No one knew how to react.

  We all waited… and waited some more. What seemed like hours passed as dozens of eyes stared at the spot where Angoroth had just leapt over the wall. I think everyone half expected an army to come barreling back through for another attack, but there was nothing. Just silence. Not a breath was released and all bones were frozen.

  Then one person up in the front broke the quiet.

  A small man with a pointy nose and large mud brown eyes started to laugh. He bellowed and looked around, clapping the man nearest him on the back as he doubled over. One by one, people started to burst into heartfelt laughter and tears, cheering and hugging. After a while I felt a curious lightness in my chest and I found myself laughing, as well. At first, I received several handshakes and light pats on the back. Then a woman ran to me, tears streaming down her face, and pulled me into a tight embrace. People began to crowd around me, hugging, touching my shoulders, grabbing my hands and crying into them. I was so stunned that I just stood there and let it all wash over me.

  This whole ordeal was something I had begged for for so long. I had yearned for something remarkable to happen so that I might get off of my house and make something of myself. It had, indeed, happened, and it had changed so much already in that small amount of time that we battled with a beast. It had been so absurd and abrupt that we all found ourselves contorted with laughter, just happy to be alive.

  That day was no easy task. Surprisingly, there were no deaths. Not even the unconscious girl I had seen with violent wounds. It seemed that Angoroth had only one death to deal this night, and the collateral damage was mostly to property. Various people were poolside, sipping drinks to heal injuries. Some were still unconscious but stable. Others had been taken to the hospital to reset broken bones and check for more serious injuries. The guards in particular took a beating, but some familiar faces seemed to already be returning to the wall. We were, of course, fairly hardy.

  Despite the alarms going off for so long, many of the residents throughout the other portions of the city had not understood the severity of what had been going on at the North wall. Some had even gone about their day and night, blissfully unaware of the battle for life and death happening on the other side of our small world. When the guards had first spotted Angoroth speeding toward the city, the human alarms were the only thing they thought to set off, as we didn’t exactly have an alarm for giant, unknown creatures trying to eat us. Reinforcements had been on the way, but the fight happened so fast and this creature so foreign that no one really knew what to do.

  The Elders were informed and emissaries had come to gather details, perform interviews, and report back. I thought it was pretty annoying that the Elders didn’t come themselves, but I supposed they were too ancient to not have people to delegate for that. My interview was the most detailed, of course. They asked me questions about if I knew this creature, why he came for me, and how I was able to hold my own when the guards couldn’t. I had no answers other than I didn’t know anything and that I just did what I could, what came naturally to me. They didn’t seem pleased with my useless information, but took down notes regardless. They nodded and assured me that workers would be coming to repair the damage to my home as soon as possible. I mumbled my thanks and they were on their way.

  We had an assortment of chaos to clean up around the area. I personally only had my house, for there were so many people who took this as a remodeling opportunity. You had no need for a clean up crew when there were mobs of people that were happy to do it themselves. Anything to fight the boredom of the same old crap. We lived here, day in and day out, so the interior was starting to get pretty stale. I’m sure many had been itching to change the looks of things around the city and this was a well-deserved excuse for everyone to start some new projects. Good. I really didn’t want to help anyway. I chuckled at myself, and my remaining inner arrogance.

  I ducked inside the gaping hole that served as a second entrance to my house and pathetically grabbed a broom and dustpan from a small crevice next to the fridge in the kitchen. The cleaning began.

  I started with the music room. Thank God for hardwood floors; I could only imagine trying to resolve a mess like this with carpets in the way. I would probably end up tearing the whole spread from the floor in a rage, bare hands and all, because glass and splinters layered the floor in a thin blanket. My books were scattered everywhere and the bookshelf was in shambles. The ceiling had holes in it and I could nearly see through to the next floor. Even my closet door had opened slightly and glass was sprinkled in with my clothes. Awesome. Laundry.

  I was incredibly relieved to find that my stereo and music library was all but untouched. Some of the music had fallen off the shelf to the floor so I walked over and tried them out to test their sound. Surprisingly, only one wouldn’t play: an older Frank Sinatra CD. I gritted my teeth at the loss and promised myself I would properly mourn it later. I finally settled with some gentle rock music.

  People were bustling around outside in the early morning light and the noise of chatter cheered me up some. It was strange. The gentleness of it was unusually calming on such a dark day. I closed my eyes and held still for a moment, just listening to all of the laughter and bickering over which color drapes to put up and what type of plants to put around the pool. It was almost soothing to try to enjoy the feeling of having people around that were starting to understand me, maybe even like me, even if it was just a little bit.

