Bloodlines: Blood Link

The Set Order

So here it is, the vampire story! Hope you loooove it! (:

 

“Close up at five, all right, Eryn?” John Rankin reminded me as he fitted his hat onto his balding head.

“Will do. I hope your examination goes well,” I smiled at him.

He grunted and pulled the crinkled assessment card from his wallet. “I suppose,” he mused, staring down at it with resignation.

I was a little worried for my boss. He was getting older, and we both know that he was nearing his time for retirement. I snorted, the term still irking me. Ever since vampires had taken over, the world had changed, and not for the better. They kept everyone under a tight grip, forcing us to comply to their perverted and debased regulations and rules.

John wasn't that old yet, so he would probably return. Still, we hid our worry behind forced smiles and averted eyes.

As soon as he was gone, I sat at my desk, lowering my face into my hands. I pulled out my own assessment card. Absently, I scanned over the information. Eryn Isaacs, five foot seven inches tall, brown eyes. Everything else that any vampire who stopped me needed to know was on this card. I was young and able to bear children, who would grow up to feed these monsters, just like I would when I was no longer of use. It was a cruel cycle. At least for now, I was safe. At least, I was as safe as I could be in this crazy world I found myself in.

I closed up the office at five, part of me wishing that John had returned to set my mind at ease. As I drove home in the rainy fall weather, I passed one of the “retirement” facilities. Death plants, in other words. This was probably the most sickening thing that had been implemented. The elderly, the sick, the mentally challenged – those who couldn't have children and didn't contribute to society were sent here, where they waited to be eaten. To be killed.

I turned my eyes away, feeling sick to my stomach. My parents had gone to a place like this when my mother had been deemed unfit to have more children. Tears pricked the backs of my eyes, but I blinked them away. Tears were not acceptable in a society like this.

Vampires terrified me. They were horrible, cruel, violent creatures. They tormented humans, threatening us with death, taking our things, frightening us in the night. They didn't have souls, and I hated them for everything they did.

I ran inside our little house, out of the pouring rain. Alexander was just coming out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Hey,” he greeted with a smile, leaning down to peck me on the lips. He immediately pulled back and looked at me. “What's wrong?”

I sighed, kicking off my wet boots. “John Rankin went in for his annual evaluation today.”

“And how old is he?”

“Fifty next April.”

Alexander's mouth set in a grim line. “He'll make it. You're not qualified to run the office yet by yourself, so they will take that into consideration.”

“So if not this year, then the next. Or maybe the one after that,” I muttered despondently.

“Eryn, what's wrong?” Alex asked. He took my hand and made me sit down on the couch across from him.

“Do you ever feel like we're getting insensitive to the whole vampire subjugation thing?” I asked him honestly. “Death is so commonplace, so ordinary. What are we becoming as people? Are we just food for the higher beings that rule us?”

“Eryn,” he murmured, running his hand through his wet, dark blonde hair. “What brought this deep philosophical mood on?”

I shrugged noncommittally. Now I regretted bringing it up.