besides, someone has to make sure you don’t die” he added. I just laid in my bed, watching him.

*******************

He sat in the old arm chair in the corner, watching her perfect face relax in her sleep. The smell of the blood on her body, now dry and clotted, was still thick in the air. It caused a familiar burn, a hated longing in the back of his throat, something he had learnt to ignore years before.
She lay there, in perfect stillness, sleeping soundly, healing slowly, while he sat there and watched her, perfectly still like a statue. A statue carved out of stone watching her like it was something he was always supposed to do.
The attack today proved his point about their needing to act fast, about their needing to protect her more than ever. It was scary how fast they had acted, how fast they had been able to find her. He was on edge, everything he had been working on for so long was almost lost today and it proved to him just how easy it would be to have everything taken away from them.
It also made him worry about how fragile she was, he knew she was strong, but her life was fragile. She was mortal after all. It could be taken away at any point and he worried for her. The last thing he really wanted was for her to lose her life; he wanted to protect her life. It made it feel like there was a war raging inside him.
On the one hand he needed her, he needed her to fight for them and change the world they live in, the world they know. On the other he wanted to protect her, he wanted to keep her safe against everything. He felt like he needed her to be alive, he needed her to survive.
He found himself fascinated with every aspect of her, she was a puzzle to him, something that wasn’t asking for his attention but needlessly he gave it. It was a dangerous situation to be in, but he couldn’t help it, as much as he fought it, he couldn’t get her out of his head.
She lay there motionlessly sleeping, the constant and steady sound of her heat beat soothing to him. If he could sleep, he knew her heart beat would be the one thing that could lull him to sleep, much like the lullabies his mother used to sing to him when he was a small boy.
She breathed softly and evenly, barely moving in her sleep. If he couldn’t hear her heart, if he couldn’t hear her soft breathing he would have been sure she was dead. He was glad to know that she wasn’t, he would give his life, or whatever it was that he was doing, his whole existence, to make sure that she was alive. His sole existence was now for her.
She stirred in her sleep in front of him, moving slightly, it was enough to make him hold his breath. He didn’t need to breathe, but ironically breathing was an automatic function that never ceases to function, of course he could make himself stop, but it was easier to pass of as human if they could notice you breathing. Human instinct already made people weary of his kind, they were avoided, and breathing was a way to stop them asking questions.
He held his breath until she settled back into the steady rhythm of sleep that she had stirred so slightly from. He watched as her chest rose and fell with each and every breath.
Silently he moved across the room and lifted her blanket softly around her small frame. He paused his hand just over her face, longing to tuck a stray strand of her long hair behind her ear, but he knew that the feel of his cold hard skin against hers would make her wake up. His hand lingered for a few more moments before he retreated silently back to his corner and his chair where he sat dutifully over her sleeping form.
It was amazing how quickly time moved for him, he was used to having nights to himself, he was used to not sleeping. It made hours seem like insignificant measures of time. When you had forever to live, days, weeks, even months seemed like small measures of time.
He was entranced by her, besotted with her; it was almost as if he was falling for her. He couldn’t be falling for her, the last thing everyone needed was for him to be romantically attached to her, not to mention that the relationship itself could never work, it would never work. He needed to make sure nothing came of these feelings, that they would be nothing more than friends, if they would be at all friends when all this was over. Could he just be her friend? Would he be able to live with that?
He barely even knew her, yet he knew he couldn’t exist without her from this day on.

**************************

It was raining hard as I ran through the dark streets; my vision was blurred as the water flew into my eyes. My heart was pounding against my chest, I felt like it was trying to break free.
Somewhere along the lines everything had become chaos, our plans had failed, and now all I could do was run for my life. I didn’t have any idea where anyone else was, we had all been separated. They had a better chance of survival without me anyway, after all, they wanted me, not anyone else, me.
I was so disorientated, and I knew that this would not work in my favour. I wouldn’t be able to make it through this if I couldn’t make myself calm down. I couldn’t think clearly, my heart rate would be through the roof and my head was spinning. At this rate, anyone who wanted to find me could, or more accurately, would.
It wasn’t like this was a normal situation for me, I wasn’t used to being pursued by vampires, I was usually the one doing the pursuing. I would be lying horribly if I said that I wasn’t scared right now. For one of the first times in my life I was actually scared that I might die. It really was rather ironic.
I was still running, blindly unaware of where I was going, but acutely aware of the people that were hunting me. Every breath I gasped for burned in the back of my throat, I could feel bile slowly pushing its way up, threatening to explode if I didn’t stop. I needed to stop running, I needed to clear my head, and I needed to calm down. A panicked mind makes stupid mistakes.
I turned a sharp corner; it was hard to see in the dark. My body was thrown off course and into a hard surface, my shoulder crashing into whatever it was that I had been slammed into. Pain suddenly ripped through me, I tried my best not to scream.

I sat bolt upright in bed, breathing raged, pain searing through every inch of my body. It was completely dark, but I knew it was a dream. Once again I had awoken from a nightmare that I knew would come back to haunt me.
“Are you okay?” asked a soft voice from the corner of the dark room. The question hung in the air, unanswered. Was I okay?
I hadn’t really had a chance to stop and think about any of this. I was apparently some kind of saviour; I was attacked in broad daylight on my way home from school, and now I was being asked if I was okay?
“Lily?”

“I don’t know” I replied honestly. It wasn’t just the bad dream that was running through my head right now; everything had now come flooding back. The last two days once again weighed down on my shoulders.

“Do I need to get Isaac?” asked the voice, suddenly seeming closer.

“No” I replied quickly. “No” I repeated softly, letting my heart rate slow down.

“Okay” they replied levelly.

“I just had a bad dream” I sighed, shaking my head, ignoring the shooting pain running through my sides. “And I have a lot to deal with” I added softly, running my hand over my face.

“That I can understand” agreed the voice, stepping into the small amount of light being cast by the moon I realized that I had been talking to Alex this whole time. Of course I had been talking to Alex, he seemed to be almost everywhere. I needed to get used to the sound of his voice.

“Can you?” I asked him. He was a vampire and I was human, he was someone hunted and I was the hunter. How did he understand? How could he possibly relate to me right now?

“Yes, this is a lot to take in, a lot to deal with, I understand that” he nodded, moving to sit on the end of my bed.
“You should go back to sleep” he added.

“I can’t sleep now” I replied, the feeling of my dream still lingering over me.

“Why not?” he asked. “You need your rest.”

“Because I just can’t” I shrugged to the best of my ability. “I’m aching all over and my mind is moving too fast.”

“You don’t look as bad as you did before” he commented, pushing a strand of hair out of my face. Was that supposed to be a compliment? Was it supposed to make me feel better?
“You have colour back in your face, and your heart beat is stronger” he added, moving back as if he wanted to get away from me. I just looked at him confused, how could he tell all this?
It was pitch black in here, I could barely make out all of his features and I couldn’t hear anything except the steady flow of my own breathing.

“I am a quick healer” I shrugged, it was true. It was in my genetic makeup to heal quickly, it was part of what I was born and bred for, apparently.
I could feel his eyes on me, something in me made me look away, to focus on anything but him. We were completely alone in the room, and I was very aware of how close our two bodies were. If he had been human I would be able to feel the heat coming from his body, but there was nothing but the cold air of the room. I kept telling myself that he wasn’t human, he was a vampire, the object if my nightmares, the creature of the night that I had spent my life hunting.

********************

He shuddered as the warm sun streamed through the open door. It wouldn’t hurt him, as long as he stayed out of it. He had grown to hate the warm sunlight, not to mention the fact that it made it harder to see and even more apparent that he wasn’t normal.
They avoided the sun because it was unpleasant; it burned their cold skin, turning their pale bodies into ash. For a vampire being in the sun was like having the worst kind of sunburn, and then simultaneously poking it with sharp needles. It wasn’t always deadly, but it was very uncomfortable and if you could avoid it, you really would. Just being in a room with an open window and sunlight beaming in made him uncomfortable, and in this case a car with very darkly tinted windows. Modern technology had definitely made their existence easier. He could feel the tingling of the light on his skin; it wouldn’t get any worse, unless he was directly exposed.
He was alerted back to the things going on around him when he heard a car engine start up, followed closely by the aggressive slamming of the car door.
“Why do we have to move? If I am not going to be safe here I won’t be anywhere” muttered Lily, sliding into the seat next to him.

“Moving is the best option we have right now” replied Isaac. “We don’t know for sure if that attack was deliberate or not, and we can’t take any chances. Our best bet is to get ourselves organized in a secure location.”

“I thought home was secure” said Lily softly, her eyes fixed out the window. His eyes were fixed on her, reading her expression.

“It was” sighed Isaac, his tone stressing the past tense. “But now it is no longer, something big is beginning here Lily and we need to prepare for it or we will fall short.”
Silence followed the old man’s words; Lily didn’t bother to voice her opinion anymore. She knew she was being difficult but she really didn’t like the idea of moving, of leaving. The one thing that had stayed comfortingly the same was her home, the house they lived in and now it was being taken away from her by a cause that she didn’t even understand. She was mixed up in things she didn’t even know about, and what made it all worse was the fact that she had no choice in any of these matters, instead of being part of the decision; she was the reason for the decision. She hated being an object and no longer a person.
The car started to move, gliding effortlessly through the trafficless streets. As they made their way through the small town the houses slowly started to get further and further apart, until they were no longer in the town. Soon they were well on their way to their new hideaway and their surroundings were not familiar to any people with a heartbeat.
He didn’t need to look out the window to know where they were going, to even know where they were. He knew the countryside well; it was all part of a distant memory, one that he had held on to for a long time. He hadn’t been back here for centuries.