  I heard a crunch and my head snapped up at the approaching invader. A girl stood near the open doorway of the destroyed room—she actually came through the real door—and looked down at the crushed shard of glass under her heel, and then up to me with wide, horrified eyes. It was the girl who had thrown the rock, the one who I had saved from nearly being plucked right out of the sky like an injured bird.

  “Sorry…” She mumbled, as she fiddled with a thin, long braid. It ran from wildness at the back of her hair and all the way down her chest, ending just below her breast but above her belly button. “I just wanted to see if you needed help…” She bit her lip and wouldn’t keep my eyes.

  “Oh… well, sure. Thanks.” I wasn’t used to this treatment. I was used to girls being envious and horrible to me, and the men being buffoons; though the men had yet to change my standing on them. Well okay, Danny wasn’t too bad I guess. This whole situation was strange and it was making me uncomfortable. But I shrugged it off and tried to be… hospitable.

  For a moment, she looked as though she hadn’t expected to get this far, or like she had expected me to cast her away. In truth, before these last few weeks, I probably would have. I would never have let another person in the city into my home, no matter how timid or seemingly gentle. However, after everything that had just happened and how things had started to change, I felt more connected to these people.

  “I’ll just…” She scanned for something and seemed panic-stricken again when she didn’t find what she had been looking for.

  “In the kitchen… Next to the fridge.” I said cautiously.

  She scampered out of the room and back again, a broom in hand. “I’ll just…” She took the broom and slowly started sweeping up glass and debris, flinching and apologizing whenever a large piece scraped the floor. After a lot of strained silence and mumbling, she finally spoke again. “So… Eyevoree, right?”

  “Yes.” I said tentatively, not looking up from my cleaning.

  “I’ve heard all about you, and I’ve seen you around, but I always thought you didn’t like to talk to anyone… I always saw you by yourself and you never really came down from your roof and I was going to talk to you. I almost did one time, I was nearly there, but I thought you might…” She looked down again and released a little puff of air, “Sorry. I ramble sometimes...”

  I had my back turned to her, so I didn’t try to hide the hint of a smile that played along my lips. Slowly turning and pretending to sweep some glass into a pile, I peeked at her. She was fixated on the task she was performing. Looking at her closer now, I could see that she might be a little older than me. Not by too much, maybe a year or two; who knows how old she was in vampire years. I was only nineteen or twenty from what I could remember so she was early twenties at most. Her wavy hair was a sandy brown with glimmers of blonde and red, and it was savage. It was mid length, just below the shoulders and flew in all directions, giving her the look of a wildcat. That one, lone braid ran down her front. It seemed to grow longer than her loose hair, as if she never trimmed it with the rest. I tried not to stare and stole glances at her as she tiptoed around the mess. Finally, I turned away and continued sweeping, too shocked to comprehend what was happening here and now. A girl my age… just here with me, and being nice.

  “I see I’m sort of at a disadvantage,” I said. She cocked her head, puzzled. “I don’t know your name, I’m sorry.”

  “Oh. Well, you wouldn’t. How could you? My name is Laycee,” She reached out her hand for mine, “Pleased to meet y—”

  She tripped then, on what I don’t know, and would have face planted into a pile of broken glass had I not already been reaching out. I caught her outstretched hand and heaved her to her feet.

  “Oh gosh… I’m so sorry. I’m so clumsy. I’m really sorry,” she fondled her braid again and returned to silently chewing her lip.

  This girl was so silly, standing here feeling guilty for almost tripping into a mess in my house caused by a massive creature that was trying to kill me. She was so childlike and petite, her head only rising to my shoulder and her tiny, hourglass body turned inward all the way down to her pigeon toes.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  I couldn’t help it. I bursted into laughter.

  She stared with incredulous, green eyes and gaped at me doubling over, hands on my knees. “What is so funny?” She asked with a squeak. Her mouth hung wide and it only brought tears to my eyes. She started to nervously laugh too, but she was uncertain. I presumed she was trying to decide if I was cruel or just insane. “You’re… you’re laughing at me!”

  “I’m not!” I choked into my hands. I dropped the broom and tried to muffle my laughter, but it seeped through my fingers.

  “You are! What’s so funny?” She was half laughing, half angry and embarrassed.

