November 2nd, 1983.

The day my mother died.

The day my family was torn apart.

The day I died.

Or so my father thought.

Fire. Burning, red hot flames surrounded the small body of a baby, who lay in her crib, next to the very same one that her twin brother slept in. Her mother had been awoken by the cries of her youngest son and gone to check on him, before seeing who she thought was her husband next to her baby's crib. A flickering light grabbed her attention before sounds coming from the television downstairs alerted her and it was there she saw her husband, asleep in his armchair, an old history movie playing on the screen. With a strike of fear in her heart, the blonde darted back up the stairs, calling out her son's name as she ran and as she came to a stop in his room, she let out an ear piercing scream, awakening her husband. He charged up the stairs, shouting out her name, before bursting into the nursery of his twins, checking his daughter first, stroking a calloused finger across her cheek, before going to his son and whispering his name. A red spot averted his attention and as he swept a finger across it, another red spot dropped onto his hand. Puzzled by what it was, he brought his gaze up and stumbled back, horrified at the discovery. His beloved wife, the love of his life and the mother of his children, pinned to the ceiling with her stomach slashed. He cried out, losing his footing and falling to the floor, his heart breaking at the sight. Suddenly, her body was engulfed in flames, sparks of fire falling and spreading the red hot flames even more. His survival instincts kicking in, he grabbed his son and ran, stopping at the voice of his eldest son, passing the child to him, instructing his to take his brother and run outside as fast as he could. Watching his son's retreating back, he stood and ran back into the nursery, bellowing out his wife's name before his eyes settled on the crib of his daughter, completely engulfed in flames. He wailed his daughter's name, before the fire spread even further and he turned and ran. Once outside he grabbed his sons and ran to safety. Fire engines and policeman surrounded the house, and the lone figure of a father and his two boys sat on the bonnet of the man's Chevrolet Impala as a burning desire welled up inside the man, he would find who had committed this heinous act and he would make them pay, he would avenge his wife and daughter, lost to the flames.

Across the road, a male sat in a black car, watching the scene before him. In his arms, a baby girl, wrapped up in a white blanket, sleeping soundly. Wordlessly he communicated with one of his brethren, informing them the child was safe. Plucked from her crib as the flames surrounded her, she was sure to die, but she had been saved. She was needed. Climbing out of the car and with one last look at the broken family before him, he disappeared in the blink of an eye. Gently and carefully, he placed the child on the steps of a children's orphanage before knocking on the door and once again, disappearing into air as a woman answered the door. Looking around, she gasped as she saw the child on the ground and quickly gathered the baby in her arms and rushed back inside. Eyes watched her from the shadows, the strange male now satisfied the girl was safe.

"Emily! Emily, c'mon get up! You'll make us both late!"

The pounding on her wooden door slowly roused the occupant from her sleepless night, her mind once again plagued with nightmares of running through a forest in the dead of night, hearing countless screams from the darkness before a pair of yellow eyes appeared in front of her from nowhere and she awoke with a start, her heart racing as if she really had just been running – whether it was for her life or to save herself or to save whoever was screaming. She didn't know and possibly would never know with her nightmares always being the same.

"Em, for the love of god!"

Chocolate brown eyes rolled in her head as her feet touched the cold wooden floor of her room as soft padding sounds echoed softly throughout the room as she pulled on the cold metal handle and opened the door to the monster who had woken her up. A head of dark hair and skin swept past in a whirlwind and turned with both hands on her voluptuous hips and a scowl on her face.

"Emily Millicent Winchester, don't you give me that. You've not been sleeping again have you?" She demanded to know, as anger and irritation suddenly turned to comfort and worry. Clementine knew the signs of her best friend not sleeping, as if the dark bags Emily concealed with the minimal make-up she wore everyday and her falling asleep anywhere was anything to go by. "It's the nightmares again isn't it?" She questioned before looking to the second bed on the other side of the room, and turning back to Emily with a raised eyebrow. "No roommate again?"

Emily shrugged, as she looked to her friend's side of the room, decorated pink and fluffy and the complete opposite to Emily's. "I have no idea where Sarah is, she's always disappearing for days at a time"

"No changing the subject Em, answer me. It's the nightmares isn't it?" Clem shook her head, determined to get to the bottom of her best friend's problems.

"I thought your doctor prescribed you something to help you sleep?"