Five
The house was huge, I was sure that it had more bedrooms than rooms in our entire house, including the garage. It was simply massive, and apparently was to be our temporary home for God knows how long. As much as it was beautiful I couldn’t help but be annoyed at being uprooted and shipped off to a remote location all in the name of ‘safety’.
Apparently this was the place to be anyway, apparently it was the place to assemble an army and save the world. It was hard to be happy with everything that was happening considering that I was not being involved in any of it. I was being shoved here and there and told that it was all for my ‘safety’ and that it was going to help us win this so called war.
The plus side to it was that I got out of school. It was all taken care of and apparently I was still going to be able to graduate because of my impeccable grades. I was guessing that Isaac had really pulled some strings with the school. They all still had no idea that what they were teaching those kids was for the most part wrong, and most probably a lie, but I guess they really could never know.
The car ride to this unknown place was somewhat awkward. It was spent for the most part in silence, and I mean dead silence. I could pretty much only head the sound of my own breathing, and that is something that belongs in a cheap horror movie plot, not my life. It didn’t at all help that I was sitting next to Alex. I had never in my life been so close to a vampire without trying to kill them. Instinct told me to move further away, but manners made me sit as normally as possible. There was a huge gap between us where the warmth from his body heat should be, but instead there was nothing, like it had simply been taken away without question.
I focused my attention on the passing scenery, trying to get a grasp for where we were going but I couldn’t pin point anything recognizable. Time slowly ticked by as our cars sped down highways, my mood remained unchanged and I focused myself on thinking about anything but my current situation.
Before too long the stars had replaced the sun in the sky, I found myself sitting at some out of the way ‘Truck Stop’ watching them as I waited for everyone.
It was strange how comfortable I had become with the night; it had become more of a friend to me than the daylight.
“Do you always spend so much time looking at the stars?” asked a voice from behind me. I turned and met Alex’s gaze for a split second before looking away, when he looked at me I felt like I was on fire.

“Usually I don’t have time to take notice of them” I replied quietly, letting my eyes drift back to the clear night sky. “I haven’t had the time to look at them for years.” Stars had always fascinated me, the science behind them was simple, and the fact that most of them were probably dead didn’t hinder my curiosity. I liked to think that there was something magical and mystical behind them, that there was more to them than we knew.

“I’m sorry” whispered Alex in reply.

“Don’t be, there is nothing to be sorry about” I replied, before turning and returning to the car.

***

The house looked like it hadn’t been lived in for years; there was dust over everything, a thick layer to show that house had been long since abandoned.
“So this is home” said Tom with a raised eyebrow, he ran his hand along a table and flicked the dust onto the floor.

“It is” replied Isaac. “Jessie, Phillip, I want you to bring in the rest of the bags and then go and collect some firewood. The forest is to the back of the estate, be back before sundown. Tom I want you and Lily to help clean this house up and bring it back to liveable condition” ordered the old man.

“Clean? You want me to clean?” asked Tom in disbelief.

“Tomas do not argue with me” snapped Isaac. His tone was that of a father scolding a child, a tone which ordered you not to talk back. Tom just bit his lip and nodded, following the boys out to the car.
Isaac moved to the window and pulled open the long, heavy curtain, bathing the dusty room in light. The dust particles swam in the new light, casting an eerie shadow over the floor.
No more words were spoken, we each knew our tasks and it was time to do them. Cleaning this abandoned house would at least let me explore the foreign territory.
I grabbed a rag and a bucket and set to work in the kitchen, these mundane tasks were best done quickly rather than being avoided. There was no logic in avoiding it, no matter how long you waited it will still be there waiting for you. The house was rather large, but we wouldn’t need to clean all of it, just the rooms we were going to use. If the others were at all needed we could clean them when the time came.
After a few hours of cleaning Sophia had managed to rope me into helping her cook. I didn’t even know that she knew how to cook, seeing as her diet didn’t actually require any form of pre-preparation. All the boys continued with clearing the house, and making it safe.
I wasn’t exactly sure what ‘making it safe’ meant, but I was so tired I really could care less. My shoulder and ribs we dully aching and my foot made it hard for me to move. They were exactly completely healed yet, and I tried my hardest not to do anything to aggravate them, but at the same time not to let anyone know I was in any form of pain. I think Sophia making me help her cook was her way of making me rest; at least I was able to sit at the kitchen counter and take the weight off my ankle. Sure, I had been through worse, but in truth, I didn’t want to have to do anything alone, right now the last place I wanted to be was alone with my head.

“How are you feeling?” asked Sophia from the stove. Whatever she was cooking smelt amazing.

“Tired” I replied. I wasn’t about to let everything slip, but a little bit of honesty never hurt anyone. There was something about here that made me want to be honest; it was almost like a mother like quality. Studying her pale figure in the kitchen I could tell that she would have made a wonderful mother, that is if she ever got the chance.

“You should be resting” she smiled softly at me.

“I should be helping” I corrected her. “It isn’t fair to leave everything up to everyone else just because I am this special ‘prophecy’ girl, nor because I am injured.” It was true; I had done worse things while injured. Pain was not by any means a new concept to me; I had lived through much worse.

“You are a strong girl” she replied, the smile on her face not faltering. Was her smile just a mask to hide something else? Or was she really being nice to me?
No matter how hard I tried to think about it, it just didn’t make any sense. This whole situation didn’t make sense.

“What in the world smells so good?” asked Isaac as he walked into the room. By the sound of his footsteps I knew it was him before he even spoke. I had listened to those footsteps my entire life; they were such a familiar and comforting sound.

“Dinner” smiled Sophia warmly.

“How kind of you to cook” smiled Isaac politely. I tried to keep my mind on the task at hand. It felt as if my life had become some kind of circus. A vampire was currently cooking me dinner, and I wasn’t on the menu.
Dinner was spent in silence at the kitchen table. The boys didn’t really seem willing to talk and I couldn’t think of anything to say. Isaac and Sophia were chatting happily amongst themselves. I distracted myself from the feeling of being watched by absently moving the food backwards and forwards on my plate. No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t eat, I was far from hungry.

“You know you’ve barely eaten anything” a soft voice commented in my ear. I turned my head to look at Alex.

“I didn’t know you were watching me” I replied. His eyebrow raised slightly, an amused expression crossing his face briefly before he returned to his usual, expressionless pose.
“If you must know, I am not hungry” I added.

“I see” he replied softly.
I hadn’t been able to figure Alex out yet; for the most part he seemed just to be observing everyone, disinterested in us beyond our role in his revolution. The only time that his expression changed was when he was looking at me, this in itself made me a little uneasy.
There was no denying that he was handsome, no, he was more than handsome, he was beautiful. His skin was a pale milky white, his hair perfectly brown, and his eyes, his eyes changed with his moods, they changed in the light, they were never really one specific colour, unless, well, unless he was looking at me. When he was looking at me they were the most intense shade of gold, a piercing dark gold, it was almost impossible to look away. I did look away though, it was almost impossible for me to hold his gaze without feeling uncomfortable.

“May I be excused?” I asked. Normally I would never ask if I could leave the table, but it had been set nicely and Sophia had made such an effort to make this meal that I thought it would be best to do the polite thing.
Isaac had barely even replied to me when I was out the door. I knew that I couldn’t go for a walk outside to clear my head, no; I wouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere unaccompanied anymore. I was slowly beginning to feel sympathy for those animals at the Zoo, locked in a cadge with nowhere to go, confined.
I walked down the long dark hallway, my eyes slowly adjusting to the moonlight streamy in the windows. There were dusty pictures lining the walls, all elegantly framed, but covered in dust. No one had bothered to clean them in a long time; none of us cared to bother, after all, the house only needed to be liveable, not a proper home. It couldn’t be a proper home to anyone in times like this.
I kept walking down the hall until I reached the staircase, the grand staircase, tattered and broken, abandoned for years. In its day it would have looked grand, now it looked like it needed some work. I started up the stairs, hearing the old wood groan in protest as I went.
This house would have been something in its day, grand to behold, full of life. Now it was just an abandoned shell full of furniture that had been left to the elements.
The house looked like it had been abandoned long ago, discarded and forgotten. What I wanted to know was how could someone just walk away from a house like this? Why would someone walk away from this place?
It was the perfect place to escape to; it was out of the way, big and open, full of everything you’d want in a home. It had been a long time since anyone called it a home; it had been a long time since anyone called it anything.
I continued to walk the dimly lit hall, searching for a place to escape to, a place to call my own if even just for the smallest amount of time.
As much as this place was foreign to me, I felt at ease here. At least, I felt comfortable when I was alone. Being in the room with everyone else felt stifling, it felt like I was locked in a cage, my every move monitored.
Before I knew it I was at the end of the long hallway, I hadn’t really taken much notice of what I was passing or where I was going. There were two doors, one to my left and one to my right. My gut told me to pick the door to my right, so following my instincts, that’s exactly what I did.
The room was completely dark and the air was stale, as if it hadn’t been seen for centuries. I could smell the dust in the air. I ran my hand along the wall as I walked, trying to stop myself from bumping into things, I knew there would be a window in here somewhere, a window to open and let in some fresh air, along with some light.
As soon as my fingers felt the heavy fabric of the curtains they instinctively pulled, with the thud of the material hitting the room was dully lit by the moonlight.
Even in the dull light I could see the beauty that this room would have possessed in its day. It was a rundown bedroom, complete with a dusty old bed and pictures that lined the walls. The wallpaper that lined the walls had an intricate pattern laced into, drawing the eye along the wall. The room would have been elegant and simple in the past, when all the layers of dust and decay were removed.
Strangely, in this room I felt at ease, I felt comfortable for the first time in the last few weeks. I felt safe. It felt like these four walls could hold me and keep me safe from the world.

Evil has its own set of rules, but they don’t want the word to get out about their existence either. This epic battle we are fighting goes on unnoticed and we work hard to keep it that way. We do it to keep things safe and sane; they do it because if the whole world suddenly knew about their existence, the war we were waging against them would just get stronger. They’d fuel our numbers and diminish their own. Having the fear of the people around them is the only way they can get stronger, but risking the safety of every human on earth can never be an option for us. This is why neither side tries to never let anything get through the ranks; this is why they clean up just as well as we do.
If you have nothing to fear you have nothing to lose.

