Sinister (Lethal Fear: Book One)

1 - Trouble

Theres a saying where I live.

'Don't go searching for trouble, or trouble will start searching for you.'

I never really understood what that meant. I usually waved it off whenever my father or my sister, Lexi, would scold me for something I did.

Everyone was very jumpy and paranoid here. People were often running at every little tiny sound that could be heard above us. One time, a bird had been chirping endlessly through the night and a woman passing by had heard it. She flew off through the station, screaming for the  military force. Everyone lost a lot of sleep that night.

A deer running through the forest would have the whole station frightened. However, it wasn't the wild life that scared them. It was the Sixth, or Vampires.  We mostly called them the Sixth as that was their experiment name in the first few decades.

They looked like us, or so I've heard as I'd never seen one before. Rarely anyone has. They looked like us but with hollow black eyes and a piercing scream that could burst a person's ear drum. Stories say that they were once beautiful but had become demons in a sense, turning them into what they had become.

However, to me, those were just stories. There was no proof. I knew for a fact that the station commanders would say anything to keep us from our own deaths. If people thought that the Sixth were simply harmless, everyone would be throwing themselves over the barrier. The barrier was a forcefield that protected the sewer entrance of our station. No one could come in or out unless a guard has been told that its okay, which is almost never the case. Unless the hunters were on their way for another hunting spree which lasted weeks.

I wasn't a hunter yet. Hunters had to be eighteen or older and I was only seventeen. However, there were special academies that trained those who want to hunt like me. Hunters didn't hunt the Sixth, they hunted for animals and collected plants and anything that seemed useful. That is how we keep from starving to death. That is how we survive. However, thats how the Sixth survive as well. On every hunting spree, theres always a run in with a Sixth. They stalk the hunters, waiting for the moment to kill.

"Thats why you must be prepared because at any moment they can strike," Lexi jumped off her bed, covered in twigs and muddy leaves. She grabbed a long bony twig and pretended to cut off her free hand. "They're ruthless and they won't have any mercy upon you, they're just as hungry as you are."

I rolled my eyes. Lexi, although eighteen, had never been on a hunting spree in her life. She had trained for five years, but at fifteen decided hunting was not her dream and quit. Father had been so angry that he wouldn't have another hunter in the family, but Lexi didn't care. She did as she pleased.

"They'll go for the throat first, cutting off your airway." She stabbed her colorful bed sheets. "Then they'll bite into your skin and suck the life out of you."

I grabbed the remote off the bedstand, flipping through blank channels until I got to the station channel. It was never anything entertaining. Just announcements on upcoming hunting sprees and events that would take place in the station for the week. The reporter, Merri-lee, a skinny chinky-eyed woman was talking dully about the Winter Festival. A holiday in our station as it is the coronation for the new hunters - and it was my birthday.

I would officially be eighteen, old enough to be a professional hunter. Old enough to see the world. I had been waiting my whole life for this day to come and I could scarcely believe it was finally here.

"Alina," Lexi shouted and I felt something sharp hit me across the head. I fell back. "Your not even paying attention, don't say anything when you find yourself dead on your first spree!"