Dark Harvest (#Wattys2018)

Chapter 1

It's scary how differently things could have gone if you think about it. We had been on the brink of World War III. I'm taking nukes, possible world annihilation. The United States had called the supernaturals heroes, since they had been the major turning point in ending the potential war.  And why wouldn't they help keep the world from ending? If human kind killed themselves, they would also be killing the food source - humans.

The media sang the selfless act made by Supernaturals. And the next thirty years had been an easy assimilation of the human and supernatural communities. So the supernaturals got to keep the silly humans from nuking each other, and the Government declared them war heroes. The United States now held the largest populace of Supernaturals, because they were accepted.

Europe was a different story. It was no shock that the Vatican is a World Power in itself and they were no strangers to the supernaturals. No, they had been hunting them since the dawn of time... The Vatican completely pulled its support from all Governments, resorting to a Templar-like secrecy. Europe was still pretty rough for the supernaturals. Maybe not the liberal England and France but once you got outside of the Allied countries, being an "abomination" would get you killed. A lot of supernaturals had immigrated or sought asylum in the United States. Thirty years later, there were nearly as many vampires and lycanthropes in the House Senate as humans, and the Pope definitely didn't come visit the States anymore.

My mind was reeling. I stepped out of bed, my bare feet against the cold hard wood floor.  I left my room and headed for the stairs to the kitchen.  I was thirsty and stressed from the call and the nightmare. I doubted I would be any more sleep tonight.

My living room was still a maze of boxes.  Arizona had been a nice getaway for the last eight years. I had finished my last year of high school, gone to college, had even double majored in Criminology and Psychology.  I had been away from everyone I cared about and yet, it had been refreshing. My grandfather and I had never been close - maybe because he lived so far away from my father in Massachusetts, and the bad blood between my father and him.  It had given me a chance to start over - quiet the fear and shame of who and what I was to a far distant corner of my mind. I just pretended to be normal.  

Neither community looks too kindly on what I am: dhamphri. Half-Breed. Abomination. Half vampire and half human. The thing is, instinctually humans knew they were the prey, and the supernatural was the predator. There was always that separation. A line drawn in the sand. Humans regarded me as different, once they figured out I wasn't one of them. The vampire community saw me as something worse, something that could destroy their line. You just don't breed with your food.  I'm sure any vampire who saw me wondered why my mother didn't kill me at birth, instead of abandoning me with my human father.

Most didn't notice that I was anything but human unless I did something to call attention to it, though.  Keeping my head down in Arizona had been my escape.

Until my grandfather died.

There hadn't really been anything for me at that point. No family here and even though I had gone through the motions of creating a life there - it had felt fake. Everything felt fake once my grandfather was gone.

I padded down the hall, my feet scuffling against the wooden floor and headed for the bathroom.  A warm bath would help relax my mind, I lied to myself, knowing that it wouldn't chase away the nightmares but still I opened the panel wood door to the bathroom.   And cringed.  I had almost forgotten about the dingy lime green wallpaper with little fruits and golden lines laced throughout it.  I paused, unbuttoning my pants, before leaning over and grabbing the stopper for the tub.  It was slimy under my fingers.  Twenty-two hundred dollars to rent this shit apartment and they couldn't even clean it up a bit.  I threw the stopper in the sink and rubbed the slime off, a classic procrastinating way to fix my problem.  The white stopper was still flecked with black but it wouldn't hurt me.  Jamming it into the hole, I threw on the hot water and let it fill up.