At First Sight Of Sunshine ~Chapter 1~

                                                          Chapter 1
                                                      “War and Peace”







        Spokane Washington was one of those places that had remained unchanged for the last fifty years. With the exception of some road work, restoration, new cars and a few new technologies; it still labored on as the same small city it had always been. Spokane was a nice, pleasant city and Blood Mont High, to anyone visiting, seemed perfectly normal. I suppose. It was located just out of city limits in the little town of Mead, surrounded on three sides with cute little suburbanized streets and cloned houses.  Its classes ranged from art to social science, it held after school activities and clubs, it hosted the occasional dance or talent show, and, among schools of its kind, its athletic teams were the best. However, if you were to examine it carefully, you would find it was not your everyday, run-of-the-mill school. The schedule, while still holding the normal state holidays, also held space for the Wiccan holidays and celebrations, the day of and after every full moon was off, and the food selections were very… different. How many cafeterias have you ever been to that serve under cooked meat and a completely vegan menu at the same time?

          Ever since the preternatural inhabitants of the world decided to rip down the veil of ignorance between them and humanity and expose themselves, schools like Blood Mont had been sprouting up all over the globe. It had been hard for the humans to accept at first, they never have liked the idea of not being the top of the food chain. New groups of hunters had sprung up all over the world, wars had started, and in every corner lives were being lost. Battle after battle was waged, and casualties had been great on all fronts; those taken prisoner by the humans had been turned into lab rats. Poked and prodded, injected with chemicals, forced to fight one another, until… eventually… they died. And those taken prisoner by the preternatural armies, on the most part, died very gruesome deaths.  It had been fifty years and people on both sides were still dying, but things had begun to level out at last. Humanity had begun to grow accustom to the fact that they couldn’t get rid of the preternatural races. They were trying to change. And that’s all anyone could really ask.

    The Unveiling, as it is called, started those sixty-something years ago when those no good Shifters came out of their holes, ranting to the world that it was time to ‘change’. Then the Witches, who were never really hiding to begin with, stepped forward in agreeance with the Shifters. The Specters and those who had Demon in their blood were next, the former don’t get out much, although there were some interesting court cases involving ghosts and ownership of their homes. After them came the AnthroWere, that was when most of the trouble started. Humans could accept people who can change into all manner of beasts, use magic, and are, in all pretenses, dead. But give them a simple Werewolf or a common Were-beast of any sort and you have problems… Big ones.

    While the battles raged and lives were lost, our people sat back in the shadows, away from the loathsome eye of man. Just as we had for centuries. It wasn’t until about four years ago that Vampires came ‘Out of the Coffin’, as one of my personal favorite authors says. A lunatic by the name of Carson Lammar had went public with the secret part of his life and caused a fuss. The Council had him killed, but couldn’t reverse what he had done. However, fate worked in our favor, as it were. Since the dawning of the Great Wars the humans had lost many of their own, as had everyone else, therefore the President had met with the Council and called for peace. On October 5, 2056 the Treaty of Blood was signed, permitting the first peaceful acceptance of a preternatural race in fifty years. I’m not saying everyone accepted it, there were hunters, of course, and business that would not allow Vampire interaction, but we lost very few of our kind. As of that time, and this, the Vampire race is the largest in the world, even larger than that of men. Yet it is still so rare to ever meet a Vampire, for we keep to ourselves and only enter the world of man to feed. Vampirically owned and operated bars and nightclubs had opened in every city, and many towns. The invention of synthetic blood made this possible, also the Free Bleeders made business soar. Many clubs had regulars, humans who would come in on a weekly basis to be fed upon, just because they got a rush out of the thought of being prey. These individuals would go back to their regular life after that, schoolteachers, executives, and the woman working behind the counter at Walgreen’s. You would never know the secrets of their lives, and they would never show it…until the next week.

