Trust a Vampire? You've gotta be kidding me.

Trust a Vampire? You've gotta be kidding me. Ch. 1

Sorry I took so long! School taking up a lotta time xD

10 Years Later

That was my first memory. I was only five then. Now I am fifteen.

With nothing to go back to, one has to move forward. With only a forgotten past, there was no choice for me. I was forced to embrace a terrible future in which there was no place for me, a weak and traumatized human.

But I wasn't alone. Trace, my savior, was my light to lead the way. He shone the path out of the darkened tunnel that had become my mind. Trace was always there to make sure I didn't fall into the maddening abyss. When I had first woken fully conscious and recollected the memory, a frightened sensation instantly pulsed through the limbs of my body. It froze my heart and fogged my mind. It was a deep instinct that what I had seen was unbelievably wrong; therefore, something I should fear. It was something that I should have pretended never happened and lock it away, only for it to come back to take over my mind. No, Trace held me up when the world was upside down. When what was left was right and up was down; then, life made no sense. It was so confusing--too confusing, for just a little girl like me.

As soon as I had reached Trace's home, I'd fainted. My body gave out, knowing the long stretch to safety was over. Turned out it wasn't. Soon after I collapsed, pneumonia invaded my body. The sickness chained me to my bed for weeks. I drifted in and out of consciousness, fevers coming and going. I could hardly breathe, and every shallow breath pained me to the point of blacking out when it got really bad.

Days passed...my condition only worsened. Trace stayed by my side, assuring me that everything would be alright. Being the little, simple-minded girl I was, I believed him. I strove to live for him. He was the only thing in my life worth living for. I tried to stay awake as much as I could. I distrusted sleep, feeling like it would lead to my death.

Trace never left my side. He fed me soup and water. I tried to swallow as much as I could, but my body rejected the nourishment a lot. I did my best to stomach it down for his sake. Trace looked so worried whenever I looked at him... I didn't want him worried for my sake. I wanted Trace to smile like he made me smile whenever I saw him.

At the end of the first week, I looked like a ghost. My skin had shrunk in, my eyes were dull, and my skin was a pasty white. Trace called in a doctor when he realized I wasn't getting better. The man poked and prodded me. He took my temperature measured my heart rate. Afterward, he walked into another room, with Trace dogging his heels. His face looked grim. I didn't like his face like that.

Trace came back a few minutes later with his face plastered with a fake smile. I bought into it and thought everything would be just fine. I fell asleep, but for the first time since I had reached Trace's home, I had a nightmare. It was a nightmare of the man who tried to kill me, his face contorted with hunger. It was like an exact replay from my first memory except when Trace turned around his face looked just the same. This scared me far more than the other man ever could have.

I struggled awake, whimpering in my sleep. Trace was leaning over my head, holding me down gently so I didn't hurt myself. His face was full of worry, even more than usual.

I rose a pale hand and touched his cheek. "I'll be okay," I promised in a whisper. It was the first words I had ever spoken to him. Trace's eyes widened and he gave a small smile, but I could still see his saddened eyes.

Another week passed with good news. I was beginning to feel better. The pain in my lungs were a little better and my fevers lessened. It was a gradual incline, but it was obvious I was progressing. I could stomach more food and my skin was beginning to get more color. Trace looked much happier then which encouraged me to get better.

It seemed every time I slept, I felt better when I woke up. I felt so much better. A month later, I had recovered. My lungs no longer hurt, the fevers disappeared, I could eat more than soup, and I was looking like a regular little girl again. What was most important to me was that Trace smiled. I was bonded to him. Trace was my world and I revolved around him. Trace seemed like a big...brother? to me. But not exactly a brother. It was a feeling I couldn't explain, but I relished in. My world seemed a lot brighter.

When I had fully recovered, Trace often went out. I would always feel forlorn and abandoned as soon as he walked out the door. I was never permitted to go with him. It confused me, but I accepted it. It never occurred to me then that I was shut out from the world, and that no one knew about me.

When he was gone it was often when my mind wandered and began to wonder what my past had been. I was satisfied living with Trace, but I couldn't help but wonder who I was, who HE was, and what THAT had been.

But Trace, he knew. As soon as I was old enough to understand, he explained what those creatures were. I was about ten then. Vampires. Trace enlightened me to a new world that many were already suspicious of, but none had evidence to believe. Something shunned the idea immediately and I was positive he was pulling my leg. But Trace had never lied to me before, so when he insisted i had no other thought than to believe him. I took in something that seemed so outrageously improbable and wrong.

The world of the underworld.

The creatures of nightmares did not stop at vampires. No there were far more species that roamed in the night. Trace would not tell me what else was hidden in the dark. I suppose it was too frightening at such a young age. There must have been kinds worse than vampires. I tried hard not to think about it, but often I wondered what else I was missing. To make up for the lack of knowledge, my mind created horrible monsters that haunted me when i slipped under the blankets at night. It was not necessarily they feared the light, but more as they feared us. They were far stronger than any human, though. It wasn't a single strength they were scared of, but a multitude of us. When I say multitude, I don't mean a small group, though. I meant like a platoon. There were many of the underworld creatures, but there were far more of us to start a war with. Not even a vampire could survive a bullet to the head.

When he was sure I totally believed him, Trace put me to training. He always said just in case, but I always suspected more, but I believed it was for the best of me, so I never spoke up.

I was introduced to the throwing knife at the age of only 10. I shied away at first, but Trace was firm. I don't like to say he forced me to learn, but that is exactly what he did. After the knives, I progressed to guns, which I feared even more than the knives. Trace showed me all sorts of weapons that could be used to kill a vampire. Many I didn't even know existed. Five years, later, I still hadn't mastered half of them. I was pretty good with a gun and iron knives, though.

The training was difficult and pushed me above and beyond what I had thought had been my abilities. There were trees outside. These were what I practiced on. Trace would always tell me to practice every time he left our home. They were scarred, broken, and dented from the strenuous training.

When I was able to hit a moving squirrel, Trace approved that I was good enough with the weapon. The better I was with the weapons, the safer I was, so the happier he was. I owed the man my life, so I would gladly do anything for him. If I had to, I would die for him.

As I grew older, my thoughts continually returned to the past. I wondered more and more frequently who I really was. Naturally, I grew restless, but I dared not to ask Trace. It was sometime before I actually connected Trace and the possibility that he was there to save me for a reason. That maybe he knew what had happened. I was never suspicious of him, though, merely curious...but the question constantly popped into my head.

Who or what was Trace to me?