*****************************

This house held so many memories for him; he has lived here when he was a boy. He had grown up in these four walls, and here he was, back in a place he had tried to forget.
The house was passed down to him from his father, as was the tradition of the times. Everything remained in the family, and everything was passed down to the first born son, or nephew should no heir have been produced. Fortunately for his father, an heir had been born. Unfortunately that was where the male decedents stopped. He had a sister, who had kept possession of the house and kept it in her family for a few generations, until the bloodline died out. The house still remained in his name seeing as he had never really “died”, and being that he was a few centuries old, the lawyers had managed to keep everything quiet and secret, the way he wanted. If he was damned to live like this for eternity, he would at least do it with good legal representation.
He hadn’t been back here for a long time; he had been trying to shut out his human life. It was almost hard to remember being human, but he didn’t want to remember it. It would be like waving free alcohol in front of a recovering alcoholic. Being back here was hard for him, he wasn’t about to let it show on him. He was anything but weak.

NOTE: An update, nothing major. Obviously everything still needs a lot of work, but writer's block and lack of inspiration makes it had. Sadface.

Seriously epic cover if the boys end up using it. I'd buy it more than once just for the dinosaur.

The Adventures of the Fab Four - Continued

flockmaster
Some things work, some things don’t. It really is that simple. Life is getting to me lately, not because it is ridiculously hard, but because it is going good. You know when things start to go your way but you know something bad is just around the corner? I had the exact feeling and it was driving me mad.
University was working out okay, so far I am passing everything and don’t have anything to big to stress over. This gives me more time to work and earn money, which gives me more money to spend when I go out with friends. Everything sounds like it should be keeping me happy, but for some reason the happiness I should be feeling is missing.
Indifference is such a painful thing. It’s like feeling nothing, being emotionally mute, having these things happen around you and feeling nothing towards them.
It seemed like even though things around me were going good, my life was nothing compared to everyone else’s. My life was a ritual of getting up and going to university, or even work, and then going to bed. Rinse and repeat. I couldn’t help but not feel fulfilled.
Yet all my friends seemed to be perfectly content, having everything they wanted go their way, making their dreams come true. My dreams were far from where I was in my life, but I was too small to make them happen. I am always to afraid to put myself on the line, to take the leap of faith and try it. I let my fear of failure and all my own insecurities stop me doing anything, instead I just stay in my comfort zone, which of late, doesn’t feel so comfortable.
If I wasn’t at uni or at work, I was online, pretending to be somewhere else and someone else. The second I signed on, a message from Moni flashed on my screen.
Moni says: Hello Miss Megan
Megan says: Hey MonMon
Megan says: How are you?
Moni says: Good my dear, and you?
Megan says: Yeah good too, tired, but good. Uni and work have me busy, it feels like I get no sleep.
Moni says: I get how you feel, I’m pretty tired too.
Megan says: That’s because it is like 1AM there!!!
Moni says: True, LOL.
Moni says: Have you heard from Bec lately?
Megan says: Not really, I mean I got a few rushed emails, but everything I hear is all about the band, I don’t know how she is going, she seems okay though, I guess. You?
Moni says: Yeah the same, I don’t know if I should be worrying or not you know? They are starting to blow up a little though, well, more than they were before, and it is scaring me how hard they are working. I don’t want her to burn out...
Megan says: Yeah I know. Although, I hope she’d ask for our help if she needed it.
Moni says: Yeah. Remember when we used to talk about her getting famous and all of us living in that house together, and her adopting all of us to make sure we could never be separated?
Moni says: Those were the good times. I miss those conversations they were so funny.
Megan says: Yeah me too.
Our conversation flowed into reminiscent ramblings that just seemed to make me feel worse. Looking back on when times were good always seemed to make me feel worse in times like these.

beani19
I think I might be falling in love again. I know it hasn’t been long since I broke up with my ex, but this guy just seems perfect. We get along great, he makes me laugh, and smile, and most of all, being around him makes me happy.
I seem to find myself constantly thinking about him, and we seem to be endlessly messaging each other. The heart can heal as quickly as it can break sometimes.
The only thing that was really getting to me these days was the fact that I felt so far away from everyone, and so much out of the loop. Moni and Megan were at least close enough to each other to almost be in the same time zone. I always feel like I get the news last, if at all.

searchingtheskies
You know that feeling you get before you fall asleep? That feeling of ultimate comfort and release?
I have forgotten what it feels like. It has been exactly 53 hours since I slept properly. The only reason I know this is because every time I try I just end up looking at the clock wishing the time away.
The bags under my eyes make me look like a zombie.
The caked on makeup to hide the bags make me feel self conscious.
The flash of the camera in front of me makes me want to vomit.
We were being featured in some music magazines and papers as local “up and comers” to the scene. It wasn’t like you’d imagine, pampering, makeup, all the star treatment. No, this was simple. Stand, smile, shoot. Nothing more, nothing less. They seemed to be so pressed for time that the interview was being conducted while we were being photographed. I guess it made for some awkward mouth open, eyes closed pictures.
I keep trying to tell myself that this is a journey and it will lead me to great places, but I feel so disconnected from myself. I keep questioning everything I do, like it is not really me doing them. I guess I could relate it to the euphoric daze of being high, or drunk, but knowing that I am stone cold sober.
I’ve never questioned my sanity more than I have in the last few months.
Sure, we are living our own dream, but at what cost?
We are cramped into this small van, we’re eating oxygen, we’re signing to a label I’ve never heard of, we have a small recording budget, it all doesn’t seem as glamorous as I thought it would be.
Being in the spotlight made me feel awkward, being on stage made me feel free. The stage was a place where I was completely myself, it was a place where I wasn’t afraid.

mywordsaremyfaith
I am sick of spending my weekends at home. I can’t help but feel my life is dull and boring. My friends were all out doing things. One of them was even about to start to record an album, a fucking record. What was I doing?
Shit all. I was sitting at home moping about my non-existent life.
I didn’t have a social life. I spent my weekends at home avoiding my mother, hiding out on the Internet. It was time I made some changes in my life. I needed to make some rash decision, do something spontaneous. I needed a change of scenery.
I wanted change and I would do anything to make it happen.

flockmaster
You know when you work in a customer service related industry that you’re going to have some shitty people to deal with. Sometimes it just gets too much though, and people will argue over anything if they think they are entitled to something. At the end of the day, all they do is make me feel like shit. It’s a cycle.
So of course, spending over 5 hours at work with people yelling at me for no reason had me in the most aggravated and upset mood ever. I almost felt like I needed a rock to crawl under.
I barely even felt like going online, but I knew that being online and talking to my girls would make me feel at least a little better.

Lessons In Life-Continued

“Do you think if I asked him to Prom he’s go with me?” asked Martha, staring dreamily at the poster of Jonny Depp plastered to her locker door.

“I honestly think you’re delusional” I replied.

“My dad knows his agent” she continued, having ignored me.

“If you paid him enough maybe” answered Lilly, “although, can you imagine all the girls trying to touch him, it would be disgusting.”

“That’s just because you prefer vagina over penis” I added in again, thoughtlessly flipping through my art book. “You hate anything that glorifies the male ego.”

“Well...” I tuned out of Lilly’s speech about how men think with their penises, Lord knows I had heard it enough times to know it word for word. She hated the way men objectified women, the way they thought with their penises, she hated them simply because it was okay for them to love a woman but so very wrong for her to.
I focused on the images in my book, the pain and suffering that had suddenly engulfed my mind. In front of me was an obscure picture depicting the sorrow of losing a child in battle, the pain of the artist struck me as if it were my own.

“You’ll ruin your vision if you stare at that picture any longer” said Martha, interrupting my train of thought. I snapped the book shut instantly.

“It was all the talk of penis, it had me feeling sick” I shrugged. In truth I just wanted to be anywhere but here.

“You really should join the dark side” replied Lilly, her arm casually draping across my shoulder. “We could do something with your hair, I am sure you’d have a girlfriend in no time.”

“Thanks for the advice Lil” I replied, “I think I am okay being single at the moment though, really, it’s too messed up in here for more than one person to handle” I added, tapping my head.

“She had her reasons Beth, none of us could have stopped her” said Martha, her voice soft. “We have to keep our lives going; she would have wanted us to live.”

“I know” I nodded, it didn’t matter what I told myself though, the pain never seemed to stop being there. You think it would disappear, even little by little, but no matter what I do or how long I wait, it still lingers, exactly the same as it did before.
The bell rang signalling time for class; there was no way that you could ever get used to the high pitched ding of the bell. It was a sound that haunted your ears.
“I’m fine” I said to the girls as they hesitantly made their way towards their classroom. Truth is, I wasn’t fine, I was far from fine.
As soon as they were out of view I ducked through the crowd of students lazily making their way to their own classes. I tried to act normal, just like I was on my way somewhere, I didn’t need anyone to see the panic in my eyes or hear the thudding of my overworked heart. It wouldn’t matter to them that I was upset anyway, they didn’t know me and they didn’t care to.
The funny thing about old schools like this was that the hallways seemed to be never-ending mazes. The twisted and turned and continued on for ages, no matter where you were going you always felt lost. One floor looked like another and there was no way that someone who didn’t know the school would ever get out alive.
As the hallway slowly emptied of students, my pathway to the door became easier. I didn’t have to think about where I was going. I had walked these halls so many times that I could navigate through them with my eyes closed.
My escape plan was going perfectly until I collided with something that felt like a brick wall.

-Just a little more from tonight. Not finished, not edited, and totally off the top of my head. One day all of this will come together more. Maybe one day it will be a little more like an actual story.

Lessons In Life-Continued

“So how was the camp?” asked my art teacher. She was slightly eccentric, a complete oddball and nothing like any other teacher I had ever had in the past. She was everything that this school was not, and everything that I loved. She was one of my good friends, not a best friend like two teenagers, more of a good mentor and friend whenever I needed someone to talk to. She was like the female version of my uncle, only he wore suits for a living and she destroyed them. I guess in many ways she was like the mother I never had.

“It was horrible” I replied slumping into my chair.

“Oh come on, forced physical activity and conformity. What’s there not to love?” she laughed to herself.
“Just think my dear, soon you and your talent will be out of these school halls and living a life” she added, placing paint covered hands on my face. It felt like something a grandmother would do, but I chose not to comment on her breach of my personal space. “And you won’t have to worry about any of these silly graduating class rituals.”