    With Vampires out in the open it gave way to new research; it also gave a good friend of mine, Dr. Brown, a chance to get funding for the research he had been conducting since he was eighteen, seeing as he is now sixty-two, it had been a rather long time. The Doctor had been working on a vaccine that would allow Vampires to walk in sunlight… we called it Sunshine, for obvious reasons. While still being in test stages, it did allow us to spend a day outside with minimal side effects. With his research he was also able to disprove many myths about my kind, at least my blood line. There are nearly thirty-five different… blood lineages, if you will, of the Vampire race. Each lineage is slightly similar and unique in its own way. But as far as my lineage goes, we are not like the Vampire races you read about in your storybooks and see on your horror movies. Contrary to prior belief, this goes for ALL lineages, Vampires are not dead. The very terms ‘Undead’ and ‘Living Dead’ are extremely distasteful, not to mention oxy-morons, to be an animated corpse takes you beyond the realm of Vampire and into that of Zombism and Necromancy . I can assure you that we are alive. My heart does beat, though much less than a humans, and I do breath, again not as much as a human, but I am still very much alive. We now know, thanks to the Doctors research, that Vampirism is a type of a super virus, though beneficial to the recipient in some ways it is also harmful in others. This virus, after its founding has been dubbed Solinium Vetre, and is believed to be a genetic mutation from the virus Solinium, which has been linked to the cause of Zombism. As I mentioned before, however, being a Vampire and being a Zombie are two totally separate things. While many differences exist the two biggest, and most important, are that while the normal Solinium virus kills the infected and only part of their brain is reactivated, but they are, in all ways, a walking corpse.  Solinium Vetre, on the other hand, stops the heart for only a short time while the virus runs its course, after which the heart is reactivated on a much slower paced level, and the individual regains consciousness and since of self. Not something a Zombie can boast. The second biggest difference is, that while a mere bite from a zombie will pass the infection forward, the only way to spread Vampirism, for most lineages, requires the host to nearly take all the blood from an individual and replace it with the contaminated blood. It has been found that there has to be a greater ratio of infected to non infected blood in the system for the virus to fully take effect. Once infected with this particular strain of Solinium, a person’s natural immune system is taken over by the virus, which then proceeds to replicate and mutate the anti-bodies in the blood.  This process can take place quickly or it may take a few days. Therefore one person may not change into a Vampire for a few days after the Rite is preformed, while another may change that very night, depending on how susceptible their blood is.

    The mutated anti-bodies in our immune system are what allow us to heal so rapidly and stop us from aging; they also work on our DNA, destroy and rebuild it. This being the reason that almost any Vampire you ever meat will be beautiful, all genetic flaws are eradicated by the virus. Another part of the virus is to weave its way into the muscle fibers and nerve endings, altering and strengthening them, allowing us to have unnatural strength, sight, smell awareness and speed. However, the virus does have its negative effects. The mutated anti-bodies can’t sustain and replicate themselves for very long, instead they require replenishment, clean, unaffected blood. Hence the reason we drink blood.  As a Vampire ages, the anti-bodies require less and less constant replenishment. (For example, a newly turned Vampire needs to feed nightly, where as a six hundred year old Vampire may only need to feed once or twice a week.) The mutations also make our skin extremely sensitive to light… sunlight to be exact. We wouldn’t burst into flames or turn to a pile of ash, but a Vampire exposed to sunlight for an extended amount of time may receive so much damage to their body that they would be unable to reverse it. And they will die.

