Human

by bandits pesty uncle

Amiena is a young girl that has been kidnapped and sold with a group of girls that are regularly beaten and raped. One night when they escape everything goes wrong but before Amiena can die Godric is there to save her. Eric is Godric's only child.

1. Chapter One

[A/N: I had this at the end of the story but I'll put it here too for anyone new coming along.

Hello everyone!

So I have been rereading this story and some of the reviews and have decided to rewrite this whole thing to the best of my ability. I am so thankful that so many people were interested and I feel like I took it for granted with so many errors and everything just being all jumbled. I know I had intended it to be jumbled since it's from the point of view from a new vampire but I feel like I got pretty carried away and careless. I'm going to begin updating the chapters as I go along so if they don't make sense as a whole that is because I haven't gotten to the other chapters yet. The chapters that I have completed will have their number spelled out (ex: Chapter One vs Chapter 1) so you know which ones exactly have been redone. Somethings will change but for the most part everything will stay the same. I plan on making Amie more believable and less Mary-Sue-ish and a lot more devastated by the events of the first chapter but she and Godric will be together as always. Thank you for your time and patience and I hope you enjoy!]

Drop.

Drop.

Drop.

Water dripping from rusted pipes is the only promise we have in the cellar that time is moving on. The smell of each bloody drop is so strong my nostrils are filled immediately as if a bomb has gone off less than a mile away. The thought of water is bitter sweet to me. The only time we ever taste it on our tongues is when we have to brush our teeth for parties but even then we can't swallow. The only time we get to feel it on our skin is when we have to wash for parties but even then we can't have one sip. For months our only source of hydration has been someone's old beer, the last bit of alcohol in a forgotten glass, or the snow from outside that falls into the basement from the hole in my cell.

Tentatively I crawl toward the small mound that grows on the floor. I'm freezing all over but my thirst overcomes my need for warmth in this second and so I inch my way toward the cold. In the basement there are six cells that are roughly the length and width of seven girls lying on their back. The floor is some kind of cement that holds onto temperature so that we are never comfortable. In the heat we are scorched and in the cold we are frozen. The walls are made out of hard stones grouped together that are always wet and the bars that surround each cell are as thick and old as the pipes that hang over our heads. There is no light down here except for the cracks around the thick door and the moonshine that comes from the hole in my corner.

We have a thick board to cover most of the light so that when the men come they don't see it but still some comes through. From this some I take a small bit of snow that has gathered and shove it in my mouth before it melts in my palm. It tastes like freedom I'll never know.

The door slams open along with the vicious shout, "Next time you bite my dick I'm going to rip your fucking neck out."

The sickening sound of a body going splat against the ground echoes around us and I shrivel back to the other side of my cell and away from the hole. There is a gasp from the girls in the other cells but I shut my eyes tight and cover my ears with my hands. If I'm a small speck of dust there's no reason for him to look at me. There's no reason for anyone to look at me. I'm only dust after all. I'm only dust.

I can just barley hear the sound of his angry voice as the metal clink of the cell door vibrates through the bars at my back. I know he's warning us about something but I can't brave myself enough to lower my ears and hear it. The cellar door is heaved shut once more and we are left alone in the darkness.

My hands fall slightly as I turn to look at the cell next to mine and at the girl crumbled on the floor. The others escape their confides—we have all become thin enough to fit through the bars—to curl around the one on the floor. I don't want to see what has become of Benita.

Since being here, we have all become close and since I've never had siblings I think of them like sisters. When they're hurt a tight ball forms in the pit of my stomach and squeezes so tight I think I might explode into crazy arrangements of light. There are only nine of us left and after losing so many of the others I can't stand to lose another friend. If she's gone that will only leave eight of us and they don't like even numbers and they don't like groups of seven and nothing can function with only five girls. We'll all die. We'll just all die.

Allie leans over Benita and lifts her up slowly into her arms where I can see a pool of blood falling from her mouth. I cringe away at the sight and cover my nose with my hands because I can smell the blood from here. Seeing them together like that—the two strongest girls—makes we weak like my own stuff is falling out on the floor to mix with Bennie's. I hate the sight of all that red and the smell and the taste and what it all means everywhere all at once. It never goes away; it always stains.

But that's not just it.

