Living in the Shadows

Author's note: Hey! This is my first story here. Woo! Anyhoo it's about a female vampire who was made a vampire against her will and due to rebelling against the rest of her "pack" by wanting to be human she's been outcast and is now running from her own kind. Set in present day.

Please review, Constructive critism is welcome but don't be harsh. :P Enjoy. Rozzie

Chapter 1 - First Night On The Job

I examined my pale hands for the fifth time that night. My skin used to be a rich tan but with this new blood my skin had turned cold. It was almost transparent. My fingernails were perfectly normal as they had been when I was alive. Alive. I'm already talking as if I were dead. I'm not dead, I refuse to be. Besides we're generally called the 'undead'.

I ran my hands over my face, I could still feel the flesh. It was cold. Very cold. Slipping my palms further up I felt my black curls of hair as soft as they had ever been. It was strange although I wasn't sure why. It had always felt like that before I was turned into one of the undead so why didn't it seem to fit now?

I heard one of my pack roll over and I saw his breath in the cold air. My pack. I'm not one of them, I'm not dead. Yet I still remember dying...

It's not like everyone thinks. There's no light at the end of the tunnel type stuff, no voices of reassurance. I remember feeling my life slip away as I lay awake but paralyzed. I couldn't move but didn't want to. I felt my grasp on life escape and my body accepted the special blood that now binds me to an eternity of living in the shadows. I knew I wanted it, I wanted the blood and I laughed and gasped in pleasure as I felt it flow through my viens, changing my body, changing me. I remember he stood above me, my blood on his lips and a grim smile displaying the lust he felt watching me transform. My body writhed and jerked involintarily and I was in a trance of perfection. This lasted a few hours before the stage I am in now began.

After a time I began to feel drained yet full at the same time. My breathing was laboured and petrified. I saw him move in the darkness and gasped as he touched my hand. He covered me with a blanket and laid a kiss of blood upon my lips. I had the urge to lick them and did so with satisfaction. The blood tasted sweet, beautiful. Suddenly I was aware of this feeling. It had begun when my transformation had begun but had been ignored until now. I was hungry. This time I couldn't ignore my thirst for blood. I couldn't push it away so when I was offered the corpse of a young man I drank him greedily until his viens were dry. Then I felt ashamed.

"Hey. What's wrong with you?" The boy that had rolled over looked at me. He'd never seen me before as I'd been sneaked back to my sire's pack while the others were asleep. Yet somehow he knew I was like him. There was a sense that told me that he was like me too.

"Hello? Are we awake over there?" I released a breath quickly, afraid to speak incase I started screaming.

"Who are you?" I questioned the boy who sat up now and pulled himself closer to me.

"Sefrick. You?"

"I..." Suddenly my voice was lost, I gulped air and tried again, "My name..." I'd forgotten my name. "I can't remember..."

"Just been sired?" I nodded shyly. "That explains it. Mostly you forget a lot of things before your transformation. Sometimes you remember them later on."

"But I can remember dying, I can remember what I look like, my family..." I reached out a hand in desparation to hold onto what used to be reality to me.

"We're your family now."

"No! My sister, my mum, dad..." I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. "Vampires don't exist. Vampires aren't real. You're not a Vampire. You'll wake up soon..." I whispered to myself.

"It's not that bad. You get to start again. A whole new life. And it lasts forever." He smiled and as I looked at him I realised for the first time how my eyesight had improved. I could see every feature of his face clearly through the darkeness. He was handsome. Sparkling green eyes and straight, black hair that hung down to his chin. He wore a beautiful black cloak over a wine red t-shirt and grey jeans. His lips were the colour of a perfectly ripe strawberry.

"You're forgetting to breath there." I blinked and shook my head.

"This can't be real."

"That's what I kept saying in the beginning. It's hard to adjust but you have to."

"Isn't there any way of going back. I want to be human again." He laughed. "What's so funny?"

"Calm down! You're getting all worked up about this. It's not that bad. You could have had worse." His voice was melodic, gentle.

"How could it possibly be worse?" I was on the verge of hysteria.

"You could have been made into a werewolf and been all hairy." I had to laugh. It eased the situation just a little.

"They aren't real though are they?" I scoffed at the thought.

"Oh yeah. But most of them are harmless."

"Glad to hear that. Wait a minute! Most of them?" He sniggered at the shock on my face then his own expression turned very serious.

"You're very beautiful." Normally I would have felt myself blush but I didn't now. I felt safer though. Relaxing a little I leaned against the wall and sighed.

"One hell of a bad dream."