Chapter 1

It was a dark night and there was a crescent moon in the sky. A girl was walking down a brick path in the park surrounded by trees. She was carrying a bag and wearing a long sleeved shirt that clearly showed her neck and a long pair of jeans. There was no need for a jacket because it was a warm night.

As she walked down the path, she soon saw a semi-bright light up ahead. She continued walking and later came to a small, circular area with a single street light on and a bench underneath it. She walked to the bench and sat down, placing her bag next to her on the bench. She then reached into her bag and grabbed a book. She opened the book and began to read; once the book was open, the cover could no longer be seen because the light didn't shine bright enough. She had a watch on her wrist that clearly showed it was a little past 11 o'clock. Time passed, and as the minutes went by a man could be seen walking down the path.

He came over to the girl and asked, "Can I sit here?" while pointing to the empty spot on the bench.

The girl simply nodded without looking up and continued reading. There was a grim feeling in the air between the two of them.

"What are you doing out here?" The man asked breaking the silence between them. The girl sighed and closed her book, showing a blank back cover as she put it on her lap. Placing her hands on the sides of her legs, she gazed up at the man.

"I'll tell you if you tell me first" the girl replied with a faint smile on her face.

The man gave a slight chuckle and simply said "on a walk," His smile mimicked hers.

The girl then put on a cocky smile and replied; "Really now?"

The man put on a curious face and said "Really, but what are you doing out here all alone? "

"I came out here to read. It's so calming and peaceful. Don't you think so?" she replied, turning her cocky smile morphed into sincerity.

The man nodded and looked up at the sky facing forward with his arms behind the bench.

"The moon is so nice, I see why you come out here," he said still looking up at the sky and the girl turned her head to look at him and did not take her eyes off him.

There was an acquired silence between them until the man spoke up, "Do you believe in vampires?" He asked bluntly, turning his face toward her keeping his arms behind the bench.

"No I do not," she said as she got up and the book that was on her lap dropped to the ground showing the pages.

"You really should," he then smiled showing his fangs, and a scared expression found its way upon the girls face. The man pulled the girl closer with his right hand. He leaned forward and got closer to her flesh.

"You really should," he repeated, before biting down into her neck. The street light flickered and she winced before she completely shut her eyes from the pain of the man's fang digging into her neck. There was blood dripping down the side of her neck as the girl's blood flowed into his mouth. Her strength was slowly disappearing, and then gathering what strength she had left she reached into her bag that was still on the bench and grabbed a wooden stake out of the bag. She then swiftly plunged the stake into the vampire's cold heart making him yell out in pain and release his fangs from her neck. The vampire then fell to the ground and slowly disintegrated into a pile of ash.

The girl on the other hand fell to the ground onto her knees, clutching her neck from the immense pain. She was breathing heavy as fangs formed in her mouth. The girl raised the stake in the air, closed her eyes and plunged it into her own heart. She gasped from the pain and turned into a pile of ashes as well.

The wind blew and swept away the ashes. The pages in the book now stained with blood, turned rapidly, closing it and showing the cover. The light stopped flickering and became brighter. The cover of the book had a picture of a cross and had a title written across it, in a bloody font. The title read......

My eyes shot open and then I slowly closed them as I rolled over on my side and pulled the covers over my head. I'd been having that same exact dream for a while now. I just watched the whole thing happen, and waited for it to end. What was strange, though, was that even though I have had this same dream, I get scared every time. I never heard the names of the people in my dream, and their faces were never visible enough to recognize who they were.

The sound of footsteps pulled me from my thoughts. They got louder as they came down the hallway and stopped at my door. My door opened, and I knew who it was since we went through the same thing every morning.

"Selena, wake up," my brother, Adam's, voice could be heard throughout my once silent room.

I groaned and curled up tightly under my covers, and without even looking at my brother I could already tell he was annoyed and tired of the same old routine. Two seconds later, I heard a 'click' from my light switch. Light poured though my blanket, burning my eyes. I shot up from current position, tossing my blanket aside.