“It can’t come quick enough” I mumbled to myself.

“You know people would kill to have their high school years back right?” she asked, moving back to the front of the room where the class lesson plan was written. It was written in vain, we probably wouldn’t follow it.

“They need to be committed” I replied pulling out my books. As if on cue the bell rang, and a small number of students started to file into the room.
I also pulled out my i-Pod; this was the one class where I could get away with being anti social and playing music as I worked. I was never told off and never asked to put it away. It was deemed part of my creative process.
Art was, of course, my favourite class, and it showed. It was the class I put all my effort into, followed closely by English. The school demanded that I take both a maths and science subject, it was to ‘even out’ my timetable and college choices. Like I could care about what college I went to. The only other person in my family to have gone to college was my uncle, and he went to a community college and turned out better than anyone I know that went to an ‘Ivy League’ college. I probably didn’t have a hope of getting into one anyway. Of course I am sure because of my uncle’s influence any decision made by them could be swayed, much like my high-school acceptance was.
I figure as long as I can make a living off my camera, and some of my art work, I’ll be fine.
Maybe I was being completely delusional, thinking that I could do what so many other artists fail to do, but I had to at least try it. I was not going to live off someone else’s money for the entirety of my life. The charity handouts would stop the day I turned 18, I was determined for them to stop, with or without my uncle’s approval.

“Today I want you to continue working on your final projects, remember they have to be submitted on time at the end of the semester, and they have to consist of at least four separate pieces, connected by one common theme...” I drowned out her voice. I had heard this at least once a week. I knew what my art project was, I knew the guidelines and I knew when it was due. My problem was I didn’t know what to choose as a theme. I was struggling to make everything in my head into a concept.
I still had time though, the end of the semester was not too far away, but my project was still completely do-able. It wasn’t like I wasted my time in this class either; I did plenty of work, from sketches to paintings. I just hadn’t thought of a way of pulling it together yet.
I decided today was the day I developed my photo’s from camp. I needed the pictures of the landscape and the pictures to give to Martha. The girl was an all out nerd; her timetable was packed the seams with math and science subjects. To make sure she gave herself time to be creative she was a full on scrapbook freak. She demanded pictures and keepsakes from everything we did, it was crazy. She collected movie ticket stubs, ribbons, pictures, anything that had any remnant of the event attached to it. I figured to save the nagging I would just develope them today, it wouldn’t take too long, and I would be alone in the dark room.
The development process was like a second nature to me these days. I knew the chemical process for everything off the top of my head, there was no need to read instructions, I had it memorized.
First we developed the film in the developer solution, then the stop bath, then the fixer. Simple, easy, and all the notes and instructions around the dark room would make you think that it was fool proof. If I ever got in trouble I had Louisa, my art teacher, there to help me.
She had insisted that we call her Louisa from the very first lesson I ever had with her. I guess being called ‘Professor’ made her feel old or something. Calling her by her first name felt more personal anyway.
All up I had three rolls of film from the camp. They didn’t take too long to develope, while one was in the developer I would examine the first roll I developed, picking and choosing the pictures I would print, checking those that were out of focus and making notes.
By the end of the lesson I had developed plenty of pictures for Martha, leaving them to dry while I continued on in other classes. At least I had the comfort of the ritual of school to numb me from everything else that was going on around me.

-So there we have a small update. Nothing major, but I did do another re-edit of the story. I'll end up writing more soon, so watch this space.

The Adventures Of The Fabulous Four

The Adventures Of The Fabulous Four
He’s Just A Boy In A Band - Continued

mywordsaremyfaith

This is exactly what I don’t need right now. On top of everything that is going on right now my mother has gone and made it all worse.
We’ve never had a good relationship, ever. In her eyes I am a failure, I’m ungrateful and I am doing nothing with my life. She thinks nothing of me, I am nothing but a burden on her and the entire family, to her, I am nothing compared to my sister, her golden child.
My sister, how can I even begin to explain the fucked up relationship we have?
Some days she loves me, most days she doesn’t. She is only ever really nice to me when she wants something, and usually I end up giving it to her. She’s the prettier one of the two of us, that’s for sure. She’s the one with the good body, the right hair style, and I am the fat one, the plain one, the one that was destined to sit in the background and fade into nothing.
It would seem that no matter how hard I try to make things work between me and my family, no matter how hard I try to make something of myself, all I keep doing is failing, and each and every time my mother likes to tell me all about it.
This time she is angry with me because I won’t go back to school, school of course being University. I won’t, or more like can’t go back right now. My mind is not in the right place, there is no way that I could get through it, let alone pass any subjects. My life is too fucked up, my head is too fucked up, for me to even try.
So here I am once again, pressed against the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, wishing to be anywhere but here.

searchingtheskies

There is nothing more refreshing than resting your head on the cold tiles of the bathroom floor, especially in a moment when you need to escape. The sudden jolt of the coolness is enough to take you out of that horrible moment for even just the smallest of seconds.
My head was pounding; last night had been something else. It was the last night of tour, so of course it was everything we were expecting it to be, nothing but mayhem.
So far everything was a complete blur, I couldn’t piece together anything from the moment I walked off the small piece of raised wood we called a stage.
I didn’t even know what time it was, the sun was coming through the small window in the bathroom, but that could mean it was any time of day. I was at least somewhat comforted by the fact that I didn’t wake up in here. I came in here to clear my very cluttered head.
Everything in my life seemed to be moving at the speed of light, suddenly things were going so fast. We had been signed, our tour was over, people’s lives were moving on and I felt like I had nothing to show for all these things happening. A photo of yesterday felt like it was taken years ago. It almost felt like things were moving forward at a rapid pace, and I was doing nothing but slowly walking backwards.
I had done so many things within the last month that I could no longer keep track of the milestone events in my life, like so many things before it, everything was becoming a blur. I had accomplished so much, and done some very stupid things, I was no longer a virgin, I had a tattoo, I was a singer in a signed band and I couldn’t remember any of it. So many moments that I would have savoured, moments the me from the past would have documented or made last, and here I was, not knowing how they happened, or why, but knowing that they had. Was this living life or was this just existing?
I have no idea how to control this life in the fast lane.

beani19

I think I am getting things together, seriously. Somehow I think things are starting to fall into place. I haven’t thought about my ex in days, it has to have been at least a month. I have been throwing myself into school work and I have the good grades to show for it. Suddenly life doesn’t seem so bad. I even find myself enjoying work sometimes, of course, that is only sometimes, I mean how exciting can sitting at the desk of an accountant be?

Email from searchingtheskies to beanie19 on Wednesday 04-11-2008

Hello there my crazy beautiful.
Sorry it has been so long, I have been pretty busy, for all the wrong and right reasons. I swear, life is so crazy right now. It feels like forever since I have spoken to you, not to mention the other girls, but I just don’t get much time to me of late. Of course, in the end I can only blame myself.
So, you know I am crazy busy, but how are you? What’s been going on of late?
I wish I could say more but I am squashed into the back of the van and the battery is running out. I love and miss you heaps. xo

It was nice to get an email from Bec, even if it was really short. I guess she has been pretty busy of late. Megan seems to be slightly worried seeing as she comes online and sends emails less and less, but that is to be expected right? She’s working hard and doesn’t have much time, right?
I rushed her a reply and grabbed my bag. I was late myself, I had to get to work before 9 and it was already ten to. At least from work I could log into everything on the internet and give people real updates on my life, and the good news that I felt like I was finally starting to get over my ex.

searchingtheskies

My pale reflection in the mirror was something like a ghost. I was never meant to be this pale and it showed. I looked washed out. The truth was I was just tired, tired and drained, and this made me look like the walking dead.
I seemed to be finding myself in the most awkward and random situations of late. I’m that clumsy girl, half asleep who has to try to sneak out of someone else’s hotel room in the morning, or their bedroom, the girl who can’t remember when the day started or realizes when it ends. I’m the girl who looks like she is having a blast, but for some reason can’t seem to get it all together. I’m the girl whose dreams are coming true, yet she can’t seem to make her smile reach her eyes.
This was the time in the day that I put on that makeup mask, the face that made me look like I was perfect, not tired, not exhausted, but perfectly fine. It had become such a routine I almost believed it myself.
“Becca hurry the fuck up” yelled a tired voice behind the door, complete with heavy impatient pounding.

“Freddy you’re a male” I replied, my hand running through my untamed hair. “That means you have the amazing option of being able to piss almost anywhere.”

“Are you really going to be that long?” he whined, I could hear him jumping from foot to foot.

“Just come in” I sighed, “I didn’t lock it.” I never locked the door anymore, not unless I had to hide something, but I was so comfortable with my band mates that thus far I haven’t needed to hide anything and I was hoping that I never would.

“Fuck I think my bladder is going to explode” whined Freddy, bursting into the bathroom. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail as I heard the disgustingly awkward sound of him sighing in relief.
The morning had passed without any major incidents, meaning that we had arrived to our breakfast meeting in one piece. It was a breakfast meeting with our producer, or at least our prospective producer, it all was hanging on the outcome of the breakfast. I could help but be nervous, and the knots in my stomach made me well aware of it. I relished the feeling though, because it was my reassurance that I still cared enough to be nervous.

Grave Obsessions

Grave Obsessions
To fight evil you’ve got to use evil.

One
The puncture marks were deep, the flesh torn. The crimson blood had spilled all over the wound, running down the pale skin of my neck, making it look messier then it really was.
The thick poison was seeping through my veins, travelling at a painfully slow speed. Soon it would reach my heart, stopping it dead. It was burning its way through my body, slowly killing any and every human part of me.
The pain was unlike anything I had ever felt, my skin was burning, I felt like I was on fire, slowly melting apart with every passing second. My head pounded, my ears rang. I couldn’t even hear myself screaming, but I knew I was. It was so painful that I was being held down by two sets of arms, so distraught that I was fighting against my restraints, screaming so loudly my throat was dry, the sound felt like it was tearing apart my flesh just to get out.
That pain was nothing compared to the venomous liquid searing through my veins, burning me from the inside out, slowly destroying me, slowly taking away my life.
I was screaming so loudly I ran out of voice, I was in so much pain I had drawn blood from biting on my lips. My hands were bloody and sore from clawing at my skin, from pushing against my captors, from trying to escape.
All of my attempts to escape were futile. They had won, I was going to die, or worse, I was going to become one of them.
All the fighting I had done, my entire life, it was all wasted because of this very moment.

