The Shadows Within Us

Prologue

A pair of vivid, blood-red eyes shimmered from within the dense, smoky haze encompassing them. The fumes were thick, smelling sour of sulfur and charring flesh. Nevertheless, the small-footed girl stepped deeper within the swirling clouds. Her muscles tensed and twitched; instincts pleading with the red-headed teen, begging her to to turn around, before it was too late. Still, she stood trembling in the unfamiliar abyss. This place was not safe, but neither was the home she had escaped from. She felt paralyzed, like each and every direction was a new trap waiting to be discovered.

Nowhere was safe here.

She should have been far enough by now; cocooned in the billowing fog of nightmarish beings. Some called it Purgatory's outer rings, others still referred to it as Hell. The haze swirled and churned as though it were alive. Distant, shrill cries of unseen predators penetrating the heavy atmosphere. Something moved close behind the girl's back, followed by a clicking sound, like teeth chattering. Only they weren't teeth—they were a set of fangs.

The girl jumped with a start, her fingers trembling with horrific anticipation. She found herself chained in the dark corners of her tormented mind. Everything could end now, and maybe the nothingness of death wouldn't be so horrible.
The creature croaked, like something between a gargoyle and a nightwalker, its presence all surrounding—there was nowhere to run. The fate of what was to come brought tears to the teen's stinging eyes. She wasn't sure why, maybe the weight of it all was just too overwhelming. It wasn't death that scared her, after all.

She could hardly hear her own thoughts over the boiling chaos inside. Her crimson stare bore through the muddy fog, like a soldier peering into a bloodied battlefront—ready, anticipating. In the corner of her eyes, movement blurred the surrounding darkness. A monster, glaring past the shadows and into her mind. Who was the real monster? It wasn't the ugly, boil-ridden face that made it evil, so what did? Was it the inexorable bloodlust? It would make no difference; she was the same. Maybe neither of them deserved to live.

Her decision had been made; it was too late to cast another ballot. The girl, who had originally been named after the famous garden, Eden, found herself in a place quite opposite; it was irony at its worst, she knew she would never have lived to see a place so effortlessly beautiful. Gardens didn't exist here; many things didn't. Even after life, when the darkness of the eternal void swallowed her into nothingness, there would be no prairie on a mountaintop—no forever bliss. She trembled, eyes squeezed shut, pondering questions that couldn't be answered. How long would she really take to die?

There were only so many ways to kill a Vampire like her.

A gust of wind caressed her porcelain visage, followed by a sharp tug around her waist as gravity became weightless. The girl's small frame was jolted backwards, hefted up over the shoulder of a brave Savior. In an instant, she could identify him, fists gripping into the familiar fabric as silhouettes watched perversely through the smoke. She hadn't been saved at all, in fact, all hope suddenly felt lost. Her assailant barreled through the fog, as if he had studied each corner, memorizing every hiding threat.

A wave of anguish crashed over her, an aching sadness building in her chest.

No, this is wrong.
Her eyes began to water once more.
I can't stay here, no.

I would rather die.

Her small hand reached out towards the fading smoke, desperately reaching for an unattainable freedom. The grip on her waist tightened, her captor reclaiming what was his. The tightness turned to a hot stinging, claws like thin, razor tipped nails digging deep into her sides. It was a familiar pain, to be coveted and misused; just another curse of her god-forsaken reality. He had done far worse than just this.

"The shit I do for you..." A dark, irate voice fumed as the claws hooked deeper into her emaciated torso.

"You selfish bitch, risking both our lives in some childish stunt. Listen to me when I say, I will be the one to decide when you live, and when you die." The man, Osiris, growled over the howling winds of a retreating dust storm.

So much for Destiny.