    As for the other legends. Crosses, for most, untrue. I myself wear three crosses constantly. Churches, I dislike only because I dislike religion, but I could enter a church, say a few Hail Mary’s and leave undaunted. However, I have known quite a few Vampires who attend evening mass regularly. We cannot change into bats or other creatures, only those who were originally Animagus or Shifters before the Rite can accomplish this, and there are very few of those. We do not ‘teleport’ we simply use movements the eye cannot follow...except for the few cases where that ability was part of our being before the Rite. Our reaction time is much faster as well, when we choose, we can view the world in a sort of liquid slow motion. Coffins… personally I prefer my bed, provided the curtains are drawn. But there are some who find coffins comfortable; however, for most it is not a necessity. Holy water is a myth, as far as Vampires go. It’s as simple as that, water cannot be holy; I don’t care if the Pope himself blessed it. Garlic. It’s true we don’t like garlic. We are not allergic to it… hell we can even eat it if we choose. However, if your sense of smell was about twenty times stronger than it is now wouldn’t you find it unpleasant as well? Mirrors… we do have reflections. Everything solid reflects… ghosts don’t reflect…and that’s about it. Though I will admit the way a Vampires reflection works is something of a mystery; the best explanation I have heard is that Vampry do not reflect their outward appearance, rather they reflect their inner selves, or the part of themselves trying to be hidden. Perhaps hard to fathom, but it does seem to be fitting. And of course there’s the old ‘stake through the heart’ thing. I won’t even try to discredit this… instead let me ask you. If someone rammed a stake through your heart... would you not die too? I rest my case. From that basis you can pretty much determine for yourself what other myths are true or false.

    Pardon me; I seemed to have strayed from my point. I was speaking of the Unveiling of the preternatural species and the appearance of schools such as Blood Mont. With the recent revelation of Vampires and the uneasiness of the world around us, I decided to make the best of a bad situation and attend school. Blood Mont, to be exact. I am, as you can imagine, quite a bit older than seventeen, but I still look that age seeing as that was when my Rite was preformed. So my reason for going was not to get an education, although history and knowledge are highly valued to our people. However, most schools, now, tend to be anti-Vampire for one reason or another, but I did hope to learn something about our New World. I wasn’t going to make friends, few Vampires ever form clans or stick together… we may ‘socialize’ with one another from time to time when it suits us. We are very solitary predators and often times having another predator along on a hunting venture can be a problem. Also, we don’t care to socialize with our food… and I sincerely doubted I’d find anyone like me there. So why was I going? I kept telling myself it was to help the good doctor test Sunshine. He needed a willing test subject and I needed a change. So I had volunteered and he had accepted.

    I kept running that through my mind I’m testing Sunshine I said over and over as I set the case on the table. But as I lifted out the syringe filled with the rose colored liquid, something in the back of my mind kept saying that my real motive was to put myself back into a world I had been forced to abandon and to spit in the faces of those who had said women couldn’t have an education. With a shake of my head I cleared those thoughts from my mind and turned back to the task at hand.

    After injecting the vaccine into my arm, I set the syringe back into its case and flexed my hand, urging the blood to carry the vaccine. It took a total of five minutes for it to travel in and throughout my system and take effect. In other words… if I went traipsing around in the sun… it would be unpleasant. As I stood in my darkened kitchen I subconsciously counted of the minutes. Following the numbing feeling spreading through my body. As it moved I tensioned my muscles slowly, methodically. Finally the newly familiar, burning sensation crawled through my blood. When it reached my toes, I rolled my neck and shoulders, popping the joints, knowing it was complete now. Walking out of the kitchen I entered the front hall. My whole home was dark, for obvious reasons. Blackout curtains hung over all my windows, the wood was stained with a deep brown color, my furniture was varying shades of red and black, and any pictures I had on the walls were dark scenes. However, despite the lack of light, I could see as though every light were on. I suppose the interior of my home would have raised questions from my colorful, cheery neighbors, like the bleach blonde in the floral dress that was out in her garden almost every day, but the exterior brought no clues to draw attention. I had moved into the three story house at the end of this particular cul-de-sac because the houses on either side were still up for sale. Though suburbia was a nightmare I didn’t wish to have, the location was too convenient to pass up and I had only to endure it for a while.  Stopping at my coat rack I selected a long, black suede trench coat at first, and then with a glance to the rest of my ensemble, blue jeans and a corset-like red top, I thought perhaps a simple pullover would be nice. My slight wariness of the sun is the only thing that persuaded me to wear the trench coat, as opposed to the other. After my coat was on I grabbed my bag lying next to the rack and headed for the door at the end of the long hall. Pausing by the small key rack mirror by the door, I snatched my sunglasses off the small shelf and car keys from the peg. Before slipping the glasses on, I took one vanity glance in the mirror and paused.

