One

There was once a point in my life where I believed I was ten feet tall and bullet proof. I believed that I was bound to a life of normality, the life like my mother had lived - a life where I would go through school with all the regular problems teenage girls would face. I believed that I would find myself a well paying job, and a man to go with it. I believed I would settle down and have a beautiful family - that I would live out the entirety of my life with a family who loved me with all of their hearts. Normal; that's what I'd always seen my life to be. The life of my mother - the modest and simple life.
It was not say that I never wanted something more though. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I yearned for a life full of travel and adventure. A life far away from my small home town. A life that never stopped moving, a sort of snowball effect. A life where I'd fall dangerously and deeply in love, a life that when I reached the end of my days I could finally lie down and just relax into a peaceful oblivion.
I'd never told my family, or anyone else about this exciting life I had dreamed up. Why? I had no idea whatsoever. Maybe it was because that wasn't acceptable in my provincial, suburban life - to want something more than the life we were born into. Or maybe it was because I was just simply scared; scared of what people would think - scared of failing myself and the dreams I'd dreamt up so ambitiously.
However, whenever I had thought about what an amazing, adventure filled life I could have if I just tried, these dreams and ideas never once believed that my life would change so quickly, into something that seemed almost impossible.
Almost.
If someone were to have said to me 'in six months time your life will never ever be the same and you'll wonder how you lived liked that for so long. You'll be a new person - have a new life.' I would have laughed and told them it was more likely that I would be eaten by a yak. But now, I know the consequences of under estimating a situation.
My new life started of the cold night of September 12th 2014, when I thought I would be attending a boring old high school party; when I underestimated a situation.
I guess that my fate decided it was time for that change I so desperately wanted.

***

"Do I have to go?" I asked with a deep sigh as I stood staring myself down in the floor length mirror in my bedroom, running my hands over the black lace of my dress while I had my phone between my shoulder and my ear in a surprising balancing act; normally by now it would've fallen on the floor probably causing me to go along with with it while I fumbled to -
Ah crap.
Speaking too early, the phone slipped out of my grasp and tumbled down onto the carpeted floor. Reaching out to grab it before it made contact with the floor but with no avail as my feet slipped on the dusty grey carpet, throwing my down on my backside with a loud thud.
Through my phone I heard the continuous voice of my best friend, Alyssa, who probably hadn't even noticed my yelp of terror.
I let out an audible groan but grabbed the phone back up off the ground and pressed it to my ear yet again, leaning against my bed as I listened to Alyssa's pointless babbling about why I absolutely had to go with her.
I couldn't be bothered - I'd already had enough misfortune to prove that this night would be utter crap. First, I'd run out of my favourite shampoo, which also just so happened to be the only one that could control my long Raven locks. Then, my hair drier had short curcited, leaving my hair to dry in knotted clumps. Now, this.

"Get your a*s up off of your bedroom floor and put on those cute heels you wore to your parents wedding anniversary - the black ones!" Alyssa concluded, an undertone to her thickly accented voice that made me realise there was not fighting her right then.
I let out another sigh, just to help her see my disdain but stood anyway and pulled the shoes from my wardrobe and onto my feet. Slowly standing up, I realised that I looked like utter crap. My black hair remained damp, hanging in useless clumps around my face, that while covered in the ritual make up I always applied, made me look worse than before. As if I wasn't already pale enough.
"That's it - I'm not going," I said loudly with a huff, throwing myself down on my bed and kicked my heels off.
"What? Lennon!" Alyssa cried in protest. I could just picture her in her own bedroom as she sat doing her perfect makeup, dropping whatever was in her hand as soon as I spoke. "No, Lennon  - you have to come! It's going to be so much fun!"
No, it's really not, I thought to myself. I grabbed a strand of my Raven black hair and began twirling it around my pale finger.  I let out another audible sigh as she continued to list off every single person going, trying to let her know how much I truly did not want to go to that damned party. They're all the same to me - people get drunk to the point where they forget their own name, have sex in other people's beds and would vomit all over themselves and everything around them. Yuck.
"You don't have a choice anyway - me and the rest of the team are like twenty minutes away so get your mopey a*s down stairs and wait for us!" Aly finally said, hanging up before I even had the chance to let out the breath I'd been holding in.
I sat up, staring down at my unnaturally high black pumps on the floor beside my bed. "Bollocks,"
With a heave and sigh, I stood up and grabbed everything I needed before heading down stairs and throwing myself down on the couch in front of the TV. As I hunted for the remote, I realised how lucky I was that my parents weren't actually home tonight, considering they never ever let me out after seven any more. Eventually, the cool plastic of the remote found its way into my hand and I began to channel surf.
I didn't even know whose party it actually was that we were going to. How stupid.
Mind you, I probably would've known if I'd listened Alyssa's ridiculous list of people who I didn't care about in the slightest. But I didn't listen and I didn't really care at all whose it was, as long as I wasn't going on my own.
In the end, I left the TV on some random channel that was blaring a commercial for a travel company. Bor-ing.
My phone buzzed, the screen lit up as it did so, on the coffee table. Reached over to grab it I heaved another sigh, wondering where Alyssa and our other friends were; they were supposed to have been at my house five minutes ago so we could walk to the party together.
I unlocked my phone to see that the text was from my boyfriend, Sean. A smile erupted on my face as I read the text; he really was a pretty great boyfriend, I'm not even going to lie.
Hey Babe, I can't wait to see you tonight! I've got something exciting to tell you! By the way, you look beautiful. Not that I can see you right now, but you always look beautiful anyway so I know that you look it right now too. Sean xxx

