Creatures of the Night

Welcome to Daring

When a person hears the word 'vampire', what is the first thing that comes to mind? The traditional answer would be a youthful looking man with fangs that burned in the sunlight and drank blood from the living, and if someone had asked Valentyne a year ago what a vampire is that probably would have been her answer. She didn't know then that such a laughable old myth would hold a tight grasp over her life.

In the sleepy little town of Daring nothing crazy ever happened. The people here were all born and raised here just like their parents and their grandparents. It was on a rare occasion that a new family or two moved into Daring.

Any other teenager Vale’s age would have kill for a chance to move away, but she was rather content with her simple life in the beautiful forested area. Vale got to wake up every morning to the birds singing and a breath taking sight everywhere she glanced. Those who dreamed of a life in the city were fools who didn't realize what they had.

Despite the fact that new people rarely move to their little town, they often had travelers passing through to see the sights before moving along to the next town. The most exciting visitor they ever had must have been ten years ago when Vale was only a little girl.

He claimed to be a traveling psychic that spent his life roaming earth in one big adventure. Many of the town's people steered clear of him, but Vale’s grandmother couldn't have been more excited. She could still remember vividly the morning her gran took her down to the town inn to have a reading done.

The psychic called himself Windsprout, obviously a fake name. If there were ever a human image of what Vale thought God looked like, he was the one. His long gray bread and kind eyes made her feel safe and warm as he spoke to her like he would an old friend.

Her and her grandmother sat in a table across from him and he read their palms. Out of respect her grandmother Kelly went first. He told her she was in very good health and could expect years more to come, though warned that she should lay off of the junk food a little more.

When he took Vale’s palm, something about Windsprout looked startled. The look only lasted a moment before he took control of his features again and brought his face into a neutral pose.

"You have many wonders before you. Two powerful elements will influence you, one born from the heavens, and the other out of the depths of hell. Always hold onto the purity you have inside of you today."

The way he spoke was as if he was sending a soldier into battle. Vale was too small to really take him seriously, but her grandmother had the same look in her eyes as he did. That moment when both of their light colored eyes peered into the deepest parts of ger mind was a feeling she still thought of often today.

When they returned that night to their old home on the edge of town everything went back to normal. Vale wouldn't even think about that night again for another nine years.

From a little girl to a women, she grew at a startling rate that seemed to zip past everyone's eyes. By the time Vale was seventeen she had the shapely figure of a women and the gentle features that could only be described as a china doll. She never thought her beauty was anything odd or extraordinary, but everyone else who set their eyes on her did.

Kelly often told her she was a spitting image of her great grandmother. It was a very high compliment to be regarded as anything close to the beauty that was her great grandmother Helen. Helen’s old dusty portraits sat in the basement for only Vale’s eyes to see when she went exploring as a child. She always thought that the women in the painting was possibly the most beautiful creature to walk the earth.

Their little old home was only their’s out of the mere chance that Helen acquired it. Kelly didn't speak of how very often, but when she did it involved a wealthy man that fell deeply in love with Helen.