"Watch it," her human fingernails dug into the flesh of his neck. This was the everyday for the demons. They were supposed to be the masters, the top of the chain, but no… Someone, somewhere had slipped, and now this awful world of human dominance had developed.

Religion was long dead, Freud a celebrated historian along with the rest of his theorist buddies. The world was an unpleasant place. The air was gray and a chill wind usually whipped in and out of the buildings. Facts were all powerful, and the wielders of the facts were royalty… So when, through careful examination of DNA and fingerprints, that a race of Vampire-like creatures really did exist, careful measures were taken. Known members were quarantined, others were discovered. Treatment was brutal, until yet another politically correct protest group sprang up and demanded that inhumane testing stop. The arguments were fierce, recalling that these demons ate human flesh for sustenance. Many aspects of history and nature were brought into the picture, and eventually things changed.

Perhaps that was why their race even still existed. It might have died out, had a few stupid humans not interfered. But today, their race was repressed, like slaves. Their treatment today wasn't much better than before… A few rights, such as marriage and reproduction, were given, but all in all, the race was beaten; emotional and physical violence kept them in their place.

The humans grew stupid. They were ignorant to the hatred that the demons kept for them. Their abuse grew worse, and meanwhile, the demons were multiplying, passing their hatred on, and planning for the day when they could become the oppressors.

So when she reached out and took a hold of his neck, intending to make him pay his respects to the higher race, a chain reaction started. He, seizing her wrist, twisted her arm into a nasty angle behind her back. She shrieked with pain and curses. But he wasn't done; a jerk of his own arm snapped her wrist. The crack echoed over the street, silencing anyone who was still making noise.

"Stupid humans." The demon spat the words. The street was filled with screams of fright. Blood spattered from seven different places as the demons, who had gone unnoticed except for a kick or a glob of spittle, ripped their oppressors into pieces. They filled their hunger and their hatred. In one day, power was over turned. The humans simply had no way to stop the Vampire beings.

Ashes, the girl who had sparked it all lived through the torment. Many humans died, but a few still lived. The demons knew that finishing the race would be merciful. Their hatred demanded humiliation. Her name before the take over has been forgotten. She was renamed by Chrys, the ruler, and kept chained by his side for all to see. Every night before he went to sleep, he drank from her blood.

She kept her lips clamped shut as his fangs broke the skin. It was her upper arm today, the place where vaccines were once given. She'd gotten the vaccine, the one to keep her human. That was why Chrys could take her blood every night and still keep her alive. It was pain beyond imagination; nothing like getting blood drawn in a hospital. With every heartbeat, every slight movement either of them made, his teeth grated into her, drinking.

He pulled away and smiled at her. She tried to keep that image of his face, right before she'd hit him, in her mind. That was the last moment where she was the powerful, and he was not; the last moment of her freedom and his misery. His skin had scarred up on the neck, where her fingernails once struck.

He rubbed the scars. "You remember that day?" he asked; like every night before, she shook her head.

"No"

"No?" he said. On a normal night, he'd have gone into the recount of the story, every detail a pinprick in her eyes, till she had tears marching silently down her cheeks. "I remind you every night…" he said. Then, he seized her arm and twisted it up an around to that awkward angle. "Perhaps, if I break your arm again, you'll be able to recall it."

"No, I do," she whispered. She was afraid to speak louder than that. The pain of the last time her arm was like this would never leave her mind.

"You tell me the story, then," said Chrys, falling back and away from her. Ashes watched him crawl into his bed and stretch. "Go on. The humans fall from grace. Tell me the story."