Candice sat with this new female who called herself Starla, in a fully furnished apartment, basic but not bare. It had essentials, all older style appliances, ones that looked like an 80's sitcom. There was no phone and the windows were painted black. The man to whom everyone referred to as Master, had left at dark, along with the remaining two men. There she waited, an inner coil of anxiety building in her the further the sun went down and her need for blood burned deep in her veins. She dug her fingers deep into the burlap covered armrest of the couch she now found herself on, the sound of the wood cracking and cloth shredding filling the room.

"It is the hunger that now burns in your veins, Vatalas." Starla commented nonchalantly from a dining room table where she was methodically cleaning a small arsenal of weapons, "It will peak around the middle of the night and then tapper off. You need to dry out some. Blood bingeing does bad things to vampires, especially young ones."

Candice's brow was covered in sweat as she irritably got up from the couch, the hunger burning inisde her very being, the withdrawals terrorizing her, the new craving for her bloody cocaine. A need that would always burn in her and she would find ways to fill it. Smiling, why shouldn't she. She was fast, strong, quick healing, and everything that legends had been made of. She was faster than the person that sat here. Her blood smelled delicious but did not call, did not sing that glorious song "I will slack your hunger and give you peace."

She focused on the door, making a mad dash. Smashing through the door wasn't the best plan but it was a plan. Starla never stopped cleaning her weapons and Candice gleefully smirked. She was too quick for the woman and she dove into the wooden door. Her body exploded in agony as the door's wooden shards lanced into her, her vision fading quickly into darkness and she could have sworn she could hear the soft chuckle of that bitch of a woman as her consciousness faded.

She painfully opened her eyes to see Starla picking up the pieces of the shattered old doors. Candice's foot moved, causing her captor to pause for a brief moment with a small chuckle. The young woman shook her head, sending her neck length dark hair dancing across her sweat soaked face.

"You know, I have been a guardian now for fifty years," the woman explained with some amusement while dumping an arm load of wood into a waiting metal barrel, " And in that time, every single stray we bring in does just that. Garlic soaked doors give one hell of a sting and enough of a punch to take down Vatalas."

The young vampire lay in the building's abandoned hallway, the garlic stunning her, and the wooden splinters burning within her skin. Starla, with unusual gentleness, picked the young woman up from the concrete floor and brought her back into the darkened apartment, to the couch, laying her down with as much care as a mother lay an injured child. Starla then went to the coat closet close to the apartment's entryway, fetched a new door and tools, and in short work, had a new door installed to the entryway. Afterward, she coated the door with an offensive liquid, turning back to her ward with a smile.

"There," She said with some satisfaction, coming back over to start pulling splinters out of the young woman's exposed skin, "Now that that is taken care of, why don't I tell you something of this world you have unwittingly stumbled into, hmm?"

Candice winced as Starla pulled another splintered shard of wood from her but with each, a sense of relief washed over her, like part of her vitality was being returned. She nodded painfully for the young woman to continue.

"Well to begin with, what is history?" Starla posed the question to the prone woman before her. Starla's grey eyes were intent on her patient laying before, head cocked waiting with curiosity for the woman's answer.

"History," Candice's face grimaced as another shard was pulled from her breast, "Is facts about what has happened."

"Wrong." Starla stated flatly, "History is a perspective that is repeated often enough that people believe it as truth."

Candice started to say something and then laughed wryly, "I guess you are right."

"The history you know as humans' is what you have been told and it has been repeated oft enough that you believe it to be truth no matter how unlikely the story is. You have stepped into the real world where you will find those facts you speak of even though it might not be something you wish to know."

"But how do you know it is truth?" Candice asked skeptically.

"Because the Children of Moartea Eterna do not live long enough to see the facts, it is eluded by his gift of the eternal rest but his servants, The Striga and the Vatalas, and their Guardians, the Dhampir, we are cursed to know the truth. His gift eludes us for long spans, allowing us to guide the mortals and see the facts of history. We are history and here is what you are now part of..."