Two years back..

The whip came across my back one last time.

"Losing consciousness already?" my brother, John asked me.

My hands were hung up from the chains dangling from the ceiling. They were hurting, but what hurt the most was my back, burning from the new scars. My Auburn brown hair was a mess reaching down my hips, covered in sweat and blood.

I opened my empty black eyes up to my brother who was looking at me with the hatred that would even burn the heaven, "Please....I'm sorry, it won't happen again.....I swear...Please."

Tears, my constant companion, began streaming down my cheeks.

A blow came down on my already bruised cheek, "I hate tears, stop crying this instant or you will never see the Sun again."

At once I stopped crying even though my heart and the pain the back was telling me to shed more tears.

My brother left and then came with the keys and unlocked the chains that were holding up my hands.

Blood was running down my hands and staining the the half sleeved red top I wore.

My brother came and grabbed my bruised cheek in his hand. "My friends are coming within half an hour, clean up and start preparing meal for them."

I nodded my head.

"And this is my last warning to you 'beloved little sister'." He sneered, "If you break another piece of crockery, I will break every little bone in that puny body of yours, Understood?"

I nodded my head again and he left the basement specially designed for the punishments and torture I receive.

***

I cleaned up and bandaged my wounds as neatly as possible. I came out of bathroom in a white towel and took out a dark pink top with full sleeves, so that it can hide my wounds and scars and a long skirt that came to my toes, not showing a hint of my legs.

I came downstairs and started preparing dinner for my brother and his friends. His friends were already in his bedroom joking and laughing. I took five glasses of water in tray to serve them.

As I came to John's bedroom I stopped when I heard the muffled voices.

"Come on, John. Please! I want her for one night. Is it too much to ask from a friend?" John's best friend Henry asked.

John laughed. "Alright, you can have her. But only for tonight."

Henry boomed, "Yay!! in which room shall I carry out the deed?"

At first I didn't understand what they were talking about but then it struck my mind and it shook me to the core of my being.

Oh my God! they were gonna rape me.

I dropped the tray of glasses I was holding and ran to the kitchen. John came bursting in the kitchen and slapped me twice on my cheek.

"How long does it take to understand one simple thing? I told you not to break any crockery and you defied me yet again." He yelled

"How could you do that to me?" I asked in a small voice

He grabbed me and pushed me to the ground. "You will go in that room with Henry and I will forgive you this deed one last time." With that he hauled me up by my upper arm and dragged me to the room but not before I grabbed the can of pepper and hid it in the plaids of my skirt.

I kept screaming and trashing but to no avail.

"Please don't...I'm your sister, how could you do this to me?"

He pushed me in the room and locked the door behind him.

He was not the brother I once knew, caring and loving when my parents were...

The bedroom door opened to reveal a boy older than me by eight years with red hair, oak green eyes and muscular build.

I opened the lid of my pepper bottle slowly waiting for the opportunity.

He grinned wickedly at me and started walking towards me. I tightened the hold on my pepper can.

"Hello, darling. Don't be scared of me-" Just two more steps, "- I will not hurt you-" one more step. He laughed, "- well not much. But if-" I threw the pepper in his eyes and dashed towards the window at the end of the room.

He began screaming and crying as I opened the window and looked down to measure the distance before jumping. I was on the first floor of the house and it was really a great distance down and I-

Suddenly the door burst open and my brother came in not believing the scene in front his eyes. His eyes landed on mine, filled with rage and without thinking...

I jumped.

I felt the whipping air of December and landed hard on my back. Without second thought I started running ignoring the burning pain in my back.

I was a very bad runner. I stumbled every few steps, clumsy as I was. I was panting, alone at the night, with the cold air slapping against my body.

I fell once more after losing the count of how many times I fell, when I heard them closing in.

If they caught me, I can't even imagine what they would do to me and at the speed I was running at, I was sure gonna find it out.

I got up and came to a diversion. To my left were the woods that would bring nightmares even to the strongest of minds. It was said that once anybody went in that woods they would never come back alive.

