Bound By Blood

Chapter One

Chapter One: Rainbows after the Rain

Tried as she might, she couldn’t fight the monsters in her sleep. They were all created for one purpose and one purpose only: to annihilate her. The monsters managed to do just that every single night in the most torturous ways one could imagine. It was far beyond her understanding. The pain. The fear. The unreserved horror because she knew that every monster was real. The scars on her body proved it.

Every single thing they did in her nightmare became her reality.

Why did they seek her out? Of the millions of other souls in the world who was she? She wasn’t some beautiful model with long slender legs or a graceful strut. She didn’t wasn’t the heiress to a billion dollar company. She could barely make the B+ on the tests at school and had no idea what a rocket scientist, let alone her science teacher, thought process consisted of.

She was ordinary.

She wasn’t beautiful or wondrously intellectual.

She wasn’t rich.

She didn’t have anything to do with anything. So why did the monster haunt her? What was so important about one little scared teenage girl with nothing but high school to look forward to everyday. She didn’t understand.

Again she woke up in the middle of the night sweating and bleeding. The sight of blood no longer made her feel ill. She got up and walked to the bathroom, cleaning and bandaging her arms and legs before she got back into bed. Her mom also was used to it. She no longer asked her about it. She just replenished her bandages and ointments and sang to her when she woke screaming some nights.

Just thinking of her mom made her smile despite the horrible images that just littered her dreams and the pain skittering over her body. Her mom was the knight in shining armor. She clutched the locket around her neck. She was very close to her mom. Celestia Clifford was her rock. Without her, Prentiss wouldn’t know what she would do. Her dad was a business man and spent most of his time away from the house. Her mom was busy too, but she always made it home in time to send Prentiss to bed with a hot meal and a warm hug.

Prentiss clutched her long dark braid in her hand as she settled her head into the plush pillows on her bed, still slightly damp from sweat. She had learned long ago the longer she waited to fall asleep, the worst the monsters made her feel.

Why was this happening to her?

It was her last thought before her eyes shut and her nightmare began…

Inky blackness shrouded every inch of the cell. She stumbled around gritting her teeth, bearing with the pain. The cold, hard steel bars made her heart tremor with relief. They weren’t there yet. She knew they were coming but at least she had a moment or two to prepare herself. She put her back to the bars and sucked in a few breaths. Her long braid tickled the small of her back. She bit her lips and slid to the ground. She pulled her knees to her chest and sat there not thinking at all. She had mastered that art. The monsters sometimes got inside her head and tortured her with her desires. They taunted her about all the things she could never do—would never be.

She fought the rising fear brought upon by the single streak of light. She heard the inhuman noises coming from beyond the darkness. They were back. She felt one single hard tug to her hair and hissed at the tremendous pain radiating from the base of her neck. One of the beasts bent low to her ear and mumbled something in their monster tongue. She never knew what they were saying.

“Let me go!”

 The sudden cry of another human voice made Prentiss’s eyes shoot open. She turned quickly, nearly delirious with confusion. The room was brighter, bright enough to see another creature amongst the monsters. It was a creature like herself. It was a human. She was a girl, tall and beautiful with golden blond hair and endless dark eyes. Her skin was pale but naturally so. Her eyes were wide and frightened. Her body was bare and unscarred.