"Turn it off!" I hissed as my eyes started to water from the now bright light that was shinning into my eyes, blinding me. I could see my brother smirking as I grabbed a pillow and chucked it at him, trying to keep my eyes open. He left the room before it could hit him and instead hit the door frame and fell to the floor, unfortunately leaving the lights on. I sighed and swung my legs over the side of my bed keeping my eyes closed as I made my way to the switch. I was almost there too when I tripped, catching myself on the wall turning the lights off in the process.

Rubbing my eyes I walked over to my closet picking out my clothes then heading into the bathroom to get ready for school. When I was almost ready to head downstairs; I looked around my room, my eyes already over the sudden pain from before.

'I don't know why I just don't take out those stupid light bulbs. My room already as a lamp and at least that light isn't so bright.'

I walked over to it and switched it on letting the dim light fill the room. I grabbed my bag, and then looked up to find Matt hanging from the ceiling in his usual spot.

If you hadn't figured it out already, Matt's a bat, and, yes, I know it rhymes. When I was little the name just came to me, so I stuck with it. I could never regret giving him that name.

On my high ceiling, I have a bunch of strings, over lapping and cris-crossing in every direction. Matt usually sleeps and hangs out in the far back right corner, away from the lights, and could you blame him with my brother coming in every morning? However, it really doesn't matter to me because usually he sleeps when I go to school and follows me around when I get home. Plus, I find it to hard to sleep at night, and having someone to talk to until I fall asleep is pretty nice, even if I'm the one doing all the talking.

I don't know what kind of bat Matt is, but I know he likes sweet fruit since he steals it from me whenever I have any. I also hang fruit from the ceiling for him. As far as I know, he doesn't like bugs but he does prey on small rodents, which is what my aunt likes about him. All in all, I just assume he's a fruit bat and leave it at that, not that it matters to me.

I watched him stretch his wings and fly down on my now outstretched arm, wrapping his wings around himself yet again.

"Hey, Matt! Did you have a good night sleep?"

He flew out the door heading down the stairs.

"I'll take that as a yes."

I wasn't expecting an answer since I cant speak bat, but at the same time I've known him so long that I think I could pretty much guess what he would say if he could speak.

Heading down the stairs, I turned into the kitchen. Adam was already eating breakfast, along with my uncle who was reading the paper and my aunt was on her laptop. I just sat down and picked at some fruit taking a bite out of a piece of toast.

My aunt Valarie was kind of a businessperson type of person; she had shoulder length blonde hair and brown eyes. She wears normal clothes, that on her looked they were made for the queen herself. My aunt really took charge and was a good leader, when she wanted to be.

My uncle Charles was a little more laid back where my aunt is serious. He does the housework, cleaning and cooking to avoid my aunts rat poison she calls 'food'. He has brown hair and hazel eyes, and I guess he was good looking - I really don't have an opinion, but every girl around him seems to. Many girls like him but he never pays attention to them; either he has no interest in them or it's because he's married to my aunt, who would kill him if he so much as get within a foot of them.

Lastly my brother Adam, like me, has long black hair; his was just above his shoulders and had a kind of messy look. He was wearing a black button down shirt, black pants and a black jacket.

Adam was somewhat strange he had his annoying brother moments but he was really protective at times too. I sometimes felt like if someone were to tap me on the shoulder he would kill them before their finger was two inches away from me. I guess that's somewhat over doing it, but what the hell do I know?

"Selena, don't forget to pick up those from the store on your way from school with your brother OK?" My uncle reminded me.

I rolled my eyes at my uncle, 'Like I could forget, I've been waiting forever to for my books to come in' "Don't worry I won't forget."

I held my fork with a piece of melon on the end, letting Matt swoop down and from his place on the door front to grab the fruit.

"Selena! What have I said about feeding him from the table?" (My aunt yelled at me like this every morning.)

"Technically, Val, it was off my fork," I said, as I pushed back my chair then put my dishes by the sink. I had Matt hanging from my arm and was now petting him.

