Saturday, January 15, 2011

Emberlyn's Prologue

EMBERLYN


If you were to ask me what I wanted to do after graduation, my answer would be the same as any other normal blooded teenager, “I have no freaking clue”. Only a small percentage of high school students have a plan in place and more power to them. That just means they will probably be the ones to get into those high tech fancy colleges. Having a “plan” was at the bottom of my to-do list. I just wanted to graduate from high school and be free for awhile. Whether that was a couple of months or years, who knew. I wanted to be free from homework, classes, teachers, and the “fellow classmates” that irritated me. My parents had an entirely different plan for me. After graduation, I would go to one of those high-tech, fancy, run of the mill colleges. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. They made sure my SAT scores were at an “acceptable” level and I had an application to every major university. Need-less to say, having my future decided for me wasn’t a thrilling idea and to my surprise, I’d soon get my way.

I would never have to be a college student. Never having to share a cramped dorm with some roommate who‘d either be “off her rocker” or an uptight book worm. I wouldn’t have a seat in a room full of 60 something classmates with one of those professors who you love to hate. You know? That teacher who would try to be cool despite the fact that the class was a 10 on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the most boring. I’d never experience the crazy party nights and knowing I have a final the next day, wake up so ridiculously hung-over. I’d be late for class because I’d spend the first half of the morning perched over the porcelain potty exposing the meals of the day before.

Probably the most important thing I’d never get to experience is the whole soul mate thing. Lets face it, once you’re dead… you’re soul-less. That’s the controversy right now, at least. With that being said, how can you have a “soul mate” if you have no soul? It's weird how once you lose the chance at having the things you never really cared about in life, you automatically want. These are some of the things that my brain has held onto since being in my “dead state”, as I like to call it.

I'll be the first one to say that the idea of being undead used to be somewhat alluring to me. Why wouldn’t it be? All the tales of being young, powerful, indescribably beautiful forever is intriguing. People are willing to give up their souls to become something more. Sure, who needs a soul when you can live an eternal life, even if it’s sure to be damned? I blame all the hype from the books and movies. It may sound graceful and awesome in theory and on pages, but in reality… it bites, so to speak. When it first started, "the V Epidemic", and it spread the way it did, I wasn’t surprised. The only problem, it wasn't the way we, as humans had imagined. It was chaos to put simply. It had taken over our world and we were the aliens of our planet. Everyone in the world began taking their own precautions against this virus, or as the scientist were calling it; the red plague, V epidemic, or bat virus.

My family and I were one of the few that got lucky and found help. Nearing a year into the break-out, we moved into some compound that was supposedly going to be our Safe Haven. That’s a load of shit because there’s no place safe from vampires. If they want your blood they'll get it. No stupid electric fences, measly guard dogs, or machine guns are going to stop them.

After moving into the compound, my parents tried bringing us closer together. We had family game nights, which was not a good idea because we were all poor sports. None of us wanted to lose, would fight over who won and accuse each other of cheating. Even though it was obvious the parents cheated. I knew it, my sister knew it and my parents for damn sure knew. So then our evening of spending quality time together would be ruined. My family trying to play games is like being on Dr. Phil, it brings out the worst in people.

We also started going to church on Sundays, Wed, and some Saturdays. Who needs to go to church three days a week? It’s not going to make you any more spiritual than the next person. You can’t be out doing the Lords work if you’re stuck in His house right? Maybe my dad just assumed that by going so much it would keep us cleansed of the Vampire Virus, and pure from whatever evil was out beyond our electric fences. We rarely ever went to church before this happened. In fact, my dad used to make fun of the “Bible Walkers”, as he called them. I always told him he would burn in hell for that but maybe being converted saved him.
Now my dad’s out preaching with the Bible Walkers. Still, he’s my dad and his philosophy is, the time we spend together is important and we should enjoy one another because we never knew when it might be our last. I guess I never realized how true that was. At the time, my thought’s were “Dad’s just being an overdramatic, overprotective father and husband”. Truthfully, wasn't that suppose to be the woman’s job to be overdramatic? Adding to the new family lifestyle, we would sit around the dinner table to eat rather than scatter through-out the house like before. We talked about what went on during the day, which made supper the normal part of the day. My younger sister Amberly would gush about some hot guy that was in her class at school. This boy’s family had supposedly moved into the Haven at the start of the school year. The way Amberly described him sounded like he was a god or something. I envied my younger sister. For her, everything was always so easy. That’s always frustrated me. Guessing that since I was the older one, to my mother, that meant I should act more maturely.