To my right was a highway where no cars scurried at the night time. I knew if I went towards the highway they would catch me.

So I did what I never thought I would do and started running towards the woods.

It was my only option. The woods were better than the Hell I lived in. I would die first before they touched me.

With that thought in my mind I pushed myself forward, Running scared.

It's so dark here, yet I continued running. I was scared for life. Its not that I'm afraid of darkness, I'm afraid of what comes within it.

The woods had uneven ground and I was bare foot because my brother doesn't like dirt in his house, so he never allowed me to wear shoes or flip-flops inside the house, I was not allowed to set a foot outside the house hence, I never owned any footwear for five years.

My feet were bleeding but I kept moving on. I have to. If I don't -

"Beloved little sister."

I stopped dead in the tracks. Oh my God! He found me.

I came to my senses and dashed forward not caring the direction I'm taking. I just have to outrun him.

I kept running for what seemed to be like forever when I heard a movement in the bushes behind me.

I glanced back to see if it was my brother and ran into a wall.

The impact was so hard that it knocked out the air in my lungs. I would have fallen back but suddenly steel bands wounded around my waist.

Huh? The walls have arms?

I glanced back to look up at the wall, when my midnight black eyes landed on the stormy grey ones.

Shit! I stumbled across a person, not a wall. And the steel bands were not bands but arms of the man who kept me from falling back on the ground.

I looked into his eyes again and lost myself in the storm. I forgot that he was a complete stranger and that it was rude to stare at someone,(but he was also staring back at me. So it doesn't count. Right?) I forgot that my brother was chasing me to drag me back into his hell again. I forgot the pain in my back he was causing because of his iron hold on me.

He was wearing a black mask with feathers and obsidian stones on it, that covered half of his face and matched his black attire. He was at least a foot taller than my 5 feet 1 and 1/2 inches. I never forget that important 1/2 inch.

"Ah, my sister look I found you. Time to come back home." sang a voice.

That's when I snapped out of trance and looked back to see my brother walking towards me with a evil smirk on his face.

No, no, no. This can't be happening. I escaped that hell only to be dragged back into it again.

"Who are you?" asked a husky voice. It was his voice.

"I'm her brother. She ran away from the house, she has mental issues. Thank you for catching her, I love her and words won't express the amount of gratitude I have towards you for catching her."

How dare he, how could he say he loves me. No, I have to find a way, I have to.

I looked back at the masked man and pleaded," No please, help me, I can't go back. He's lying, I'm not a psycho.I'm -"

"See, I told you. She needs treatment. Sister let's go home, I have cooked your favorite noodles." My brother cut off in between

The man was looking at me and then at my brother he said, "Who should I believe? How do I know who's lying? how- "

"Hey John, did you catch her? If yes, then I'll be the first one to have her back in the bed. That bi**h, my eyes are still stinging. She'll pay for it." Henry shouted.

My brother was now even more angrier than before. He said to the man, "Listen bro, you don't need to come in between my sister and me, we'll handle her. Give her back to me and I'll let you live."

If possible the man tightened his hold on my waist. He is not gonna give me back to my brother! He'll fight him and his friends.

For a moment I was really happy that someone wanted to fight for me, save me. But then a thought stuck my mind. There are five of them including my brother and the masked man is alone. Yes, the man was well built, with bunching muscles, but he cannot take five of them down together. No, he'll die, I can't let that happen. He was trying to save me but it was impossible.

"Let go of me." I said

"You want to go back with your brother?" He asked me.

"No, but you can't fight all of them alone. And I don't want someone to die because of me." He was amused by my answer. Why was he amused?

"Ah! littleone, already predicting who is gonna lose?"

"We both know who's gonna win." I said.

Saying that, I turned my back to the man and started walking towards my brother, who already had an evil smile on his face.

Oh God, why did you do this? Giving me a taste of freedom and not even letting me to devour the meal.

I was five steps away from my brother when I felt someone taking hold of my upper arm. I looked back and saw that it was the masked man and he looked.....angry?