"You shouldn't feed him so much, he's starting to get fat," Adam said, with a smug look on his face.

"He is not! He gets plenty of fly time and its fruit; there's virtually no fat." I stuck out my tongue at him as we headed out the door. This is one of those annoying brother moments that just suck, especially having to deal with them so early in the morning.

As we got to the door, I stood far away from it as Adam opened the door and started to head out, and then stopped to look back at me.

"Are you coming or not?" he was just a few steps out the door. I took a deep breath and stepped outside the door, greeted with a rush of hot air. I have no idea why out of all the places my aunt and uncle could have lived that they had to choose Florida. It was way too hot, and it was almost winter! Then, to top it all off, the sun was hardly out and it was probably 80 degrees out already.

It was one of those days were Matt was flying overhead and Adam was walking close to me. There was a very awkward silence, and I kept staring at the ground as I walked beside my brother. It was sometimes quiet on our way to school. Other times Adam would talk to me, and vice-versa.

"Why do you keep that thing?" He said breaking the silence.

"What?"

I really wasn't paying attention this morning not that I ever really did.

"I said 'Why do you keep that thing?'" His voice had a hint of annoyance in it.

"What thing? My bag? I know its kind of old but it's still good," I said, slightly holding up my bag and looking at it.

He sighed, talking a deep breath, trying to be patient with me. "No, not the bag, that thing." He pointed to Matt.

"What's wrong with him? I thought you liked bats," I said, surprised maybe less then I should be, but it was still morning and you can't expect much from me right now, or really any time.

"I like bat's it's just that . . . "his voice trailed off trying to explain. "Never mind," He finally said and gaining speed, he went ahead of me.

I, on the other hand, was staying behind, kind of confused. After our parents died, I had found Matt and we instantly bonded (When I found him, my window was open and he just flew in.). Adam never seemed to like Matt, or the fact that I spent most of my time with him.

My room was fairly lit as I sat on my bed, reading my favorite book, Interview with a Vampire. I had just moved in with my aunt Valerie and Uncle Charles. It was cloudy outside from a recent thunderstorm, and the windows were open, letting in a pleasant breeze.

Matt had just flown in and did a U-turn then landed on my bed. I put my book down, crawled over to him at the end of the bed, and picked him up. I was around five and had to use both hands to pick him up since they were too small.

"Awwwww, you're so cute!" my small, somewhat squeaky voice said with a big smile on my face.

My brother walked in. "Hey Selena... what is that?" He asked surprised.

My aunt and uncle came in and stared at me. All three of them were wide eyed and had their mouths hanging open.

I jumped off my bed and ran over to them, a smile painted on my face and Matt still in my hands. "Aunt Valerie, Uncle Charles, can I keep him? Can I, please?" I said in my sweet little five-year-old voice. I could tell from their looks, even at five, they really weren't totally sure what they were going to do.

Just then, there was a small squeak from the corner of the room. Valarie screamed and pointed to a mouse in the corner, while standing as close to Charles as possible. I felt Matt squirm in my hands, I let him go and he swooped down, grabbing the mouse and dropped it in front of my Uncle, then flew back to me.

"H-he killed it," Valarie stuttered in surprise.

"Good boy Matt. That was awesome!" I said while petting him.

"Matt?" Adam said in confusion.

"That's what I named him; I think it sounds perfect for him."

"Well, it's settled then. Matt can stay!" Valerie said, now over her little panic attack.

"But it's a bat! Is it really a suitable pet for Selena?" Charles whispered, leaning slightly toward Val.

"Of course, and if it makes her happy then it should be fine," She whispered back.

"Hear that Matt? You can stay, isn't that great?!" I was laughing and spinning around as Matt circled me from above. I went over to Adam and looked up at him with a big smile on my face. "What do you think big brother?"

"Whatever," Adam left, followed by Aunt Valerie and Uncle Charles, leaving Matt and me alone.

I walked over on to my bed, falling on top of it and Matt was by my side as I closed my eyes.