***

I sat bolt upright in bed, my head spinning, my body covered in beads of sweat. I ran my hands over my arms trying to extinguish the lingering feelings of the fire cursing through my veins.
It was a dream. It was only a dream. It all starts with a dream; everything always starts with a dream, a vision, a nightmare.
I ran my hands over my neck, feeling for any sign of the blood that had been trickling down it moments before, searching for the cuts, the puncture marks, the evidence. It was clean, there was no blood, no puncture marks, nothing.
It was a nightmare. It wasn’t real. It didn’t happen; there was no tangible evidence of me having even been touched.
I took several deep breaths, I needed to calm down, and I needed to clear the images out of my head. I needed to get rid of the feeling of the poison running through me, the poison slowly killing me, extinguishing everything human about me. It all felt so real, and the feelings were still lingering over me.
I ran a hand through my damp hair, trying to calm myself. My dreams were always filled with scary things, my nightmares always vivid, but they were never like this. They were never this real, they never felt like this, I could still feel the hands pinning me down. The scariest part of it all was that my dreams always meant something, I always dreamed things that were about to happen, or that were already happening. I was more than familiar with the feeling of ‘déjà vu’ or even ‘premonitions’. I didn’t consider myself psychic, more just intuitive.
I couldn’t shake the thoughts of that happening to me from my head. I had fought my whole life to stop that from happening to anyone, the thought of it happening to me made me feel sick. It made my stomach churn, and my mouth go dry. I was never going to become one of them; I will never let that happen to me, never. I would never become a vampire.
Vampires were the most filthy and evil things to roam this earth, they killed anyone and everyone. They had no morals, no ethics; they were simply evil creatures, damned for all eternity.
I had spent my entire life hunting and killing them, I had grown up loathing them. This life isn’t a normal one, especially for an 18 year old girl, but it’s my life and my destiny, I was called to live this life. I was one of the chosen few that had to live this life to protect everyone else. No one knows that while they sleep we roam the streets, protecting them and their dreams. While they sleep peacefully, unaware, we stop anything and everything from trying to harm them. We are the angels of the night, guarding them.
We are the protectors of the whole human race; we are the protectors of the good. We keep the creatures too evil for hell at bay.
I have seen more things in my life that you would never even know existed. I’ve seen things that would make you afraid to close your eyes again; I’ve done things that you couldn’t even dream about.
Why? Why do I do all this?
That’s simple. I do this because I was chosen; I do this because I am a protector, because I am an Infernal Guard, the slayer of the damned and the saviour of the innocent.
For centuries evil has plagued the earth, for centuries and you would have never known it. You would have never known it because of us, because we keep it from destroying your lives, we keep it from seeping into your life and destroying you. We’ve kept it out of history; we’ve kept it from your sights. We keep you safe.
I am one of the select few that are chosen to do this, one of the few who give their lives to protect the human race. I don’t know a life outside this, this is what I do, and this is who I am. This is what I was born to do. I am a protector of the innocent and a slayer of the damned. I know nothing else, I can dream of a life without this, but I don’t know how to live it.
This life is all I can remember, this lifestyle is all I know. I am trained to kill, I am trained to protect. My schooling didn’t consist of learning different mathematical equations, or writing poems, my schooling consisted of being trained how to fight, being taught history of evils you couldn’t even imagine, reading ancient stories. I know the history you know; only I know it better, I know more about it, and I know the truth.
I know all the same stories you do, all the same fairytales, myths and legends, but I know them better, I know the real stories, and I’ve seen more of them than you’ll ever know.
I know how to fight better than anyone you will ever know, I am stronger than you would think. Trained in combat by masters of the art, I can kill people with one hand. I know how to use weapons you didn’t even think existed.
We don’t use guns; guns are useless for what we fight. They are effective if you want to kill a human, a person with a heartbeat, but when you are trying to kill the undead they are useless. Shoot a vampire and nothing will happen, it would be like a scratch, healed within minutes.
The only way to effectively kill a vampire, in the quickest way, is to either chop of their head or strike him through the heart. Either way, when you are finished you have to burn the remains. If you fail to burn the remains then you probably failed to really kill the beast anyway. There are stories of people who forget to burn the bodies, forget to clean up their mess, most of those people go missing or wind up dead, and the vampire winds up killing more innocent people.
A vampire is hard enough to deal with, but a vengeful vampire is even worse. They have enternity to plot their revenge.

“Lilly?” I was snapped from my thoughts by a whispered voice shattering the silence. “Lilly are you awake?”

“Yes Marty” I replied, letting my body relax, letting myself breathe again. “I’m awake.”

“I thought I heard something” he said into the darkness, the need for whispering now gone. He flicked on the light at the wall, bathing the room with bright light. I let my eyes painfully focus and adjust to the new brightness of their surroundings. “A bad dream?” he asked.
Marty was always fishing for information from me. I was one of the only Infernal’s to get premonition like dreams, therefore he was always interested to hear about my nights dreams.
They didn’t always come true, my dreams, but more often than not they were a clue about something. They were always a starting point, or in some cases, an ending point.

“Something like that” I nodded, getting up out of my small bed and pulling on a jumper. I wasn’t in any hurry to replay this dream to him; I didn’t want him to get worried, or to start trying to get any big ideas about protecting me.
Marty was human, pure and simple. He wasn’t an Infernal Guard, nor was he a Guide to any Guards. He was simply a human who was caught up in our world. If it was my choice, I would have never let him get so involved in our world, but someone else did. He was 25, and he looked every bit his age. Years of pouring over books, staying indoors and worrying about friends had taken a toll on his appearance.
He was taken into our care after the brutal murder of his parents, which of course, the Guards had tried to stop. He was seven years old, the sole human survivor of the whole night. With no family left, and no idea about what he had just witnessed, Marty was distraught. He latched onto the only person he thought he could trust, he clung to one of the Guard’s there that night.
Ever since then he has been part of our world, studying everything we do. He wasn’t in any way physically strong like us, but he was smart, and he knew every myth, legend and book in our archive. He was, in many ways, important to us, as we were to him.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked me, his pale skin glowing in the light of the room.

“Not right now” I shrugged, I didn’t want to talk about it ever if I could have my way. “What’s the time?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“It’s a little after 5” he replied. “The sun’s set to go down at 6:39 tonight” he added.
The thing I loved most about Marty was the fact that he was like a brother to me, we had grown up here together, and we knew each other inside out. He was the closest thing to real family that I would ever have, everyone here was.

“It was time to get up anyway then” I replied, walking with him into the small kitchen. We all lived in a small house in the middle of town. We lived in a small town, where no one asked any questions. I attended the local high school, Marty worked at the local hardware store. We tried to make ourselves look as normal as possible, despite our anything but ordinary activities.
There were 6 people in total who lived in this house. Marty, myself, three other Guards; Tom, Phillip and Jessie, and our Guide; Isaac. I was the youngest in the house, and also the only female. It wasn’t unusual though, females were not normally called into this life. I was one of the few, if not the sole one.
Tom and Phillip were twins, and Jessie was their younger cousin. It wasn’t unusual for a family to have multiple members called up, it was pretty common. The Infernal Guard’s bloodline can be traced back to essentially come from three separate bloodlines, and only these three bloodlines. People outside these bloodlines were never called, they were never chosen, and they went about their lives oblivious to everything. This was embedded in our blood and our history. Every family has its secrets.
Most people who are chosen are orphans, like myself, but there are a rare few who actually still have living parents. Generally their parents know about the whole thing, they are generally part of the small order that works to keep everything secret and works towards keeping everything supplied and everyone housed. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to function; we wouldn’t be able to operate.
Marty put the kettle on and I sat down at the small table in the kitchen. Spread all over it was various newspapers, and books. Any hint of anything suspicious in the news and we would investigate it. Any hint of anything suspicious coming from our police contacts and we would investigate. We never took any chances.
One of the benefits from living in a small town is that strange news travels fast. If anything out of the ordinary happens, it always gets around.

“Hot chocolate or coffee?” he asked me. I scrunched up my nose at the thought of coffee; it was something I didn’t really like. I only ever drank it because I needed to be awake during the day, but I’d usually settle for any form of energy drink over coffee.

“Hot chocolate” I answered, letting my eyes skim over the papers in front of me.

“How was school today?” he asked me. I groaned, school was the bane of my existence. I had been trained from a young age, so my school with the Guard’s had almost finished, but my regular life schooling was still going. I was in my senior year. I only went to school to keep up the charade that we lived a normal life, to keep our existence secret. It was all just an act.
In truth, I didn’t pay attention in class and barely made any effort in any classes. I didn’t need to pay any attention. The things they were trying to teach me were of no value when I was out there saving the world. If I lived a normal life they might have come as some use to me, but I wasn’t.
I found the whole ritual of me attending school pathetic, everyone else found it amusing. They all loved the fact that I had to spend the majority of my days in a classroom while they got to sleep, train or do anything other than pretend they were learning. I had to complete homework while they got to play around with new weapons and toys. I hated school, so I guess in pretending to be a normal teenager, I fit in rather well.
Socially I was an outcast, not that it at all bothered me. The few friends I did have at school were nice enough, and they didn’t ask any questions as to why I would miss random days of school every now and then. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t popular at school, my school life was really not all that important to me. I cherished the few friends that I had, but it was safer for them if I didn’t get too involved in their lives and in turn they in mine.

