-The year 1037 A.D-
-Cycle 440-
-(Y/N's POV)-

Your eyes fluttered open to your room. The window facing your bed was bringing in a gorgeous golden light from the sun. You brought your hand to your racing heart as you tried to calm your breathing. You always had strange dreams that by the time you woke up, you had already forgotten what it was about in the first place.

"Y/N, sweetie, are you awake? I need you to go to town to pick up some vegetables for tonight's dinner." You turned your head to face your mother, who was standing in the doorway. As soon as she saw you she let out a huff. "Y/N, what did I tell you? You need to start getting up early. Waking up at noon already wastes half the day! How can I ever find you an eligible bachelor when you're not punctual or lady-like?" You roll your eyes. You definitely were neither of those nor did you like your whole existence is tied to those two traits.

"I don't need an 'eligible bachelor' to be happy, Mother. Nor do I need to be punctual or act like a lady. I don't like being held down to titles, that includes everything." Your mother only shakes her head.

"Y/N, please don't state those disgusting comments when your window is open. Someone might hear you and call you a witch. I don't want my daughter to be burned in town's square for everyone to see. You know our name will be ruined if something so vulgar happens."

"See if I care. I know that I'm not allowed to have opinions once I am to be wed." You cross your arms.

"Sweetie, please just get dressed. I need three carrots, a sack of potatoes and sugar, two onions, and lastly a nice piece of beef from the butcher. Can you do that?" You nod your head slowly as she walks out, closing the door. You get dressed in a plain, off-white dress with a brown apron covering the front. You carefully then slip a beautiful green floral headscarf onto your hair, covering your entire scalp.

"I'll be back soon, Mother!" You call out, as you make your way outside your small cottage-style home. Thankfully, the town square was only a couple blocks away from where you resided, meaning the walk was only around 5 minutes if you paced yourself. Your boots pattered on the dirt path that was littered with gravel. The whole city gave off a depressing aura, the buildings were all a grey-ish hue, matching the melancholy sky above. The smell of adventure and happiness was far away from this town, and most of the residents of the city never dared set foot outside of the border. The agriculturally-driven town has been trying to reinvent itself, as more travelers and foreigners have been trying to make a new living here.

This city was no place for a young lady though, actually, the whole world was no place for a woman to be. Everywhere, shady men lurked in the shadows, hoping to capture a girl to sell off to the rich. If you were lucky enough to be safe, then once you reached the ripe age of 12, you were sent off to marry some old farmer and produce dozens of offspring to keep up the farm. Thankfully, your family was of higher status, meaning you did not have to be sent off at a young age. However, you weren't given any other benefits. You still were only seen as a baby factory and easily expendable by the means of men. The world was definitely no place for a young lady who was quite opinionated like yourself. Unfortunately for you, the time to be sent off to some man was coming up and coming up fast. Your mother has spent the last few months alone coming up with a list of different eligible men that she could probably send you off to. None of them sounded appealing.

You continue walking down the dirt path until you finally come across the town square. Due to a lack of technological advancements, it wasn't decorated with a beautiful fountain or cobblestone flooring, but instead small vendor stations where different farmers sold their crops. There is also a huge white, wooden church that everyone in the community would go to every Sunday, spouting out religious texts and psalms. You walk up to one of them that contained multiple types of vegetables that were grown in the area. The wooden table held a beautiful array of squash, carrots, onions, celery, beets, etc.

"Hello Miss Y/N, what can I get for you today?" The man behind the counter looked up at you, giving you a faint smile.

"Goodmorning, Mr. Smith, I would like 3 carrots, a sack of potatoes, and two onions, please." He nodded his head and put all of the items carefully in a burlap sack.

"Looks like you're going to have potato stew for dinner if I'm correct," he smiles gently at you.

"Meat stew today actually! Since the war finished, Papa says we're allowed to pay for meat."

"Sounds lovely, you tell M/N and F/N I say hi." You nod your head and give him 3 silver coins, taking the burlap sack and putting it under your armpit. You then walk over to the wheat vendor, which was located right next to Mr. Smith's.

