It shouldn't happen to anyone. I'm sure that there are other people in the world who are worse off, of course. I'm humbled by the fact that I even have a house over my head. It's a bittersweet feeling, considering the fact that I have to work under my own mother. Not simple "Would you please do the dishes, hun?" or anything along those lines. Not chores, not favors; actual labor intensive work….with no pay. The name's Raelyn Weish, but I respond to Rae more often. I've come to accept the idea that my sole purpose in life is to slave under my mother and her previous marriage's girls' orders. I don't wish to sound over dramatic, but being a "servant", if you wish to call it, is a bother.

Let me help explain my situation a little:

My father was a good, hard-working man; worked eight hours, Monday through Saturday. I was his only child with his first wife: Diana. I will always know her as "Mom". She was everything to me. But then a nasty turn of fortune took a toll for the worse. She developed cancer, and lost. I was 10.
Father grew from a loving teddy bear to a colder gentleman. Working at the bank didn't help, being surrounded by much colder tellers, and rude people who just wanted to get in, get out, and spend more than what they even had to begin with. I wish I could be in a different time other than 1897.

Not only are people in general rude, but a particular group are a lot more snobbish. The vampires. It doesn't help that the king and the current royal family are vampires, but since they ARE, the other vampires in the community think they're better than anyone else because they have members ruling the surrounding land. It just sickens me. I just wish that something would change so that we could ALL…get along, but I know THAT'S not going to happen.

Back to my family.

Over time, Father did find love…well, more like a partnership. Mina may sound like a willowy, fragile, delicate person, but I've had to work under her; she is far from delicate. She met my father while he was gambling away our life savings (I was 13, learning about finances and I noticed he didn't have much money to spend on the house or food.) and she basically put herself out to him, mentioning that she had a large estate and money. That got his attention. Sure enough, they got together and I was introduced to the little monsters: Mary and Nina.

After a while, Father past away when someone shot him outside of the pub down the street. He left some items to me, like half of whatever money he had left and some knickknacks. Everything else went to Mina: land, the other have of the money (she managed to trick the tellers to transfer my money into her account, so I don't have a penny to my name), the jewelry, everything. I might as well just run away and try to make something of myself, but I'm worried that I might end up becoming a prostitute. That's the absolute LAST thing I want to do. I could always work in the mill, but I've heard stories about poor little children losing limbs in the mechanisms. At least Mina allowed me to stay in the house…only to be her and her children's personal servant. Sure, she kept the "essentials" she called them; a cook, a grounds keeper, and a financial assistant. I was left to maintain the home and them. And that leads up to today.

I've been working for them for approximately seven years. My stepsisters are 19, but they act practically half their age. I admit, I grew up for about 10 years in middle class luxury, but I also grew up scrubbing the floors of my own house. While Ronald the grounds keeper and Lydia the cook get paid a normal amount of wage, I don't get paid entirely. She figured (and told me to my face) that "Paying me would be the same giving money to herself; it's redundant", yet she fuels Mary and Nina's dowries for their future husbands to exploit. I just don't get it. I'm sure she does it out of spite, due to Father not really having much to his name after the death of his first wife. But what do I know? After all, I'm just a "worthless THING that will never live up to anything", according to Mina.

Well, at least it isn't all bad. Ron and I have been working on his skills in fist fighting. He'll enter the ring, appear that he can't possibly win, then I'll bet a larger amount of money on him (I have my own secret account to hold any gambling money.), and when everyone puts their bet against him, he'll pull out all the stops to defeat his opponent, and we'll walk out with our pockets full. I've considered just grabbing whatever money I had (this gambling is rather recent, so I don't have much, again.) and running away with Ron, taking Lydia with us just to get away from my stepmom. But…we're too occupied to do anything. I'm the one who came up with the gambling idea, but we are only able to do this under the cover of night…very, VERY late night, like one in the morning. The only time we'd be able to go to the bank, get our money (it's all under my name, but Ron and Lydia have more free time than I do.) and take whatever we had would have to be in the dead of night.

On the side note, I find it rather curious, the whole vampire side of the community. Aside from their superiority complexes, I can't help but to follow the people who have swooned over the more attractive ones. They range in classes, like us humans, and they hold late night jobs, and earn incomes like humans as well. I guess I don't mind them, but I find it strange that a lot of them feel the need to be snobs. Oh, and don't get me started about them drinking blood. Sure, the streets are clean of rats, but then there are those human individuals how willingly offer their blood for them. I have nothing against THAT, but I've heard that when a vampire drank someone's blood, it usually lead to some sexual encounter…unless they drained them dry. They're just a horrifyingly intriguing group of people.

Anyways, I must put this down. It's nearly 2 in the morning, and I have to be up very early to prepare Mina, Mary, and Nina's morning routines. I'm just glad Lydia got me this journal to vent out my innermost thoughts instead of me sweeping the marble so rough I nearly snap the broom in two. Goodnight to myself.

Raelyn Weish

March 3rd, 1897

Sharlon, Republic of Braylith