Hellfire - The Awakening (Complete)

Prologue *

I never thought that I'd die as a teenager. Why would I?

I was an eighteen year old female, filled with vitality, hope and essence. I was transitioning from an awkward teenager into a mature adult; my life was finally beginning. Once I'd been a human. My life hadn't been perfect by a long shot, but I was relatively content, and, like every other human being, I had hopes and dreams for the way I wanted my life to turn out.

I'd planned to study journalism at university then eventually become an author. Like most females, I dreamed of falling in love, of marrying and dying beside a lover of thirty years. I'd planned on living.

Naturally, not unlike most humans, I had always feared death. The fateful day when everything that makes us who we are is snuffed out, like a candle, as if we'd never existed in the first place.

I was never curious as to whether or not there was a light at the end of the tunnel, or if heaven and hell really existed. I never wondered who I would haunt, or thought about who I'd like to see in the afterlife. After all I was just another young adult hoping to make an impression on the world. I was filled with that raw energy that each adult starts with before learning about the hardships of life. I was untouchable- or so I'd thought, but as I slipped on my black leather gloves and tightened my grip on my wolfsbane covered stake, reality hit me.

I was already dead...

I'd never get the chance to study at university, I wasn't going to get married, or have a family, or die an old woman with children and grandchildren, because my energy - my essence - was gone, and eventually the relationships which I so valued between my family and friends would dissolve as they slowly moved on without me.

I grimaced as I remembered the night it had all happened. The pain, the fear, the emptiness... I hadn't seen it coming and sweet mercy never presented itself to me. He took my life from me, he changed me into this monster, and I was about to face him for the first time since my attack.

Without any intimation of dread, I tossed my mane of red hair, ran my tongue over my lengthened fangs and clenched my fist around my stake as I strode purposefully forward.

He was going to pay...

(Newly edited prologue, opinions?)