"Goodmorning, I'd love a bag of sugar, please."

"It's good 'afternoon.' Not good morning," the old man huffed behind the desk. You give a sheepish smile at him. "You wake up too late for a fine lady such as yourself. I always have room at my farm if you'd like to join," he smirked at you as you looked down. Since you turned 14 and still weren't given up for marriage, a lot of farmers upped their prices to have you. This old shit was unfortunately one of them.

"I am sorry, Sir. My parents are still deciding my future at the moment. I have no say in what their decision comes to." You hand the man one coin and walk away.

"Damn shame," you hear him say as you walk into the butcher shop. Since beef, chicken, and pigs were hard to come by since the war, the butcher was given his own shop to protect himself from thieves. You've heard many rumors that he's killed many thieves that have come to rob his farm. That rumor along gave you the shivers since the butcher seemed to be such a nice man. However, the worst rumor was the one that he used thieves carcass as meat and sold it to his clients! You refused to eat any meat for months after you heard that as a child.

"Good afternoon Mr. Taylor. Can I have a pound of beef, please?" The man nods, not saying a word, he swiftly cuts a piece of some of the hanging meat off and wraps it up in a linen cloth. He hands it to you, and you place two coins in his hand. 'He sure is weird, at least talk or something!' you thought to yourself. You were always creeped out by his lack of talking, especially with all of the weird rumors that swarmed around his existence. He definitely gives off a murderous aura, but you couldn't do anything but be nice. It wasn't ladylike to express discomfort when talking to others, especially men. They could claim you're a witch and have you burned on a stake faster than you could call it bullshit. "Thank you, have a nice day!" you call out to him as you walk back out the door. When the door finally closes behind you, you feel yourself bump into someone else, sending your body pushed forward. When you finally catch your footing, stopping yourself from falling, you turn around to see a boy around your age with stark white hair.

You've never seen a man so beautiful before, somehow he looked angelic, almost as if he was sent down by God himself. He was tall with pale skin, and this along with his white hair made his blue eyes pop out. His white eyelashes were long, making his eyes looked bigger than they already were. "W-Woah," you let out a small remark, you put your hand over your mouth, your face turning bright red. Oh God, please tell me he didn't just hear that! That would be so embarrassing! Before your eyes pointed downward, you could see his face scrunch up. His eyebrows creased and his lips turned into a frown. "I-I'm so sorry, Sir. I wasn't looking where I was going!" you apologized profusely.

"Yeah, you were." He brushes off the area where you bumped into him. 'What a weirdo! It's not like I have a disease or something! Even if he looks and sounds like an angel, he's truly a monster! How rude.'

"Well, I'm sorry. You don't have to be so rude though," you huff out. He chuckles a bit at your remark.

"Are you sure you'd want to tell me that? Your family is probably trying hard to find you a husband, right? They're not going to go far with that attitude of yours." You puff out your cheeks, getting slightly annoyed with this "angelic monster" in front of you.

"I don't need a husband, I'm totally fine on my own," you turn your head away.

"You're too opinionated for your time. It's not going to work well." He begins to walk away, done with the conversation.

"Hey! You can't just walk away from a conversation without saying goodbye! How rude are you?" He turns his head around, giving you a one-worded answer before he turns his head back around, walking away for good.

"Quite." You roll your eyes and kick a piece of gravel on the dirt road.

"He's so rude! Guys with good looks are always terrible aren't they?" you mutter to yourself as you walk home. Even though he was rude, annoying, and held no sympathy, you couldn't think of anything except how beautiful he was. He truly was quite a good sight to look at and you wished nothing more than to see him again. Now that you think about it, you have never seen him before. You knew everyone in the town but have never seen him in your life. It was a small town, meaning that you knew everyone's kids, cousins, aunt, uncle, parents, etc. However, this was the first time you have ever seen him. He must be a traveler from a town nearby. His accent is too similar to ours.

Before long, you got to your home, opening the door with all of the groceries you got earlier.

"Hey Y/N, did you get everything we needed for dinner?" your mother asks as you put everything on the wooden table.

