In the slums of ____ a dozen children frolicked the streets at dusk.
Amongst them, one girl child stood out. Of all appearances looked the
age of 8 or 9 years old, but her eyes carried a depth far beyond her
age. While those around her were tanned from roaming the alleyways in
search for credits, meals, and anything they could get, her skin was
too pale for the streets. Her hair, a smooth glossy black, was also too
clean to blend into the crowd of dirty children, whose hair usually
hung in clumps around their heads.
As the last rays of sunlight disappeared, the children
instinctively stopped their games, frantically gathered their toys and
ran for home – Except the girl child. Her eyes took in the darkness as
she sighed, lonely again. She trudged back out of the alleyway when a
familiar arm swept out to grab her. She moved, before the eye could
blink she was behind the man, with his arm twisted back.
She chuckled and let him go, “you forgot my speed old man.”
The old man rubbed his arm and glared at her “ye knew betta to
roam the streets with te likes of them! Theysa beneah ye! Wha’d ye
mo’er say if she beist the one who catched ye?”
She shrugged, “Lois, She wasn’t the one who
catched
me now was she? Besides she never comes out to do the work, she always
sends you. She thinks she’s too good for this place. She could at least
give her neighbors a chance, she does live here too you know.” The girl
sauntered off towards the largest house in the area, her gait as
graceful as a cat, inconspicuously melting into the night. The old man
sighed and followed her.
Lights blazed in a house, the only house livable in the area. An
aged woman sat at the long dining table, drumming long blood red nails,
her face intent on the newspapers before her. A window opened on the
left and the girl child leaped in.
“Don’t you ever learn to walk in through the front door, Kyarae?
Where have you been for the past three days anyways? I’ve been worried
sick! There are Shifters out there you know, it’s not the safest -”
“-place to be. I know,
Mother. You’ve been repeating that lecture
for the past what? 40 years? Do you ever get tired of saying it? I know
the streets like the back of my hand; I know how to take care of
myself.” Kyarae walked into a darkened room and threw herself onto the
bed, just as the front door opened and Lois bitterly stalked in.
“Where did you find her?” asked the woman apathetically.
“On te streets lyk alwus” replied Lois.
“What is it about her? I mean I’ve had to put up with her for the
past 42 years, and what kind of attitude do I get? Ingrate…”
“She tain’t human, ye knew that she wouldna be when ye met her pa” Lois spat the words out bitterly.
“Don’t speak of that monster in front of me!” She snapped, glaring
at the old man with icy cold eyes. Before the old man could stammer an
answer she stormed off as well.
Inside the girl child’s room, Kyarae’s shadow danced through a
window with sheer white drapes fluttering in the wind. Her pale face
shadowed in the darkness, eyes watching for prey. She leapt into the
air as an unwary owl passed overhead and all that was seen was the
silver sweep of a knife and the girl child was back at her window. Her
eyes were watchful for her next victim as she began to feed on the
blood of the owl.
The door slammed open revealing the still fuming woman only to be
chilled by the icy glare Kyarae shot at her. A line of blood trickled
down the side of Kyarae’s lips- lips darkened by blood. Kyarae stood up
from her perch on the window, tossed the now wasted owl over her
shoulder, the carcass disintegrated to ash as it left her hands. “Are
you here to lecture me on leaving the house again? Couldn’t you choose
a better time to deliver it? Of course if you wanted to watch me feed I
could oblige you.” Kyarae angrily wiped off the blood on her lips with
the tips of her fingers as her other hand sheathed her knife. The woman
struggled to keep her anger and fear in check as she approached her
daughter. The girl child stepped off her perch with poise as her mother
struggled to be calm, “I suppose you’ve already heard all the lectures
I could’ve given you after so many years. Must I repeat myself? Your
different from the others, I’m sure you’ve noticed already”
Kyarae replied coldly, “Yes I know. I carry the disease. If you
haven’t noticed yet the night animals are dwindling around our house.
There’s not enough blood here to feed me anymore.”
“Yes, you carry the disease, but its not complete. Either the
strain of the virus only had half of its effect or the virus isn’t
completely evident in you.”
“I’m listening…”
“You know what the virus entails… the inability to intake solid
food, the blood lust among others. You have all of these traits, but
the speed of your healing is much slower than most with the virus, and
you are also what they call, a day walker.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.” Kyarae cut her off coldly.
“They want you.” The woman said with a sweep of her hand towards
the window, “You are something those infected will always want to
become. Their members will always be coming after you. You have their
strengths without most of their weaknesses. They have been hunting you,
they will always be hunting you.”
“I can take care of myself; probably much better than you can” was
the icy answer, “There is no more food here anymore. I can’t stay here,
and I refuse to be like the infected, feeding on humans.”
The woman glared at the girl, and answered, “You won’t survive out
there. You not only have the infected after you, you also have the
Shifters.”
“It wasn’t my fault the Shifters are after me, it was thanks to
you. You just had to go flaunt that pa was the highest ranked amongst
those that were infected, especially when you knew of the War.”
“He wasn’t strong enough, despite his rank. You would think that
he would be able to defend - ” her words were left unspoken as Kyarae’s
knife swept towards her throat.
“You LIE! You tried to kill him, once you knew he was one of the
infected.” Kyarae’s voice sliced the air with bitterness as the woman
fled the room.
Lois silently slipped out of the shadows as the woman left the room.
“You’re getting better at hiding,”
“Me haves’t the best teacher,”
“hmph. Why are you here?”
“If ye leavest te place, ye know, I’ll beist te one wih ye? When
ser’nts sign wih te vampirs, they serve te vampir side of te fam’ly. Ye
beist te ony one left.”
“I don’t need a chaperon”
“Yes, but tain’t odd for ye to roam te streets wih te appar’nce o’ nine?”
Kyarae grimaced at this thought and finally said, “As the only one
with vampiric blood in this family, I release you from the contract
your family signed with ours. You are free to go. I can handle the
streets. I always have I always will.”
As she spoke, she pulled on a black trench-coat and began to strap
on her blades, thin concealable flat blades that strapped onto her
wrists, waist, inner thighs and boots. When she looked up, Lois had
left the room. She then carefully opened a secret compartment revealing
a small journal and an intricately woven silver armband- all that was
left of her father.
Kyarae silently stepped back onto her window perch with the wind
whipping her coat and black hair. With a last glance at her surrounding
home, she leaped out of the window.
Landing on her feet below the second story window, she coldly said
into the darkness, “Lois, step out, I know you’re there. I can smell
you.”
“Ye won’t git rid of me thah eas’ly little girlie”, Lois chuckled and stepped out off the shadows.
“Yeah well, stay out of my way if you plan on tagging along.”
And the two disappeared into the darkness.
--------Kyarae ShiRein --------
As what was left of the broken family made their quiet departure,
the woman began to scheme. She was bound to the Shifters because of a
life debt and so was used to gain the affections this man forty some
years ago. She had called on the Shifters because of her debt, not
realizing that she was carrying his child already. So she delivered her
lover to the Shifters. Though he had killed his assailants, he was left
with a mortal wound, too weak to regenerate and heal. Before he died,
he gave her a key as an inheritance to the child she would give birth
to.
Lois had served her since, because she carried the Vampiric blood
line. The woman refused to tell Kyarae of the key, Lois was the one who
informed Kyarae of her inheritance.
** things to note: story isn't finished, might work on it when I have
the time between work. Appreciate any and all suggestions. Any blanks
indicate uncertainties that I haven't worked out and are definetly open
to suggestions such as the name of the story.
***This is a work in progress***
Chatboard (0)