The Trial

Chapter 1

I'd been training for The Trial every day for the past three years, since I turned eighteen. I was three more days away from my chance to change our history. on our twenty first birthday, we'd get the chance to go back in time and fix a terrible day. the day our princess of sorts was killed. many have tried in the last century, but none have succeeded. I'd watched every attempt to change that day and learned the Beasts weaknesses and strengths. I'd learned what was natural to him and what was a threat to him and what he was about to do. 

he had killed our Princess nearly a century ago, and both his kind and ours have been on the brink of extinction ever since. the power he gained from her blood made him too strong to be defeated or even subdued. his kind was unleashed on the world, and the human race was nearly brought to extinction. when there were barely enough humans around to feed upon, his kind started turning on each other for a taste of blood. they began tearing themselves apart, while the handful of humans that were left fled and hid behind The Great Wall. 

The Great Wall had been built around the one place his kind didn't like to go. it was almost always bathed in daylight. only a few days throughout the year was it covered in darkness. those few days fell on the same days our princess died. 

she had willingly sacrificed herself to save the rest of us, but, little did any of us know, it would be all of our undoing. 

on that day, the sun had barely set on those terrifying days of darkness. the world didn't know about our kind or theirs. we had seen to it to shelter the rest of the human race from the dark secrets that built their world. within minutes of the sun setting, the beast and his army began a siege on The Great Wall. hundreds of his kind started pouring over the wall, decimating everyone in their paths. 

the princess was the last of the royal blood line that we had left. her guards were trying to protect her, but the castle had been breached. they were ushering her outside to an awaiting car that would rush her away. unfortunately, they didn't even get to the car. they barely made it out the door, before they were attacked. one guard managed to grab the princess and run. again, they didn't get far.

the beast himself stood in their path, but a small human army was coming to help the princess. all they had to do was keep him distracted long enough for them to get there. the guard and princess knew this, but so did the beast. he had seen the army coming and had followed the only path they could take. they had shown him the way to our safe haven without knowing it. the beast and his army had waited for the sun to fall, before they attacked, since the daylight was one of the very slim array of weapons we could use against them. 

the guard tried to fight the beast, but it was a quick loss. the princess was dead only a few moments later. the beast had drained her blood and gained all the power it held. the rest is as they say history, but, unlike history being unable to change, we had figured out a way to attempt to change it. 

at first, we changed small things; like the destruction of entire towns in a time before the princess was killed, hoping to change the outcome of the day we had come to call The Trial. when nothing we changed helped save our princess, we started to focus on that day alone. 

it seemed like every day someone would attempt to change the fate of that day. some would arm themselves to the hilt and try to fight the beast, but it would always end with their deaths, which was always followed by the death of the princess. no one has changed anything for that day. even the few that had managed to kill the beast still failed. either the princess would still die, or the beasts kind would wreck havoc on the rest of the world.

after studying the stand-in guards that had been sent back to change that day and their attempts, which always failed, I began to study the beast. his demeanor. his movements. his eyes. how he reacted to threats. everything. after I understood the beast, I began to study his kind. how they hunted. how they reacted to every situation. how they could go into a blind rampage when their thirst had gotten the better of them. I had read every book, log, and diary on thier kind; something no one, before me had bothered doing.