"Yes, mom. I ran into a really strange man, though."

"Is he marriage material? Who is he? Do I know his parents?" Your mom started getting all excited, hoping that she may have finally landed you a husband.

"No, he's not from this town I believe. Actually, did you hear if any travelers are visiting the town?"

"Hm. . . well I do remember Mayor Robert mentioning that some religious preachers were coming to town! Apparently, they are coming to show us some new teachings of God that a small town such as our own has never heard about!"

"Well, the man I met was definitely not a religious preacher. When I accidentally bumped into him, he was incredibly rude!"

"You bumped into a religious preacher? Did you upset him? You better not have, he can tell God of your bad ways and curse you. Then you'll never find a husband!" She shouted out.

"I don't think I upset him, it just seems like he's always in a grumpy mood. I don't think he is a preacher, I promise."

"You still need to be careful, Y/N! It's already hard enough to find you a husband of good standing with your attitude. Everyone is starting to wonder if we produced a bad, rebellious, daughter. If this goes on long enough you'll be called a witch and our family will lose our high status! Do you really want to put your father out of a good job? You're lucky that we aren't farmers, we'd all be breaking our backs having to keep up with such a job. You'd also marry some low-class citizen if that was the case! So please, don't mess this up for us," she lets out an exasperated sigh and takes the potatoes, cutting off the skin with a dull knife.

You knew how much marriage was presented positively in today's society, but you never knew how negatively it could affect you if you didn't marry. How much it looked poorly on your family, how much it could determine their social status, and yours as well. It was terrible that one small social construct such as marriage could determine something so huge. It was even worse that there was nothing you could do in retaliation unless you wanted to die, physically and socially.

You started skinning carrots and placed them in the huge pot in front of you, where your mom was already putting the cut-up potatoes.

"Mother. . ." you start to speak but close your mouth almost as soon as the word escaped your lips.

"Yes, Y/N. What is it?" You sighed out. You knew what you had to say, even if it went behind all your beliefs, even if in a thousand years you'd never find yourself saying this.

"I'll look at your list and pick out a couple that seems the least awful."

"Really, Y/N? Thank you so much, my sweet daughter! Here I'll give you my list right now!" Your mother's face gleamed happily with delight as you give her a soft smile. However, the smile didn't reach your eyes. Inside your mind, you were only thinking how much your life would worsen once you get married. Your freedom, independence, and witty behavior would all be gone once that day was to come. It wasn't even that you didn't want to get married, but the people on the list were all scummy businessmen whose fathers ran the town behind the scenes. You never felt connected to any man you met, at least not romantically, it was like there was only one person you were meant for, and no one you met was that person.

Maybe it's him. You shake your head purposely with that thought. No, never in a million years would it be him! He's terrible.

You take the list out of your mother's hands and nod. "I'll look over it while dinner is cooking, I promise." You put the list in the pocket of your apron and get back to chopping vegetables as your mom starts cutting the beef.

After preparing the pot full of vegetables and meat, you sit down at the dinner table with your mom.

You go through a few of the different people that your mom put down. As you feared, the men were mostly from rich business families. John, Thomas, Henry, William. All basic English names. Your eyes rested on one of the papers with the name on the top being "Edward." He doesn't sound so bad. You started to read the synopsis about him, he seemed to be a famous author's son and was interested in foreign mythologies. This one seems alright, I guess. He seems very intelligent. Maybe he'll even let me voice my opinions about something now and then! You smiled brightly at that.

"This one seems alright, Mother. Out of all the choices, he seems the least awful," you said this extremely frank. Not to say your mother didn't know good bachelors from bad, but her definition was far different from yours.

"Perfect!" your mother squealed excitedly. "I can't wait to tell your Father this tonight at dinner! He's going to be so happy! Thank you so much Y/N!"

"Of course. I know how much this means to people like us. Especially you and Father."