With a slight and reluctant nod of her head, Emily pursed her lips together in a crooked half-smile before she sighed as she knew what was coming next. "I hate taking that stuff Clem you know I do. It doesn't help anyway, the nightmares are still there and they're not gonna stop" Emily defended herself. "I'm not going to continue taking something that does jack nothing to help when I don't need it to begin with" She defended herself, walking to her wardrobe, choosing a striped top, jeans and underwear before heading to her bathroom to change.

"I can't help but worry about you Em, you're not just my best friend, you're my sister too"

Emerging from her bathroom, dressed, teeth brushed and make-up done, Emily stopped before moving to stand in front of Clem and place a comforting grip with both of her hands on Clementine's biceps.

"I know you worry about me, but I'm fine. I've been handling stuff like this my whole life on my own and I'm doing fine. I'm a lot tougher than you think" Giving Clementine a reassuring squeeze, Emily released her best friend from her grip as Emily grabbed her bag from the armchair by the door as the duo left the sanctuary of her dorm room and into the hustle and bustle of student life.

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, established in 1636 whose influence, history and wealth have made it one of the world's most prestigious universities. In 1639 it was named 'Harvard College' after deceased clergyman John Harvard, an alumnus of the University of Cambridge who had left the school some money and his scholar's library of some 400 volumes and the charter creating the Harvard Corporation was granted in 1650. Many desire to attend the halls of the famous university and while not all are successful, the select who are chosen have all gone on to achieve greatness in their lives. With many different courses and degrees to study, a wide variety of students and personalities walk the halls.

A Emily entered the library after another enjoyable day of lessons, today focusing on the subjects of demons and their origins, she breathed in the smell of old books and breathed in a deep breath at one of her favorite smells and one that could always make her feel calm instantly. The library was her sanctuary for when she needed to get away from everything and immerse herself into another world. Making her way towards the back corner of the library, she left her bag on a nearby table as she wandered the aisles of shelves and ran the pads of her fingers across the spines of books, loving the feel beneath her fingers as her feet carried her to the mythology section. Finally finding her desired book, she carefully prised it from the shelf and gently flipped it open to find the old bookmark she'd left there a few days prior. Taking her find back to her table, she settled comfortably on one of the many chairs pushed underneath the tables as she removed a black leather bound notebook from the confines of her bag, placing it gingerly onto the cold wooden curface and flipped it open.

Page and pages of paragraphs, drawings, items and specimens stuck to the yellowing paper littered the pages that Emily had spent months organizing and adding too. Every sort of supernatural creature you could find, what they ate, their movements, how they hunted, how they disguised themselves to humans and most importantly, how to kill them.

The supernatural world had been a fascination of Emily's since she was a child and ever since she had watched an old black and white Dracula movie. Her parents had found it unnerving at first, but had let her be her own person and learned to live with it and nurture something that made their little girl happy. Emily had grown up into a beautiful, strong young woman with loving parents. Like every child, Emily never thought anything bad could happen to her and her family would be together forever, until she came home from Clementine's one night after a sleepover and found a trail of blood leading to the bodies of her parents, both dead in a pool of blood with two familiar looking bite marks on their necks, their skin ice cold and white as a sheet and no life left in them. It had been no doubt in Emily's mind that something was not as it seems, with the police even saying it was the work of a copycat killer, someone killing their victims in the same way as their idol and in this case, the police were saying the killer had idolized Dracula and made it look like a vampire had broken into their home and murdered them. No matter what Emily said, she was laughed at many times, constantly being told that vampires didn't exist and to let it go. They caught and arrested who they thought was responsible, but Emily still had this niggling feeling in the back of her mind that something wasn't right.

It was shortly after her parent's deaths that Emily discovered something even more disturbing. Going through old boxes in the attic, sorting through the family belongings before the house would be sold, Emily found a birth and adoption certificate in a box marked 'Private!' and realized the truth. That her whole life had been a lie and she wasn't who she thought she was. And so, she went from Emily Jackson to Emily Winchester, taking the name on her birth certificate and the name she was meant to have. Emily spent months trying to track down her real family, finally managing to find the children's orphanage where she was left as a baby to be told they had no idea who had brought her there and had just found her on their doorstep. No one had come forward to claim her, no family had come to find her and bring her home. It left her heartbroken and she had moved in with Clementine and her family who had always treated Emily has one of their own until the pair had moved to Massachusetts to both attend Harvard together, with Emily taking a degree in Folklore and Mythology and Clementine taking psychology.