I can hear the girls whispering with each other but I can't focus on their sounds. Allie has always remained the leader of us with Benita has her second in command. They always complimented each other well and worked so hard to keep us safe despite the obvious fact that Allie never liked me. Allie is always the head strong, self-assured one while Benita is the feisty one that's tough enough to get away with saying no. Together they defend us and communicate with the men for whatever they can get because the men have always liked them. They would never hurt them.

That is until now.

The whispers come to an end and Allie lowers Benita into Cally's arms as she slowly starts to stand. I have no idea with Allie and those green eyes that have always comforted me in the dark will do but I know it will be for the best. She is the wise one, the one that knows how to think ahead for the best outcome. I have trust in her because she can do anything. But I cannot stand the way her eyes suddenly leap to mine in the middle of her stand.

Allie has never looked at me directly of her own free will. She doesn't like me because I'm the only one that hasn't felt the harsh touch of the men. For some reason they make sure that I am off limits to the visitors and never get to see the rooms these girls are forced to endure. She doesn't understand what makes me so special and to be honest, neither do I. I know I can't be of any help, which is why I shrink at the sound of her joining the cell with me.

"Amiena."

There is no softness in her voice. At least with Cally and Briana they talk to me with words like gentle blankets. Bria and Amni talk to me like I'm a baby while Catty doesn't talk at all. Benita talks to everyone with authority and amusement but Allie. Never once has she said anything to me so I don't know why I'm so afraid of the harshness in her tone. Does she mean to throw me to the men? Sacrifice me in some way? I don't know but I'm terrified.

"We have to escape this place tonight."

"No."

The word plummets from my mouth like a cannonball. In my mind I can see so clearly what had been done to the girls that tried to escape before us. They were massacred. Right in front of our eyes they were shot against the back wall. All those bodies piled on the earth with all those holes. Everything was so red I could feel the Earth bleed. How could she want that for us?

"They'll kill us all."

"Nelson hit you today," her words are still in the air as she watches me. The right side of my face is still slightly red from his hand but I don't feel it swell because of the cold.

I don't even remember why he did it. He had dragged me upstairs and had shouted some things then all of a sudden I was on the ground and holding my face. I nod weakly as I answer, "Yes."

"The attacks have been getting worse and worse. Do you agree?"

"Yes."

"More frequently too."

"Yes."

"Do you know what that means?"

I'm silent here and all I can do is stare at her quietly.

"The new group will be here on Friday, Amiena. We're being replaced," she answers her own question without the slightest emotion in her words, "We're dead already."

I shake my head in disbelief but I'm already crying because I know it's true.

She grabs my arms suddenly and hisses, "There's no time for you to cry, alright? We need to get out of here right now and we need you to come with us. If you stay they'll kill you but if you come there's a chance that you can be free. Do you understand? We can't leave you behind."

"But what if we get caught," I shiver.

Allie is silent for a moment as she looks upward into the darkness that no one can see. I'm afraid she's going to hit me or hurt me but then she does something much worse. Her eyes are filled with tears and she holds onto my hands so desperately I'm afraid she's going to crack my bones. She takes in a deep breath as she whispers, "But Amiena, what if we don't?"

But what if we don't seems like a good enough argument to me.

I nod my head once and her face erupts into a smile that I have not seen in so long. She looks over to the other girls in the cell behind me, motioning for them to come over as quickly as they can. Allie rushes to the hole and pushes aside the board to reveal the hole's actual size to be large enough for us to escape one at a time. A cold breeze hits me hard as she begins to push some of the snow as far away as she can. Second thoughts come to me as I consider that the only thing we have to wear are old, bloody dresses that have become rags with no socks or shoes for our feet.

I open my mouth to protest but Allie has already crawled out and leans her head inside to smile, "Come out, the weather's perfect."

Cally helps Benita out through the hole first and then the girls follow in turn. It's Amni, Bria, Briana, Catty, and Cassy until finally it's me that Cally promises to help push through. Each girl has crawled out of the hole more confident than the last but I'm still shivering, as my hands grow numb in the cold that I can't pull myself out of. The faces of the girls outside are pricelessly filled with joy but something inside of me tells me this night will not be one I can celebrate. I want to tell them to all come back in but suddenly Cally places her hand on my shoulder and gives me a smile I can't deny.