-THE NEXT DAY-

After the conversation with your mother last night, she excitedly told your father at dinner. Though he wasn't much for emotions as any good man was during these times, he gave a small smile to the both of you. You knew he was worried about how his status and your future turned out if you continued to throw away marriage opportunities. You still didn't feel right, however. 'Maybe when Edward and I meet, I will feel that cosmic shift. Like we were made for each other. Oh c'mon Y/N! You're a woman, true love wasn't made for people like us. Unless it was in a storybook.' You walk out of your room and to the kitchen where both your father and your mother were. This is strange, father should have left for work hours ago, it's almost noon now. You looked to your mother, whose back was facing you. As soon as she heard your footsteps she turned around. You could tell her eyes were puffy and she looked to have been crying for hours.

"Mother. . . Father. . . what's wrong? What happened?" You rushed to your mother and gently put a hand on her shoulder, to help calm her down.

"There's been another attack Y/N. Rose died last night." Rose was a neighbor of yours around your mother's age. She was sweet and kind and would always back tarts when you went and visited her.

"How. . .? She was fine the last time I saw her! Mother, didn't you see her two days ago?"

"She was murdered," your father said slowly.

"Another one of those attacks. . . it's hitting so close to home now! The last time I heard it was on the other side of town!" you yell out.

"It wasn't just Rose, Y/N," your mother says, cutting you off from saying anything else. "Many others died last night. We're going to church soon to hold a huge funeral service."

"This is such a tragedy. . .'' your father murmured under his breath, though you could still hear him clearly. The room was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop. Even with the window open in the living room, it sounded so very quiet. Almost like everyone was staying in their houses afraid.

"Demons are here now. . .?" you whispered out. Just saying the word brought fear to your heart. Demons have always lived amongst humans, eating humans to stay alive, to get stronger, to control the world. However, this was the first time in your entire life they had hit so close to home. "Should we run away? The town over is about 20 miles out. If we leave now we can make it by dusk." Your mother shook her head.

"No sweetheart. It's too dangerous. There is no one on those roads until the next town. We'll be eaten on the way for sure."

"Are they going to eat all of us?" You couldn't possibly imagine this was how you were going to die. I mean, you finally were going to give a boy a try at marriage.

"No, they won't eat all of us right now. They'll head to another town and eat some more in a couple of days. After the church service tonight, we're all advised to hide in our basements until The Feasting is over. God will protect us. They can't attack us in God's house!" your mother said.

"Is that how it works?" you looked down at your feet. "Do they attack during the day?" Your father shrugs.

"No idea, Y/N. Make sure not to wander too far, okay? You have to live. Your Mother and I need you to." You nod slowly. "Now get dressed, the service will start in an hour."

You wouldn't believe it. You really couldn't. Each time you thought about the demons when you were young, you were told you were always protected. You were always told that you lived too far away from major cities to be eaten. You were told demons liked highly concentrated areas so they can Feast more. It made no sense why they were here attacking. In your town. It just couldn't be. You slowly walked back into your room and got changed, walking back out in 20ish minutes when you were done.

The church service was mostly a blur. The Priest called out, shouting proverbs and verses in the Bible left and right. You felt like your ears were ringing the entire time. You felt like you couldn't hear, and couldn't see. All you could feel was your own fear that was in your heart. And it wasn't going anywhere for a long time. However, during the service, you saw a man with white hair standing in the back with his head down. Even though you couldn't even understand your own thoughts at that time, you knew who he was. It was that asshole from yesterday!

After church everyone walked up to the Priest, asking for blessings and well wishes. Hoping that a blessing from him was a blessing from God that they were safe.

You walked out of the church through the back doors, wanting to be away from all of those people. Are they just going to die? Am I just going to die? Does any blessing from the Priest even mean anything? Does it even matter what happens anymore? You continue to be lost in your fearful thoughts, your feet guiding you to your favorite scene in the whole town. Behind the church, if you walked far enough was a beautiful small cliff that overlooked rolling greens, beautiful flowers, and tall deciduous trees. You sit down, your feet hanging off of the cliff. You dangle and kick them lightly as you stare off into the greenery.

"Where must you be wherever I go?" you hear an irritated voice behind you. You turn your head around and stare at the man.

"It's you," you sigh out just as irritated.