Like I said, a pretty great boyfriend, he was. I quickly typed a reply before closing my text messages and opening my Facebook. As I began to mindlessly scroll down my news feed, something on the TV caught my attention. I grabbed the remote and turned the sound of the large television up louder so I could actually hear it.
"It's been almost three years since Brighton teenage Dexter Connors and there is still no known reason for his sudden disappearance. While authorities are still urging the public to keep a look out for the boy, who would now be almost twenty two, they are beginning to fear for the worst." The woman on the television said, a grave look on her face. A picture of Dexter's face appeared in the corner of the screen and the woman began to explain what numbers to call if anyone had any information on his whereabouts. I turned the TV off, unable to listen anymore, and threw the remote across the room, just narrowly missing my mothers China cabinet.
Three years.
Three years and they still hadn't bloody found him. I missed having him around; Dexter were always pretty close, despite the age gap. As annoying as he was, he was a pretty good brother. Dexter was the type of brother who would tease the hell out of me, but as soon as he could see that he was hurting me, he would stop. We'd play fight and he'd tickle me until I was in tears and screaming - begging him to stop before I peed myself. But he was serious too; as soon as anyone hurt me, he'd swoop in - the whole protective older brother side of him suddenly making itself known to everyone. He was a good brother. Was.
It was under a month then until Dexters anniversary. Hah, I say that like it was a good thing. Like it was a relationship anniversary or something. It wasn't. It was his disappearance anniversary. How morbid.
It certainly didn't feel like it had been three years though. It didn't even feel like it'd been a week to be completely honest; I still felt that pain I had felt since that dreary day they told my parents and I that he'd just vanished.

The police were good about it and all, giving us the hope that he might still be alive, just doing their job. But every time they got us to talk to them, they seemed even more morbid about it, as if their hopes were falling - which, I guess they were. At least he wasn’t their brother.

To be completely honest, I think I was the only one that even held out the minor hope that he was still alive. The only one who believed that he couldn't really be dead. I wasn’t sure why, but a part of me - a reasonably big part of me - still somehow knew that he was still alive - that he couldn’t be dead. Like, a sibling connection, I guess you could say. Unfortunately, most people were telling me to give up on this hope - my parents included. You’d think after losing their only son they’d at least try to continue having a strong enough hope that he could still be out there.

I heaved a deep sigh, as if even breathing was the hardest task known to man, running a hand through my almost dry long dark hair. I picked up my iPhone, clicking it on to reveal the time.

They were late. They were so god damned late. Typical Alyssa -

"Lennon, we're here!" A loud feminine voice sing-songed from behind the front door.

Finally.

I stood up from the couch, phone and keys in hand before moving across the room to the front entrance way, my hand grasping the cold brass handle then opening the door. I was greeted with a big group of toothy grins, Alyssa with the widest of them all.

Her short bleach blonde bob had perfect loose curls scattered through. Her face was perfectly made up, as per usual. She was wearing a strapless red dress that had a love heart shaped bodice and was tight and fitted from her waist upward while below her waist it poofed out around her; the dress was pretty short, well actually really short as it stopped just before her mid thigh. Her feet were clad in a pair of insanely high black strappy heels. I raised an eyebrow slightly; considering this weather, she was going to freeze. Not that it looked like she cared. Aly was more into looks and her reputation than more practical things… for example, the fact that more than like 89% of her skin was exposed to the two degree weather. Oh well.