  “This is all just so much,” I said between gasps, “The house, the fight, you here in my house.” Her smile began to fade and she was starting to look at me like I had absolutely lost my mind. I might have. “You are just here after everything that happened, and you are apologizing for tripping over… I don’t know, your own feet?” I gestured to her legs and lost it again.

  I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I continued to laugh and she continued to eye me in wonderment, all the while taking on a few giggles of her own as her anger lessened and she saw the humor in what I found so amusing. I couldn’t explain why it was so funny to me, but there was something so innocent about all of it that shone like a light through everything that had happened this night.

  Most of the things she had uttered so far had been no more than a whisper, but now as she scolded me, I finally heard her. Her voice was a small chirp, like a tiny bird. Her laugh trilled like a series of tinkling bells. She was marvelous, this small girl, and she made my life just a bit less miserable with her chimes.

  In this small moment of laughter that we shared, our lives had already intertwined.

  * * *

  Three weeks had passed since Angoroth’s break in and our episode in my music room, and already we were inseparable. Something about her had caught me off guard and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it the innocence of her shy stature? My rescue from Angoroth’s jaws? The fact that she had approached me at all? She had become my best friend, something I never thought would happen in a million years, or however long we vampires live. Though I enjoyed the nervous friendship I still shared with Danny, this was different. I needed a girl in my life. I hadn’t known just how badly I needed a girl in my life. I hadn’t remembered what it felt like and meant to have someone who understood you on a level that couldn’t be replicated by a boy or a partner. It sounded strange, but it just meant more to know that you had another girl in your corner, especially when I had struggled so much with insecurity in this life.

  That day, I had offered to show her around my house and her curiosity pulled her through the vastness of my mansion. I walked her through all the ballrooms, dens, and dining areas, and even stumbled upon some hidden rooms I didn’t know about either—one of which had a wide open space that I considered putting a spa in the place of—and we explored together. Though I had seen them before, the walls and rooms seemed to extend on and on without ever wanting to stop. Finally, we had hit the end and we ventured upstairs, which was just as large, only it held smaller rooms and bedrooms.

  She had stared, eyes bugging at the size and beauty, and she only asked a few questions here and there, keeping silent as if to truly suck in the view without distraction. This had been how I reacted when I first took a self-tour of the house I had awoken in.

  Now that she had grown accustomed to my house and me, she was far more open. She was spunky and sharp. She was sassy and made jokes and quips in my direction. She especially liked to pick at my distaste for blood. She’d roll around on me, gargling, with a drink in her hand, and she’d laugh her tinkling bells until I succumbed to laughter myself.

  “Eyevoree!” I heard her sing from somewhere on the bottom floor, and then a crash and a great deal of swearing.

  I had taken to “Laycee proofing” my house, for she had not been unrealistic when she said she was clumsy. She ran into anything that obstructed her path, and some things that weren’t even in her path. Whether it was big, small, in plain sight, hidden. Whether it was pitch black or bright as day. No matter what it was, she managed to hit something with her mini shins or trip up with her toddler feet. I had to keep glass things tucked into the corners of the house and pick up anything that had taken home upon the floor. I had also found an excuse to put effort into removing all of the itchy, hideous rugs that were in a lot of my rooms. No matter how flat it was, she managed to catch her toe on a corner and trip, heels over head, onto the ground.

  “Oh Eyevoree, there you are,” she emerged from around the corner holding a blood drink in each hand, drops dribbling down the sides of each cup and over her hands.

  I scrunched my nose at her, “Laycee, please. Must you come here just to make me sick? And make a mess. You need a sippy cup.” I grabbed the cloth that I kept near, specifically for her messes, and I threw it at her. I landed right on top of her head and she glared, making me giggle.

  “Oh, stop being so dramatic. Hey, you are lucky you have a friend like me, or you’d be dead in a week. They’re good for you, like vegetables.. Now drink.” She shoved the cup into my face and pursed her lips to slurp at hers, lowering the level. I wrinkled my nose again and gave her a sour look, but took the cup from her. She began cleaning up and chortled at my glower.

  “You know, putting a bendy-straw and a little umbrella in it does not make it, in any way, more appealing,” I said grimly, pointing to her measly attempt at humor.

  She was sitting on the end of the bed now with her legs crossed and one eyebrow raised, more than half of her drink gone. “That is so gross! How do you do that? It’s so…hnnng...mmmmpf.” I pretended to heave and throw up behind my bed.

