Chapter Two
The beginning
Months passed slowly and summer arrived, bringing with it all the hopes of the three most adventurous friends living in the community.
One evening, in June, they held a graduation ceremony for all the students who were twenty-five years old in the largest square of the shelter.
They had finished their classes and their military training, and therefore were now ready to start their adult life and take all the risks that went with it.
As a reward for finishing their studies, they were each given their favourite weapon.
Sakura picked up her new bow and a quiver full of arrows with silver and wooden tips, a wide smile spreading across her face. She finally had her own weapon and she couldn't have been more eager to use it... but she was a little afraid of what it might feel like to take her first life.
Although vampires didn't really count as living beings, not to her or anyone else.
Tomoyo received a pair of guns that could withstand the bullets of those two materials and Eriol a full set of knives and stakes.
"I'm really proud of you, daughter," said Fujitaka, hugging her.
She returned his embrace, but noticed that some tears were falling down her father's cheeks. Sakura lifted her head and looked at her brother, quizzical.
"You'll be in danger from now on... like all of us," Touya murmured sadly.
"I'll be fine, I'm very strong," she replied, clenching her fists in anger.
Sakura was much stronger than some of her male companions, and she was tired of not being taken seriously because she was a woman.
"Yes, of course you are," Fujitaka replied, placing a kiss on her forehead and smiling at her.
One of the council members took the floor and everyone stopped talking to pay attention.
"From today, you have one week to decide what you want to do for a living. You know your options: you can be sentries, farmers, engineers, doctors, teachers, trainers, architects, trackers, hunters or adventurers. And every year you can change your profession."
"Adventurers, of course," Eriol whispered excitedly.
The two girls smiled as they all listened. Their friend's enthusiasm was contagious to extreme levels.
"Always together," Tomoyo said, holding out her right hand.
"Always together," repeated the other two, placing their hands on top of hers.
Days passed and the ten young graduates presented their choice to the shelter's council inside the main building. All were given the go-ahead to begin their new life as active members of the community.
"Let's see, the future adventurers come this way," murmured an older woman, walking towards one of the rooms.
Sakura, Eriol, Tomoyo and three other boys followed her as the others left the building. After closing the door, she turned to look at them all and sighed.
"I want you to know that what you have chosen sounds very exciting, but it is also extremely dangerous. Chances are that some of you will end up dead, maybe more than one of you. Are you willing to take that risk? If not, now is the time to change your mind."
The six glanced at each other, doubt flashing in their eyes. Three of them lowered their gazes and left the room without a word, including Fay.
"I knew he was a coward," Sakura growled under her breath.
Eriol and Tomoyo stifled a laugh.
"Very well. You three have decided to go ahead and tomorrow you'll be told the areas we want to investigate. They range from nearby villages to more distant cities. You decide where you want to go and you have one year to complete as many areas as you want. The only condition is that you cannot go on your own. You have to go together, as a team."
The three friends looked at each other, smiling, and left the room.
After saying goodbye, they went home to rest. The next day they would start their big trip and they needed to get as much sleep as they could, enjoying the last night in their comfortable beds.
Many tears were shed that morning.
Sakura's father managed to hold it together, but he had to comfort Tomoyo's mother, who was heartbroken that her daughter was going far away and would be in constant danger.
Eriol's parents smiled sadly as they helped him put on the large backpack with everything he needed.
Between the three of them they carried a tent, sleeping bags, many weapons, enough food for a month, several maps, a couple of compasses, a notebook, three pencils, some medicines created in the shelter's laboratory and several stones that would help them light a fire.
Touya walked to his sister, pulling her closer and wrapping his arms around her.
"Be very careful, monster. I want you back," he murmured, squeezing her tightly.
"I'm not a monster! And you were an adventurer for a year, too," she replied, frowning.
"There's a reason I didn't do it again," her brother said sternly.
He released her to go to their father and Sakura shuddered at the memory of Touya's return.
He was twenty-six at the time and had left with his two best friends, Yukito and Nakuru. Their plan was to visit several nearby villages and then go to Tokyo.
A few months later, only he returned and he never wanted to talk about what had happened.
He was now thirty-two years old and preferred to devote himself to tasks that didn't take him too far away from the shelter, though being a sentry also had its risks... but luckily no vampires had appeared in the area for several months.
Tomoyo hugged Touya before standing next to Sakura.
"Don't forget to write down anything you find interesting, and if you meet other people, be very careful what you say to them. You know that some humans are looking for shelters to loot," Touya warned them.
The three of them nodded and glanced at each other.
"Ready?" Eriol asked, smiling.
"Ready," the girls replied with another smile.
"Where are you going first?" Touya asked curiously.
"Our first destination will be Tokyo," said Eriol excitedly.
"It'll take you a week to get there... be careful, four eyes," Touya replied, turning around and walking home.
