"Sleeping in a tunnel is not as uncomfortable as being lost in one."
Gray blankets of smoke clouded my vision from being able to see exactly what was starting the fire all I remember is being picked up against my will and dragged out of the burning house. Once the cloud of gray smoke cleared I could see I was alone on a patch of grass, once the haze in my mind cleared I noticed I was in the park and not in my house. For a beautiful minute I thought it was all a dream, my house hadn't burned down and my mom was okay waiting for me to get home but one quick look at my backend clothes and the fact I my hands were full of ashes made tears spring to my eyes. I crawled into the rainbow colored tunnel in park and hugged my legs to myself as the cold hard truth I was alone hit me.
I woke up with sweat covering my whole face as the memory played back in my dreams again that night. I staggered out of the comfortable bed to the fridge to get a coke when I heard another gunshot but this time I didn't flinch.
I woke up noticing I had fallen asleep in the rainbow tunnel which brought the first set of tears of that day and the last tears I would ever cry in my life again. I crawled out of the tunnel and say two officers talking about something and I thought about telling them my house had burned since after all I was 7 and couldn't exactly take care of myself but just as I opened my mouth it was shut by the ringing of a gunshot in the air, a gunshot that pierced one of the officers and set the other one running. I retreated back in my tunnel until I heard the same voice I had heard yelling at me to leave my burning house. "Ava get out of under there." his tired voice rang through the tunnel as I came out slowly to face his eyes. He explained about the war that had broken out between vampires and humans and how I had to keep quiet about the fact I was a hybrid since hybrids where being killed. And after scaring me he sent me on my merry way to an orphanage were I was registered in as Natalie Johnson.
I shook my head trying not to think about that day and about Kyle –Marcus was his real name-, the vampire that was my protector that I hadn't seen for years. The bastard had a way of showing up to give me more reasons to be scared then go and disappear, hell the second time we talked was when I was 10 and all the conversation was about how I had to stop being a weak human.
I was always the last one out of the locker rooms in physical education something I liked because the silence was nice but hat day the silence was interrupted by a presence. "Ava we need to talk." Marcus voice rang through the whole empty room and was impossible to ignore but I played silent anyways. "Silence won't get rid of me." He reminded me as I shut the locker closed and turned to see him there. "What do you want?" I snapped but his cold hard eyes didn't seem to acknowledge the fact I just disrespected him, his face was as emotionless as always. "You need to get a grip on your emotions kid, every time you cry I can feel it and that is very distracting." I blinked my eyes trying to focus on his words. "We are mates, always have been you just didn't know that you turned my life around when you were born." Even though he probably thought I got it I just stared dumbfounded at him. "I was a doctor when you were born, I delivered you and no, I wasn't expecting to mate with you. Ever since then I looked out for you but when the war hit I quit my job to look after you fulltime, that is how I knew to get you out of the fire." He explained it and it should have made me feel something but my numb body just didn't care. "Study and become a working human because that is what the world must see you as." I probably should have cared more or my own reservation but it seemed silly not to care about him. "What will you be doing all that time?" I snapped at him before he could keep the encouraging speech. "Fighting in the war, what you didn't think I sent my whole day in a strip club, that just my weekends." He said and looked at me as in expecting for me to laugh or say something but I merely stayed still until the bell rang and he rolled his eyes and disappear.
My grip on the bottle got stronger and tighter until it broke under my hand, I didn't get why I was thinking about my past today, especially Marcus. I was fed up with memories and he knew it, that why he sent little notes with his friends asking me to study harder or to study engineering or something. The guy basically controlled my whole life and I hardly ever saw him, granted I was numb since I was a kid and would probably stay in neutral if he didn't take the wheel on my life from time to time.
I was being bumped past students as I tried making my way to my 11th grade science class when all of a sudden someone bumped into me so hard I fell to the floor. I should have gotten up but what was the point, since the war more kids where orphans, and so many orphans in the only public school, there would only be another kid to through me back down if I got up so I stayed down and the bell rang again and again and kids would walk the hallways again and again until at one point someone came next to me and stood me up brushing me off and shook me until my eyes focused on familiar silver eyes that actually looked concerned for the first time since I remember. For the first time since I knew cold, hard, emotionless Marcus I hugged him and he let me, no tears came out but I just stayed in his arms until the bell rang and he disappeared.
I frustrated growl came from my throat as I put my jacket on over my pajamas and walked out of my house because even now at 21 the war was still going on and the memories of my wasted life still haunted me. I walked and walked blinking my eyes every time another memory wanted to relay itself, I had no idea where I was going and more than once I was almost run over but I couldn't go back into an empty home filled with memories, not today. I got the park absentminded and sat on the swing my eyes still unfocused as I felt someone come behind me and start pushing the swing. I didn't even flinch as my eyes focused on the tunnel, I didn't know it back then but that very same cheerful rainbow tunnel would be my saving grace, and my deathbed. I felt his kisses on my neck and his arms tightening around my waist but it didn't register nothing did. I was in neutral and nothing would make me move and he knew it too so his lips kissed back up to my ear nibbling on my earlobe for a minute before I heard the faint whisper.
"Happy birthday Ava."