  “It’s really not. It was easy to get used to, considering it tastes so good, and you can’t even say it doesn’t. And it makes you feel awesome, like you can take on a monster. You remember right?” She winked, referencing when I drank the blood the night Angoroth came. I rolled my eyes. “Just don’t think about where it comes from and it won’t bother you. It’s like drinking a Bloody Mary… only as traditional as it gets. See? Mmm…” She sipped again at her blood and smacked her lips with a goofy grin on her face and her eyes crossed.

  “Wow. You’re sick,” I said, looking at her like I was horrified. She giggled and then, with a slightly more serious face, pointed to my drink like a mother scolding her child and telling them to eat their greens. I sniffed the edge of the cup and pretend-vomited again, even though it really did smell good.

  “Yea okay, whatever,” she said, shaking her head. She walked over to the window. I started to sip at the straw and then was taken in completely, closing my eyes, overwhelmed by the desire, as usual.

  It was easier to drink with Laycee. She made me feel less ghoulish when she was near. When Laycee drank with me, it didn’t feel bad at all. She was so sweet and charming that it made my disdain feel less overbearing. Balanced me out. And it calmed my nerves to the sweet smelling liquid. It was like she made me feel almost normal, like this was right, and not doing it was wrong. I started to sip, and then gulp, and eventually I was slurping the remains at the bottom so loud that she turned around to look at me, laughter playing at the corners of her mouth.

  “I thought it was gross?” Her lips twitched.

  “You’re going to take this to your face if you don’t shut up, Laycee cat.” She rolled her eyes and opened the window, leaning out of the screen-less frame, her chin resting on her hands.

  I remembered then when she first asked me why I started calling her Laycee cat. It had been a few days after we met and she had started to find enjoyment in leaning out the windows. None of my windows had screens so she would fling them open and balance over the edge, the wind rippling through her wild hair.

  “Why do you call me that? Laycee cat, I mean,” she had asked that day when I made a remark about how she was going to faceplant into my new garden. She had been nearly falling out of the highest window of the house, the highest peak that I took for my sanctuary.

  “Well look at you,” I gestured up and down her body, “you’re sleek and slender, and you have bright green eyes that remind me of a bobcat. And your hair; it is so wild that it seems to have a mind of its own.”

  She patiently walked to the mirror to look at herself, trying to understand what I saw. She began to fiddle with her braid.

  This was her way. Whenever she was thinking, or shy, or just dozing off, she played with the long braid that always ran down the left half of her chest. It grew fast. Sometimes she would snip at the ends to keep them from splitting due to the constant fondling, but it always hung long, and she constantly kept it at the length of her navel.

  “Plus, you seem to enjoy leaning so dangerously out of my windows. I know that I wouldn’t hit the ground if I fell, but your wings are not as quick as mine,” I put my hand to my chest in mock superiority. “You are fearless, but I don’t quite know if you’ll land on your feet.”.

  She leaned way out over the edge of the frame and peered down at the ground below her, judging the distance, and seemed to start doing math in her head. Then scoffed, “Pfft… I could make it…” She mumbled.

  She turned back and walked over to the couch I was sitting on, and plopped down. She faced me, her head on the back of the couch, staring at me.

  “What?” I asked, my brow furrowed.

  She bluntly asked, “What do you think Angoroth wanted?”

  I was no longer smiling. That was the first time she had brought up Angoroth since he had come. I didn’t like thinking about him. I wasn’t afraid, I just could never understand… Why me? It made my head swim trying to understand what he meant when he spoke of my destiny.

  She stared off into space, “I mean I know he wanted to take you or kill you, and I mean he said that he needed you to die, but that guy he worked for was bad. He really didn’t seem like he wanted to do all that stuff. Well he said he worked for someone but I don’t know if he was telling the truth, about having Angoroth’s people and family held prisoner, but what—”

  “Laycee…” I cut off her mindless rant.

  “Sorry. Why do you think he said you needed to die? I honestly think about that every day. I have every day since it happened, since he was here.”

  “I really don’t know,” I stared into space. I truly didn’t know. “I think about it, too. I can’t get his words out of my head.”

  Once you harness your true powers, you will be a great danger to us all. This is what is foretold.

  I wish I knew what he was trying to tell me. My true powers? I had always thought that I was unique enough. Was there really more to me that I had yet to understand?

  Was I more of a threat to this world than I thought?