That day August 21st 1862 was the very last time I would see my mother ever again. She died less then a year later of consumption. My father's once beautiful land become a base for a fat Yankee commander. My sister did forgive me and would write to me every so many months. But those months were adding into years.

Years of serving the confederate army……. A lost cause

I had made a single friend. He had lost his family during an attack on his town and in spite had joined the army. He spoke little, but was friendly. He was a man that was fighting for life, or else a cause, which was slowly dissolving. He was one hell of a marksmen, he had aim that never seemed to miss a target while mine was mediocre. Dwayne Hilsted, became my sole companion in this ragged campaign. His family much like mine was immigrants. Dwayne was of Spanish and Native American decent. His long brown hair was constantly pulled back in a loose ponytail.

We fought together throughout the war. Dwayne was determined that the south would surely win. I fell prey to a gunshot wound at our last battle. The bullet had grazed deathly close to my heart at an angle. The surgeon told Dwayne in my slumber that I would surely die. He sat by me through it all. I felt the coldness creeping up on me. At first there was a constant dark that lingered in my mind. But the darkness tore through me. Demons worked their way into my dreams, my nightmares. I was clinging to a thread of what life was left. On the third day of the surgeon informed me I had a infection that was spreading throughout my body. He asked what he could do to make me comfortable. He was old and slightly round. I spat at his bald figure. I'd promised Mena in my letters I'd come home. I hadn't received any word from her for a couple of months.

Dwayne brought me the a weather worn letter that was sent from home on the forth night. It was from my father, he writing distraught and his letters a mere scribble. Perhaps he was shaking.

David,

I pray that my letter finds you in well circumstances like it has in the past. I have lost my land. The Yankees have taken control over much of South Carolina. Food is scarce now that the weight of the Northern ships stopping supplies has pushed down. It would be in easier with your mother still here.

Even when the war ends, whether we loose or win more suffering will ensure. You come home to a poor man. The northern Yankees are moving into our town. I fear that the war has turned to there favor. What is to become of us? One southern remains rich in town. Maxwell Howell. He turned to the North when we fell their prey. He has hired townsfolk to work in his cotton fields in return for Northern currency. He seems tries his best to help the town. He has been visiting our home a lot the past few months. Always at night.

It is funny. No one seems to see him in the day. I figure he is off talking with the Yankee trash. He says he can make us wealthy again. He only asked for one thing in return. I can't bare to see it pass. Your little sister has grown to a young women, your mother would have been so proud. She had her 17 birthday just last week. She wished for you to come home.

Come home soon David,

Your Father.

I knew that soon the war would come to a silent finish. I couldn't lay in bed and did I had to fight for a new cause. My family needed me. I'd fight the infection and I'd survive all limbs attached.

I did just that. I can not express the emotions that flew out of my body once buried the day of my life when Lee surrender to Grant. Dwayne came with me home. Two men spared from a historic tragedy.

It wasn't my old home. When I caught sight of the ravaged home and burned fields I dropped to my knees. This is what we had fought for. Nothing.

Mena saw me first, she came running a smile stretched across his face. I barely reconfigured her. I could of mistaken her as my mother. She was older, but her frame had remained small but she had surely grown.

The war was painted all over my father's face. His eyes looked tired and his beard and hair was completely gray. He looked small.

My sister laid the news quick. We couldn't survive the carpetbagger's demands. The taxes were to high nothing we had could save us. My father introduced me to the man that said he could save us. This was the first time I saw Max. He looked identical to his present form. He wanted to marry my sister, he said he needed a bride.

Over my dead body.

I wish I had known what my sister had been doing back then I might have saved her. But I'd wouldn't have become a vampire. My sister had lost her faith after my mother died. She befriended Kyatonna, a supposed voodoo priestess or something. Kyatonna was a freed black slave. Ky called my sister little Hera. I didn't know my sister was a friend with a witch. Then again I didn't think back then that they existed, or vampires. I was so naïve back then. In my own rights I was still a child, I had cast aside my youth and joined war. By right of age, I was an grown man.

Max came back one night to talk to my father in private. By midnight he disappeared into the night. My sweet sister was in tears and my father was pale.

They signed an agreement. We were flat broke, and a marriage was arranged.