Atherian Tales: The Blood Slave

Chapter One

The night was cold and wet as the autumn storms began to roll in causing an early nightfall across the kingdom of Atheria. The wind, sounding like loud whispers as it swept past my face, felt like ice against my skin. My legs were having a miserable time at supporting my weight as my feet fought to keep their place in the muddy earth without slipping. I had been running since midnight, away from the kingdom. Atheria had become a kingdom of the damned. Nothing but blood thirsty vampires ruled the land I once knew as home.

The Atherian vampire lord, Thelios, has sent his Imperial guard into the village to hunt for any pure bloods. That's what they called us, those who never allowed the blood tonic to taint our own life force. The tonic is a blue glowing mixture that every week, the humans are expected to inject into their veins. The tonic allows our minds to be easily manipulated and controlled. Any vampire can compel any human easily but the effect never lasts long without the tonic. The tonic basically eats at our white blood cells and antibodies, and more or less, our brains. With less of those, our bodies cannot fight off the powers the vampires use. Humans become walking blood bags that can be controlled like puppets on strings.

If a human refuses to take the tonic willingly, that human is carted off to the imperial castle where it is said they are either bathed in the tonic and served as dinner or made into a permanent blood slave to the Lord himself. I do not know which option is the darkest one though I gather being a blood slave is the worst. A pure blood human is a human who's blood has never been touched by the tonic. Pure bloods can drive the sanest vampire mad with one tiny drop of blood. Only a few vampires harvest the ability to feed on pure blood and remain stable minded. Those vampires are our current rulers of the regions. Those vampires are regal bloods, the vampires that stem directly from Satan's bloodline . I myself would much rather be killed and served as the main course over being chained to a master who can do what he pleases with my body and blood. That's why I'm on the run.

I had been sitting with John and Ester Brown enjoying a hot meal the night of the Sanctum March. My parents died due to the flu when I was around five years old which led me to stay in their care. Ester Brown was bringing my mother her weekly basket of breads when she found me laying next to my almost lifeless mother. Before my mother passed, and as she handed me to Ester, my mother asked her to never allow the tonic to run through my veins. I suppose Ester and John could have easily told my mother what she wanted to hear but simply give me the tonic anyways, but they had not. They followed my mother's wishes and never once made me take the blue mixture.

As far as the Imperial Guard knew, and according to John, I never existed after my parents' passing. For twenty years the Browns hid me from the marches and the vampires. Up until I was around ten years old, they hid me in a small section of the flooring that would lift for cold storage. They stuffed the small area with ash flowers, which would cover the scent of my pure blood but would go undetected by the vampires' senses, to fool the beasts. When I grew older, they found a place in the attic for me to stow away. This night though, the march on the village had been unannounced and we hadn't had time to prepare.

Before we heard the horns and the synchronized foot steps of the guardsmen, John and Ester ushered me out of the back of the house telling me to run and never look back and keep running even when my feet couldn't run anymore. I looked into Ester's brown, red rimmed eyes as she started to cry. She was my mother when I hadn't had one and John a father when I hadn't had one as well. They were all that I knew and I had to leave them.

I had been running through the forest and hearing the cries of the families from the village echoing around me. Most likely the screams were of other pure bloods being ripped away from their families or ripped apart. All I know is that I couldn't stop to morn them or the loss of my own family. I had to keep my feet moving forward even when they are spent and ready to give on me.