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Chapter Four
Fight
They Called you. They gave you a Watcher. He took you out during the darkest hour of the night. Telling you to be quiet so you wouldn't wake the town, he led you to the churchyard.
That's where they bury the dead.
Unbelievably, someone — someone you knew — came up, out of the ground. How he did it, you couldn't explain. He was dead. He died three days ago. You attended his burial, comforted his family.
Then your Watcher — you were beginning to fancy him mad — told you that you would be seeing a lot more of the dead rise again. But no, it was not a miracle, and they were not still who they used to be. They had been infested with a demonic soul.
Your Watcher reached into his bag, grabbed something and shoved it into the dead man's chest.
Again, you couldn't explain it. The man you knew suddenly burst into dust.
The man who called himself your Watcher told you it was up to you to keep the spread of these people who raised from the dead — did he say vampires? — down.
He told you it was your job to help people, to save their lives. You would probably receive no credit, no matter how many lives you save. But you still had to do it. You had no choice.
Before he takes you home, he told you one final piece of information: you will probably not live past eighteen.
And right now you are sixteen.
And alone. You are alone in the fight. Completely alone. If you told anyone about it, they would fancy you mad. So you will march on, an unknown hero.
Every day you wake up to could be your last. Every day could be your defeat. But still you stand brave.
Why?
Because if you don't, this job will be forced onto some other girl. She will have to fight them, will have to live with the fact that she, too, will die before she turns eighteen.
So fight on, Slayer. Fight.