[Photo of Nora]

I remember that day so clearly, like it was burnt into my mind.

January 26, 2000: the day that vampires and werewolves made their existence known to the entire world. It was rather scary actually. I just remember it was night and the TV was blasting loudly from the living room. I got out of bed, being sure to tip-toe so as not to let my parents know I was awake.

There was a man on the TV speaking in a nervous tone, his face flushed. "...the president has urged everyone to stay inside and to secure all windows and doors..."

"Nora? What are you doing up so late?" my father asked. I jumped and spun around to see that he was behind me. He must have been in the bathroom when I left my room.

"Why do we have to stay inside?" I asked. It was making me nervous, the way the reporter's voice quivered with every word he said. I wanted to go to school the next day, we were supposed to have a field trip to the aquarium. It was meant to be the highlight of my kindergarten year!

My dad smiled down at me. "Relax Sweetie, there's just something wrong, but we'll fix it, don't worry-"

"No," my mom interrupted him. "She should see this too."

My dad sighed, but led me into the living room where I took a seat in between my parents. My mom was biting the nails on her left hand, while the right was rubbing her swollen belly where my little brother lived.

I turned my attention back to the TV. The reporter was in a building that had a bunch of people crowding a stage where two men were standing at a podium. "That's the President and the General," my dad whispered into my ear.

The President cleared his throat into the microphone and began speaking. "Let me make this clear to every citizen: we will not live in fear because of these creatures. I assure you we will fight for our right to live without fear."

The crowd applauded him.

"What's happening?" I asked again.

My mom patted my shoulder. "They found some monsters," she whispered.

My dad squeezed my other shoulder. "Don't worry," he said. "We'll take care of this."

The reporter then faced the camera and began to speak again. "Now we're getting word of the press conference in California where the leader of the Sonoma County Coven is speaking."

The picture on the TV switched to a different crowd. The man on this podium had really white skin, almost like a marshmallow. He smiled at the crowd, his teeth sharp like a monster's, though that was only distinguishing monster-quality about him.

"My friends," he said in a soothing voice that put me at ease, "I can assure you that we mean no harm. We vampires and werewolves just simply want the same rights to live without fear as humans do. We mean no harm. We're perfectly safe-"

My mom shut off the TV. "That bloodsucking liar," she muttered. She then turned to me and grabbed both my shoulders.

"Listen to me Nora, if you ever get approached by a person with fangs, run. Don't talk to them, you run! Understand?"

I nodded, unsure where all this was coming from.

[12 Years Later]

The humans lost their fight against the vampires and werewolves. Luckily for us, the vampires and werewolves weren't vengeful, nor did they seek to put us under them. They wanted to have the same rights as humans, so they allowed us to keep our rights...with a few minor exceptions.

Humans were forced to choose between vampire and werewolf. Those who chose vampire were counted as members of a coven, and werewolf supporters were counted as members of a pack. The covens and packs each took a county and ruled it. There are still some human communities, but most of them are in the sunny regions of the world, where the vampires wouldn't be able to easily survive and the werewolves would get overheated.

My family had tried to flee to Florida where my Grandmother lived, but we were stuck in our town, which counted as werewolf territory. We registered as part of the pack, not being bitten or anything, which my mom was extremely grateful for.

The werewolf children started to attend school with us human children, which caused many human families to attempt to illegally leave the area. Many of them didn't like the fact that werewolves considered the pack to be a lifetime obligation. I was told of stories about people who would run away from the pack or coven, only to be hunted down by the trackers of that territory and be forced back as a member of the lowest rank. For vampires it was as a blood slave, for werewolves it was as an omega.

My family had tried to put up with the werewolves as best as possible, though we didn't want to. We kept to ourselves, rarely venturing out of our house so as to avoid any contact. It was also really easy to tell who wasn't human. Vampires, for one, could only come out at night and had deathly pale skin. Plus, their teeth looked jagged. Werewolves were a harder to identify. Their canine teeth were significantly larger and the males usually had longer sideburns, and that was it. However soon we got used to putting up with them, that is, until the first human in our territory got mated to a wolf.

Her name was Danni and she was in my class at the time. We were in the sixth grade in our math class when one of the werewolf policemen came in and called out her name. Danni looked scared beyond belief, yet she raised her hand.

The werewolf dragged her out and outside we could hear another wolf sound all relieved to see her. But Danni just screamed and cried.

The alpha of the territory had called a mandatory pack meeting, which was held in the town hall. He told us that it's uncommon for a werewolf to mate with a human, but that it does happen. And that if one of us humans were "lucky" enough to be mated, then we have no choice but to obey our werewolf mate.

Werewolves and vampires mate for life. Once they see their mate, they instantly become obsessed with them and do whatever they can to get them.

I hate this stupid world. Now I'm a senior in high school, and in my werewolf history class, all I can think of is how desperately I want to go to one of the human communities. I just continue to thank God everyday that I haven't been mated.