“It was long” I replied. I hated having to get up at 7 almost every morning to go to school and not getting home til 3. It made staying up late like I do really rather hard. That was the reason behind my afternoon nap. When you have to be up at 7 but really can’t go to bed until the sun goes down there really isn’t much time for sleep. The boys were lucky in the fact that they got to sleep during the day, I however had to attend classes and make it seem like we were normal people. Although, I managed to adapt to the lack of sleep rather well.
The idea behind our unusual situation was that Isaac was my father, and the boys were all my brothers. Although we all didn’t really look that much alike, the fact that we all acted alike made the lie believable.
“It was long and boring Marty, I really can’t wait to be done with it. They keep telling these muted down versions of history, sometimes I wonder what they would do if they knew the truth” I added, skimming my hand over the hard leather bound book on the table.

“You know they’ll never know Lil” he replied. “They can’t know.”
It was true, they couldn’t know the truth, and they wouldn’t know how to handle it. It would be like telling the world that their worst nightmare was true. They were better off thinking that terrorism was their biggest threat.
That’s why we worked so hard at keeping things a secret. Can you imagine what would happen if it all got out? If people were suddenly aware that all the things they had read about in stories, all the evils they conjure up in the darkest pits of their minds was all true?
The world would erupt into chaos. People would no longer be able to function. Fear grips people in different ways, some people would try to fight, others would try to become vampires, and others would hide. Ultimately, they would all die. Normal humans aren’t equipped to deal with the sorts of things that I’ve seen. We were bred for this; we were made to defend them.
The vampires also try to keep a lid on things. They also seem to have a hierarchy under which they operate. It seems even the most evil people can have rules to live by. They are in no way as careful as we are, but they are not going around proclaiming to the world exactly who and what they are. In some ways life might be easier for them, but the fun would be taken out of it. Life is a game to them, and having everyone in on the game would not be as fun. Hunting is a sport and we are all but pawns in their existence. Or so they think.

“I know” I nodded. “It’s just I am sick of hearing these watered down versions of stories. I mean...I hate having to hear about things that aren’t true or that never happened.”

“You’ll be done soon Lil, then you can forget all about it” he soothed, bringing over two steaming mugs. One contained coffee and one hot chocolate, both their aroma’s filled the air. It was a comforting smell to wake up to.

“Are the boys all sleeping?” I asked into my mug, letting the hot steam warm my face.

“Yeah” Marty nodded in response, pulling a paper in front of him. “I don’t know what you did to them last night, but they are all exhausted.”

“I didn’t do anything” I smiled into my mug.
In truth, last night we ran training drills. Things had been slow of late, which of course was unnerving. It was like the calm before the storm.
When things died down we ran lots of training drills to keep each other prepared. Last night it was my turn to be the ‘bad guy’, and the boys hate it when it is my turn. I always make them work hard.

“Sure you didn’t do anything” mumbled Marty. I just kept smiling into my mug, the image of Phillip getting hit in the face and falling flat on his ass just kept flashing through my head.

“Oh good afternoon Lily” smiled Isaac walking into the kitchen. He was older than all of us, probably in his mid 50’s. I never asked his age, and he never gave out that information. He was our Guide, Phillip, Tom, Jessie’s and mine. His job was just that, to guide us, sort of like a mentor. He trained us, kept us in shape, kept us connected to the rest of the Guard’s around the world, and he researched the things going on in the area. He was kind of like a babysitter.
Marty and Isaac together made a perfect team, they both fed off each other. Isaac was the Guard that saved Marty, and between them was a bond that none of us could understand. We didn’t go through what they went through that night, and they are both reluctant to talk about it. I never pressed for details, they were both smart, if I needed to know something, they would tell me.
The great thing about Isaac, despite his greying hair and failing eyesight, he was once a Guard. Not many Guard’s get the chance to retire, but when they do, they become Guides. Who better to train and guide the new recruits then the people who have been there right?
Isaac was once a very well respected and successful Guard, well respected in the right circles. The puzzling thing to me was that he gave it all up, just stopped. He didn’t even become a Guide straight away; he disappeared for years taking Marty with him. Around the time I was chosen he returned. He became my Guide, and later on, after I began my training and learning, the boys joined us.
He never talked about what he did when he disappeared, and neither did Marty.
Marty was there the whole time, in the background watching, helping. Ever since then we have been one big family, not related by blood, but related by situation and cause. We were all fighting for the same thing.

“Good afternoon Isaac” I smiled. In many ways, he was my father figure. Sometimes I felt like I clung to him as a father because I never had one.

“How was school?” he asked me. I rolled my eyes.

“Boring” laughed Marty. “She doesn’t like the human version of history” he chuckled. Isaac just chucked at me, he ran his hand through his hair and proceeded to get himself a drink.

“So what are we doing tonight?” I asked. “More training?”

“After what you put the boys through last night?” laughed Isaac. “I don’t think so. Tonight we will patrol.”
I just mumbled an agreement. Patrolling was boring; it means there was no guaranteed action. For someone like me, who was trained to fight, trained to kill, a night where none of those events take place is a boring one. Patrolling didn’t satisfy that itch for action. It would be something similar to a soldier being trigger happy, itching for action, only I knew what I was doing.
While most people love going to work and having nothing to do, I hated it. When we had nothing to do it made me uneasy. It made me feel like something was coming, or worse, that something was wrong.


Two
I roughly kicked at the person in front of me. The force of my kick pushed them backwards, propelling them into the wall. I heard a small grunt of pain mixed with the impact of the body against the wall.
Before I had a moment to regain my balance two firm hands gripped around my body, jerking me backwards. I felt myself slam into the hard marbled chest of my attacker.
All the air left my body. I gasped for breath as the arms of the person behind me gripped my small frame tighter, firmly crushing against my chest.
“Little Lilly should stay in school” they taunted me, whispering in my ear. Anger and fear built up inside me, boiling as the lips of my attacker brushed against my neck. How did they know my name? It was not like I was someone well known, was I?
They weren’t supposed to know my name; in fact they weren’t supposed to know anything about me. We lived in secrecy; this was not something that was normal.
“Such a strong heart beat” they mused. “So strong and loud...”
They never finished their sentence.
I felt the body behind me go limp, the dead weight slumping against me. I pushed my way out of their now lose grip, untangling myself from their limbs, feeling the fresh air fill my lungs. The moment I was free I was thrown backwards. I didn’t know where the blow came from, but I slammed into a brick wall. The impact crashing through my body, the sound ringing in my ears and spinning in my head.
My body crumbled to the ground, pain shooting through my back. I rolled my eyes as I gingerly got up, gasping for air. I was going to be so bruised tomorrow, how was I supposed to explain that to anyone at school?
I looked up, locking eyes with the monster that had thrown me against the wall. He was tall and thin, his white fangs glistening with blood in the moonlight. It wasn’t my blood; it was the blood of the innocent girl he had tried to make a meal of. That was until we turned up.
His eyes were dark with anger; I could see the flames burning behind his pupils. They were all the same, blood thirsty villans.
Before he could even move towards me, his eyes widened in shock, his tall thin body falling forward hitting the ground with a loud thump.

“Took your time” I hissed at Tom, slowly pulling a piece of broken wood out of my tangled hair.

“Sorry” he replied, kicking the now motionless body of the dead vampire. “The girl kind of took a little more time than I thought...”

“Is she okay?” I asked, praying we got to her in time.

“Dead” he sighed. “We were too late; the venom had spread too far.”

“Fuck” I muttered. “How old was she?”

“16 or 17” he replied, picking up the body in front of him. I sighed and grabbed the other vampire, the one who had known my name. They weren’t supposed to know who we were; the fact that he had called me by my name had made me more than nervous and uneasy.
I followed Tom, dragging the body of the dead vampire behind me. This was the part I hated the most, as if it wasn’t enough to have to fight, you had to clean up after yourself and burn them. The smell of burning flesh is not one that is easy to forget.

“He knew my name Tom” I said as soon as we stopped. We had come to where the girl was, she looked no older than me, he hair tangled, her eyes wide in shock.

“What?” he asked, turning to face me. “He what?”

“He knew my name, he called me Lily” I replied.

“What did he say exactly?” asked Tom. “Tell me everything he said to you.”

“He said ‘Little Lily should have stayed in school’...and then he went on about my strong heart beat” I replied looking at him. If he was panicking in any way he wasn’t showing it. I, however, could feel my heart racing in my chest.

“Come on, we need to burn these bodies, and then we need to get back to Isaac” snapped Tom. The fact that he was desperate to get back to Isaac made me even more scared, it made me feel like there was something I was missing. How could they know my name?
Nothing smells as putrid as burning flesh, and nothing will ever erase that smell from my memory. Despite how many times I have had to do it, and how many times I have seen it done, the smell still shocks me; it still brings me close to tears. That of course was something I would never let anyone else know. In our line of work there can be no room for emotion, it gives you a weakness, something to pick at until you fall apart. I haven’t cried since I was three, and I refuse to let things make me cry. I will not be seen as weak, I will not show weakness.
When I was three, when I was first taken in by the Guards, I was beaten to within an inch of my life. This was my initiation. This was to prove that I was strong enough to be here. The idea behind the beating is to take you close enough to death that you don’t fear it. Being a protector of the innocent, and Guard, you can’t be scared to die. The beatings also happen for another reason, they make you stronger, mentally, and emotionally. They keep going until you no longer cry when you are hit; they keep going until you aren’t scared, until you can’t cry. They make you stronger, they make you better.
Tom and I jogged home in silence. There was nothing we needed or even could say to each other.
My mind was racing. How could this have happened? Did someone slip up? Did someone tell them about us? Was there a traitor amongst us?
No matter how many questions I asked myself I couldn’t come up with any answers. There wasn’t any explanation that I could give myself. My head was swimming with possibilities, but not with answers.

