L I S A

The girl was young, she was turned at a young age and now she was going to repay her master for that kindness. There were people whispering things in the air, women dressed in dark and white clutching some leather books closer to their bosoms. Some held a cross around their necks and some held onto the Bible for dear life.

It was no place for children; it was no place for old. Youngsters and adults had taken up to them to take this step, the consequences be damned. And she was one of them, she was a youngster, she wasn’t a monster, she wasn’t a human, she was neither but she was here, hidden in the throng that lamented at the loss of the dear lives.

She wasn’t sure though, she had no idea where to stand. On her right were the people she grew up with and on the left, the ones who gave her new life. Both of them were monsters in her eyes but none would accept. She was both of them and at once neither of them. She was different and that was a curse that made her blood impure.

But who should she support? She was bemused with her situation, baffled with her choices. She loved both of the monsters and couldn’t betray one. That was her excuse for not saying a word against that so-called cruelty.

The women in dark dresses gathered around the coffin in which her dear life lied. He’d lost but not entirely and the people wanted to get rid of him. This was the only thing they could think of. The women chanted in foreign language as the ground was purged with holy water. They’re going to use it to seal the coffin once and for all. So the demon would never take a dear life again but rest assured, he was the demon and there was always a nightfall after the daylight.

He’d always come back and the girl dreaded that because when he did, he would make sure to make her pay.

~ ~ ~

I lay dead in the coffin. My breath was slowing down every second, my heart was barely beating and I could feel my soul drifting away. I was dying and I could feel the pain in every single vein and muscle in body. My organs and cells had stopped working; they weren't getting the energy they required. Moving even the slightest tip of my finger seemed impossible. In my mind it had been an awful year but I knew in reality I must've laid there for only ten seconds or so.

The darkness around me that clouded my eyes was compelling me to give in. There was no hope I'd left with, no courage. It was worse than the feeling I had when Julie was possessed for the first time. I went blank for an entire night and now not only mentally but physically I had no motion left, my fragile body had given up on me, given up on being alive.

I didn't know how I got there, what made me think such a thing but I gave up and slowly and gradually began to give in to death, losing the slightest bit of hope to live. I wanted to die and there was a strong will behind that voice that raged in me.

I was about to shut my eyes knowing it wouldn't make a difference but just then a wide light beamed on my face as if I had suddenly found heaven as the soft wind caressed my face and I could truly breathe—the good sensation although swiftly faded by the coughs I let out to breath profusely in the less tainted air.

The light had made me squint and now was burning into my flesh as someone hauled me up from the coffin and perched me down on the cold floor. I shivered from the touch of the coldness on my skin and at the contact his hands made with me.

A few minutes and after that I was back to normal, or at least looked like one. My eyes landed on a figure sitting beside me and I saw him gulp down a whole glass of blood. He wasn’t looking at me but I could tell that this man right here was insanely the impeccable definition of a ruthless psychopath.

That thought came out loud as I glared at him.

He looked at me from the corner of his eye and looked a bit offended but hell I didn't care. I tried to stand on my feet but decided it was a bad idea. My body had gone limp and it was still recovering from the poor incident. I would not let him get away with this.

“Why?” I growled almost like an animal.

He didn't seem to pay attention and gulp down another glass. Annoyed, when he was about to refill it I snatched it away from him and threw it across many other dreadful coffins. My breathing was heavy, my chest was heaving up and down and I couldn’t control the hatred that showed up on my face. Tears were slowly trickling down my eyes but I wasn't bothered, I had my sorrow in check just not my anger.

He looked real mad as he approached me and I didn't flinch. He had tried to kill me, locked me in a coffin for crying out loud. It was the worst thing anyone could do to a person.

“You are a ruthless psychopath!” My hand swung up in the air without a warning.

“Lower your voice!” He caught my wrist that had proceeded to slap him and brought it down into his palm. His eyes were piercing into mine and I was getting intimidated by him. Curse Edward for possessing such good looks.

He grabbed a hold of both of my arms and harshly put me on my feet. “What you just went through wasn't even a sliver of pain I had to endure because of you!” He snarled at my face baring his fangs.

“What do you mean?” I was confused.

He eyed me and muttered through gritted teeth, “Three centuries, it took those stupid morons three centuries to find me.” His voice was low and sounded as though he was rather talking to himself than me.

He was hyperventilating and it wasn't okay. His claws began to elongate, his fangs bared at me and his eyes became red like two glowing headlights. It was dangerous and even foolish to think that a few moments ago I'd lost the will to live and suddenly I was scared about my life. Stupid mind!

“How come I locked you up?” I was really fearful and bemused. I wasn't even alive three centuries ago. What the hell was he talking about then?

“Your Majesty!” Mason screamed from across the room in a warning tone. The imposter was instantly snapped out of whatever trance he was in and looked at me and then at Mason. He perceived his claws and fangs on the verge of biting me and he drew me back.

“Is it ready?” His voice came out as husky and unprofessional. He looked tired for a century old vampire.

“Yes Your Majesty. The preparations are all taken care of. We're only waiting for the Moon to come out.” Mason informed, ignoring the exhaustion in his mater’s tone.

The moon to come out? Was tonight the Blood Moon? Was tonight my time?

“This night will be a remarkable one.” He whispered staring down at me with a blank face and a mocking smirk as if he’d read my thoughts. “I'll see you tonight.” He said and waved me off as Mason came around me dragged me out of his sight. I couldn’t be more thankful to have gotten out of that room but something felt scratchy about their moods. What was going to happen tonight?

