Change is sweeping through the world, as humanity fights for autonomy, discord tears apart the foundations of the vampire order, and dhampirs return to the world after centuries of war between two powerful peoples. Dhampirs, creatures known to heral...
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Selena didn't know where she was, but it was quieter now. The angry ghosts hadn't followed her through the doorway, but everything around was blackness. Walking proved fruitless as she wobbled about, and she couldn't get more than a few steps without something dragging her back. Up and down seemed the same in this world of shadows, and tears grew heavy in her eyes as she crouched down to hug her knees.
Something brushed past her shoulder, and she fell on her behind in fear as the shadows whispered around her.
"A gate keeper?" one said directly into her ear, and Selena covered it and leaned away.
"Alive." The whisper surrounded her, and she huddled lower.
"Balance."
"Remove."
The shadows closed in on her like a constricting net, and she frantically waved her hands to try and get them away. It did little, and despite looking around her, she couldn't see them, only hear their voices and feel their pressure like they were trying to push her through the ground. Someone help...please!
"Stop pestering her," a commanding voice echoed through the nothingness, freeing Selena from the ghost's assault.
Still curled on the ground, she lifted her head to find a man in the distance. For just a moment, her heart fluttered and it was her father standing there. With long black hair covering one of his eyes, a smooth chin and tanned skin, it was her father until she found the man's eyes. Instead of a bright, welcoming teal, dark grey swirled just as the shadows did around them. The stranger's gaze was so empty that she fell and backed away.
"You needn't fear me. You are mine," the man said, his voice so soft and similar to her father's that tears flooded her eyes and she lost her face in her hands.
Daddy said not to talk to strangers, less those in dark places, but there was no one else here. This one was saying strange things, and Daddy had warned her not to be alone with anyone outside of the complex. Bad people wanted to take her away. If she just sat and cried, this man might steal her and she'd never be able to go home, so she peeked up at him.
Now sitting with his legs crossed, the man was no longer looking at her, one hand stretched out over his knee and the other on the ground behind as he stared out into the nothingness. Shadows wrapped him from his shoulders to the ground, but they were nothing but a tattered cloak when she squinted to see them better. The hood was torn half off and hung behind his back, and even from this far, she could make out the familiar black sun tattooed onto the side of his neck.
Just like her father.
Selena dropped her focus to the ground for a moment to figure out what to do, and that was when she saw the light. Something glowed between her feet, and she touched it. A string? When she followed it backward, it attached to her neck, but it wasn't painful or tight. It was like a necklace, and she looked ahead where it wound out into the void. It crawled all the way to the man's feet and disappeared into his crossed legs.