That’s where my weakness came into play. Feeling like the middle child, I always felt obligated to please everyone even if it made me miserable.

My mom would always tell me, “Emberlyn you need to take notes from our little Gracie here. She’s on her way to becoming an amazing young lady” Mom’s always called Amberly by her middle name and that drove my sister crazy, Amberly and I always wondered why mom didn’t just name her Gracie to begin with it. Maybe it’s because mom had a fascination with wordplay. It’s one of the little quirks that made her “mom” along with lot of other things that we found odd. Hearing my mom nonchalantly tell me Amberly was her favorite was like a knife through my heart.

During family dinners, Dad would fill us in on what was happening outside the Haven’s walls which grew boring very fast. My Mom would then proceed to add all the gossip she had heard from the others in the compound, which was at least a good 20 minutes of nothingness. As soon as I’d start to doze off, Amberly would kick me from under the table and my parents would give me the looks only disapproving parents can give. As we’d finish up dinner and each of us did our part in cleaning, we would wander our own ways. My dad would disappear to his study, mom kept on cleaning, and Amberly and I went to our rooms. Unless is was Friday, then we’d be in the living room watching Supernatural.

The last night I saw my family was a Friday. Amberly and I had just settled on the couch. Just as Supernatural’s theme song started to play, we heard what could only be described as a horror film scream coming from my mom in the kitchen. My dad, who raced from the other end of the house was beside my sister and I and before we could reach the kitchen, glass from the shattered living room window flew at us. Dad threw his arms around us, shielding us from the glass. In an instant, we’re looking up at three dark figures standing in front of us. One girl and the other two men, they all had black hair and dark eyes. The clothes they had on resembled that of a young biker gang with leather pants, combat boots and torn shirts. I remember the taller male glaring at me with a devilish grin and I knew we were going to die. A fourth vampire coming from the kitchen had mom in an headlock with her back pressed against him. His hair was black and spiked and his eyes were an indigo blue. So tall, I could swear he nearly hit our ceiling. Stopping a few feet from us, he pulled mom’s short brown-hair to one side, exposing her neck. Slowly, this thing brought his mouth down to her neck. The other three watched impatiently as their leader, from the looks of it, was about to have my mom for dinner.

My baby sister on the other side of my dad, was frozen under his right arm. In the dim light, I could see the tears glistening off her cheekbones. My dad’s chin was lowered on my sisters shoulder like he was going to tell her something and he too had tears hanging off his cheeks. I’ve never seen my dad shed tears, not even at funerals. He always kept his emotions neutral. Staring at my dad and Amberly, they looked so helpless. Wanting to feel strong, I would of given anything that night to comfort them, but I too was frozen with fear. The stench of death was over-whelming in the room. Then the female vampire spoke with a foreign accent, so thick I couldn’t understand a word. That’s when the vampire with my mother jerked his head up from the biting position and glared over at us. Looking at me, my dad, and last my sister, he threw my mom against the living room wall where our family picture had been hanging. My mother lay there, now unconscious.

The terrifying vampire started to move towards Amberly and snatched her out of my dads trembling arms. That apparently excited the other three killers.
Somewhere in my mind it hit me they were going to turn my sister and kill the rest of us, if my mom wasn’t already dead by how hard she hit the wall. Call it being a protective sister or suicidal but all I remember is running towards the bastard holding Amberly. Then I blacked out. That’s all my memory saved besides the sound of my dad and sister screaming and the sharp pain and burning sensation coursing its way through my veins.

So why might you ask am I telling you all of this? Well, because that's where my life ended and my "Undead" life begins.

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