"Hey, Aly," I laughed, my eyes moving back to the group of five girls behind her; some girls that were in our schools dance team with us. I said a collective hello to them all. They did the same back. I wasn’t very close with them all, so it wasn’t exactly like we could launch into a full blown conversation about guys or family issues or whatever, but we all got on well enough to go to things like this as a group.

"Are you ready? Because I am dying to get there," My best friend drawled, putting a little bit too much emphasis on the 'dying'. I cringed a bit at the word. Too soon. Mind you, Alyssa believed the whole ‘too soon’ period ended a month after he disappeared.

"Yeah, let's go," I said sheepishly, suddenly having the urge to close the door in all of their faces, throwing off of the this damn dress and the heels that had begun to crush every single bone in my feet, washing my face then having a Disney marathon on Netflix. Oh God, I really should have. Things could have been so different if I’d just did what my head told me to.

But I didn't. Something forced me out of the door. Something wanted this all happen. Some part of me? Or some other force? I would never know.

I stepped out of my front door, turning and locking the door behind me before following all of the girls down the footpath towards the party.

The sound of stiletto heels clicking on the footpath echoed through the cold September air. It was actually the only audible sound - we were the only audible sound - other than that, there was nothing. Maybe that should've been the first warning sign. Maybe it really was a warning, a warning I’d chosen to ignore.

My iPhone buzzed my hand, a text from Sean appearing on the screen. My insides fluttered, my cheeks suddenly melting away the iciness that had begun to grow throughout my entire body in the few minutes that we'd been outside.

Hey babe, how far away are you? Xx

I bit my lip, looking for Alyssa - probably the only person who would actually be able to give an answer that would be accurate. "Hey, Aly?"

"Yes, my dearest best friend?" She responded loudly from the front of the group, not turning around to look at me; just letting her voice carry back.

"How far away are we?" I asked, my eyes looking around the street. Maybe I was the only person who felt a gust of near on frozen air suddenly fly over us all, but if the others had, they didn't bother saying anything.

Alyssa made a weird mumbling noise. "Uh maybe like ten minutes? I know a shortcut though so probably just under ten minutes,"

I called back a thank you before replying to my boyfriend’s text, telling him exactly what Alyssa told me. He replied within seconds of the message being sent saying he can't wait. Just as I went to reply Alyssa called out to turn right. I looked up, seeing where she was heading; it was a narrow dark alleyway. I bit my lip, my stomach filling with butterflies, and not the good kind. Not the kind that I had gotten when Sean had text me. Definitely not that kind. I started moving up through the group, towards the middle. I tried to get closer to my best friend but failed miserably as three of the girls in front of me walked with their arms linked, almost seeming like a human wall.

"Um, Aly, is there no other way?" I asked loud enough so that she could hear me, my eyes searching the dark space around me as the group entered the alleyway. The alley way looked like the stereotypical place that you’d see in movies where creepy people would hang out and kidnap and torture anyone who walked through there.

Was I truly the only who found the whole idea of the alleyway to be dangerous and dodgey?

"Yeah, but that's like another ten minutes," Aly informed me in a 'duh' tone of voice, obviously not worrying like the rest of us were. "This way’s quicker,"

One of the girls behind me, Felicity, spoke up. "It feels kinda dodgey..."

Ah, well I wasn't the only one then. I looked back at Felicity and nodded in agreement, even though I knew Aly wouldn't have even been able to see from her respective position at the front of the group.

"Nah, it's fine! I come this way all of the time and nothing bad has ever-" Aly stopped part ways through her sentence. We all stopped walking, causing me to slam straight into Hadley who was directly in front of me. A few of the girls let out small gasps of fright as they all stared ahead. I had to squint my eyes in the dark to try and see what they were looking at.

Standing just a few metres in front of Alyssa was a slender, tall man. I had to squint even harder through the almost non-existent light to realise how pale this man really was; he wasn’t even skin colour, he was almost as white as snow. He was almost glowing, but the feeling that this man gave me - the way he stood, the way his lips were tweaked up in the ghost of a smile, the way his eyes oozed hunger - made me think that the glowing aura around him was not a good one.

The group of us all stood there in silence for a moment, our eyes never leaving the mysterious man that had somehow managed to appear out of the middle of nowhere. Then, suddenly, the man started laughing. It was quiet at first, almost un-audible over the throbbing of my heart and the ringing in my ears - then it slowly got louder. The laugh was so haunting it sent shivers down my spine, turning my blood to ice. Making me feel like everything good in the world just suddenly disappeared, just shattered.

