Vampire Beauty

Task Three- The Vampire Queen of 1842

          The vampires were in no hurry to attack. Some were even hidden in the trees, laughing their raspy laugh as they saw the futile attempts from people to escape.

          Suddenly, a young man ran out. He was swinging a sword and shouting, “Run, everyone, run! Get to safety! Run for your lives!”

          He swung his sword in a wide arc, the silver blade smashing straight into a vampire who happened to be nearby. The air hissed as the vampire faltered and crumbled into dust.

          He ran off, killing off the vampires and protecting other people, letting them get to safety before him.

          Interesting. Here was a man who protected other people’s lives before his own. It was rare to see that in a mere human nowadays.

          She took in a deep breath. He would be her next target, she decided. After all, he was out in the open, looking out for anyone’s life besides his own. He was an easy kill.

          She lunged forward the moment she exhaled. Stretching out her fingers and baring her fangs, she moved in for the kill.

          He didn’t even see her coming. In a second, he was already in her grasp, with no way to escape.

          He tensed up. Acting almost instinctively, he swung his sword in a wide arc again. The blade hit her arm like fire.

          She winced, her grip loosening slightly. Unlike other vampires, she could not be killed by silver, but it still hurt whenever she came into contact with it.

          Realizing that the human was going to slip from her grasp, she shook herself and came back to her senses. She was about to sink her fangs into his neck, to taste the sweet blood that only humans could provide, when he twisted his face slightly to look at her.

          As every detail of him registered into her brain, memories began to come back.

          “Amalia . . .”

          “Amalia, my sweet daughter.”

          “Your daughter shall fall into a deep sleep in a hundred years.”

          “ – a lesson that humankind must learn. Amalia shall be used . . .”

            All the good things in her life, everything she had experienced before her sixteenth birthday, came rushing back. She remembered her mother’s sweet laugh, her father’s frown, her playful pets, and the smell of nature. That was the time when everything had been good.

More images flashed past. The cook of the palace, offering her one more rib for breakfast when she complained that she was hungry. Her mother, whose sweet smile was plastered on her face. Her father, his face stern, yet proud. Every moment of Amalia’s short human life flew around her, each one shown in its three dimensional glory. Every minor detail was brought back to life, a hundred and five years later.

            And one look on this human’s face had caused all of that.

            She wanted to bite this human, bite him so she could erase all these memories. She didn’t want to remember them. They brought back the cruel memory that she wasn’t allowed to do as she pleased before, that she was trapped in the castle for sixteen years. She was free now, free to do whatever she pleased, and she liked that.

            But her inner self didn’t let her. Her heart, the part that always held her back before she killed something, was holding her back. And she couldn’t resist its pull this time. It made her want to go back to those good times, when she was still a kind and gentle little girl. Before she turned into this murderous creature.