    I hadn’t been paying much attention to how I looked over the last few years living in the underground. In that society being a Vampry was not something one is ashamed of or tries to hide. But for now I was masquerading as a typical human teenager and I had to look the part. In my human life I had been what some would call a mage, a magical practitioner born with no magical abilities. Becoming a Vampire, along with some other pacts I made along the way, had helped increase my abilities exponentially. This is a common occurrence with most Vampry, talents and latent abilities in human life grow and become more prominent in Vampire life. One very useful ‘parlor trick’ all Vampry posses is the magic of Glamour, this allows us to pull something like a veil of magic around ourselves, and alter our appearances. This nice little trick is what I used today, since most people don’t appear as pale as our kind. I added a more pink color to my skin, more tones of red to my normally black hair. Hair and skin are easy to glamour, most other things, such as eyes, are not, this is because the eye is a constantly changing thing, it darts about and the pupil adjusts to light, these make it hard to keep a glamour on it; but it was not something I could afford to skimp on. The irises of my eyes are normally a nearly white blue, in a society where Vampires are still disliked; it is dangerous to have too exotic of colored eyes. So I chose an easy normal blue tone, something that wouldn’t take too much energy to maintain, making a mental note to purchase some colored contacts later, and then pulled open the front door.

    The way sunlight feels, warm and welcome against skin is a truly mysterious sensation. And I am envious of those who are able to experience this every day. For to one who has been forced to spend many lifetimes in constant night, the sun and all its radiance is something unparalleled. Every time I have felt the sun I wonder how so many can take it for granted, and every time I think of this I silently pray that I will never forget it.

    This is what I thought of then as I walked to my car and got in. After the engine started I sat there and let it idle for a bit, staring fixedly out the window at the panorama of vitality and colors around me. A Vampires sight is exceedingly better than that of a human’s, or any other creature for that matter. During the night we can see the world as if it were not night at all, the thing our world lacks, however, is the colors. Everything is muted and dark in the shadows, constant shades of gray-blue and silver. But now with my Vampiric sight, in the sun even with my dark glasses, my eyes picked up colors I had never seen before, things that I could never describe if I lived ten thousand years. The way a bee’s wings part the air in shimmering waves, or how the breath of the wind makes the flowers tremble in its wake. Small things, wondrous things.

Backing out of my drive I again questioned my motives and again convinced myself it was all for Sunshine. Shifting into first gear I took a deep breath and hit the gas.



                                                        ÖÖÖ

From the desk of Dr. Brown

Dear Colleges,



I am pleased to inform you that the vaccine, Solarisdetrun (Sunshine) is at last in its final stages of complement. I thank you for your time and support during these past years; however, I must implore you to continue funding. Though Sunshine could go on the market within a month, I have some concerns about the side effects that it seems to have on our test subjects. You will find I have included the results of temperament and physical tests performed on the subjects using the vaccine as opposed to those who were not. For the safety of the Vampry and, in that case, every race, I request money and personnel to continue my research.



Dr.L.J.Brown



                                                      ≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠

Dr. Brown,



The G.D.A. has reviewed you letter in council, and I believe I speak on behalf of everyone when I say; we are pleased to hear that Sunshine is ready for marketing. Unfortunately, we have decided to reject your request for further funding. We saw no significant evidence that the side effects of the vaccine, in any way, endanger the recipient or those around them. Therefore, we will be expecting Sunshine to be on the market by the new year, unless you can provide solid evidence as to why it should not be. Thank you for your time Doctor Brown.

