Hunted Predators✔️

CHAPTER ONE

Two people entered the cave, and the good one would never come out. Dead. Because of me.  Of course I wish it hadn't happened, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't do it a - Someone shakes Katherine's arm. Katherine turns away from the window, jerking up right in her chair. "Present!"

Adelaide and Rayna stare at Katherine. "Class is over," Adelaide says. "We're going to the auditorium for a school assembly." Katherine looks around the classroom and sees that most of the students are already out of the door. 

"Oh, no," Rayna says, pouting. "Are you off your game, Katherine? Tired? I hope the workload here isn't too much here compared to your old school. You look like it's been doubled."

Thinking how nice it would be if school was the extent of her problems, Katherine stands up, knocking into Rayna's shoulder as she walks by.  "What's the assembly for, anyways?" Katherine asks as they walk down the hallway.

Adelaide and Rayna trade a glance.

"Do you know?"

"No. Do you?"

Rayna slowly shakes her head.

The girls sit in the back of the auditorium with the other juniors. A few minutes after the last seats are taken, the lights dim. A short woman with a neat blonde bob walks to the center of the stage. There's a bleak look on her face.

"Under the circumstances," the headmaster says, "We- I thought it better if rather than hearing it misconstrued by the media, you heard the tragedy from me. So the truth isn't misconstrued."

...

Except for the occasional muffled scream, it's quiet until a tall man in a military uniform strides down the hallway. Two reporters follow at his heels, jogging to keep up with the general's fast strides.

"The public wants to know," one of the reporters says, "how... how..." He trails off, staring ahead at a scientist pushing a hospital bed. The scientist spots them approaching and throws a bed sheet over his patient. "Good morning, General Grimson!"

Undisturbed, the general nods at the scientist and continues on his way. Meanwhile, the reporter keeps staring, his feet stuck to the ground. The scientist was quick to cover the patient, but a second was all it took for the image to burn into his mind.

Even now, the bed sheet creates an odd silhouette; it looks human, but the arms and legs are twisted in unnatural positions. Red flowers to the surface of the sheet in several different spots, and the moans that come from it sound like-

"What prompted your visit to the Wellness Institution?" the other reporter asks. The reporter shakes his head and scurries to catch up with them.

However, by the time he reaches them, the general is following a woman in a lab coat into her office, shutting the door behind them.

"Well," the reporter says, staring at the door, "Fu- what are you doing?" he says, watching the other reporter cross the hallway and press her ear against the door. "You're going to get thrown out."

"What's that, Jerry?" the reporter whispers. "I can't hear you over all the life changing national secrets." In an instant, Jerry is by her side, straining to hear the conversation on the other side of the door. "It's a part of their DNA!" the scientist shouts. Suddenly, it isn't so hard to hear.

"No technology this century can change that!" she continues.

"Then take a detour on the way to the cure," the general snaps. "Explore other aspects of a vampire's DNA. What makes them tick, heal, die."