Around thirty years ago, when I was nineteen human years, I was turned. I am still nineteen now, and will be for the next five years. We had to wait thirty five years to age - physically - one human year. Mentally, I still felt nineteen. I did not know if this was because of my vampyrism, or because i'd missed ages and eras in the human world - cut out milestones in my life that I'd always expected to reach - that I did not feel any older.
So, I was hidden away in my room, sprawled across the bed in the flickering candle light, trying to ignore the dark growth that I knew was living and breathing, pulsating inside of me - causing me to be this... monster. Thats what Vampyrism was. A disease, an infection. But my vampyric Mother and Father - my adoptive parents since I'd been a child of two years old, had turned me into a vampyre. They'd thought I'd lived long enough as a human, and decided to make me one of them, along with my blood-born twin sister Carrie. To them, Vampyrism was a blessing. What was this tumour, this illness, as any sort of price to pay? We get to experience life like no other would ever see it, we were an advancved race in their eyes.
I was stretching and curling my fingers around my smooth bed covers in my fingers, enjoying the soft feeling against my skin. My room was basically a small cavern amidst our family cave, and I stayed here most of the time. After thirty five years, I still wasn't used to being a vampyre. I don't know if I ever would. I thought, all the time, that if only my parents hadn't set me up for adoption, then I wouldn't have been adopted by my Mother and Father. I wouldn't be a vampyre. But I was now, and there was no changing it. We'd moved down into our inherited caverns, catacombs....tombs. And here is where I would spend the rest of my dull and figurative eternity.
Vampyres were very possessive over things, you see. In all truth, this wasn't our family home - not really. Ours had been discovered and infested by Humans - proving themselves to be the terrified and cowardly pests Vampyres saw them to be - so, having nowhere to turn, we stole this place from another clan. Vampyres did not forgive very easily, especially when it came to theft; being the proud creatures we are, it is in our blood to seek revenge. And thus, we were expecting it every day, waiting for he sounds of whispered footsteps and shadows darker than black.
I did not see myself as a better breed. I saw myself as part of a growth on society, a cruel punishment thrown back to the Earth by nature, to punish us by wickedly extending the waiting game that is life. My parents thought I was ungrateful, but how could I feel proud to have an illness breeding inside of me, slowly burning away my organs and blood cells and turning me into a cold, living murder machine?
There was a rumble that coursed through the ground so that the bed trembled slightly. I sat up cautiously, scanning the room as if i might find the source. Had it been a small earthquake? If so, it would pass. Nothing to worry about, I assured myself. They happened every now and then, it was nothing that would cause any major damage.
Another tremor followed shortly after - and I knew how Carrie worried in situations like these. I lept from the bed softly and padded out of the room into the maze of tunnels.
'Mama? Father? Carr?' I called, shivers running up my spine with a biting chill that drew the few remaining threads of heat from my body.
Nobody answered my calls.
I was about to turn the corner, running my hand over the bumpy rock walls, able to see unusually well in the dim lighting, when something flew into me.
'Carrie!' I gasped, tearing my sister away from me. 'Someone's in a hurry.' I teased, holding her shoulders securely. I was just relieved to know that someone was here - I'd felt unreasonably worried, and the knot of anxiety in my stomach was loosening already.
'Avery - it's them! It's them, Avery, they've come back!' Carrie squealed, trying to brush past me. I caught hold of her skinny wrist, wrenching her back.
'It's them, Ava!' She cried, using my birth name, her voice filled with urgency and her green doe eyes burning. 'The Celinieks! They're back; they have Mama and Father!' She gushed, staring at me, worry evident on her face.
We'd spent so long preparing for this moment, always on edge and wary, always listening to the silence in case the walls had something to say. But now it was here, and they were here, and our parents were not.
'Run.' I spat, pushing my sister away, following curtly on her tail.
