Dawn On The Horizon[ON HOLD]

Ch. 1 New Beginnings

My dream lingered on edge of my mind, daring me to remember. I grasped at it, but it slipped through my fingers.
I groaned as I sat up, surveying the small attic space I called home. The air was chilly, no heater and only thin cotton blankets. As I stood, trying to preserve any remaining warmth, I walked to my small dresser and pulled out sweatpants and a large hoodie. I slipped them on and shivered. I grabbed my hairbrush and tried to sort through the tangled mess of brown on my head.
I slipped on my moccasins and tip-toed to the attic stairs and down to the door. It creaked open and I walked down the hall to the next stairs. I lived in a three-story, along with the attic, out in the middle of no-where. It was about a mile into the small town of Newberry, it was a stupid name, but it was home.
I walked to the large kitchen and started getting out all the ingredients to make bacon, eggs and toast. I glanced at the clock, 5:12. I had about 2 hours to get to school. I had to make breakfast before they all came down, or I was sure to get a beating. It took me about 40 minutes to make it all and set it all on the dining table. I ran back upstairs to grab my bag and ran back down to the kitchen. My heart froze when I saw the four of them sitting at the table, eating and chatting idly. I tried to sneak past them, but a loud booming voice called to me.

"Rosemary! Come here now!"

I winced and made my way to them with my head bowed. The talking had stopped and I felt their eyes on me. I looked up. Thomas Steele , my abusive and, most of the time, drunk foster father stared hard into my eyes. My foster mother, Louis Steele sat to his right and stared at me too. The 18 year old twins, Cole and James, sat to his left, staring at their plates. They were nicer than their parents and sometimes would help me if I was hurt, here and at school. But then they had also been quite mean and abusive, but their kindness overpowered it. Thomas's voice me out of my thoughts.

"You have an appointment today after school." He tilted to his sons," They'll take you and bring you home. Do you understand?"

Fear shot through me. An appointment could only mean one thing, but I only nodded.

"You can leave now."

I nodded again and practically ran out the door. When I started walking down the long dirt road, I breathed a sigh of relief. The tension in that house was overbearing. Then I remembered and my pace slowed. 'The appointment.' My shoulders slumped. This wasn't going to be fun.

At the beginning of each month, humans were required to give blood. I didn't know why exactly, but the vampires required it, probably to drink it or keep tabs on us somehow. A bad thing about it was that if a single human was.... let's say 'not tied down to any one'.... meaning if someone was adopted, they had to give twice as much blood to account for the missing family.

Guess who was adopted?

Yep, me. I don't remember my parents. I was taken from them at the age of 2 and I never saw or heard of them again. People at school always told me that they gave me away because they didn't love me, I knew better. I remember the love and happiness I felt back then. Now? Only pain and sadness occupied my days. I had expected to be loved in my new home and found only the bite of a hand. When the foster care dumped me from their system, they forgot me. No one ever came to check if I was being treated nicely, like in the days before the vampires took over, which no one remembered. Stories were told of how it used to be, when vampires were only part of a myth and werewolves stalked the night in fairytales.

I had learned that there was an uprising, in which a young vampire prince rose from the darkness and slaughtered everything in his path and claimed he was to be king of a new dawn. Humans were rebellious, never actually believing that they were real. They quickly learned otherwise. Now, 1,000 years later, humans were at the bottom if the food chain and vampires at the top, with werewolves just below them and all kinds of creatures out of legends and myths.