***

The room was eerily dark; it smelt like years of decay. Everything about it was frightening. He moved quickly in the dark, unwilling to linger and waste time. In this day and age, time was something that they couldn’t afford to waste, not any more, they had wasted too much of it already.
They had found her, for so long they had been searching, but now they’d found her. He’d been waiting a lifetime for this moment and now it had come. It was almost painful to have to think about the few more months he might have to wait. He had made it this far, he could make himself wait a few more months.
He’d been dying to meet her, this girl who was supposed to be something so special. What could possibly be so special about her?
She was human after all, it’s not like they are really good for much, except for possibly a meal.
His footsteps echoed in the empty halls, filling the silence. It would be stupid of him to assume that he was alone right now, there were always people watching you in places like this. People could so easily blend in with the stone walls; watch you from the shadows unseen. This is why they were so secretive about everything they did; you never knew who was watching.
He pulled his jacket tighter around himself, as if to protect his body against the cold, wet, damp air of the dark rooms, but he didn’t need really need to be protected from anything.
He hated this life, living in the darkness, fighting every day to stay alive, it wasn’t a life. He hated that he was dead, but yet here he was still living some form of life. He hated that he had been reduced to this creature, to behave like such a monster to survive day to day. He hated that he was existing in this form of limbo, not really dead, but not even close to being alive.
He was an outcast to his own kind, and a demon to the humans. He was everything that was hated in this world, all of that was about to change though. It was all about to get better. They had found her, Lily Evans, the girl who would save them all. She was the one that would bring him his freedom or at least his freedom from them. He was stuck in this life, stuck in this form of living, neither dead nor alive. He just existed. He wanted to be free of this burden; he wanted to either be dead or alive. He wanted to have a soul, to know what it felt like to hold someone in his arms, to have warmth flood through his body, he wanted to know what it was like to be human again.
All the hostility he had towards humans was just jealousy. They didn’t know what it was like for him; they lived their perfect privileged lives while he suffered in the dark. He had gone centuries without feeling the warmth of the sun on his skin, with the moon as his constant companion. He wanted so badly to be human again.
She was supposed to help them; she was supposed to be able to defeat him, to free them from the monstrosity that their existence had become. He didn’t know how, he didn’t care how, all he knew was the she was the one that they needed. She was the one that he needed.
They had to act fast though; she was highly wanted in his world, highly wanted for reasons very different to his own. They wanted her so they could be saved; the others wanted her so that they could doom the world. She was like a key to a hidden treasure.
It was hard to think of an 18 year old human girl as a saviour, but right now she was their only hope to end this suffering that had haunted them for a lifetime.
“Alex” a raspy voice said as he reached the doorway. Inside the room was bathed with light, inside the room were two other people. ‘People’ wasn’t really the word, they weren’t people anymore, they were vampires.

“Marcus” nodded Alex. “Sophia” he added, acknowledging the other figure. “She’s the one” was all he said to the two slim figures. They stood there motionless, emotionless, blankly staring at the younger vampire.

“Are you sure?” asked Sophia, her hard pale face studying the younger male’s.

“Yes” he replied coldly. “She’s the only female left, it has to be her. She’s our last hope in defeating Viktor.”

“Then we must act now” nodded the older male, Marcus, his hand touching Sophia’s. “We must help keep her safe. We must get her on our side.”

“She’s not as weak as you might think” smiled Alex at his older companion. “She easily killed one of Viktor’s men earlier tonight, her partner killing the other and a girl too far gone to save.”

“Where is she now?” asked Marcus.

“Back with her Guide, Isaac” replied Alex. He himself found it hard to believe that a girl so small was capable of defending herself, let along killing a creature as strong as a vampire.

“Good” smiled Sophia. “Isaac is an old friend; I have much faith that he knows how to keep his charges safe.”

“How do you know him?” asked Alex, slightly intrigued at this new information. The older guide was a mystery to him; he had studied him for days but had no idea why he did what he did. He clearly was not as driven as any other the other Guide’s. His goal wasn’t to help his charges kill and protect, it was simply to train them, to keep them fit, healthy and above all safe. He wasn’t worried about the number of kills they had or any of the other trivial things that seemed to be slowly taking over the other Guards.

“We’ve had our run ins in the past” smiled the older woman. “I can promise you he won’t have forgotten me.”

“Enough reminiscing” interrupted Marcus, cutting the topic off before it had begun, Alex tried to read his expression but it was hidden too well. “We have to move now; the sun will be up in a matter of minutes.”
Both Alex and Sophia nodded, in silence the three of them moved, easing gracefully from the well lit room into the darkness, desperate to get to their goal. The sun was completely harmless to them, but it was easier to remain in the darkness of night, safer for them to travel and the best way to stay hidden. Movement during the day was so easily tracked and traced.

***

“What do you mean calm down?” asked Tom. He was more yelling at Isaac, but it was question nevertheless and I didn’t care so much about how it was delivered. I wanted to know the answer too. How did that vampire know my name?
Jessie was sitting at the table watching Tom pace around the kitchen. Marty was quietly and calmly reading a book, and Phillip was leaning against the wall watching Tom, nodding along with him as he yelled around the room, also making sure the older boy didn’t lunge forward and wrap his hands around Isaac’s throat.
Our Guide was being less than helpful, he was just listening to Tom go off, watching the tall boy walk around the room throwing his hands around wildly.
I didn’t understand how everyone else was being so calm, here I was sitting down, my hands white on the table as they talked about me as if I wasn’t in the room. They were talking about vampires that knew about where I lived, knew how I was living, and knew who exactly I was. That was something that was never supposed to happen. We were supposed to be almost unknown, even to our own people. Not many people in the order could list any others in the order other than the people they directly interacted with. We never had large gatherings and kept to ourselves, we remained secret to protect ourselves.

“Isaac, how did they find out?” I asked quietly, interrupting Tom’s passionate ranting. “How and why do they know who I am?”

“I can’t be 100% sure Lily, but I do know that it means that you’re not safe anymore” he sighed, breaking his silence. “I haven’t always been honest with the three of you, and for that I am sorry but it was in your best interest, and you must believe me when I say that I never really thought that this day would come. I never believed in the myths or legends...”

“What?” asked Jessie, looking up from the table. “What day? What myths? What legends?”

“This day” replied a dark figure from the corner. He stepped into the light, followed by two other people. My heart instantly began to race as I recognized the distinct features, the sharp teeth, and the pale skin. They were here for me, I knew they were and it sent a shiver down my spine.
The boys made a move to defend themselves against these intruders, but Isaac silenced them, I didn’t hear or notice much of the commotion. My eyes were fixated on the youngest of the three of them, the tall, pale, handsome boy with piercing blue eyes. He stood there, straight and tall, staring right back at me. I felt as if he were looking right through me and into my soul, I felt bare and exposed to him. I quickly diverted my eyes and looked at Isaac, greeting these three vampires with what seemed to be open arms. I was more than confused.

“Who are you?” I asked the oldest of the three of them. He seemed like the logical person to ask, he had this aura of being in charge, he held himself with poise that suggested he was in charge.

“My name is Marcus, this is my wife Sophia and that is my son Alex” he replied graciously, his smooth voice seeming to calm the volatile atmosphere in the room. “I am sorry to interrupt your morning, but we wouldn’t be here unless we thought it were completely necessary.”

“I understand” nodded Isaac. What exactly was going on here? Why were there three vampires standing in my kitchen? Was Isaac friends with these blood sucking animals?

“Isaac what is going on?” demanded Phillip, stepping forward into the light of the room. He looked angry.

“It’s a long story Phillip” sighed Isaac, seemingly unwilling to divulge any more information.

“Well start at the beginning old man” demanded Tom. “Because this is getting ridiculous. There are three unannounced vampires in the kitchen, Lily’s life seems to be in some kind of danger, and you are rather calm about this whole situation.”

“These vampires are nothing to be worried about” replied Isaac calmly. “They are friends of mine, old friends, and they are very much on our side.”

“Our side?” interrupted Jessie. “How can you be sure? Last time I checked there was no such thing as a good vampire, and I didn’t really know that vampires and Guard’s had a side.”

“They are on our side, these people are my friends” replied Isaac firmly. “They are here because time has apparently run out.”

“What do you mean time has run out?” asked Phillip. I sat silently watching the exchange between all of them, wishing I knew what was going on. My head was filled with questions that I knew better than to ask. All the while I could feel the eyes of the youngest vampire Alex on me, he made me uneasy.

“I was hoping it would never come to this” he sighed. “The reason I took the four of you on as charges was to protect Lily. I knew that if I could train you all together, if I could make you strong as a team; make you aware of the world around you, of each other’s strengths and weaknesses that when the time came, if the time came, everything would be okay.
Then other females started getting called into the order and suddenly Lily wasn’t as special as they had originally thought, or so they concluded. I was still sceptical. So I stuck with you all, after all, I had grown rather fond of you, I started to think of you as my own children.
Females are not supposed to be called to duty; it was never the way it worked. They were the people that worked behind the scenes, looking after anyone who got hurt, researching, bearing children; they were never actually supposed to fight. We never wanted to send them into battle; we never wanted them to get hurt. We have this innate instinct to protect them, to care for them, and they for us, sending them into battle never seemed a feasible option.
Then, occasionally a woman would get called into the order. At first the order tried to ignore it, tried to put the woman in the corner and pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But then more were called, until they finally decided to train them, to let them do what they had been called to do. Lily’s grandmother was one of the first women to be trained by the order, she was a better fighter than most, stronger, faster, it was almost as if she knew things before they happened. She retired to have a family with another Guard.
For years not one other girl had been called up for duty. The order was sure that there would never be anymore called up.”

“Let me guess, then Lily was called?” asked Tom dryly. He seemed to think everything was a sick joke.

“Yes, then Lily, three year old Lily, small and innocent Lily was called into the order” continued Isaac. Why had he never told me any of this?
He always said that there were other women like me; he never told me that there were barely any other women.
“For three years the order trained her within its own walls, never letting anyone see her, barely even letting people within the order know of her existence. Only the most important people were aware of her existence.
I myself came back the moment I heard about her. I of course couldn’t prove that the whispers of a female Guard were true, but I knew that no one else was allowed to train her, that I had to guide her. Then you three were called, and I knew from the moment I saw you that you were meant to help her. Call it whatever you want, but I believe it was something similar to devine intervention.
Then something weird happened, other females started being called again. Not many, but enough so that Lily was no longer deemed as important, as unique. Not to mention the fact that she was still the youngest out of them all. The order lost interest in her that is why they were willing to let me train you.”