I reach my arms out and suddenly Allie grabs my wrists and—as Cally pushes me—hoists me out into the frigid air. My arms wrap around myself as my knees knock together and my teeth chatter. The only thing that surrounds us are the woods that have become white in the evening air and I find myself thinking of when we had arrived. How long were we driving before we got here? How far is the highway?

An arm wraps around my shoulder and I look up to see Catty who seems happier than she's ever been in her entire life. On my other side is Cally who helps to also hold up Benita with Allie's help. Together we huddle in a line as we begin to move through the woods with each other's help. I feel warm and optimistic with the bodies around me but most importantly with the hope that flies through the sky. These are my sisters after all; we can do anything together.

And for just two miles we do.

The swift sound of a whizt passes by my ear and I turn my head backward to see a fresh splatter of red over the blanket of snow. I look ahead once more only to release a silent scream. Without my support Cally falls to the ground as a waterfall of red chunks streams from the top of her head. Bria's shriek pierces the night and unleashes the hell fire of broken bullet showers. The girls take off around me but I crumble to my knees desperately trying to put all the tiny pieces back together. She had given me her sweater on the ride here. I had been so cold in my bathing suit and she had given me her sweater. Mush slips past my fingers as I work to scoop it out of the ground and into my friend's head but she's dead.

She's just dead.

Another whizt sound fills the air but my body reflexively moves and I somehow duck out of the way. I think I'm okay until I see Bria drop to the ground and suddenly Allie is in front of me and she grabs my arm and screams, "Run!"

I jump to my feet at her call and begin to sprint as fast as I can away from the thundering noise. I don't think I'll ever stop until my body takes over once again and I dive behind a tree that is so massive it covers me easily. Some of its roots have been uplifted and I know I can hide beneath them if I try but my attention is elsewhere. Amni is screaming as she tries to claw away from a man that is on top of her about to rape her. I stand from my spot just as another man grabs my arm but I don't wait for him to act. I shove the base of my palm into his nose and once his grip is loosened I grasp the

Uzi from him and shoot both him and the man over my friend.

The two men drop dead and Amni struggles to crawl out from under him so I run toward her and shove him off with strength I didn't know I had. I grab her arm and as Allie had done to me I shove her forward so hard she propels through the air with new speed. But it's no victory. A harsh shriek guides my sight to the very person I had just impersonated on the ground just as a heavy boots lands at the center of her face. Benita is off to my right behind dragged away and someone else I can't tell is being shoved down and I don't have time to think I just shoot and shoot and they all fall down.

As I rush to Benita I hear Cassy calling me and crying and when I get to her that tight ball in the center of my stomach squeezes and I want to scream too. Her leg is twisted and bent and broken in a bear trap that looks so old it promises that if she doesn't die from a bullet wound she'll die from infection. A man runs toward us but I aim the Uzi and fire until he's gone. I drop down and with my new strength pry the thing apart so that she can get away. She pulls herself out and I turn to catch sight of Catty being beaten and though I lift my gun and fire nothing happens because I'm out of bullets.

I stand and rush toward the man I had just shot down but a harsh pain explodes through my leg I fall. I try to stand up once more but it's no use and so I crawl with all my might to the other weapon and use it to take out the man that was just about to land his deathblow on Catty who is on the ground. Somehow I manage to get up and limp toward Catty but once I get there I don't even recognize her anymore. Her face is dismantled and ruined and I can't believe what is in front of my eyes. It can't be her.

"Catt-?"

The harsh pain rips through my shoulder and I crumble on top of my leg that burns like a furnace. I reach my hand up to touch my chest but in its place all I see is blood and red and hurt and death. My vision gets blurred but still I reach for Catty in the hopes of pulling her out of darkness until something hard hits me in the back of my head and darkness becomes all that I know.

…

Screams.

It's the first thing I hear and it pulls me out of my darkness to the reality that has unfolded around me. Screams fall like birds from the sky but they aren't girl screams…they are the screams of the men. I try to open my eyes but everything in my body hurts so bad I don't want to wake up. It's a dull throbbing that surrounds me and I want the dark sleep because I'm afraid if I awake my pain will get specific and unbearable. I'm so cold and so numb that I'm not afraid anymore of what will happen when I never open my eyes again. I already feel like I'm in a casket.

