Prologue. Blood stained
I stopped to catch my breath, unaware how class he was to my exhausted self. I heard his foot steps behind me, and then I felt his breath against my neck, I tried to run, but it was far to late for me. His hands wrapped around my forearm and his nails dug into my skin. He pulled me back against his cold, dead body. I felt his breath, icy, against my neck, sending shivers down my spine as my legs gave out beneath me. His grip on my arms tightened as he forced me to stand.
He snarled ferociously in my ear, his chin resting on my shoulder. I tried to keep myself from crying out, fearing for my life and that of everyone who mattered to me.
"It is your fault Charlotte, it is all your fault." He growled, tears starting to form in my eyes as he continued to speak, "You are the one who left me to die, you are the reason I am this!" I sobbed loudly, trying feebly to escape his grip.
"It was not my choice Tristan; I wanted to turn back but it was to late!"
"I was still alive Charlotte, you left me there to die; admit it!" I shook my head, feeling his grip grow tighter still.
"admit it." I shook my head again, resisting the urge to lie, to tell the creature who I'd once claimed as a brother that I had been the one who'd made the decision to leave him there.
"I am not going to lie to you Tristan, we had a choice, we could of turned back and risked our lives for yours but we could not risk it." I turned to face him, but I found myself being thrown roughly to the ground. I landed on my stomach, my hands bloodied from the impact of hitting the ground so roughly.
"Could not risk it?!" he laughed, as I attempted to pull myself up off the ground, "So you left me to die instead, knowing perfectly well I could have been alive!" He placed his foot on the middle of my back, pushing me back to the rocky ground.
"You could not risk your own life for mine, well now, did that really work out for you Charlotte; you are going to die regardless of whether you chose to or not."
I fell flat against the ground, listening to the rocks beneath his feet shift as he paced back and forth. I opened my mouth, not able to keep the words from escaping my lips.
"Kill me then."
I was going to die, he was going to kill me, and I'd just sped up the process. He pulled me up off the ground, his arms snaking around my tiny body. He turned me around in his arms, his cheek resting against mine.
"As you wish."
With that he buried his face in my hair before his sharp teeth; fangs, pierced through my skin sucking the blood from my body. I let out a shrill cry and fell from my brothers arms to the cold ground, my whole body aching as I finally realised I was in fact dying, those were my last moments.
"I wish I could have saved you Tristan, but really, you were not destined for this world." It was the last intelligent sentence I managed to force out of my mouth before the pain became unbearable.
"None of us are Charlotte, some of us just fair better in the scheme of things."
I took one last shaky breath and a final glance at my beloved brother before the world faded to black and my heart thumped dully for the last time…
*
I didn't breathe again, my heart never thumped against my chest again but I did open my eyes.
I awoke in a pool of crimson, my whole body stained red; all my clothes, my face, my arms, my legs. I didn't know how long I'd been lying there but I knew that my family wouldn't come looking for me after what happened to Tristan all those months ago, they'd rather drown in their sorrows than find the body of their dead daughter and sister, they'd never risk finding me alive and well.
I didn't return to them. I ran as far away as I could from them, the stupid village, all the ignorant people who inhabited it and everything I'd ever known.
My life was over, and that's when it really began, when it ended…