Sakura watched her brother leave with a serious look on her face. She thought about asking him again what had happened in Tokyo, but she knew he wouldn't say anything about it. She had tried it many times before.
After a few more hugs, the three friends said goodbye to their families and headed for the large metal door, the only entrance to the shelter.
The sentries opened it and let them out, saluting them with a military gesture. They responded to the salute and began to walk, hearing the creak of the door closing behind them. The three of them shuddered.
It was early morning and the sun had just risen. At least twelve hours remained until dusk and the vampires were a problem.
Eriol pulled out one of the maps and Tomoyo placed one of the compasses in her palm.
"Well, to go to Tokyo we must head north," Eriol murmured, pointing to his right.
The three friends started to walk through the forest that surrounded their shelter, gasping with everything they found.
It was wonderful to walk through that place, to be able to touch the ferns growing around the trees, to watch the birds inside their nests... until that day, they had only been able to see those things from the top of the shelter's watchtowers.
They saw several squirrels, but they had enough food for the first month so they decided not to hunt any animals yet.
The three of them had their weapons ready for anything they might encounter. Not only were vampires dangerous... so were some humans who might try to take what little they had.
They walked for several hours until they reached a river, where they filtered and refilled the two bottles of water they had already drunk. After that, they sat down on some rocks to eat something.
"We must zig-zag so that we can collect water. Otherwise, we might die of thirst," Tomoyo commented, staring at the map with a frown.
Sakura and Eriol nodded as they devoured the last bits of their sandwiches. They were used to eating once or twice a day and that was more than enough, but water was absolutely necessary. They would not last long without it, especially in summer.
Two hours before sunset, they stopped near a hillside and chose a couple of trees to pitch their tent.
"How far have we walked today?" Sakura asked as she spread out the tent canvas.
"I think a little over twenty-five kilometres," replied Eriol, using some ropes to climb the tree.
They had been taught how to set it up in the branches of the trees, which was much less dangerous than sleeping on the ground. Once they finished, they covered it with some leaves and watched their work from below. The tent was almost invisible to the naked eye.
"I'll take the first watch," Eriol proposed as the three of them climbed back up and entered the tent.
The two girls nodded and opened their sleeping bags.
It was pitch dark inside the tent. It kept out the sun, in case they ever needed to sleep in the daytime.
The only light they could see was coming through the tent door, where they could see Eriol sitting with his knives and Tomoyo's gun in his lap.
They both found it hard to fall asleep because they were nervous. It was the first night they had slept outside the shelter, and they were now much more aware of all the dangers around them.
Four hours later, Eriol woke Sakura, shaking her gently.
"Everything alright?" she asked as she yawned and sat up.
"Yes, I just saw an owl and a fox," her friend whispered, slipping into the sack she had just vacated.
Sakura sat in the doorway of the tent and picked up the binoculars Eriol had left there. The engineers at the shelter had perfected them to help them see in the dark and had given them some before they left.
She kept silent and glanced around. With no light nearby, her eyes were dark-adapted, and with the glow of the crescent moon high in the sky, she could see the patch of forest beneath the tent quite well.
Sakura looked at her solar wristwatch. In four hours the sun would rise and her first night away from home would finish.
She heard a noise and jumped. Without waiting a second, she checked what it was with the binoculars, sighing in relief when she saw that there was a small rodent scrabbling in the dirt under a bush.
She kept watching, though she was distracted by the bright moon above them. Sakura heard a noise again and used the binoculars, just to confirm that it was another animal.
But her heart skipped a beat.
A boy no more than fifteen years old was walking through the trees, very stealthy. Sakura focused the binoculars and shuddered to see that his eyes were red and his skin was extremely pale.
She dropped the binoculars and held her bow in her left hand, squeezing it tightly. As the boy approached their tent, she began to slowly draw a wooden-tipped arrow from her quiver, trying not to make any noise.
But, as she feared, the vampire could hear it with his incredible hearing.
He looked her in the eye and growled, baring his fangs.
Sakura finished drawing the arrow and placed it in her bow in one motion, aiming at him.
The vampire started running towards her very fast. In just a few seconds, he would catch up to her and things would get very complicated... but she was a very good shot. After years of training, she hoped that all the effort had been worth it.
Sakura breathed in and released the arrow. A scream echoed through the darkness of the forest.
"What the hell is going on?" Tomoyo shouted, coming out of the tent with a gun in her hand.
She saw that Sakura had come down from the tree. She was on the ground, next to a body in the leaves.
She and Eriol looked at each other and went down as well, checking to make sure there was no one else around.
"It was just a boy..." Sakura murmured sadly as her friends approached.
"He was a boy when he turned, but he hasn't been human for a long time," Eriol said, bending down to examine the body.
Several strands of blond hair fell over his face. Both his eyes and his skin had turned grey, lifeless.
And Sakura's arrow was stuck right through his heart.