Destruction

1. Stranger Danger

Athena

I opened my eyes.

This could not be happening. Not again.

As the cold hard reality of the situation fully dawned on me I realised that I wasn't alone. I slowly shut my eyes fearing that even the smallest movement would catch they're attention, that the fluttering of an eyelash could bring about my impending doom.

How had I been so stupid? I know the rules, everyone knows the rules, they are set out clearly in order to keep us safe, but for the fourth time in a month I had purposefully forgotten them.

As I slowly became aware of the damp alley floor underneath my bruised back, I tried my hardest to block out the ominous sound of foot steps. The rules going round and round in my head.

Do not go out after sunset. Do not leave any doors or windows open after sunset. Do not leave any animal out after sunset. Do not leave any weapon (or possible weapon) out after sunset. Do not let any strangers into your house after sunset.

The rules were simple enough; I'd messed up.

I already knew it, as the sound of the foot steps crept worryingly nearer and the strange gargled sniffing sound started to become audible, that they'd found me.

"Well well well, what do we have hear?" I slowly opened my eyes, playing at being weak which wasn't a hard act, to see a handsomely dress twenty-something year old man with a startling southern drawl staring down at me.

I cringed away from the startling eye contact. Those eyes. If I had any doubt in my mind who he was one look at his eyes and it confirmed it.

Vampire.

Blazing white eyes with a ring of hell red around the pupil. It could have been attractive, even beautiful, but everyone knew about the monsters that lurked just underneath the surface.

"You're out a little late, aren't yah darlin'?" He offered me a hand to help me raise from the shadows. I intentionally refused the hand, using my own battered hands to lift myself up while delving further into the shadows.

He frowned, it didn't really appear on his face just a crease between the eyebrows.

"Look love I didn't mean to offend you" Pointedly withdrawing his hand and smiling, something that managed to lift his whole face and add to the daring appeal. "But it's awfully late, and you know you're, ah .... kind isn't meant to be out so late."

He stumbled over the words like a toddler learning to walk.

"I'm fine." I try to say it gracefully, not wanting the bitter hatred to leak into my voice that fuelled the violence that gave vampires such a lethal reputation.

Apparently I didn't do a very good job.

"Wow, look miss I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend." He holds up his hands defensively, palms flat out.

It's a stupid move, not very well thought out but politically correct, in less than a second I've thought of several different ways I could put him on his back. But I didn't need another fight tonight.

"It's ok." I start shuffling round so that the darker end of the alley is behind me, leading into a housing estate that will provide me with the perfect cover. "Honestly, I'm just in a grumpy about missing curfew." I shrug trying to make it appear natural and like no big deal, however because of the stiffness in my back it comes across as false and calculated.

He'd noticed it, the slight crease between his eyebrows deepened and his eyes started to glow uncontrollably, a sure sign that I'd awaken the beast bellow the surface.

I knew what I had to do and instantly hated myself for being so careless. He didn't deserve it, everything about the way he acted suggested that he was new, blind to the world he'd been awakened to and yet at the same time everything that was wrong with the world I was living in.

I stepped forward letting the one light that was illuminating the alley fully shine on me, and for a second I knew what he saw midnight black corkscrew hair; liquid grey oval eyes; porcelain pale skin blushed with pink due to the evening chill in the air and final the small stake that laid crushed in my palm as I pushed the stake forwards and up with all me strength. Knowing with certainty that I wouldn't miss my target.

A vampires death isn't magnificent or breath taking, closer in fact to repulsive and vile. The moment a wooden stake hits the heart of a vampire it combusts and spews blood everywhere.

I only had seconds to register the shock on his face before I swiftly turned around and fled as smoothly and silently as I could into the residential neighbourhood so I could put as much space between me and the crime scene as possible.

By the time I heard the sirens I was already hiding in the garden shed of a two-story house several blocks away. I'd taken the time to wash any of the blood that had splattered on me off while passing a river.

I couldn't shake the image of his shocked eyes from my head.

It's true what they say, the moment before a vampire dies they revert back to being human, so the shock I'd seen hadn't come from blazing white eyes, but bitter dark coffee with traces of cinder.

So it meant I was no better than them. A monster, a cold-blooded killer. But I'd saved my life, I could live another day.

For me it was my only comforting thought, the knowledge that I was able to save my self and not be a damsel in distress. However for all the rational thinking, I couldn't slow down the racing drum that was my heartbeat. A sign calling all vampires saying here's a free defenceless morsel.

I couldn't be that girl, who was capable of killing a vampire single handed but panicked afterwards about having killed a vampire.

I lied down, resting my head on an old oil rag, I tried taking a controlled breath through my nose and then releasing it through my mouth. After several attempts it helped.

But without the crazed fluttering of my heart to keep me awake exhaustion hit. The dream started to unroll in front of me, like a ghastly high school production.

The screams were muted and muffled, it is like I am everywhere and no where at the same time. When I reach out to help I find I am nothing.

Just part of the smoke that is killing everyone and everything I love. Part of the flaming inferno that consumed my old life, delivering the nightmare that is now my existence.

It's all so clear, the bodies of my family hopelessly splayed across the room. The fire that begins to lick at their flesh.

I try to recoil.

Force my eyes closed.

But it is no good, I am part of the flames and destruction that consumed my old life. I am the reason they died, I ruined my old life.

I have no one to blame.

Picture of Athena to the right >>>>>>