I caught up with Adam, once again walking close to him. When we got close to the school, I stopped, Adam was a few steps a head, looking back at me. I held out my arm for Matt to land on.

"You have to head home now Matt, OK?"

He obeyed and flew off in the other direction, heading home. Seconds later, Jason came from the intersection in front of us. Jason was my best friend and kind of my only one. People in school thought I was weird. I had black hair with some red highlights tied up in a black ribbon and bat clips in my hair. I'm wearing a black top with black fingerless gloves that went up to my elbow. I had a pair of black jeans and combat boots. Normal right? Wrong! In this school, if you wear black at all, it's like saying, 'Stay away from me, I'm scary.' It was simple, either be a jock, prep, nerd, 'normal', or be shunned the entire time you were there. The whole thing was unfair, but I had Jason and Adam, so I didn't care that much.

Now back to Jason, he had wonderful dark red hair, and if you said, it was orange in any way you were either colorblind or completely stupid. Like Adam and me, he wears black. He has a black shirt with skulls on it (always a classic), along with black pants that had red stitching and chains hanging from them.

Jason was really cool, and if he didn't wear black all the time then he could probably be popular, but I'm glad that he hangs out with us. He's always looking after me in a brotherly way; not as much as Adam, but kind of like that. Plus he can beet the shit out of any of the jocks in the school.

"Hey, Selena, why don't you come over after school and hang out? It shouldn't matter since its Friday, right?" Jason said pulling me away from my thoughts.

"That should be fine, we probably won't get much homework so why don't we do it together?"

"That would be cool, that way we have the whole weekend to hang out too."

I just smiled and nodded back at Jason. He didn't live far, and he would usually meet us at our house since it was right on his way to school. This week, though he had to take care of some old guys' house in the morning before school. It didn't seem to bother him but I thought it was stupid that he had to do it so early in the morning. I think it was about turning something on or off, or something like that; I'm just glad it was the last day he had to go over there, since I like it when Jason's there with us.

When we finally got to school, going through the halls was a nightmare. When we entered school grounds, everything gets suddenly quiet, and everyone starts to stare at us as we walk through the school. I could hear whispers as we passed everyone in the hall, and if they weren't staring at us then I wouldn't have minded so much.

"Don't' worry about them," Adam said.

I looked up at my brother; he just kept facing forward with a blank expression on his face. It never truly surprised me how my brother could keep such an expressionless face in these kind of situations.

Adam and Jason dropped me off at my first class and walked off. I completely hated it; I don't have any classes with them except lunch, by pure luck, and gym. Gym was horrible; not only did we the three of us have different teachers, but the stupid teachers almost never did any kind of class activities that involved all three classes.

I'm two years behind Adam and Jason, I'm fifteen and they're seventeen. My aunt one day decided that it's funny and calls me the baby of the group because she realized that I was the youngest between Jason, Adam and me.

That was not a happy day for me, the worst part was that she just had to go and mention that I was the youngest in the family too. Being called a baby isn't something that anyone wants to be called, especially from your aunt. I hate being the youngest; it makes me feel distant from everyone else. Now she won't let me forget that day and calls me the baby in the family. I personally just think that she does it so she doesn't feel old.

My classes droned on as usual, the entire time I just stared at the clock, waiting for lunch to come so I could see Adam and Jason again.

"Mrs. Zaulinear, attention." Unfortunately not all my teachers liked this, for example, my math teacher didn't totally approve of me staring at the clock the entire class period.

"Selena if you don't pay attention, then you'll have to do the problem on the board." (Oh so SCARY!).

"I'd love to, but why don't you have someone who doesn't know the answer do it so then they might actually learn something in this class" I responded.

OK, so maybe that was a little over the line, but I really wasn't in the mood for that right now, and it didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that every kid in the class was thinking the same thing.

Mr. Know-It-All was obviously angry at my response.

"No I'd rather you do it," he said.