I don't know where I am but I know I'm still outside and still beneath the snow yet everything is different. I feel like I'm lying in a small trench that keeps my arms and legs straight and tight together while my head is on a pillow of snow. I can feel that there is a white thick blanket of fresh winter on top of me as if I've been buried in the sand. Even if I wanted to move it would be impossible. I might as well just let the heaviness take me.

Silence.

The screaming of the men comes so suddenly to an end that terror jolts me awake and into the full pain of every wound my body faces. But the pain isn't the bad part now. The bad part is now I know why they were screaming. Sometimes, when things were too much, we would all get together and tell stories and it was Benita that told the story coming true around me now. It's him. It's Death!

I know it's him and I know he's coming for me and that hard fact makes me realize how much I don't want to die. In front of me is a hot, white flash of the future that should have been mine and I don't want to lose it. There's something for me out there that I have to grasp and if I die there will be nothing for that thing without me. We shouldn't have escaped. If we didn't escape none of this would have happened and Death wouldn't be coming for me. There's so much I have to do!

But like a dream I open my eyes and see that here he is.

He's different from how Benita described. She said he would wear a black robe and would carry something called a sickle. She said he didn't have a face but in the twinkling moonlight I can see one now. He is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and under the snow and the stars I swear he glows. This image of Death is more realistic than Benita's. After all…everyone wants to see something beautiful before they go.

Blood drips from his chin and onto his body but otherwise he is perfectly still. The pain reminds me that I am still alive and though I know who he is I start to doubt myself. He looks at me in the way I can't understand and though I know the answer I still ask, "Are you Death?"

"I am," he answers with a voice that reveals itself to be the most amazing sound I have ever had the pleasure of listening to.

Slowly I blink away the haze before my eyes but I am even more confused than I had been before. For someone so timeless he doesn't even have hair on his face. I'm stunned enough to whisper, "But you're so young."

He shakes his head with a kind and modest smile, "I am not."

With new strength surging through me I try to look away and around as I question, "The men? My sisters?"

"Dead."

I want to ask if he means everyone—even Amni and Cassy—but I know I don't want to know the truth. If I die in this second I want to have the hope that they made it through. Somehow, someway they managed to escape the men and escape Death. Even if that means I couldn't.

"I was watching you this night," his voice calls my attention back to him and the tears that had built up in my eyes force their way backward across my vision. He has another smile for me and if I had enough blood saved up I probably would blush, "I never saw anyone fight like you—so selfless and so brave for someone so small."

"You're small too."

Death's smile breaks apart to release a laugh that sounds like my grandfather's chime collection on a windy day. But the opening of his mouth shows something I wasn't prepared for. I see fangs as he replies, "I know. Isn't it wonderful?"

I don't know how to answer. The pain is still inside of me though it is all just one giant blob of hurt. It reminds me that I don't have long to live and despite the smiles and the laughing I'm with Death who plans to kill me. I shut my eyes and ponder out loud, "What are you waiting for, Death? You have other people to get to on your list. Just kill me now."

Though I'm expecting some kind of pain to greet me there is nothing that comes. I peak my eyes open and see he is completely different from how I had left him just one second ago. His brows are furrowed like he's thinking about a question he might be too afraid to ask. Somehow in his timelessness he appears to be a shy boy planning his words patiently. He opens his mouth but shuts them once again as if he were embarrassed by what he would say. His face becomes stone and serious just then and finally he asks with slow and deliberate force, "Could you be a companion of Death? Could you walk with me through the world—through the dark? I could teach you all I know. I would be your father, your brother, your friend, your…lover."

Once again I don't know how to respond. The only thing I manage to let out is the question that I so rightly need to ask, "Why me?"

"To give us the thing that we have both been deprived of," his face is soft and his answer so far away, "Life."

"Life?"

My voice is flying away from me just like everything that is going on. I only manage to catch sight of his smile before I feel his sharp fangs dig into my neck. The pain makes everything go away but then the pain is gone too. The darkness is overwhelming but suddenly I feel a cool liquid at my lips and I hear is voice in the distance so far away from me.

"Hurry! Drink!"

I can't deny Death.

I listen and I drink.