As the car pulled away from the life she had known for the past ten years, Amaryllis could not control the wave of both sadness and fear that washed over her. While her life wasn't the greatest, she wished more than anything that someone would jump out and tell her this was all a joke.

She was also scared. She feared what the near future held for her. She knew she would never see her family ever again. She knew she would die in the castle.

She looked around the car, glancing at the rest of the girls. The oldest girl in the car was twenty-four years old and her name was Amanda. Her head was resting in her lap as her shoulders shook. Amaryllis knew this must be hard for Amanda because she just recently got engaged.

She then looked at Danielle. Her face was tear-stained, but she was no longer crying. Instead, her whole body was shaking in fear and she showed expressions of depression.

Amaryllis turned her body and rested her head against the window, peering out at the trees blurring by. She didn't want to cry in front of the other girls, but she could no longer hold her emotions in. A few stray tears traitorously rolled down her cheeks, but she quickly wiped them away.

As she continued looking out of the window, her mind drifted back to memories of past times, times before the vampires. She thought of her old best friend, Travis. Amaryllis and Travis were childhood best friends because both of their fathers grew up together.

They were both the same age and went to the same school. They were inseparable as children. They had sleepovers at each others' houses all the time.

When Amaryllis was younger, she thought Travis was a cute boy, but she never had a crush on him. He was like her second brother. Besides, she also thought he had cooties.

Amaryllis missed her old best friend. When the vampires came to town, Travis' family openly defied the vampires by talking back to them in public. As punishment, they had to choose between death and serving the vampires in the kingdom. Travis' father was very radical and chose death, but his mother took Travis and they went to serve in the castle.

When she found out that Travis had to leave, she cried for days. But a few months after, Amaryllis met Nicole and Sophie and school. They helped her heal from the incident and soon after meeting them, she didn't think about Travis as much.

Amaryllis still thought about Travis every once in a while, but not as much as she did when she was younger. She had a slight hope that Travis would still be alive and living at the castle, but she knew she was delusional. No human survived that long in the vampire castle.

For the majority of the ride, Amaryllis thought about the good times with family and friends. She thought about the times before the vampires took over and oppressed the humans.

The ride took quite a while, around twelve hours because the kingdom was a few states over from where Amaryllis lived.

Most of the girls fell asleep during the ride due to exhaustion from crying. Amaryllis just stared out of the window the whole time. She was too overwhelmed and anxious to sleep.

Soon night time came and before she knew it, the car was pulling up to a long paved driveway. They were in the middle of nowhere. She hadn't seen a house in miles. The only things visible were trees, fields, and mountains.

The car started up the driveway and within moments, the kingdom village was in sight. There were houses spread out and some dirt paths leading to different places. She saw in the distance a dirt path that led to a pond. Other paths led to certain entrances in the woods. She saw vampires walking around into shops. The village was not congested though. There was space for buildings and each of the houses had a nice yard.

At the top of the hill, standing by itself with no other houses near it, the castle stood proudly looking over the village. The castle was very secluded from the rest of the village.

It was sitting on top of the mountain as if keeping watch of the village people. She could tell it would be a long drive from the village to the castle.

The castle itself looked very intimidating, but also very elegant. It was very dark and dangerous looking, but the stone building also had a beauty about it. The castle gave off a feeling of sadness and loneliness, feelings she could relate to. But for some reason, she had a feeling that it wasn't the castle that was lonely, but the man that lived inside of it.

"Beautiful isn't it?" The driver asked. His voice caught all of the girls' attention and they all looked forward to him. "Most of you better take a good look at, you won't be seeing the light of day again," he said and sinisterly laughed.

The girls all stiffened and looked away from him, but Amaryllis continued staring.

How could he be so rude and insensitive, she thought to herself. The girls were terrified enough, and he made it worse for his own amusement.

Amaryllis scuffed and continued looking out the window at the mountain. She hoped that the car wouldn't slide off of the side as they journeyed up it.

After a few fear filled minutes, they finally made it to the top of the mountain up to the vampire king's castle.

The car stopped and the driver got out. The door soon opened and the guards began pulling girls out. One girl, she was 19 and her name was Heather, clung to the seat and began crying hysterically.

One guard ripped her away from the seat and slapped his hand across her face. Heather started crying even louder and began kicking and screaming, until the guard punched her in the temple, successfully knocking her out.

Each girl was roughly dragged toward the castle by their guard. Thankfully Amaryllis did not have the same one as she did before; the new one was much gentler.

Amaryllis was looking forward at the dark, intimidating castle when a black mask was put over her face. She stopped walking and stuttered out a very confused "what?"

"Keep walking," the guard growled and kicked the back of her ankle.

Maybe he wasn't so gentle, she thought.

Amaryllis continued carefully walking, fearful of falling or walking into a trap set by the vampires. She heard doors open and assumed they were in the castle. They walked a few yards before turning and walking a few more yards. Then another door was opened and she was forced down a set of stairs.

As she walked down the stairs, she felt the air around her get increasingly colder. When Amaryllis got to the bottom of the winding stairs, the blindfold around her face was lifted.

When she could finally see again, she saw that she was standing in what appeared to be a dungeon-like basement. There was a very long stone hallway with torches lining the walls. There were openings in the walls that were blocked by doors; she assumed that the openings led into rooms.

When Amaryllis looked around, she noticed that the other girls were nowhere to be found. The guard must have noticed her confusion as he smugly smirked at her. "The King ordered for you to be placed down here. The other girls will be in another section of the castle," he said.

"Why?" Amaryllis asked, confused why the king was already punishing her.

"For defying him during the Harvest. Maybe you shouldn't be a disrespectful bitch," the guard said.

Then he grabbed Amaryllis' arm again and pulled her down the hallway. He opened a door at the end of the hallway and threw Amaryllis inside.

"Home sweet home," he said.

"Is there anyone else down here?" Amaryllis asked.

"Only the bad vampires," the guard smirked. Worry instantly filled Amaryllis' stomach as she thought about being surrounded by creatures who killed humans, especially being surrounded by the bad ones.

"But don't worry sweetheart, they're locked up," he said again with a smirk. Amaryllis just wanted to punch him in the gut for being so smug and stuck up.

"You'll be here for the night. Don't leave, if you do there is a good chance that you'll get sucked dry by a roaming vampire. Someone will be here to get you in the morning and take you to the King to be assigned your duty." The guard smirked at Amaryllis one last time and walked out, slamming the door with a bang.

Amaryllis looked around the cold, dark, stone room. The only light that was provided was from a torch on the wall.

There was a little bed in the corner with a very thin mattress. On the thin mattress was a very thin blanket. Amaryllis could tell that the blanket would not protect her from the coldness of the room.

There was also a little table in another corner of the room accompanied by a chair. Other than the desk, bed, and chair, there was nothing else in the room. It was very small, very boring, and very cold. She could tell that the room was not met to house a human.

Amaryllis sat down on the bed and folded her hands in her lap. She stared at the wall across from her and let the silent tears fall that she had been holding in all day.

First, she was taken away from her family. Then, she was humiliated by the King during the Harvest and mistreated by the guards. Finally, she was being punished by the King for defying him and forced to live in dungeon cells meant for misbehaving vampires.

Amaryllis didn't even know how she "defied" him. All she did was look down in hopes of not being picked. She respected him and didn't talk back, so how did she defy him?

Amaryllis pondered the question for a while longer before the stress and exhaustion of the day caused her to fall into a restless sleep.