* * *

I guessed it was the same foyer from this morning. It wasn't like the old one, the fancy one. It was anything but fancy, it was filled with fifty or more coffins aligned in the corners one after the other guarded by another fifty or more alive vampires. The rotten smell of flesh and blood lingering in the air returned the harsh memories from this morning. I tried hard to keep a straight face but nothing was working. It was the same nightmarish room.

Every vampire was either dressed in maroon or black robes. It wasn’t until now that I noticed the ceiling of the foyer was opened to let the light of the shimmering red moon, half hidden behind the clouds pass through without any restraints. It was an aisle decorated with rose petals and ash and the coffins looked tidier than before.

At the end of the aisle I was walking on there was a coffin, wide and big like no other. And just by the glimpse of it, I could tell it appeared familiar. It was black and polished and twice in size than any other boxes. Behind it stood Mason in a dark red robe while the ruthless imposter was in nowhere in sight.

Mason was standing there with his eyes tugged low and his palms curled around his other. And then it fell into my consideration that no one, no vampire was directly making eye-contact with the coffin. And then it clicked. Could it be? No it wasn't possible.

I shook my head at the possibility of that ruthless psychopath lying in the coffin. He'd been in a coffin all this long but then what about Edward’s body? What did he do to Edward? Panic started to build up in my chest and the suffocation disturbed my insides swiftly. But I stood my ground, I didn’t want unnecessary troubles and as for Edward I had a hunch that he was okay.

There were three women advancing towards the coffin or rather being dragged towards it by metal shackles around their necks and hands like they're some sort of pets. I didn’t know what but I hadn’t expected this from vampires. The sight was dreading and fearsome. I gasped the little amount of air in my lungs to shun myself from swooning at this mere image. I knew there was hell to meet tonight.

I was pushed to the front by a vampire and that was my cue to walk. I stopped right on my tracks when I'd reached the circumference of the drawn circle on the ground and didn't take the next step. The three women were in white dresses and fear was written as clear as day on each one of their eyes. I couldn't comprehend or predict what would happen next, all the probable possibilities were killing me from the inside.

When the moon shone cogently above their heads and the crimson rays fell dazzlingly on the coffin, the three women started chanting something in foreign language and a glowing red line appeared around the coffin, creating a border. They kept chanting, waking up the Devil and giving existence to the reason of every human’s misery.

I shivered as black foam released from the coffin and surrounded the three witches. They knelt on their feet and chanted continuously as energy got further drained from their bodies. And my mind was still torn between the facts that witches were real or not.

I shuddered as the coffin slammed open by itself and the black smoke engulfed the room. That moment someone grabbed a hold of my wrist and dragged me towards the coffin, into the border. I whimpered when a knife was brought out and the vampire Mason took my arm over the coffin and with the knife opened a vein in my wrist. Blood poured out and went inside the coffin. I was struggling with Mason’s grip on me but then hastily someone else's hand gripped my wrist and Mason let go. Soon I realized it was the hand extended from the coffin.

I shuddered at the sight of a skeleton hand wrapped around my wrist. The fingers were breaking my bones and I was screaming from the spasm. But then two needles dipped into my wrist and I yelped from the sore around my wrist and tried to draw back but nothing worked. It was agonizing and the attempts were making me feel dizzy with the loss of blood.

I was on the verge of swooning into a state of oblivion. My knees felt weak and I couldn't get a hold of myself, my mind wasn't of my own. I was getting slipped into an endless pit of darkness. My courage was breaking and then I lost it.

He let go of my wrist and I drew it back with so much strength that I ended up stumbling backwards. My eyes were locked to the coffin and I could see a face, a pale face climbing out of it. His waist down region was covered in black but his torso was pale. His hair was long and dropping low his neck.

He grabbed one of the witches by the neck and gnawed at her neck as she begged him to stop. Even from the distance I could tell his fangs were long and razor-sharp. He didn’t even regard her begs and pleadings or considered stopping until she was lying pale on the ground, dead and gone.

He advanced towards the other two witches who knelt before him and begged hysterically. They’re young, not a day older than seventeen. A smirk spread across his face as he felt the power and dominance he had on them. He didn’t hesitate and made the two witches share the same pitiful fate and left there lifeless body on the cold floor and advanced towards me.

I was crying and hadn’t realized that until now. What would be made out of me? What was going to happen to me? I didn't know anything and I just stared at his doing behind him. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. I chanted but nothing worked.

He lifted me up in his arms unsympathetically. His bare chest met with my clothed one and accidently my hands rested on his heart. It was then that I realized he didn’t have one. He had no beating, no motion. He truly didn’t have a heart.

His eyes were red, glowing red and lethal like venom. His jet black hair was slicked back and he had a stubble growing on his face. His nose was long and pointed; his inclined jaw-line seemed sharp enough to cut rocks. Some strands of his hair were coming on his temple and there was an immoral smirk spread on his face.

I knew who he was. I'd seen him before. He was the demon in my dreams! The demons I'd thought to be my own, they’re someone else’s. He was the one who tortured me all those nights when I was grieving and alone. It was him all along, planning and scheming to mess with my life.

But I couldn't form his name, it was there inside of me and I could feel it but it wouldn't come up to my mouth. Something was wrong.

His evil smirk grew bigger like his pride and formed a creepy smile on his face. His mouth and neck were covered in blood of his victims and his fangs were on display. He flashed them at me as he bent in the crook of my neck. His tongue rolled on my skin, giving me immoral chills as his fangs began to elongate and dip into my crust.

"My little Beth." He whispered and for some reason I remembered someone calling me that, "Dah . . . mii . . een" I didn't get to finish my word as he dipped into my neck and suck hard, he sucked me out, drained me out.

And just like that I died . . . perhaps.