"You think I'm a fool to let you go? that I can't fight a bunch of kids?" I was confused. Why is he calling my brother and his friends, 'kids'? Even with his mask on, he didn't look much older to me.

"Watch me." with that he pushed me behind him and punched my brother on his face. I could hear the cracking noise of the bone.

What? How did he reach over my brother so fast? And more importantly, he was nowhere to be seen.

My brother was shocked. Blood was tricking down his nose and suddenly he fell forward, as if someone pushed him from behind. But there was no one behind him. He grunted, when suddenly a foot came on his back, hard enough to snap his spinal cord. He screamed, an earsplitting scream , " Boy, you wail like a woman in labor." the masked man said laughing at his own joke.

My attention went to my brother's friends that were slowly backing away from the masked man.

"Some friends you have there." The man said to John without taking his eyes off him. How did he know that they were trying to escape without taking his eyes off John? They were not making any noise and he knew they were trying to escape? how?

The man then suddenly moved. Too quick for my eyes to follow. He was a blur, how was he able to run so fast? There was something definitely wrong about him.

He smacked Henry's face on a tree and said to him in a very dangerously low voice, " Take your friend out of this woods, I'm allowing to let you walk out of here alive, but if you come back even once, then I'll separate your head from your body and play Soccer with it, Understood?"

Henry nodded and started crying. The man threw him across John and sneered at him, "Get the hell out of here, my patience is already running thin."

With that Henry helped John on his feet, who was already half unconscious and ran back in the direction they came in. The others were nowhere to be seen. Think they ran when the man attacked John.

My attention came back to the man who just not only saved my life but beat the hell out of John and Henry.

He looked back towards me and my eyes searched his only to root a new fear in me.

Oh my God. I was immobilized in my place, not believing what I was seeing. My heart began trashing in my chest.

His eyes were glowing red. And something white and pointed was shining just a few centimeters down his eyes.

"You're....you're" I stuttered

No, they were just in movies and myth. There was no way this was true. This was just a dream. Yes, this is just a dream. After all, I'm not brave enough to run away from my brother, not brave enough to dash into this woods.

"This is not a dream littleone." He said,.

Wow a person can read minds in dreams? But I can't read his.

"It must be. I'm not brave enough to run away from my brother." I said.

"If this is a dream, then how are you here, in this woods? Have you ever been in your entire life, visited this woods? Because if you've, then I would have known it. Besides, you can't conjure up placed in your dreams you've never been to."

That was true. It means...

"This means that you're real, and it means that you're a..."

"Yes, it means that I'm the most dangerous creature in this entire world. It means that the myth is indeed true and it means that you were being saved by a vampire himself." He said that last sentence in such a cold voice that shivers started trailing down my spine.

Oh God, vampires were real. Of course, I should have expected that because of the powers I have...

Still, there was an evil glint in his eyes and he started coming towards me with slow steps making my hear pound faster.

I took two steps back and sprinted in the forest away from the vampire. Stupid as I was.

He boomed in laughter, I increased my speed even more without tripping. Wow, fear can make you do unexpected things.

Suddenly someone pounced on my back, knocking the air out of my lungs second time tonight.

It was him. I didn't hear him coming. A little warning would've been nice I thought.

He was on top of me and I was face down on earth.

He moved my hair onto my one shoulder, exposing my neck, "Little one, Don't you watch movies or read books? Most of the things in vampire movies and books is crap, but one thing is certainly true."

I was too scared to even stutter a single word.

He continued on, "We like our blood with adrenaline coursing through it, it spices it up. But most importantly, we like to hunt our prey, to chase it knowing that you can never outrun us."

Darkness was seeping around the corners of my eyes. Oh no, I am gonna die.

Suddenly the weight was pushed off me and I was on my legs, staring into the stormy grey eyes. He had his arms around my back.

"And little one, I'm the Predator and you're the Prey."

Darkness surrounded me and I fell into the arms of nothingness.