         

Julian White
Julian White

Global Drug Administration

President



                                                              ÖÖÖ







    “Pardon me?” I spoke to the woman behind the student service desk. She was short and plump, with wiry ugly brown hair that was wound up in a bun that looked tight enough to give her face a natural lift…even though it did not. She donned a tacky floral dress, a pair of those big, thick horn-bill glasses that took up most of her round face, orange red lipstick, and bright blue eye shadow up to her eye brows. And the smell! Cheep perfume; so heavily applied it could have intoxicated New York, yet contained in a small office space. She distinctly reminded me of a woman I had seen on a Drew Carry show … a long time ago. She was blatantly ignoring me, sitting there snide behind her desk, and reading her…. I had to tilt my head slightly to see… romance novel!? Oh, good grief Charlie Brown! I glanced around her…unkempt desk to find her name plaque.

    “Pardon me… Miss Plumb.” Such a fitting name I decided. As if seeing me for the first time, she removed her murky gray eyes from the pages of her book and looked upon me with as much interest as one might view an infant’s vomit.

    “Can I help you?” her voice was nasally and somewhat shrill and it implied the phrase ‘what the hell do you want?’

    “Yes. I’m a new student here, and I was told to come to you to get my schedule.” The denseness of her perfume was starting to make me sick. “Do you have it?”

    She gave a disgruntled sigh, and I couldn’t help but wondering how she ever got a job working in the education system. “Yeah… what’s your name?”

    “Lillith J. McDonnell.” She looked up at me for a moment and raised a brow, that sort of universal sign of ‘spell’ so with my own slight sigh, “M-c-capital D-o-n-n-e-l-l” the stench of her perfume was making me nauseous, which is a great feat considering I normally don’t have anything on my stomach, I tend to stay away from solid foods. She punched in a few keys on her computer and the printer started sucking in a piece of paper and producing a schedule. It was an old printer, and it moved…so…slowly. In about ten years of suffering her stench…it was done printing and she handed it to me. Without checking the credibility of the schedule I moved out of there as fast as I possibly could…without drawing attention to myself that is. The stale indoor air which hit me as I exited that office I normally would have resented, but it was such a relief to smell anything other than that horrid perfume.

    I paused outside of the office door lifting the schedule with one hand and studied it slowly, reading all of my classes, room numbers and teachers. I will never understand why they place the teacher’s first initial before their last name, if you don’t address them by their first name…then what is the point of knowing what it starts with? After I was quite sure I had the schedule devoted to memory I folded it neatly and placed it into my pocket. (This being my first mistake of the next several months). I looked down the hallway. It was cheep tan painted walls, meeting at white popcorn ceiling on one end and a speckled calico carpet (mostly gray) on the other end. The hall seemed to just keep going…somewhat like that pink rabbit that used to be all over television. I turned right, avoiding the hallway for now, and walked towards what the school called the ‘commons’ for one reason or another. The commons is a large room, the floor is tile and it is filled with the fold up tables that can be moved in a moment’s notice.

    I realized almost instantly that going this way had been a mistake. The commons was a massive sea of people... well… you know what I mean. It seemed that the so-called “peace” that had evolved among the races did not really have that much affect. The different races still stood segregated about the room; shifters stood together, witches, lycanthropes, even some half demons and a few humans… which, needless to say, surprised the hell out of me. What human in their right mind would put their child into a school like this? But at least it meant that passing off as a human wouldn’t be all that difficult. All stood in their racial groups… save for a select few small circles of friends. All thought they were better than everyone else. Although I could be accused of this myself, Vampires are… how should I put this… rather arrogant. So naturally I carried myself as a superior among them, though they would not have known the difference. It was true that the existence of Vampry was known, however, very few ever interacted with us and I had little worry that I would be recognized for what I was… at least in this generation. But instinct is something you cannot delude with absence or the twisting of minds. The natural instinct of any preternatural race is to be wary of all others… Lycanthropes and Vampires especially since we possess more strength and cunning than most. So I was greeted with blank cautious stares and I just stared back uninterestedly. Some hackles rose…some stepped forward ever so slightly to show they were in charge...and some just scooted closer to the walls, or their boyfriends. I couldn’t help but share a silent chuckle with myself, it was a sea of dominance… and presently it appeared I was the one steering the ship.

