A Step Into The Light

The monsters that often haunt dreams of children often came from the very mouths of their fathers and brothers. Father figures instilled fear and courage, brothers often teased but protected—both often fiercely loyal and loving to their families. Together, alongside the family's mother and likely other siblings, they would love and protect each other to their very last breaths.

At least, that's what she assumed they did. She wouldn't know for sure. Family was an emotionless word to her. It didn't stand for love or protect, loyalty or duty. To her, family meant pain and death.

Today was one of those melancholy days where she sat under the shades of the trees in the late afternoon, just to simply observe the males and females chasing their children around the lively playground. The fathers would tackle the little ones into a war of tickles, and the mothers would tend to injuries with Band-Aids and kisses. The children would thereafter, jump right back onto their feet and dive right back to recklessly playing with their friends and family.

A side of her longed for such a simple life. Unfortunately for her, she didn't have the luxury to have the humans' short lifespan to revel in such liberties. Today, she sat under the same tree as she had over half a century ago. Where once was field, had now been constructed into a playground for the neighborhood. It had changed aesthetically, most certainly. The role of the fathers and mothers didn't. It had remained the same role as protective, loving figures despite the change of time.

She had no father—she has a sire. If that made any sense. She would think that the term, father, would be too intimate and kind for the trials that her sire had subjected her through.

She sighed at the thought, casting her eyes down to her knees, brushing away specks of invisible dirt. She suppose she was feeling a bit sorry for herself today. She thought of the fate of her pitiful late mother. She was told very little about her, most of what she knew was from the writings her mother kept while she was pregnant with her. Her mother wrote of wonderful things of the person who impregnated her, from the way he kissed her to how energetic he was when gracing her sheets. Yes, her mother was a cheery, over affectionate, oversharing type of woman—that much she could tell from the old letters her mother wrote. She desperately wanted to meet her, at least once. But that would be insane. You can't meet those who have already died centuries ago.

It's laughable really, the one who loved her dearly had long passed, and the one who wished she never existed hunted her down with his minions and her half-sister, on a daily basis. A bitter laugh escaped her lips; her family, try as they might, have been trying to end her life for years. Her saving grace was that they had a weakness that she didn't — an affinity for light despite being what she was. All thanks to her deceased mother. The mother she never met—the mother she inadvertently killed.

Through the pages of her letters, she learned about her selfless mother. Despite facing death, her mother chose to instill hopes and dreams to her unborn child — to her. Until her dying breath, her own mother wished her the ability to live, to be hopeful for a bright future. The last letter was addressed to her on her death bed. She wrote of her only wish for her unborn daughter, messily penned, the pain evident in her last entry.

"Live free, my child, my little love. Live in the light, live for life. When the time comes... when darkness comes, lead them into the light…"

She never quite understood what her mother meant by when darkness comes. It held an ominous tone, as if her mother knew something she did not. If she did, she didn't live long enough to commit it to paper. And certainly, her sire and her family never told her otherwise. Hell, they've been trying to kill her since they've realized she could live under sunlight.

The way the sunlight charred their kind's flesh, the way the light renders their vision blurry, the way it would weakened them. It didn't affect her.

Dhampir, her family would whisper behind guarded doors, as if the very word itself was forbidden. An insult she wouldn't know the weight of. It wasn't until she turned six years of age when she realized that she was different than the beings she lived with. They thrived in the darkness, while she yearned for the light. They thirst for fresh blood while she found satiety in lightly cooked meat. They hid within shadows and cloaks, afraid of the light. Yet for her, the light called to her, beckoning her to bask in it.

The call of the light grew stronger with each passing day, until one day during the peak of sunlight, while her family slept, she stole her way to the entrance of her sire's castle. Finally free from constant guard and being locked away deep within the castle, she itched to be a part of the light. She ached for freedom.

With that one step, she was discovered.

With that one step, her fate was sealed.

With that one step into the light, unbeknownst to her, she was marked to be exterminated.