“Abby! Help me please! He’s got me, oh he’s got me!”

Sweat trailed down my brow and my feet pounded against the forest floor. My arms pumped up and down by my sides and my vision blurred with tears. I jumped over decaying logs and tree branches and dogged mountainous ant piles. I felt like the forest was engulfing me and sucking the air out of my lugs like a vacuum. The sun had dipped beneath the purple clouds, shielding the light that once shown beneath the tree branches. My world turned black, and the only light source shone through my tiny tin flash light. The autumn leaves cracked beneath my feet sending microscopic splinters into my bare legs.

“Abby hurry, oh god hurry!”
“I’m coming L! I’m coming!” I screamed back, but my voice sounded horse. I could hear them trailing behind me, fangs bared.

L was asinine to go after them, to think that she could stand some sort of a chance against this rouge nomad clan that plagued our woods. L craved revenge after this clan sliced opened her brother and gorged on his hot sticky blood. She had lost her mind once again and I should have caught the psychotic signs sooner. Yet, my mind was cluttered with other thoughts and L had slipped my mind completely. Now, she had fled the security of our tiny home at the brink of dawn, hoping to decapitate and bleed out as many of the pail demons as she could. Now she is as good as dead.

“ABBY!” She screamed over and over again like a record stuck on repeat. It was blood curdling and demonic. It made my bones shake beneath my skin and I felt like a rock was logged in my trachea, interfering with my breathing.

I then tripped and heard my ankle make a sickening pop before I tumbled face first into the array of leaves and twigs. Wet dirt stuck to my face as I forced myself to roll over so I could see the blacked treetops. I gritted my teeth and tried to propel my body upwards, knowing if I stayed in this desirable position, I would be a corpse in seconds.

My brain ran on hyper drive as L screams, contaminating my ear, making fresh tears roll down my cheeks. The both of us would soon be pushing up daises if I didn’t act now, but my ankle restricted me to do so.

I could hear the demons approaching me. I could already feel their teeth sinking into my neck and sucking me dry of all my blood. I had felt the ghastly feeling before, and I dreaded to experience the paroxysm sensation again. I reached for my wooden stake that lay between the waist band of my jeans and my skin. I pulled it out. It was my only defense against the monstrous creatures.

Soon enough I was surrounded by vicious demons. They had malice gleaming in their soulless red eyes and their mouths were lathered in blood. There were four of them, wreaking of decay and dressed in gothic clothing. They licked their bloody lips, and their enlarged canines sparkled under the moon’s dim lighting. I positioned my stake in my fingers as they pounced on me. I launched myself upwards forgetting about my irritated swollen ankle.

I slashed my wooden skate at this red headed vampire in front of me. My skate scratched the surface of her neck making a couple drops of blood ooze from her jugular vein. The Semitic paused for a mere second to fling her hands to her neck to survey her wound. In these couple of seconds, I flung my arm wildly and plunged the bloody skate into her heart. She let out a disturbing wail as I yanked the skate out of her black heart. Blood poured from the gaping wound in her chest as she fell to the dewy forest floor and burst into flames. The other vampires watched as their friend turned to ash right in front of them. Hostility burned in their eyes as they pounced at me, fangs bared. I quickly staked another demon in mid air and he crumpled to the ground and lit up like a forest fire. While I was retracting my skate from the burning carcass, an enraged vampire jumped on my back and sank her teeth in the back of my neck.

I screamed as a burning sensation traveled through my body as the cruel demon sucked my blood. Her friend latched onto my leg like a leech and gnawed at my bone like a rabid dog. I could feel the life being abstracted from my body. I felt drained and helpless and I instantly blamed it on L. If she hadn’t been irrational and if she looked before she leapt, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. How was attacking a rouge vampire pack going to solve anything? Nash is dead, end of story! Your brother is not going to just reappear if you murder a bunch of vampires! Now I’m as good as dead because of her.