I stood up and grabbed a piece of chalk, then looked at the problem for a few seconds. I worked on the problem going step by step, covering the entire board with numbers and symbols. I had my calculator in hand to avoid unnecessary mental math and it took time to finish the problem since Mr. Know-It-All liked it when we showed the steps as we worked. When I was done, the answer came out to be 3.82561546864512345664, rounded to 3.8. The room went silent as I stood there in the front of the class staring at Mr. Know-it-All.

"So is that right?" I asked, knowing it was.

He snapped out of his mental shock and looked at the board.

"Very good. You can sit down now," he said.

I went back to my seat as he went over the problem.

The bell rang and I put my books away and headed over to Jason and Adam's lockers. Then three of us headed over to the lunchroom and went to our usual table. It was round and had only three chairs since everyone takes the other chairs not that we cared since it was just the three of us. We sat down with our usual lunches: I had PB&J and an apple, Adam had some leftover roast beef in a sandwich, and Jason had turkey. I looked around at everyone around. The cafeteria was serving sloppy Joes (A.K.A dog crap between two rocks). There was a reason we never bought lunch.

"Hey, guys, I'm getting something to drink. What do you want?" I asked while standing up.

"Get me a coke," Jason said handing me the money.

"Water," Adam replied handing me money as well.

"Cool. Be right back," I said as I rushed out the door over to the machine outside the cafeteria.

The school thought if it was in the cafeteria then it would cause everyone to crowd the room so no one could get around. Frankly, I was just glad that no one was there waiting on line. I fed the machine the money and grabbed the coke, water and lemonade for me, then headed back.

"Hey, freak!"

I stopped dead in my tracks, turning around to see Sam and his little gang coming my way. Sam was a big football guy in our school and I hated him. I never did anything to him and he wouldn't leave me alone. "Hey, freak, how's it going?" he stood in front of me with his 'crew' members beside him.

"My name's not freak, you retard," I hissed at him, the bottles in hand.

"Oh, it looks like you got a back bone today," him and his crew laughed as they formed a circle around me.

"You really shouldn't take on people bigger than you, freak. You and those other guys should just go and hide in a nice dark hole where you belong." They stared to laugh again.

I held the bottles one arm and clenched my other hand into a fist, then tried to punch him in the stomach. He caught it and pinned my arm behind my back, causing me to drop the bottles on the floor. I try to get out of his grip but he squeezed my wrist almost breaking it. "Not very strong, are you?" he said smiling like an idiot.

"Let me go you bastard!" I screamed.

He bent my wrist and I could hear the snap echo through the hall. I was holding back a scream, my eyes shut tight waiting for it to end.

I heard a scream from one of the other guys, and opening my eyes I saw Jason standing in the hall with one guy on the ground and the others backing away slowly.

"Jason! Adam!" I took a deep breath and used my other arm to elbow Sam in the stomach. He released my wrist and I ran to the guys, then stood behind them.

Sam was clenching his stomach. Him and his gang backed up and started to walk away.

"I'll get you next time for this," Sam yelled as they went down the hall.

I went over to the bottle and picked them up of the floor. "Thanks," I said then we started to walk back to the cafeteria. When Adam and Jason stopped in the middle of the hall, I turned around and stared at them, "What?"

"What do you mean 'what'? That guy almost snapped your wrist in half and you don't seem to be even a little phased."

Adam was pissed and I guess I deserved it, but there was no doubt in my mind that they wouldn't have saved me.

"I could have taken him on but there were almost five other guys. In any case, you guys came so it shouldn't have mattered right? Plus, we're in school; what's the worst he could have done?"

"Wrong," Jason took a step closer, "it might have been on school property this time, but what about next time and you're not on school property?"
"Then I'll go all out and knock him down," I punched the air with one fist then turned back around and started to walk. I was stopped by Adam putting his hand on my shoulder.

"No offense, but you not the strongest person. You won't be able to take them on by yourself."

I looked up, "Well, it's a good thing I have you guys then."

Adam's grip loosened on my shoulder and his face softened.

