• tab Neo and Nathaniel are standing outside a lavish house. Nathaniel is leaning, with has back against a tree, with his arms crossed and his eyes closed. Neo is standing, facing the house, gazing at it, at its grandeurs, almost trying to imprint the picture into his memory. Finally he took a deep breath and looked up into the night sky.
    tab “Are you sure about this?” he said, then turning to Nathaniel. Nathaniel sighs and walks over to Neo. He puts his arm around Neo’s neck.
    tab “Haven’t we been through this enough times? What has it been, six hundred years?”
    tab “Try seven hundred eighty four.”
    tab “Ah! Look who’s counting! But I must admit, it was easier back then.”
    tab “You’re telling me. All we had to do was walk down the streets at night and it would be a feast.”
    tab Nathaniel let out a small chuckle. “You miss those days don’t you. I remember.” he stared to smile “You used to save a damsel in distress from some miscreant, and she would fall into her savior’s arms. Then you would kill her yourself. You always did love being the knight, or some hero in somebody‘s eyes.” He stars to walk forward towards the house.
    tab “Yes, but that was back then, this is different. Then they were just asking to be someone’s meal. Now, with everyone locked away in their own personal castles, it feels as if we are murdering innocent people.”
    tab “It’s the same now as it was then, that is all you need to think about. Now come on before it gets too late.” Neo starts to follow him. “Oh, wait.” He stops and turns around. You can’t go in like that.”
    tab “You are kidding, right?”
    tab “Of course not. How else do you think that they would let us in.”
    tab “I don’t know, maybe they are nice people.”
    tab “Well either way just hold still.” He pulls out a Swiss army knife. “Now, where do you want it?”
    tab “On my arm I suppose, there should be enough blood on my sleeves to get their attention.” He takes off his jeans jacket. Nathaniel cuts Neo’s sleeve and then cuts a small slash on Neo’s upper arm. He starts to bleed and Nathaniel holds the sleeve tight around the cut to soak up as much blood as it can.
    tab “There, now it looks like you got shot at and it just grazed your arm.”
    tab “Great. What should I do with this, O’ Great Mastermind?” He hold up the jacket.
    tab “Put it up to the cut so it looks like you are trying to stop the bleeding.” He puts his knife back in his pocket. Neo takes his jacket and wraps it around the spot where the cut was, but has now healed.
    tab “I hope Martha can get this blood out. I hate losing my own blood for something like this.”
    tab “Yeah well, I hate it too. All this blood is making me hungry so lets just go and get this over with shall we.”
    tab They walk up to the house, their vampire eyes glowing, perhaps due to the darkness of the night, or perhaps they resonate with the thoughts of an all too easy hunt. The two stop right in front of the door. Lights can be seen from inside, through the windows.
    tab “You ready?” said Nathaniel with excitement in his voice.
    tab “Yeah lets get this over with.” He raises his hand to ring the doorbell.
    tab “Wait! What are you doing. You just got shot.” Nathaniel managed to say through his snickers.
    tab “Ugh, why does it always have to be me.” He puts his un-bloodied arm around Nathaniel’s shoulders and relaxes his bloodied shoulder to make it heavy and cause him to bend over. Then he put a grave expression on his face and makes his eyelids seem heavy as well. All of his actions led to his body having the effect that he is barely able to stand. “You enjoy making me do this don’t you?”
    tab “Alright, I must admit, I do enjoy making you look like a fool. But hey, its taking one for the team. Ready?”
    tab “Yeah.” He raised his arm up and rang the doorbell. The sound could be heard resounding off the walls in the corridors of the house. Slowly the light in the house began to draw closer. Soon there came a woman’s voice.
    tab “Who are you and what could you want at this hour of the night?” she sounded a bit upset at having been disturbed.
    tab “Please! Ma’am, please we need your help! M-My friend! He’s hurt and he-he’s bleeding a lot. Please can you help us? Nathaniel said in a very concerned voiced. He even quivered and sounded so frightened, just as one would be.
    tab “Dear God!” shouted the woman. She opened the door and before her she saw only two boys, one who looked more dead than the other. She stood in the doorway examining the two. She had long light brown hair and close to pale skin. She had a look of genuine worry in her eyes which perhaps surprised Neo for he could not look away from them. “Quickly, quickly, come in.” She ushered the two into the house. Neo still clinging onto Nathaniel’s shoulders. “Harold! Harold come quickly!” she called up to the ceiling while she sat the two boys down. The woman ran into to kitchen and started to get bowls of water and towels prepared.
    tab “Can we end this yet?” Neo whispered to Nathaniel.
    tab “No not yet.” He sat there glaring at the spot where the woman had called upwards from. Then Harold appeared in that very spot, he had just come from upstairs. His wife rushed over and she started to explain the series of events that led up to this. “Ah the last puppet has come.” whispered Nathaniel and a faint grin appeared on his face. But he was sure to hide it when Harold and his wife looked his way.
    tab The two walked over to Neo and Nathaniel, the woman carrying a large bowl filled with water in one hand and a towel slung across her shoulder. “Oh, poor dears” she said as she started to untie Neo’s jacket from around his arm. “Oh look at all this blood!”
    tab “Now tell me what happened.” said Harold as he was looking at Nathaniel.