“Didn’t your parents ever tell you that it’s dangerous to roam the streets at night, girls?” The man asked in an eerie tone when he finally finished laughing. His voice was almost as haunting as his laughter; it was thickly accented, I couldn’t pick where the accent came from actually. He raised a hand and slicked back his glossy black hair. “You girls are very lucky that we aren’t any danger to you,”

We?

I turned my head just in time towards the back of the group to see another tall man approaching Penelope. No one else had seemed to notice the second man at all as they kept their eyes trained on the man at the front of the group. I opened my mouth to shout out her name but it was too late. The man raised his hands and grabbed Penelope, pulling her close to him before he twisted her head. There was a loud crack, like the sound of a pencil snapping, causing everyone in the group to finally turn and scream as we watched our friend fall to the ground, lifeless.

“Oops,” The man at the front purred. We all turned back to him, the sounds of crying and whimpers now apparent. One of the girls closer to the front - I think it was Willow - began to scream, but somehow, the man at the front managed to appear behind her. He wrapt one of his arms around her waist and placed one hand over Willow’s mouth, stopping the scream from coming out. He leaned forward, whispering something in her that made Willow try to scream, her face contorting in horror, before the man placed his mouth on Willow’s neck. Then, he let her fall. A few screams sounded as the man turned around, but I couldn’t scream. Blood - Willow’s blood - was all around his mouth and all over his teeth. The man grinned, exposing his blood coated teeth and - fangs. My stomach churned and bile began to rise in my throat, words flying around in my mind.

Vampire.

“What are you?” Aly sobbed, tears streaming down her face. My eyes began frantically searching, searching for a way of escape. Somehow, despite the impossibility I knew we were all thinking the only rational thing.

The man was now in front of my best friend. “Vampire,” He hissed with a vile smile that would haunt me every time I closed my eyes for the rest of my life. He then grabbed Aly, pulling her towards her and sank his fangs down into her pale neck.

That was when the chaos erupted, screams coming from each person in the group. That was the moment when I truly realised that my life - whether I survived this or not - would never be the same again.

I backed up, tears falling in a steady stream, makeup running down my face now until my back made contact with the hard concrete wall. I slid along it till I hit the ground, my eyes never leaving my best friend’s motionless body. Blood pooled around her in such a crimson red that the bile that had previously been in my throat had risen into my throat. I tried so hard to look away, but something inside me screamed every time I tried to look away. Eventually it all just became too much and I gave in, tearing my eyes away from my best friend’s dead body. First, Kira fell, then Olive then Hadley - each scream more heart breaking and bone chilling than the previous. I wanted to move - to run - but no matter how hard I tried to will myself I couldn’t move.

The two men were standing still, wiping blood away from their mouths before turning to me.

The man who’d been at the back of the group smirked. “Hey, Alexei, we missed one,” His voice was almost impossible to understand, the accent that was his ran almost thicker than blood. I shuddered at the phrase I’d just mentally used.

The one with the black hair appeared in front of me, squatting down so that we were at eye level. He reached forward, his hand pushing a strand of my hair away from my face. I whimpered, trying to move back and stop this… creature that killed my friends from touching me.

“No,” The vampire, Alexei, began with a small grin. “This is the one the boss wants,”

The other vampire frowned. “So we can’t kill this one? She doesn’t look like much…”

“No, we can’t kill her…” I had to forced myself to stop breathing a sigh of relief. I bit down my lip, unsure whether this was a dream or not. When the salty taste of my own blood erupted into my mouth I decided that I couldn’t possibly be dreaming. “But the boss said nothing about tasting her sweet, sweet blood…” Alexei moved his head forward, reaching towards my neck, placing all of his weight on me. I twisted and squirmed, trying to let out a scream. My eyes squeezed shut. This would be it. I sucked in a deep breath, preparing for unbearable pain as I continued to scream. A scream which no one seemed to hear.

I waited for the pain to buzz through my body, but, it didn’t. When I realized that the weight had been lifted off of my body my eyes opened, my eyes being greeted with a dramatic scene in front of me.

Two figures had appeared in the dark alleyway now, each one taking on one of the vampires. I didn’t stay long enough to see what happened. Slowly standing up, I began to run down the alleyway. The loud sounds behind me suddenly stopped and the only sound that filled the alleyway was the loud click-clack of my high heels on the cold cement floor. Suddenly, before I knew it, I was falling. I hit hard against the floor of the alleyway. I let out a cry of pain and became faintly aware that I was lying in something cold. I tried to stand up but my body would let me, darkness playing with my vision. My eyes fluttered closed and just before darkness took me I felt myself being picked up Bridal Style and carried away.