    On a normal day…night… I am not approached by many. I dress dark, all black or deep purples and reds. I suppose I come off as what some might call “Gothic” though I prefer not to be labeled, seeing as it is how I have dressed for centuries. For one purpose or another I had decided that today I would don blue jeans and a red tank top… along with my trench and boots… the point I didn’t look nearly as imposing as I usually do, and I was just a ‘human’ today. And this fact is what must have prompted what occurred next. My first encounter with the asshole population. I am all too aware that I am good looking, all Vampires are, so are most lycanthropes and half demons. But it would be awfully nice not to be reminded of that fact every time I enter a room and get oogled over… blah! Unfortunately that’s not likely to happen I realized as a half demon, who appeared to be a jock of sorts, approached me. He was tall, maybe 6’4”, built (any more built and I’d blame steroids, but his could pass as just being the outcome of his heritage), exquisitely blonde hair, and shining blue eyes so bright they made the sky seem gray. I think “Cover Model Material” is the term used.

    “Hey doll.” He said in a purring voice as he flashed a dazzling smile… you know the kind that makes girls hearts melt. I almost vomited. For some reason the school had that affect on me… twice in one day with nothing on my stomach… record for sure. He wrapped one muscle bound arm around my waist… bad move… and continued. “You must be new here, I sure don’t remember seeing your pretty ass around before,” how, oh how I wanted to spit in his face as he careened his neck back to double check my posterior, “What you say you and me get better… acquainted.” The sentence ended with him giving me a once over and nausea. Three in a row, now that’s saying something. His voice carried that snide ‘too good for anyone’ tone… you know the one that’s supposed to make girls go crazy. I was crazy all right… I’d forgotten how rude society had become. In Vampry society it is considered very offensive to touch someone without permission, it could get you killed… or worse. His buddies laughed and elbowed each other and some trashy girls in their slut-muffin suits where giving me hate glares… obviously he didn’t get turned down much.

    Like every school Blood Mont had its yuppie population… its skaters… nerds… and freaks. How you classify someone as a freak when you go to a school for PRETERNATURAL students is beyond me… but they did. Where I would fall would depend on my next move… and I was in no hurry to be yuppified. With my best pleasantly unpleasant smile I stared him straight on in the face and politely growled out my answer.

    “First things first pretty boy.” He looked shocked. Score one for me. “Don’t ever…EVER call me doll again. Second.” Astonishment on his part, “Don’t assume again that you can just stroll up and talk to me… in fact… just don’t ever talk to me again. And last. Kindly remove your hand from my waist or I shall remove it for you. Now run along to your little sex-kittens and play nice.” He did remove his hand from my waist and moved back… but only a few steps before ego took hold of his fragile male mind and he grabbed my wrist. Men just can’t take a hint.

    “Just who the hell do you think you are bitch?” He hissed at me jerking my wrist forward…I could feel the bones grinding together, but anger and disgust are always superior to pain for me. People were starting to gather. Whether this was good or bad I couldn’t quite decide. At his words I mockingly raised my free hand to my chest over my heart in mock pain.

    “Oh, that really hurt.” I scoffed. Anger flickered across his face. Score two for me. “Now let go or I’ll break your hand.”

    His laughter roared though the commons; almost everyone who hadn’t been watching before was now, “That’s funny bitch. Your threats don’t scare me. Ha!” Now if there is one thing I hate more than disrespect, it’s men who think they are better than women. I did not say a word to him. I simply snapped my wrist out of his hand, he looked shocked again (this was my second mistake, seeing as my size to his ratio shouldn’t have allowed for wrist freeing movements). I then proceeded to grab his index and middle finger in one hand and his ring and pinky in the other and snapped his hand. Fast, simple, and very painful. It’s a relatively simple maneuver anyone who has taken more than a week of self defense would know. He let out a muffled scream of pain and cradled his broken hand when I let go.

    “I don’t make threats.” I stated dryly and walked away. I didn’t think he would go crying about it to the school… male ego is funny that way. Every eye stayed trained on me as I exited though the other side of the commons, every now and then a whispered word would find its way to my ears. My new categorization. Freak.