“What do you mean willing?” asked Jessie, just as confused as me.

“I had fallen out with the order long before you four came along. It was around the time that I met Marty” the older man touched the younger’s shoulder.
“I had saved the young boy’s life, and spared that of the one vampire that was found at the scene” his eyes drifted to the only other woman in the room.
“I was exiled and I didn’t want to be part of the order anymore....but then Lily drew me back.
When they suddenly lost interest in her, they were willing to let me be her Guide. They were obligated to give me a charge, seeing as I was a Guard years before. Rules are rules, and we are all bound by them.” Isaac didn’t seem to want to go into details about his falling out with the order, or any great details about that period of his life, just like always. I wanted to press him for details, I wanted to know everything, I needed to know more, but I stopped myself from speaking. My hands just dug into the table as I tried to take this all in.

“Well then what about us?” asked Tom. “Why were they willing to let you have us?”

“You three I had to fight for, but they gave in” he shrugged. “There was no real reason as to why I couldn’t have the three of you, even if they thought that I was taking on too many charges. Most Guides only have one or two, and I wanted four. That baffled them, but I knew that if there was any truth to the myths and legends going around, any truths in the whispers that had brought us together, then I knew that Lily would need a strong family around her.”

“What myths and legends?” asked Phillip, looking intently at the old man.

“If I may?” stepped in Sophia, her graceful frame stepping into the light, unveiling her classic beauty. Isaac nodded.
“For centuries there has been a legend going around about a girl who could save us, and in turn the world” she started. “In simple form, she would save the world, but when you dig deeper into the stories and the prophecies, it gets a little more complicated and more and more ambiguous.
According to legend, one girl, stronger than any human, born into a world of men, would be able to defeat the dark master, the lord of the underworld. The legend says that she will develop bonds with people she was born to hate, and that a love stronger than any form of magic, and withstand all the challenges thrown its way, this love is supposed to be the reason that she can overcome the darkness she must fight.
Obviously the legends and lore’s are old, told from generation to generation, lost in translation. It is hard to know exactly what it is true, and what is going to happen and what isn’t. We do know that there is someone who will help free us of the evil bonds that this life is putting on us. We do know that there is a girl who can and will save us, and we know that it is Lily.”
“All that has ever been documented on the legend is lost, all the remains of it is one small portion of what was once an epic story.
The fate of the species and the human world will rest in the hands of one girl; she will be the only one strong enough to be able to defeat him. She will be chosen and born into a life of hatred, killing that which she will save.
From her destiny a love will be born, a love stronger than ever before, a love to save her life, a love to save the world.
Her sacrifice is our gift.
We believe that Lily is that girl.”

“How do you know it is me?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper. All faces turned to me, as if just remembering that I was in the room, although one face had not stopped looking at me.

“Because you’re the only living female Guard” replied Marcus. “And because Viktor, the leader of all the other vampires and the underworld, is after you Lily. He wants you, and we don’t know why. We know that you are able to kill him, that you can succeed were so many others fail, but we don’t know why he could possibly want you. We fear he is after you to kill you.”

“To kill me?” I asked, the words causing me to choke.

“That is why we are here, between us all we can keep you safe” soothed Sophia. “If we work together, like the legend says, we can defeat him. We can free all the innocent people who are under his power; we can save the world from his evil.”
I shook my head in shock. This was not happening, this was not happening to me. I wasn’t some saviour. How did they have so much faith in me to save them when I was willing to kill them?
I had spent my life learning to hate them, learning to kill them, and now they all wanted me to turn around and save them.
Why didn’t the order try to tell me earlier? Why did they banish me off with Isaac? Did they not believe in this story? Did they not think I was ‘the one’? Was I ‘the one’?
I felt like I had been thrown into some nightmare, desperately hoping that it would end, pleading with myself to wake up. And what was all this about sacrifice?
Everyone was so willing to skip over that like it was some minute detail. Was I supposed to die? Was I supposed to just lose a hair?
These stupid things were so ambiguous and no one else knew what was going on. The fact that these questions swirling through my head at a hundred miles an hour were never going to be answered was even more frustrating.
It was taking every ounce of strength that I possessed to not scream, to not stand up and kill the vampires standing in front of me. I didn’t even know how they expected me to be able to work with them, for them, when I had been told my entire life to hate them.

***

He studied her carefully. She was pretty, innocent looking, but under all of it he could see the fierceness in her. She was a fighter, that, at this point could only be a good thing.
The three boys she lived with were protective of her, that was a charming quality really, but would they be willing to side with them?
It was hard to tell.
The old man was still somewhat of a mystery, he had a history with Sophia it seemed, and he had spared her life, at great sacrifice to himself.
Marty, the human in the room remained silent the whole time, it was unsettling how calm he was, listening to this. It seemed the horrors of the world didn’t seem to faze him, this entire situation didn’t seem to bother him at all, and he just sat there, unfazed. That made him uneasy.
He himself had stood in the shadows, studying everyone, particularly the girl. His eyes barely left her face, he was determined to never let her out of his sight. At the end of the day she was the only one they needed, so she was the one that drew the majority of his attention. There was also something about her that he couldn’t pinpoint, something that was alluring to her, something that made her more fascinating to him without reason.
The humans bantered between themselves, raising their voices in annoyance at the secrets, the lies, and the lack of communication, frustrated for not being able to understand. He didn’t get why they didn’t understand, it wasn’t a difficult thing to grasp.
Lily was someone they needed to help to save not only their own kind, but also his kind. She was the saviour of the world to put it bluntly.
“I need some air” said Lily, standing up quickly, out the door before anyone could protest. He glanced at Marcus, wondering if he should follow; it was dangerous to leave her alone. Marcus shook his head slightly, indicating for him to stay. He did as he was told, watching the door she had disappeared through.
Tom instinctively followed Lily, he was like a brother to her and his protective nature of her was shining through right now. The old man had clearly done very well in making them a close team; their loyalty would probably be almost faultless.
Compared to everyone else in the room, save Marty, she was the smallest, the frailest looking, but that meant nothing. The men all might have been taller, more muscular, but none of them could match her strength, not even Phillip, the biggest of them all. He knew that she was stronger than she looked, that she was a fighter. Her life proved that.
They all knew of her, everyone in their world knew of her in some way. Most assumed she was just myth, legend, but he knew otherwise. It was a weird feeling to think that the small girl that was in his presence a few seconds earlier was the same girl that people feared to even talk about.

“Will she be okay?” asked Sophia, looking at Isaac.

“I don’t know” he shrugged sitting down at the table. He looked exhausted, but relieved. He no longer needed to live a lie; he had no more secrets from his charges. His shoulders were slumped from exhaustion.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” asked Jessie. Out of the four of them, he seemed to be the most inquisitive, the most logical. While the conversation had been progressing, he seemed to be thinking things over in his head, processing everything that was said. The other two boys were more tactical and muscular, built more for fighting, they instantly angered at the lies and deceit, not to mention the danger that Lily was being put in. Lily, well, she was something in her own right. She was also harder to read then most people he had ever encountered. He couldn’t tell what was going through her mind, but he could tell she was confused, angry and hurt.

“I didn’t know how” shrugged Isaac. “I also wanted to keep you all protected, especially Lily. I also knew if she didn’t think she was special, if she didn’t feel any pressure, she’d learn better...but then it just got to hard to say. I wanted to tell you all when she turned 16, but I just couldn’t bring myself. I wanted to believe that I would never have to. I tried to make myself believe that it wasn’t real, that she wasn’t ‘the one’.”
Silence followed the old man’s confession; it was almost as if he were confessing a sin.

“I can understand that” nodded Jessie. The young man turned to Marcus. “Why does this involve you three? Why is it so important to you to have her?” He smiled at his question, of course they would question the want of three strange vampires in this quest.

“Because we need her” replied Sophia. Marcus held up his hand to silence her.

“You think we are all evil, I understand that, it is what you are taught to believe” said Marcus. “The truth is that we are not, there are a select few of us who are not, as you would so easily call us, evil. We don’t exist to kill humans, to harm anyone. You have to remember that we didn’t chose this life.
We generally stick to ourselves, living in small groups, hunting at night. We try to stay out of human lives, and keep them out of ours.”

“I don’t understand” said Phillip shaking his head. “Then how do you survive?”

“We drink animal blood mainly, we try hard to not harm humans” replied Marcus. “You could kind of call it a vegetarian diet of some sorts. We only hunt when we need to, we rob blood banks, and we do everything within our power to be peaceful. With time, the urge to kill fades, and the desire for human blood becomes something small and manageable. We don’t need human blood to survive, that in its whole entirety is a myth, we can survive on very little of it, using animal blood as a substitute. This kind of lifestyle takes discipline, which is why there are so few of us.
We need Lily because we are threatened by Viktor’s existence just as much as you are. We are the outcasts of our species. To protect our world, and yours, we need her, and we are here to work with you to help, in whatever way we can.”

“Why wouldn’t they tell us about you?” asked Jessie. “I mean, if there are ‘good’ vampires out there, ‘good’ creatures, then why keep that secret from us?
We are trained to kill you, to never ask questions. As far as we are concerned you are not conscious creatures, you don’t think like we do, you don’t feel. Why then do you work so hard to keep humans safe?”

“Because for centuries the Infernal Guards have been trying to rid the earth of anything that is not human. It has been trying to wipe out vampires, werewolves, witches, everything and anything that threatens the human race” replied Sophia softly. “We need to go as undetected as possible.”

“Why?” asked Jessie.

“Everyone is afraid of that which they don’t understand, of that which is different” replied Marcus. “The easiest way to deal with something that is different is to reject it. The human race has proved itself to be very destructive in its time.”
Somewhere in the house he heard an alarm ring, it was a high piercing sound, and he cringed slightly. His sensitive ears didn’t quite agree with the sound.

Edited and re-worked in places. Constructive criticism is always welcome. Of course, like most things, it is very unfinished and very rough. Plus I am too lazy to add in the italicised things, seeing as blogger is getting fussy with me cutting and pasting from word.