Until Dawn (2)

Chapter 1: Symptoms

15 Years Later

I sat there on the hard wooden chair with my head between my legs. I felt my stomach cramp up. I thought I was going to die, the pain was so intense in my stomach. Taking a deep breath, I waited for the pain to pass. It seemed to take forever for the pain to pass as I shut my eyes.

When I opened them I saw my small bare feet, my long white hair and the fabric of my ivory chemise. The white hair seemed to blend horribly with the chemise, as my hair always made the chemise look dirty.

The thought of dirt made the pain in my stomach intensified. Dirt made me think of the floor, which made me think about what could cover the floor, which in turn made me think about throwing up on the floor. If there was anything I hated it was the idea of throwing up. I had to will my body not to do that act even though a little voice in my head told me that if I threw up the pain would be gone.

No matter how long it would take for the pain to pass, I knew that it would be better than throwing up. I shut my eyes once again, and lifted my head up slightly to prop it on my entwined hands. I took shaky breathe slowly. Everything had to be done slowly otherwise something might happen… like throwing up.

I took another few breaths of air, hoping it would make a difference and tried to ignore the pain. Ignoring the pain helped a bit as I thought about the rest of my body. My palms were getting sweaty, my head pounding, my entire body felt hot. I could almost sense the fact that I was burning up with a fever.

“Strange…” I croaked out.

This was always strange. Every few days I would get these symptoms. It would start with a craving of red meat, a desire that left me cranky and demanding. After consuming the meat, I would become extremely parched and my body would beg for water. I would drink an entire pitcher of water, filling an endless thirst. Then I would get sleepy and begin to nod off.

Only when I would force myself to stay awake by a feeling of restlessness would the symptoms really begin to kick in. I would get an intense stomach ache. It would hit me all of sudden, a cramp that would paralyze me where I stood and bring me to the floor. Slowly, I would get up into a chair or my bed as the stomach ache disappeared slightly.

As soon as I would convince myself the worst of it was over, the stomach ache would increase leaving me to feel as though I would vomit. I would sit there or lay in bed feeling as though death was drawing near. I wanted to throw up but I would will my body not to.

Whether I threw up or not, the pain did not subside like a normal stomach ache. The pain would get more intense for a while. Then a headache would start up. I would become sweaty and feverish. Unable to control my body I would open my mouth in agony and let out silent screams of pain. I felt like my teeth were going to grow twice their size and fall out of my mouth. Eventually, I would become so exhausted the final stage would start up. I would lose energy and find my body like lead. I would succumb to sleep, only to wake up a few hours later completely fine.

As I waited for the next part of the symptoms to appear I reflected up different parts of my life. To be quite honest, I did it a lot nowadays. My only company was a few servants who would help me with daily tasks. Other than that I was left alone in my room.

Often times I would gaze upon the endless view from my window. It was dark most days, the clouds never leaving the sky leaving the field below me often a dark green. I would gaze along the horizon and think about forests that I’ve read about or people who I would never meet.

This was a rather depressing time to live in. I think that because of the outside world’s current situation it reflected a bit upon my own situation. About fifty years back, people lived without fear or without worry. There were towns, cities, castles… entire kingdoms of people. This was before the uprising of the vampires.

Vampires are just like humans, but every so often they need an addition to food. They need blood. It didn’t matter to society that vampires couldn’t go out during the day. Many people respected them for knowledge, as many vampires were hundreds upon hundreds of years old. Many kings and queens had a vampire as a most trusted adviser that had lived with the royal family for many years. Vampires were also extremely rare since they could rarely breed.

That was until not so many years ago, I believe it was almost 80 years ago when the vampires found they could feast upon humans. There was a queen who fell in love with the vampire adviser and the vampire adviser loved the queen as well.

Another thing about vampires is that when they choose their mate it is for all eternity. Anyway, the story goes that the queen fell in love with the vampire who also loved the queen. During a particularly bad winter in which many animals died, the vampire became very weak. He became so weak that he became bedridden. The queen feared for the worst only to realize that if the vampire didn’t drink blood that her lover would die. So, the queen offered up herself to the vampire. The vampire didn’t want to bite his loved one supposedly but gave in.

When the vampire bit the Queen she herself became infected and turned into a vampire herself. She became known as the Iron Queen and decided that humans can supply blood for the vampires. Many people became outraged by this and decided to come for the Iron Queen and her vampire lover.

However, no one exactly knows what happened as they stormed the castle burning it down. Many people, like my old nursemaid, believe that they were mistaken and didn’t burn down the Iron Queen.

After that, the vampires were treated like outcasts because they could overpower humans. Since they were shunned by society, they decided to form their own small clans and grow to despise humans for shunning them. Over time the small vampire clans began form larger clans. The humans growing worried about the vampires declared a war.

In the end, the vampires began to win the war by their sheer ability to overpower the humans and their abilities to use their weaknesses against them. Anyone who was a newly turned vampire and opposed the other vampires would be turned upon.

When the war really began to go south twenty-five years ago the few remaining human lords, kings and mayors decided to form a pact. They would form small kingdoms in larger kingdoms run by someone. The goal was to keep out the vampires, grow and stay alive. My father ran a rather small one that housed about a hundred people come or so. I think this is the reason that my father kept me locked in a room most of the time for my own safety.

Thinking about that all somehow made my pain a little less real at the moment but made my spirits sink. I was going to be stuck here in a small room until the day I died. Lifting up my head, I tried to break away from the symptoms that I currently felt. As the pain left my body, I felt more tired. I took a deep breath and lifted myself up from my chair. I knew I had to make it the few feet across to my bed or face the consequences of a sore back from sleeping on the stone floor.

As began to walk over, my body began to feel like lead getting heavier with every movement. I had to make it over to my bed and tried to concentrate on something else. My room had not changed since I was a little girl. It still looked like the night sky. I shook my head slightly as I reached the bed and pulled back the covers a bit.

As I slowly lifted myself into bed I thought about how the gold bedding made it look like the moon in my room. The entire room was covered in dark midnight blue tapestries. The furniture was all painted silver. The trunk by the foot of my bed, the big closet to one side and the desk and chair to the other. The only thing that stood out was the deep brown wooden door.

As I climbed into bed, amazed that I was able to still barely stay awake. I thought to myself about how much my room looked like the night. Everything was gold, dark blue or silver. Smiling I thought to myself.

‘My bed is the moon or the sun, my wardrobe, desk, and chair are the stars and my walls are the night sky."

With that, I felt my body fall into the soft mattress and fall asleep.