Darkness
I was running as fast as I could to the room where my family was, they were so close behind me though. When I reached it I ran in and shut the door but that wouldn't stop them. Suddenly my mother grabbed my arm and yanked me behind her. I tried to get in front of her, to defend her, but she wouldn't let me. She wanted to protect me and my siblings. The door was kicked down and the monsters grabbed my mother. I knew this wasn't my usual dream when I could see their pale skin; how their eyes were red and glowed, just like the monsters I always saw on TV.
They dragged her out of the room by her hair. I was able to run after them this time but once I did, I wish I hadn't. The ones who had dragged her out were Gretchen and Andrew. They looked at me once with their blood-red eyes and then bent down towards my mother. I heard my mother's screams and then I heard no more. They didn't move, they just kept standing over her, holding her up. It seemed like it was hours before they finally stood up. The only thing that I could see was the blood around their mouths and my mother lying dead by their feet. I was so preoccupied looking at my mother that I hadn't noticed my father only a few feet away. I was stunned, I couldn't find my voice. It was only when Gretchen and Andrew were advancing on me that I found it again and screamed bloody murder.
I shot out of bed still screaming. I quickly closed my mouth for fear of waking up everyone. I had the odd sensation that someone was watching me, that they were in the room but it was too dark to see. I got out of my bed, which was slightly more comfortable then my old one. I went to the basin that still held the water I had used to wash up, and rinsed my face hoping that it would help to wake me up and wash away my new and terrible dream.
Why did I dream about them? A small voice in the back of my head answered: you know why. Because you are living in their house now, you are around the things you despise so much. I wanted to tell the voice in my head to shut up, to tell it it was wrong. But I knew it wasn't, I had that dream because even though I hated vampires, I am scared to death of them. My head was still splitting and I knew it wasn't very early yet so I should try and get some more sleep. The sensation that someone was watching me was still there.
I lay down in bed again, brought the necklace that Joe and Jacob had made me out, wrapped it around in my hand and wept. There was nothing else for me to do, and I had held all those tears inside me ever since my parents had been killed. I had kept them inside to be strong for my family, but they had been rotting inside of me ever since. So I let it all out, I sobbed, I cried, and I covered my mouth to stifle the sounds. I cried until I was finally able to drift back to sleep, and thankfully I did not have any of my usual dreams or my new one. Instead I dreamt of being alone. There were no pictures, just nothingness. Just the sense of loneliness, sadness, I felt lost. That was how my life was now. I was alone, I had no one. I didn't have my sweet brothers who would try to make me feel better when I was sad, to hold me when I fell down and scrapped my knee. I was completely and utterly alone.
The next thing I knew, I was being shaken awake. I looked up to find that Jane was standing over me. "It's time to get up. Get dressed and meet me in the Kitchen," she said and left. I quickly got dressed in my new clothes. They were jeans that looked as if they were 10 years old and a ratty shirt that looked the same age. I took my necklace that had somehow made it onto my dresser and slipped it on underneath my shirt. I walked down the hall and into what I assumed to be the kitchen.
There I saw about 6-7 girls about my age or a little bit older. "There she is, she's not that pretty," I heard one of them say. They were all whispering, and when Jane saw me she took my hand and led me to the table in the middle of the room. There, waiting on the table, were two biscuits, some type a mush and a bottle of water.
"I would eat all of it if I were you," Jane said, "We don't get anything else until dinner time." I sat down and looked at my meal with a sad expression. I had gotten better food than this in the town. I took the spoon that was lying next to the plate, scooped up some of the mush, put it in my mouth, and attempted to swallow. It was the worst thing I had ever tasted. I quickly took a big gulp of the water and a bite of the biscuits.
"You get used to it after a while," one of the girls said. They were all looking at me with sad expressions. I wanted to tell them all to go screw themselves and to stop looking at me like I was some pathetic person. "Well aren't we just rude," one of them said, "here we are talking and we didn't introduce ourselves," one of them said. "My name is Katy," said the one who was nearest to me. She held out her hand and I shook it. I looked at her face real hard so I would remember her name. She had fiery red hair that was tied back, and she had light freckles all over her face with light brown eyes that showed kindness. I looked at all of the girls faces so I wouldn't forget their names. They were like my family now.
After we had all met, everyone went back to work. Jane looked and saw me still sitting there and must have remembered that she still hadn't told me what my job was.
"You are to go around the house and do all of the cleaning. You will have to be invisible. If they are in a room that needs to be cleaned, you clean it once they leave the room and you're sure they won't be coming back anytime soon. You will scrub the floors, dust, make the beds, put the clothes away, and any other small things, understand?" I nodded.
"Ok, here is the bucket to clean the floors with. You will have to go around back to fill it up. Now when cleaning the floors, make sure that the brush is wet but not too wet. If one of them slips… well let's just say that you won't be around here for much longer." I understood that all too well. Everyone had heard stories about girls who had slipped up… they ended up zombies in some blood bank. They kill as few humans as possible, the parasites still need their blood and they can't very well have that when too many humans die.
I set to work, going around back and filling the bucket enough to use it but not too full to where the water would slop out of the sides. I did not want to die any sooner than I had to. Once all that was done I quickly went in to ask Jane where I should start but she was nowhere to be seen so I figured I would start at the top and work my way down. It was about mid-morning but I didn't know if everyone was awake yet so I quietly made my way up the stairs. I went to the end of the hall and started to clean the floors.
By the time I made it to the stairs I was hardly worn out. I was used to work like this because of working in the fields. I was just about to get started on the stairs when one of the doors in the hallway opened, then another, then another until all of the vampires made their way downstairs. I kept my head low as they passed, I didn't want to look at their faces. But while my head was down I noticed that all of their shoes had dirt on them. I looked back down the hall and the floor was all dirty once again. Gretchen was the last to go down and she saw my gaze. "Oh that's too bad. You will just have to do it again," she said and walked down the stairs. The water in the bucket was all dirty so I had to go and get new water.
It took me half of the day to clean all of the floors in the house. It took me so long because the vampires thought it would be nice to sit in the same room for about 2 hours. After they left I finished cleaning the floors and went to dusting. Overall I dusted, cleaned the floors, and cleaned all of their rooms that looked as if they had deliberately made them dirty to make it harder for me except one room… It was a boy's room but I didn't know whose it was. They all looked the same to me, but it had struck me as odd that this person's room was almost clean. Maybe they just had OCD I thought to myself as I quickly finished cleaning up and went downstairs to try and enjoy my delicious grub meal.