Jason took the drinks out of my hand said as he looked away. "You should probably go to the nurse about your wrist."

"I'm fine, no need to worry. See?" I bent my wrist and you could hear it crack from a mile away.

"May-maybe your right," I struggled with my words trying not to show pain in my voice. I was holding my wrist as the guys walked me to the nurse.

When we got to the nurses office it was empty except for the nurse that was sitting at her desk. When we stepped in, she looked up from the computer. "So what seems to be the problem?" She had a gigantic smile that seemed to be permanently drawn on her face. She looked like she enjoyed it when kids came to her in pain, and she looked dumber than a rock; a very, very, very, very, very, very, very small rock. It was as if she was blind. It was so obvious that the person holding their wrist and had pain basically stamped all over their face was perfectly healthy.

Adam pushed me forward, "We think she might have sprained her wrist, could you look at it?"

"Sure. Come this way and sit down on the bed."

She led us around the corner and guided me to a bed.' I don't know what is about school nurses but they never know what to do. Adam said my wrist hurt and when I sat down, she stuck a thermometer in my mouth.' I thought to myself, 'what does that having a fever or with my wrist?'

When she left, I turned to Adam, and said "This is stupid."

"Bear with it for now," he replied.

I gave him a look then shifted my eyes to my wrist. It was only a few seconds later before the nurse came back. She grabbed the thermometer from my mouth and look at it raising it to the light.

"Hm, must be broken."

Adam held out his hand as she handed it to him. 'Why does he have to look at it?' I thought. 'He must really think she's stupid,' that was the only reason that I could come up with while I stared at him holding the thermometer up to the light.

"You're right, it's probably broken," he handed it back to her and she threw it out turning her attention back to me. 'No wonder she's happy now, that's probably the first time someone said that to her.' I was pulled away from my thoughts by the nurse grabbing my wrist and poking it.

"Does that hurt?" She said as she kept poking it in various places while asking the same question repeatedly;

'You'd think after I kept saying 'Ow!' the first 20 times she'd understand that I was in pain. To her 'ow' probably meant, 'No, I'm fine. Really, keep on poking my sprained wrist. It doesn't hurt at all!'' I thought to myself.

"Well you definitely sprained it. I'll wrap it up so it doesn't move too much and it can heal properly. You should also put some ice on it."

'No really? I don't know what you have to learn to become a school nurse, but even I knew that.'

"'Kay," I relayed wanting to get out of here.

I watched her as she wrapped my wrist and handed me ice to put on it.

"You can probably go home now. Do you want to call for a ride?"

I thought about it for a minute. 'Aunt Val will probably be busy with work; Charles will be busy doing whatever he does at home, leaving Matt the only one there to talk to until Adam and Jason get home.'

After a few seconds I made up my decision.

"Can I stay here 'til school ends?"

She gave me a look.

"I mean there are only a couple of classes left in the school day so it should be fine, right?"

"Fine, just rest here then." She got up and left the three of us alone.

"You should go home," Adam gave me a look of disapproval.

"It's not broken, and besides I'd rather stay here and wait for you guys."

Looking up at them I could see, Adam wasn't happy with my decision and Jason was being as protective as my brother, giving me the same look.

The bell rang, Jason and Adam left and I was left to just wait around in the nurse's office. I spread myself out on the bed and stared up at the ceiling as I waited for the day to end.

The clock seemed to stop moving, but its ticking echoed throughout the room. I stood up and walked over to the window, looking up out into the sky. Dark clouds were everywhere and covered the sky, engulfing it and leaving no traces of the sun's light anywhere.

'When did it get cloudy outside?' I asked myself.

All the sudden, I stopped breathing.

'Where did my voice go?' I tried screaming for the nurse, Jason, Adam, anyone. I ran for the door, but when I got to the corner there was nothing there, just an empty wall. I looked back for the window but it was gone. I sunk down onto the floor and hugged my knees. The light was disappearing slowly from the room, I couldn't see anything.

'It's all disappearing, everything.'