As she poured over the book, tracing words and drawings with her finger, taking in all the knowledge that she could and making notes in her journal, she barely noticed the sun fall and the moon rise until the librarian, a lovely elderly lady called Agnes, cleared her throat and with a nod of her head towards the exit. With a large smile, Emily gathered her things together and spoke an apology to Agnes, who swatted her away with a cackling laugh. Agnes was more than used to finding Emily in corners of her library hours after everyone else had left and majority of the time, she let Emily be until she had to close and lock up for the night.

Taking the main path back to her dorm room, Emily breathed in the night air, as she watched her breath escape in puffs of smoke as she listened to the sounds that the evening brought. A rustle of leaves behind her had her spinning around, her eyes searching the darkness for something, anything or someone. After a pause, she hesitantly turned and carried on, slightly increasing the speed of her walk and keeping her breathing focused and calm, something her mother had taught her when she had been teaching Emily archery after Emily had tried it on a school trip and loved it. Reaching the safety of her building, Emily slammed the door closed, maybe a little too vigorously as she charged up the steps and coming to a stop outside her dorm room, she fumbled with her keys before finally letting herself in and closing the door with a thud. Pressing her forehead to the cold wood, Emily allowed herself a moment before stepping backwards and away from the door, keeping her eyes fixed on it. Seconds past before she let out a breath she didn't realise she was holding and her shoulders shagged, as she moved to collapse onto her bed and froze. Crouching low on the floor, hands and mouth covered in blood as it devoured a human heart as it stopped its actions and lifted its head to look at the human, its yellowed lupine eyes watching her.

"Oh my god.. Sarah.." Emily breathed out as she took in the appearance of her roommate, a girl she had lived with for over a year in front of her.

Sarah flashed her canine teeth, sharp and glinting as she rose to stand at the same height as Emily as she sized her up, her head tipping from side to side as she slowly advanced on Emily. Breathing heavily, Emily's eyes focused on someone she called a friend as she slowly backed up against a bookshelf, pushing her hand out behind her to steady herself as her eyes landed on a silver arrowhead across the room from her. A real silver arrowhead, that had been left behind by her mother and that Emily had found after her death. Swallowing the lump in her throat that Emily didn't realize she had, her jaw clenched as she mapped out her plan. In a flash, Sarah leapt at her with her claws elongated out and ready to strike her prey's flesh as Emily threw her body forward and underneath Sarah, rolling to the other side of the room as she clambered to grab the arrow. Hearing Sarah crash into the bookshelf and a snarl from behind her, Emily surged herself on faster as her fingers closed around the shaft and throwing her body to the side as she felt Sarah behind her, she thrust the arrowhead out in front of her body, slamming her eyes shut and feeling a weight land on it before everything fell silent.

Moment passed before Emily forced herself to slowly pry her eyes open as she felt something warn run onto her hands and she gradually turned her head to gape at the sight of the arrow buried in Sarah's stomach, blood seeping through the wound and down the shaft of the arrow, her canine teeth withdrawing and her eyes slowly changing back to her normal blue eyes. As her heart rate sped up, Emily's breaths quickened as she used all of her remaining strength to throw Sarah's body to the side, her body jerking in shock as she heard it thud onto the wooden floor, slowly turning her head to take a final glance at her friend's body before she rushed to her feet, scrambling to grab her black leather jacket, hurriedly shoving her arms into the sleeves and yanking it up and snatched her keys and bag from the floor as she slammed the door shut behind her. Turning to lock it, she froze and slowly stepped back from the wooden door, unable to take her eyes off the horrors of what had happened inside the four walls of that room, spinning around to run and take off down the stairs towards the exit.

Slamming the metal bar of the fire escape down, she shoved the door open finally sprinting into the open air as she ran and ran until she stopped in the middle of a dark patch of grass of the campus. Her chest was heaving, her breathing was coming out uneven and panicking as her eyes searched the darkness for somewhere to go, she needed to get away and she needed to run. As she spun around to race away and spend the night running, her small body collided with a larger one and for a moment, panic rising in her body, she struggled against whoever it was, lashing out with her fists and her feet, kicking and punching and scratching, until a booming voice stilled her.

"EMILY!"

Her body froze instantly as she slowly lifted her head to look up into stormy grey eyes, familiar grey eyes and just as quickly as her body froze, her body relaxed against the male standing in front of her. Chocolate brown locked with grey and Emily whispered out a name she knew deep from the bottom of her heart.

"Haniel..."