My eyes started to flutter close and my breathing became deep and unsteady. I turned my head to the side and watched the vampire drain my leg dry of blood. My mouth opened and closed and tears creased my cheeks. Me, a girl of 18, was going to die as an immature child. A child that’s only intensive was to rescue her best friend, L. The best friend I met when I was a servant child at this majestic vampire manor. The best friend that took the blame for me when I made a noticeable mistake and I was going to get whipped for it; L took the beating for me. The best friend that comforted me when my parents were brutally murdered in front of me and the best friend that ran away with me when all hope seemed lost.

I was about to shut my eyes for good, and awaken to the golden gates of so called heaven, when my eyes flashed over to movement in the nearby brush. My sister Gracelyn bounded through the tangled brush with a pointy wooden stake logged beneath her fingers. She was covered in inky vampire blood from head to toe, and her clothes were slashed open. My saviors had arrived, especially when I saw Gracelyn’s odd boyfriend Larkin, trailing clumsily behind her. I closed my eyes in exhaustion as I felt the vampires get ripped off of my neck and leg. I gasped when the pain was lifted from my battered body, and I tried to regain my breathing.

I suddenly was brought to my feet, but my legs gave right out from under me, and I collapsed into a pool of my own sticky blood. Flames whipped in front of my vision as the two vampires that had sucked my blood now burned.

“Abby! Snap out of it! We need to save L,” Gracelyn’s squeaky voice screamed as she shook my shoulders violently.

The aroma of burning flesh invaded my nostrils as Larkin pulled me up on my wobbly legs again. He wrapped his muscular arms around my thin torso and started dragging me towards the direction of L’s screams.

“Help me please! God have mercy and have it STOP!”

My world started spinning and my world felt unreal and distorted. The moon immerged from the blackened clouds and shone on my weathered face. I gagged; throw-up resting in the base of my throat, before I puked the content of my stomach all over my cloudy gray t-shirt.

“Larkin, take Abby back to the house, she’s lost too much blood. I’ll go after L,” Gracelyn shouted.

“N-no, S-she’s as good-d as dead. L-leave h-her,” I said with all the strength.

A stunned expression washed over Larkin’s features as he stared at me in disbelief.

“What! You’re going to leave your bipolar best friend out to dry! I mean I don’t especially like her, but it’s L!” Larkin yelled. I could faintly hear the pounding of vampire’s footsteps in the distance and I knew we had no time to dillydally.

“Yes, we leave her; I’m as good as dead if I go after her. She’ll understand. I have to save myself.”
It took everything I had left to muster up those two sentences. L lit up my world in light no one else could image. She brought a smile to my lips and made me laugh constantly. The thought of her dead tore apart my insides and brought fat tears to my crystal blue eyes. I knew if I proceeded with the plan that had been running through my mind for the last 10 minutes, I’d die trying to be the hero.

I’d bleed to death and both of us would be lost in this nightmare. Guilt took over my well being because L did everything for me imaginable, while I did nothing for her. When she had a mental breakdown, I’d watch and not coo her back to reality. When she tried to kill herself, I didn’t stop her, but thank god she failed. When our old master, Slate, rapped L, I didn’t stop him. I listen to her screams and pleas in the safety of our closet. When L starved herself, I pretended I didn’t notice. I own her, but again, I was scared and…selfish.

“Abby! It’s him, Slate! He’s got me! Nooooooo please no! Oh please not you! Anyone but you! Abby, Gracelyn, Larkin… anybody!”

“Abby, are you sure? That’s your best friend…she’s dying. I can save her,” Gracelyn said.

“N-no, you m-might die-e if-f you go a-after her. If it’s Slate y-you have n-no chance. I’m not-t l-loosing you-u too. This is what-t she g-gets for being irrational,” my words slurring together and my vision starting to become blurry. I felt like the sky had fallen on top of me and I was drowning in a black abyss. Everything stared to mix together and I couldn’t tell up from down and down from up.

Lastly, I remember L yelling in the near distance in a high pitched besotted voice. She screamed that I was selfish, that I had abandoned her and left her out to die. I then heard a haunting, sickening sound of a neck cracking before I plummeted into the darkness, with a refulgent light illuminating the never ending bottom. I assumed it was heaven.