    tab “I-I don’t really know I mean. We were just walking around on our way home when this car sped by us.” Nathaniel said so innocently and worried.
    tab “A car?”
    tab “Yes. I heard a shot and the next thing I knew there was blood all over my brother’s arm. I tried to help him, but all I could do was carry him to your steps.”
    tab “Do you remember what the car looked like?”
    tab “Yes, I-I think so.”
    tab “Alright, honey, I’m going to call the police.” He gets up and heads towards the kitchen.
    tab “Yes I will come to, perhaps it will be easier if I tell them.” Nathaniel gets up and follows Harold into the kitchen. The woman had finally gotten Neo’s jacket off and was fussing around with the ripped sleeve. She was moving it up and down looking for the source of the blood.
    tab “What, there is no cut? How could that-”
    tab “I’m sorry.” Neo said in his still sickly tone.
    tab “Wha-” A thud is heard in the kitchen and the woman quickly turns her head. “Harold?” She gets up, behind her Neo raises his head. His eyes are a blazing ice, slowly he opens his mouth to reveal his vampire teeth. Then he springs up and pins the woman down. He muffles her screams with his hand and slowly bites down on her neck. Blood flows from underneath his lips and down her neck onto the floor. She quickly stops resisting and slowly she closes her eyes. With her last breath she softly whispers, “Regina”. Then her voice becomes silent, her lips cold, her skin pale, her evanescent heart beats.
    tab “See that wasn’t too bad was it?” says Nathaniel, standing in the gateway between the kitchen and the hallway. He has an apple in his hand and throws it around while he watches his companion.
    tab “Speak for yourself, you did not have to kill some defenseless woman.” He removes his hand from her mouth and slowly rises to his feet.
    tab “Ahh, but that was the better of the two, women always are.” he takes a bite of the apple in his hand.
    tab “Why are you eating that? I thought its taste disgusts you.”
    tab “It does, normally. But I find its sour taste to compliment the sweet blood quite well. Plus I only really dislike it when I’m hungry. When I am full it is one of the best tastes in the world. And besides, it cleans my teeth quite well don’t you say?”
    tab “Yeah whatever…let’s get out of here.”
    tab “Right behind you.” They begin to head for the door.
    tab “Wait. Did you hear that?” He turns around, looking for the source of the sound.
    tab “What?”
    tab “Shush. Follow me.” He steps over the woman’s body as he proceeds further into the house. He comes to a closed door and slowly opens it. It is a child’s room, toys litter the floor and clothes lay sprawled about. Neo proceeds towards a solid chair facing away from him. He comes to the side of it to find a small girl sitting there.
    tab “Who are you?” says the girl.
    tab “Mm another meal?” mumbles Nathaniel as he draws closer.
    tab “Hush! I am Neo, and this is my brother Nathaniel. What is your name?”
    tab “I am Regina.”
    tab “Regina? I see, so that’s what she meant.”
    tab “Hey what are you doing? You know better than to introduce yourself to the meal. Wait don’t tell me you--? ”
    tab “You smell of blood.” says Regina.
    tab “What?”
    tab “You smell like blood.”
    tab “And that does not bother you? It does not scare you?” inquired Neo.
    tab “No…it does not.”
    tab “Hey what do you think you are doing?” Asks Nathaniel as he pulls Neo up towards him.
    tab “She is just a child. You can not possibly think that we could just feed off of her.” Whispers Neo in a hurried, hushed voice.
    tab “Oh yes I can. Watch me.” He says as he dashes towards Regina.
    tab “Wait!”
    tab “Are you going to kill me?” She says as she stares into Nathaniel’s eyes.
    tab “Yes. Are you afraid?”
    tab “No. All things must die--survival of the fittest…and vampires are certainly more fit than humans.”
    tab “What?” Says Nathaniel as he backs away
    tab “Regina, why would you think that we are vampires?”
    tab “Because you talked of feeding off of me, Nathaniel here was going to bite my neck, and your eyes. They emit a powerful aura, no human eyes can do that.”
    tab “You heard us before?”
    tab “Yes, it was just a whisper but I could understand it. I hear many things I am not supposed to. I hear the wind talking to the trees, I hear the water whispering sweet melodies, and I hear the fire yell out in sadness as it engulfs what ever life is thrown into it.”
    tab “Neo this kid is off her rocker. Let’s just kill her and get out of here.”
    tab “Wait.”
    tab “What now?”
    tab “What if we take her with us?”
    tab “Why should we?”
    tab “She might be the one we have been looking for. The queen in the prophecy.”
    tab “She is a human child.”
    tab “One that communicates with nature, that is not afraid of us when we bare our teeth. If we turn her, one day she may become the queen.”
    tab “Neo… I can understand your blind faith in the prophecy, but tell me that this isn’t some excuse to live out a ‘normal’ life.”
    tab “It isn’t.”
    tab “Alright. I don’t know how the rest of the clan will feel but…I’ll support you like always.”
    tab “Thank you. Regina?” he turns to the girl now. “Regina, how would you like to come with use?”
    tab “Will you take me someplace far away from here?”
    tab “Yes.”
    tab “Will I be able to have fun there?”
    tab “I do not see why not.”
    tab “Will you protect me?”
    tab “With my life.”
    tab “Okay.”